Originally Posted May 2, 2008
Feeling Emotions
Just the other day, after six dedicated years and at the ripe old age of 12, my daughter retired from competitive gymnastics. Of course we discussed her decision at length, and examined all the variables and consequences. In the end I had to agree with my daughters decision and that was that….I thought.
Came the day that we were going into the gym to make the decision real and change her over to others types of programs and I'm at work and just miserable. My emotions had snuck up on me. This change while understandable and sensible had my emotions roaring. Thing is, I'm a guy and I generally just ignore my emotions so that I can analyze more clearly and make better decisions. I do this so well that I'm completely unaware that I'm so engaged. Anyway there I was at work and I just couldn't focus. I worked a couple of hours and headed home. I was entirely worthless and it wasn't until later that afternoon, after we had met with the daughters coach and finalized everything that I started to feel better.
I'm not trying to make anything of this, it just caught me by surprise that I could live my life and have something occur that was completely analyzed and yet it still had the power through my emotions to turn me into a basket case. What power is in emotion that it can so affect me despite all reason.
Posted 4:10 pm May 2, 2008
Old Habits Can Kill
Oh I'm probably making way more of this than I should. And of course its just a personal perspective I'm riffing on, but…..
Here in my little Oregon "burg" we have several options for groceries. We have a Safeway and an Albertsons and a Rays and a Fred Meyer and Wal-Mart. The Rays and the Fred Meyer are frankly a bit overpriced, Rays more so than Fred Meyer. That said I tend to try to do my shopping at Safeway and Albertsons, try…. being the operative word. As an aside both Safeway and Albertsons require the regular shopper to have a "club" card. An invention that has no worth, value or merit. And please don't try to explain to me how these cards might help a chain keep prices down, the chains don't want to keep prices down, they want to move prices up. These cards are simply a tool to try to lure your allegiance, after all you're invested, you've got a card…..
Anyway the point of this post is to share my dissatisfaction with both Safeway and Albertsons for forcing me to shop at Wal-Mart. Safeway and Albertsons run these sales and then mark up other items routinely to pay for these "loss leaders". This is the "Old Habit" that can kill. While Safeway and Albertsons compete between themselves Wal-Mart just throws up a price that’s routinely lower than offered by the chains and in doing so they are winning my business. That said the truth is: I DO NOT WANT TO SHOP AT WAL-MART!!!!
I don't have any political complaints against Wal-Mart but I don't like shopping there, it's too big, its noisy, ugly people are everywhere, their meat is scary and their produce is usually on the over ripe side. Still I'm starting to shop there because of the dishonest pricing that the two chains engage in. Again, I'm probably making way more of this than I should.
Posted 4:10 pm April 29, 2008
Getting Personal
There is a practice that I believe is called personalizing, it's when a clerk at some store goes out of they're way to be familiar. Here at our local Safeway the clerks stop, look at your receipt, figure out how to pronounce your last name, and then won't let you leave without saying "Thank you Mr. Smith, or Jones" or whatever your name might be. I find this practice appalling. Nothing against being friendly but this imposed "Thank you Mr _____ " is just fake and stiff. Whatever happed to "Sir", as in "Thank you , Sir". Also I'm not sure I want to have everyone in line behind me knowing my name.
I've heard that the local health club is instructing its employees to use the phrase "live well" whenever parting company with a client or member. That's great, so deep and caring.
I know that this is a corporate concept aimed at connecting with its clients. Leave it to a corporation to, using scripted patter, micromanage any personality out of its employees. And that's about all that these kinds of mindless, robotic pleasantries result in.
Posted 7:56 pm April 28, 2008
Up to something
I'm in full experiment mode at the moment. I make no claims of being technically savvy, at the moment I'm teaching myself how to share files with another computer I have in the house and I'm attempting to find out if I can post to my site now from this other computer I'm on.
Posted 9:32 April 20, 2008
Wow I'm alive again….
I guess I'm probably the last to find out but I must say that it's nice to see Blogrolling working for me again. I certainly didn't do anything but for some reason I'm once again updating. That's actually an incentive to blog!
Reports I've seen say the service reactivated around the middle of March. I wouldn't dare complain about a "free" service not working, even though I will admit some frustration. What I can say is that I'm happy it's back up.
Posted 8:14 April 14, 2008
A story I heard.
So two local gyms combined and in coming together pooled their resources and got themselves into a huge building in good repair. All involved are good-hearted hard working small town folk dedicated to teaching and coaching kids. None of them are well-connected, and when they got into their new building and started making it a safe place for kids they didn't go to the "City" to see what they were "supposed" to do. What they did was pull in the parents and the kids and everyone worked together to make this newer bigger gym a safe and happy place.
Enter a city Inspector…..
Mr. Important walked in and with not an ounce of compassion told the principles' that he was going to lock the doors of the gym on Monday, that they could have a hearing in a couple of weeks and maybe get a decision in a month or two.
The principles' were devastated. Every dime they had had gone into preparing the new facility for the kids. They wouldn't survive a months shutdown. This was a catastrophe.
Apparently there was a commercial use issue and a question of if there were enough parking spaces for this endeavor. In the eyes of Mr. important these concerns outweighed the needs of some five hundred kids and their parents and the business owners.
There is a happy ending to this story. One of the principles called the gyms landlord. The landlord showed up and after a heated tirade directed at Mr Important and some calls to the Mayor and some city councilmen, Mr. Important was directed to let the gym open Monday. Mr. Important returned and gave the gyms principles' a list of needed changes they would need to make. These amounted to a couple of hours work.
My problem with all of this is that if the gyms landlord was not a well-connected and influential person in the city, the gym would have closed Monday morning. Five hundred young athletes would have been put out, several local entrepreneurs' could have lost their investment and Mr. Important would have won the day. Is Mr. Important really an evil guy? No, he's just a garden variety bureaucrat.
Posted 9:32 April 13, 2008
Hillary and Health Care
I get it… Hillary reeaaallllly wants universal health care. I understand a person wanting something. Nothing wrong with that, but I do mind when someone wants something but doesn't want to earn it. More on earning it in a bit. I personally have no objection to us coming up with a form of universal health care system that works. The fact is that we have one already. It involves going to an emergency room and stiffing the hospital for the bill, and as they really can't refuse you…. well that's free health care.
Now I think that's a B.S. system and if someone were to come up with a "better" system I'd be all for it. Key word is better. The present system has fraud and waste oozing from every bed. We have Doctors who play the system, we have HMO's pulling money out, ridiculous mal-practice insurance rates, ridiculous coverage issues and on and on. The idea that we will just add on more care and throw more money at this system without reforming it unthinkable. Unless you just really want it. Hillary wants her universal health care but she really hasn't earned it. Earning it would require fixing some of the problems noted. We may get it anyway and I while Hillary and her followers will have something they really want, I doubt it will result in anything the good people of America deserve.
Posted 8:25 pm Mar 04, 2008
jeyler 2006
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