New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning to all.  We're almost finished with summer, at least from a calendar standpoint.  In reality, summer ended on Labor Day weekend for most everyone, though here in central Kentucky, we still feel the typical heat and humidity much of the time for a while yet. I come before you today with more and more things that I simply do not understand.  In the past couple of days the news detailed the shootings of not one but two unarmed black men, one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the other in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.  When we learned of the first shooting I mentioned to my wife that I found it unbelievable that with police having dashboard cameras in their cruisers and in many cases cameras actually on their bodies, there are still cops who will call in to their dispatch with details that are not accurately portrayed. I applaud people who are brave enough to put themselves in harm's way in order to protect the public, but that courage does not entitle any p...

Today’s one of those days when I’m glad not to be a presidential candidate. Honestly, is there any other activity where it’s virtually impossible to be right, be appropriate and be honest, all at the same time? I ask because of what happened to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.   Bearing in mind that her opponent, Donald Trump, has repeatedly questioned her health, and his surrogates, mostly former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have scrutinized issues like Clinton’s recent coughing spells and so forth. In case you misplaced your scorecard, Clinton (and Trump) attended the 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero yesterday, but left after about 90 minutes due to what her staff called being “overheated.”   Then video surfaced online that showed Clinton very unsteady on her feet and being helped (“carried” might be the more appropriate word) into a van, in which she was taken to daughter Chelsea’s Manhattan apartment.   She then emerged some time later, told the co...

Friends, I hope that you had a good weekend, and are looking forward to the Labor Day weekend coming up.   Unofficial end of summer, you know. Today marks six months that I have been in the job market.   And I remain positive about my prospects, though I work diligently to cultivate additional possibilities on a continual basis. If you’re a regular visitor here you know that I have a good outlook about most everything, and I don’t have any outward self-esteem issues (at least not that I’m aware).   So this isn’t going to be a woe-is-me hand-wringing rant.   Rather, I thought I’d share what I’ve experienced, not with my former employer who put me into this predicament, but with those potential employers whom I’ve contacted and met with over these months. When I first launched my search I was pretty straightforward with myself and prospected employers in what I wanted and expected in terms of responsibilities, duties and most particularly compensation. ...

Happy “hump day” to everyone.   And no camels were harmed in the production of this blog entry. Over the past several months my grandchildren, particularly the ones local to my wife and me whom we see more frequently, have developed an affinity for video games.   This began on the iPad (and let me say as an aside here that if ever there was a device more suited to use by kids, I’ve not seen it) with a few simple game and accelerated last summer when their Colorado cousins were here and were playing a game called Subway Surf, a straightforward chase game with jumping, bonus coins and such.   I’m sure there are many variations on it, as it may well be a variation on something else.   They also took to a golf game called Super Stickman Golf, tic-tac-toe, a bubble game and some other stuff. This morphed into my son buying some games for his Xbox and now my grandson is hooked, wants nothing more than to play video games.   He even says he wants to bring thos...

Greetings, friends.   It’s Tuesday morning.   Do you know where your household’s registered voters are? I ask because we’re now in the home stretch of the presidential election.   No more primaries, no more conventions, now it’s all campaigning.   And polls.   Lots and lots and lots of polls. My point is that there appear to be too many polls, all of which tout the overall accuracy of their data and sampling.   As one would expect, most are associated with a news organization or two --“The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,” for example.   Lately some, like NBC News, have engaged more modern methods by partnering with organizations like SurveyMonkey. I’m certainly aware of the need to find out what the public thinks at such an important time, but would question whether polling techniques mirror modern habits.   For example, it’s my understanding that the majority of these polls rely on calls to homes with land-line phones.   Sinc...

Happy Friday to all.   Weekend is almost here! In the midst of my months-long job search and attack of multiple home-based projects that I’ve detailed here previously, I’ve also used some of my time to address a number of one-off needs for assistance from the makers of various items.   Looks like I’ve gotten resolution on many of them.   Here’s a sampling. Right after I was displaced, I was cleaning my grill and discovered that my wet-dry vacuum motor was giving out.   So I bought another one, a good brand from a national retailer.    Six gallon capacity tank, attachments, pretty much everything you’d need. The only problem was that most every time I picked this thing up to move it, the tank would come loose from the main motor assembly. The two were held together by clips and for whatever reason they simply would not stay clipped when the additional stress of picking up the unit occurred. I e-mailed the manufacturer, and, unbelievably, was...