New Shoes in the Rain

Happy Thursday, friends.  Almost to the weekend! I don’t have a theme for today’s post, as it’s really a collection of things I’ve seen, read, heard and experienced.  In no particular order…. I saw that Netflix is soon to raise prices for all of their various tiers of service.  Guess one could conclude that they have “won” the streaming wars, as they still stand head and shoulders above the competition.  We’ve had Netflix in the past, and after my wife and I concluded that we really didn’t have a lot of interest in what they offer on their service, we dropped it over a year ago.  We resumed our service for a few weeks to watch the Great British Baking Show (I know, but we both enjoy it) and then dropped it again after that show wrapped up. For comparison, I’ve been enjoying another free trial of Apple TV+ since the holidays, as that trial came with a generous Apple gift card that was given to me by my son and his family.  First thing we did was watch the fu...

Good morning, all!  I write from Indianapolis, Indiana, where the current temperature is -1 degrees!  With the wind chill it feels like -13! At least this area, where I’m working today and tomorrow, did not receive the multiple inches of snow that fell throughout the states along the Gulf of Mexico (that’s the name of that body of water, in case recent events caused any confusion)! So no question the story of the week is the inauguration of Donald Trump as President.  Because it was going to be a little cold in Washington, he ordered that the ceremony be moved indoors to the Capitol rotunda.  Or was it because a relatively small number of people were planning to attend it when it was going to be outdoors?  One wonders. Unfortunately, I watched his “official” speech after being sworn in, and never once did he address an actual issue or problem that regular Americans have faced or are facing right now.  It’s still all about grievance and whataboutism and how ...

Happy new year, friends!  Enjoyed some wonderful time off with family and now back at work.....just as a major winter storm struck the middle of the country, including central Kentucky! But never fear, I'm planning to be back out there among them tomorrow, weather permitting! But I digress.  I wanted to provide two updates to my screed about customer service that I posted not too long ago.   Let me write of our experiences with the United States Postal Service, as mentioned on 12/23/24.  On that date I detailed that my wife had taken a parcel to our local post office to ship to our daughter's family in another time zone.  The box was shipped via a somewhat new service called Ground Advantage.  Simply put, there was no advantage.  My wife visited the post office twice, was told both times how understaffed they were this holiday season and that everything was going to take time to get to its destination. Christmas came and went, no evidence that the parc...

‘Tis this season, friends. Hope it’s wonderful for you and yours!   And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a great time to talk about customer service, the good, the bad, the indifferent, the avoidable, and so forth.  We’re all cornered by it, whether we like it or not!   Here’s my first and worst bad example.  Some of our family lives out of state, so we conscientiously shop for them early, so that we can ship their gifts out well in advance of Christmas.  We did exactly that this year, and my wife shipped the box on December 9.  Since that time we have not received any tracking updates from the United States Postal Service, the tracking site only states that the parcel is “in the possession of the USPS.”   Since then my wife visited the post office from which she shipped it, and the employee there complained that they hired no seasonal help, they don’t have enough people to handle mail and parcels and that she wasn’t about to ship anyt...

I don't know about you, but it's always so difficult when one takes even a couple of days off work and then comes back to a full week.  Last week felt like it lasted about eleven days. Did you happen to travel over the holiday weekend?  I was very glad that I didn't, with weather and flight delays and all of that! Along with that, work wasn't all that much fun. I work in a portion of the healthcare industry that's affected by seasonal changes, sometimes more than others.  Last week was one of those "others" that created an "all hands on deck" scenario all week last week.  We're still in that state, and it really isn't much fun. Enough complaining.  We'll have plenty to complain about in a little more than a month. I have to say that I wonder about some of the people the President-Elect has chosen for certain cabinet and staff roles.  It's the Senate's job to do the worrying, of course, but I worry about THEM as well! I'm l...

Good Sunday to all of you looking in today. Have had an interesting and enjoyable weekend thus far.  Not long ago my son and I looked at our grandson’s hockey team schedule and saw that his team was due to play two games in Cincinnati (a family favorite destination) yesterday.  So we agreed that the best move would be to get rooms for last night here in the area, as the second game did not end until around 10:30 PM.  Back to that soon. Correspondingly, my wife was caught up in the media blitz surrounding the opening of the new movie version of Wicked, about the witches from the Wizard of Oz.  She knew that our two Lexington granddaughters would want to see it at soon as possible, so we bought the tickets for a showing in the Lexington area for yesterday at 12:30.  They loved the movie but were a little disappointed to know that this new release is only part one with a second film forthcoming.  Typical Hollywood to stretch it into two tentpole flicks! I digr...

I think it’s been long enough since the election results were finalized that the shock has subsided and the immediate future is a bit clearer.  Regular visitors to this space noticed, I’m sure, that I last posted about something totally unrelated to the state of our country, and that was intentional. So here we are.  The President-Elect is still fighting to prevent being sentenced for his 34 convictions in New York State court.  He is thoroughly dominating the news cycle every day, as he did the last time he was elected to the Presidency.  He is doing so mostly by toying with the mass media and those on the left who would oppose him, naming one unqualified person after another to head government agencies.  He is all over the place, appearing at conferences, UFC matches, space launches and more. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll forget about him between now and January 20, when he officially becomes President.  Again. The Democrats have lost the Senate AND the H...