New Shoes in the Rain

Happy Monday to you.   Did you get rain over the weekend, as we did here in central Kentucky?  I realize that this IS spring, and it IS routine to see ample amounts of rain this time of year, but why, oh, why, does it have to seemingly ALWAYS rain on the weekend? My wife and I elected to give ourselves a change of pace from our respective routines over the weekend, and traveled to Cincinnati, our preferred getaway destination.  As I've explained in this space before, we love Cincinnati because it's a larger city than Lexington but is only a little more than an hour's drive away, so we can spend less time getting away and more time BEING away! That sounded a little like a tourism commercial, but no matter. We normally visit a specific shopping mall that has some things we don't have, and also better versions of what we DO have, here in my home city.  For instance, we love visiting the Apple Store in the Kenwood Towne Center.  Why?  It's substantially...

Good morning to all.  Nice, warm weather here in central Kentucky is due to be interrupted by some rain throughout today.  But you know what they say about April showers.  My grass is a direct testament to that old adage! Unless you've been completely sequestered from any news sources over the past couple of days, you are aware of the incident that occurred with a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville (not far from my home area in Lexington) over the weekend. Anyone who flies relatively often knows that airlines routinely overbook some flights, largely because the no-show rate leaves valuable seats unsold and decreases profit.  The flight in question was such an example, and it was already overbooked when the airline also decided to make some room on board for some of its own employees to be shuttled to Louisville for a flight out the following morning. I've been in situations where the airlines offered as much as $1000, but not in re...

Good morning to all. We're experiencing the delights of springtime weather here in central Kentucky this morning, as a cold front blasted through last night, dropping temperatures and producing rain, hail, and in some areas heavy winds.  Still blowing this morning and the temperature continues to decline, although we're due for it to recover somewhat over the weekend. My title today refers to the official start of the 2017 baseball season.  It's the one point in the season where every team is on equal footing. This year's opening day, which is something of a holiday in my family, was a little different.  If you follow me on Twitter at @richardlexsmith you saw a tweet about this.  My son is generally my accomplice, as we've attended the Cincinnati Reds' opening day game several times in the past, most recently in 2014.  If not in person, we find a way to watch the game together, often taking the day off and playing golf that morning. In recent years ...

Good Monday morning to you. Perhaps I should state up front that it's a bit of a blue Monday here in the Big Blue Nation, as our beloved Kentucky Wildcats went down in defeat to the arch-rival North Carolina Tar Heels last night in a wild and highly competitive game.  Kentucky's team never really got going in the first half, owing to foul trouble for three starters, and that foul trouble and lack of rhythm carried over for the rest of the game.  Somewhat miraculous that Kentucky had the lead at a couple of points late, but Carolina's depth and experience won out. Though my wife doesn't agree, that's pretty much the end of basketball for me this year.  I don't watch much other college basketball except to see who Kentucky might end up playing, so if they're done, I probably am, too. My company is getting into a new aspect of business that you've probably seen and heard about, but because I don't talk in detail about work in this space, I won...

Happy Wednesday from central Kentucky, where it's a balmy 17 degrees as I write this.  Every year we seem to get what I would call a "false positive" with our weather, as spring seems to come very early and then we have our average temperatures plummet, just to remind us that it's not actually spring.  This year appears to be no exception! With our current President in perpetual crisis mode, there's been a lot of news coverage about the late former President Richard Nixon, who was in office when I was a kid, so that's prompted a lot of comparisons between Nixon and President Trump, and, in me, anyway, more comparisons of how things were back then and how they are now. For instance, I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and we had a spirited discussion about the proposed reforms to the Affordable Care Act.  My friend is a Libertarian, says that our government should be small enough to fit into the trunk of his car, and is definitely opposed to government sup...

Friends, it's raining cats and dogs here in central Kentucky this morning.  Well, not really.  And who came up with that turn of phrase, anyway? But it IS raining again this morning.  As someone who travels regionally for work, I tell myself how fortunate we are that this is rain and not snow, which tends to paralyze our area.  Easy to say that from inside the house, but when you get doused the first time you have to get out of your car and spend the rest of the day damp or worse, well, you get the idea. Speaking of plans, it now appears that the Republican plan to "repeal and replace Obamacare" now looks more like a plan to change it to better fit the traditional Republican narrative of tax cuts for those who largely don't need them and making healthcare more difficult to obtain for those in need.  It's telling that the House of Representatives plans a vote a scant two days after the details of this bill were made public, which will not allow proper scoring...

Good Monday morning to everyone!  If you're like me, and stayed up to watch the Oscars last night, you're a little sleep deprived.  I mean, after all, how often does an awards show end with a major twist in the ending? If you didn't watch and have not watched or read the news, then you don't know about the colossal screw-up that ended what was a pretty entertaining Academy Awards show last night.  The final and biggest award, for the Best Picture, was being presented by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, selected apparently because 2017 represents the fiftieth anniversary year of their vehicle "Bonnie and Clyde." In any case, after a brief political statement, the pair got down to business and introduced the nine nominees, then Beatty appeared a bit flummoxed by the contents of the envelope.  Dunaway laughed and said "you're impossible" and announced "La La Land," the odds-on favorite, as the winner. In the midst of acceptance speech...