New Shoes in the Rain

Greetings and happy Monday!  I hope you had a fine weekend, and if you're into sports, hope your teams all won over the weekend! Have you ever heard the term "Q score?"  It's something that's used in the advertising and entertainment industries to note which celebrities are held in high esteem by the general public for whatever reason.  Advertisers don't want someone with a low Q score hawking their products any more than the producer of a blockbuster movie (if there is such a thing anymore) wants a low scorer on the Q scale to star in that picture.  The host of a network morning news show might have been chosen based on his/her Q score. For instance, in 2020, Oprah Winfrey had a Q score of 23 Positive.  Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, has an 18 Positive score.  So with that in mind I reference Qanon, which is a pretty out-there political/social group.  I say "out there" because of their origins.  They originated in 2017 or thereabout...

Good morning, again, from the road. All of the windshield time I’ve racked up of late gives me lots of time to think about….nothing in particular! Oh, I am an avid podcast listener, depending on the subject (mostly tech, politics and baseball), as well as audiobooks (nonfiction and biographies are my preferences).  But sometimes I just play music I like and let my mind wander where it will. So one of the many subjects my little brain landed on recently is the process companies go through when they rebrand certain products or even the entire company.  First example I happened upon was that of the Aunt Jemima brand of pancake mix, syrup and other similar products. No question, that but if rebranding was way overdue, as the name is offensive to many and always was.  But the company decided to pull a name out of obscurity, Pearl Milling Company, to replace their problematic former name.  Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? Worth noting that baseball’s Cleveland...

It's Monday.  Need I say more? I love these short work weeks, as I'm taking Friday off to make a four day deal out of the Labor Day weekend.  I remain messed up pretty much all week, and will be so next week, too.  The cost of taking time off... I often express my frustrations about customer service issues in this space, and am about to do so again.  But let me first mention some instances of really good service! I can't really think of any, so here are some negative experiences I've had recently. My wife was involved in a fender-bender not long ago while I was on a business trip.  She and the occupants of the other car were all unhurt and she reported the claim (our first) to a very nice representative at the insurance carrier we currently use.  Did not hear anything for nearly a week, so I went online to their portal, where I had set up an account, and found the electronic version of a letter that the claims rep had apparently put into the mail.  You...

Good Monday morning to all.  Hope the weather is agreeable where you are, and not causing problems for you and yours. It seems that a number of things are moving rapidly toward a conclusion or some sort of inflection point where conditions will change dramatically.  And since I mentioned the weather, let's start there. I live in central Kentucky, but earlier in the month, about eighty miles to the southeast of where I live, the residents of what's colloquially referred to as eastern Kentucky experienced rainfall totaling nearly three and a half inches in about seven hours.  This raised the level of the Kentucky River by about twelve feet in some locations, and massive amounts of flooding occurred throughout the region. Thousands of residents either fled their homes or had to be rescued once they were cut off by the rising waters.  For those who have never visited this part of Kentucky, many parts are very hilly, bordering on mountainous, meaning that level ground exi...

Good Wednesday morning, everyone.  I write this morning from Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my business travels have brought me. And one thing that is an enduring feature of traveling for work is that your travels may go smoothly overall, but the trips are always populated by an almost equal number of good and bad things that happen along the way. For instance, our part of the world has had too much rain lately, as news reports from eastern Kentucky have shown.  So I am reluctant to complain too much about weather, but it is a factor in car travel and when you’re in sales, you nearly always have your hands full when you enter an account’s premises. So I am not a fan of umbrellas for that reason, but that preference does have its drawbacks, namely having to wait out heavy rain before returning to the car.  That did not happen yesterday but after my last call I decided to stop somewhere for an early dinner, but stayed in the car to let an absolutely torrential rain pass. ...

Greetings from RAINY Lexington!  You read that correctly, it's RAINING here!  So happy to finally get rain, and I mean that for the farmers in the region and the homeowners who like to have a lawn surrounding their homes! Speaking of homes, the title of this post could be used to infer the logical way that one would build a home--brick by brick.  But I have something else in mind for that phrase. Regardless of your political leanings, it's fair to say that most people who've paid some attention to the House Select Committee investigating the events of and leading up to January 6, 2021 have constructed a compelling narrative about those events and various people's involvement in them.  But it's also crystal clear that the intent of this well-structured series of presentations was to fully illustrate that former President Trump was at the center of all of these activities. Full disclosure--I was never a supporter of the former President, but recognized his and his cam...

Good afternoon to you....hope it's not too hot where you are. I'm kidding, of course.  Most of modern civilization is suffering from a major heat wave (or heat DOME, as weather people on television have christened this).  Our power is on and the A/C is working, so we're OK for now. For all of you keeping score, and I bet there are a few, yesterday was my 62nd birthday.  Which means I need to change my profile, among other things.  And I took the day off work, which I don't always do. Last year I saw my cardiologist on my birthday, which was quite a source of amusement when he noticed on my chart that it was my birthday.  This year I was scheduled for a haircut but was contacted by my barbershop last week with news that my barber is on three months (!) of jury duty.  So the haircut happened on Monday. So I suggested an early morning round of golf to a friend and we played yesterday morning.  Unfortunately, it began to get warmer early into the back nine...