Garrison Keillor, my material, his balls

Garrison Keillor's last show was good.  The midwestern guy underplayed the transition, made it sound a natural process, timely.  It might prove to be a struggle.  Not being in charge of something you created is a challenge.

He is a writer, remarkably creative and cleverly funny, taken in doses.

I've talked of being a writer.  Lately Amazon has delivered numerous tomes on the craft of writing.  Similar, they've encouraged me to simply write about the round-about of reading books and watching videos, but like many wanna-be's is a passing idea.

Long before personal computers Mr. Keillor used some material I sent in.  At the time Bertha's Kitty Boutique was a recurring topic in the weekly Lake Wobegon news.  Perhaps I have a copy, but probably not.  Generally the story (my story, his presentation) was about sending your feline pets to Cat Camp in the Catskills, the days spent catamaran sailing, mandatory catnaps, etc.  The 'etc.' is lost to time but it was several minutes.  I would have appreciated "John from St. Paul..."

Years later a friend who lived on the first floor of a Grand Avenue duplex asked me to go golfing.  Not having any clubs he said the the upstairs tennant's clubs were in the basement.  That summer, numerous times, I borrowed the clubs without asking, and yes, played with Garrison Keillor's balls.

Small Business...

Several years ago we drove from Arkansas back to Shoreivew on US 65. We passed through many small towns, most with the lights off in the historic downtowns, some with no business districts (or businesses) left at all. Buying groceries or finding a place to eat was difficult. 'Beige food' from convenience stores seemed to be the only option for the rural midwesterners; that's not healthy.

About the time we began the Marianne's Kitchen adventure we crossed paths with Brent Olson who was attempting to keep a small town cafe alive in Clinton, Minnesota. You can follow him on Facebook at the Inadvertent Cafe. His commitment was for four years, the deadline soon approaching. We traded commentary on the returns and challenges of small food venues in the sparse prairies and the food-sparse suburbs. Before he closes we're going to drive almost to South Dakota for breakfast.

Remodeling...

The remodeling project is done.  The carpet installation was a scheduling disaster.  After it was in the quality of the install was awful.  Complaining led to the troubleshooter (carpet guy) who found the carpet was delaminating.  A few days after going in it's coming out.  My work is done.  Now I want a real job.

Write & Wrong

Revisiting not having a dumb job...

"You were done when your new boss knew your were sharper than him.  He wanted a 'yes' man."  



Gall Bladder -> Hospice...
It appeared to be appendicitis but turned out to be gall bladder sludge.  Your liver produces three to five cups of bile per day.  The gall bladder doles it out into your intestine to aid in the digestion of fatty foods, probably the stuff you shouldn't be eating anyway.  Of course taking down a wooly mammoth and eating ten pounds of warm fat is all in a day's work and that's why we have a gall bladder.  The sludge is irremovable so the gall bladder is the departing organ of choice.

Waiting around is a bore.  I concluded that all the renovations included images that were those we might be surrounded with at the end of life.  Sailboats, trees, peaceful streams, leaves falling gently to the forest floor.  What a BOS.  I'm not dying, I'm here for a CT, ultrasound, blood work, etc.

I'm going to write a letter to the health company CEO.

In the closet...

all within a theme

We were leaving for a couple of parties Saturday evening and it was 90+ Fahrenheit.  A short sleeve shirt was in order.  The closet presented my past.

It would be convenience to say that I'd narrowed the variety of my executive wardrobe when I was running the process improvement program and focused on 'eliminating waste.'  That was not how it happened.  'Matching sock' time is shortened when you wear the same socks every day (not the same pair but the same color/style).  Blue slacks, black cap toe shoes, grey Gold Toe socks, some sort of blue shirt, plain or plaid, not striped...that was the program.

This costume wardrobe has been utilized three times in the past two and three quarter years, once for a wedding and twice for a funeral visitation.  My conclusion is that in my former gig I was attired for the dead.  Change is good.  May it all remain in the closet is my wish du jour.

Regarding the short sleeve shirt...advice from my better half "just be comfortable.  No one is going to look at you.  No one cares what you wear."  As a guy it's clear that you go invisible at 55 or so (this to the opposite gender [I can't speak to same gender orientation...I just don't know]).

Write & Wrong...
A year ago I bet my son $40 that Trump would take the Republican nomination and another $40 (non-contingent) that Trump would win the Presidential election.  It appears that no money will exchange hands.

Approximately a year and half prior I committed to writing daily in this blog.  The same son remarked "you'll fail."  As a parent it's important to set goals for children.  Five is always a good number.  That's five goals.  Achieving all five is great but achieving fewer is not a failure.  There are many excuses for not sitting down and writing.  Every book on improving your writing, creating a career as a writer,  every motivational piece addresses all the excuses one thinks they have, the most common being to busy or lacking a topic.

Red Hot Chile Peppers

My distraction for the past 48 hours has been the weather, a couple of acres of grass to mow (still undone) and animals living in the attics (and their dutifully chewed access locations), the ninety+ degree heat, small business time demands and other lesser ideas and imagery.  Even now I could focus were it not for the common theme of the past 48 hours, recurring watching/listening of Red Hot Chile Peppers videos/music.

'Write & Wrong" came to me as an idea for a blog post topic.  It was going to identify issues with strategic planning, innovation and verbal and written articulation.  It was a good title.  If' I'd take off my headphones, quit the distraction of one of the great punk bands, quit tapping my foot to the second greatest bassist of all time I could bring some focus.  Well, perhaps tomorrow.

"I can call someone" and "I don't do Facebook"

This past week a guy came into the small business with his forearm tatted up with "Buy American of Die."  Looking around the parking lot and noting the absence of any Harley Davidson rides it led to "hey, sir, that's a commitment."  He was a welder and a trucker and younger than me and we conversed about that quality of foreign-made goods (e.g. cheap wrenches) and the lack of motivation and ability of American youth.

Fourteen years ago I started updating a rural home.  There was an aggressive 18 month schedule.  Life became complicated.  Five years ago I stopped at a garage sale and ended up purchasing a John Deere LX280 with 20 hours.  The seller's life was falling apart.  The sale gave him more than enough money to get to California and a new life.

Moving the mower from place to place required some ramps for the trailer.  Five hundred pounds is heavy.  A couple of 8' 2x12s and metal brackets from Northern Tool on one end filled the bill.  Many on-loadings and off-loadings have taken place with this and other even heavier equipment.

Two weeks ago I looked at one of the ramps and thought "that's going to break.  I need to reinforce it."  During today's off-loading my vision of lying under a five hundred pound mower was set in motion.

We have a customer at the small business who wants to move far away from people, certainly at the end of the road and preferably a bit further.  Over the past months I've suggested many approaches and given lists of equipment and tools that one needs out there on the edge.  His response normally has been "well, I can call someone."  My comment to that is that he is not suited for rural living.

As I dug around the garage and pulled out a circular saw, some wrenches, exterior screws and a partial sheet of plywood that I've saved for twenty years in anticipation of today's event I chuckled over "I can call someone."  A Google search for "ramp repair person" really would have left me with one ramp and a lawn tractor on a trailer.  

I don't do Facebook...
Facebook is annoying but I don't know how you function in today's world, how do you stay current, if you don't have at least one foot in at least one social media platform.  Luddite.

Balance: Left versus Right

When I ran the 'lean process improvement' program we'd look at opportunities to eliminate many types of waste.  Bringing people together we'd begin by flowcharting the process.  Often people who worked together daily would look at each other and state "you do that?"  Communication, documentation, the correct tools and resources and a commitment to continually measuring and improving the process was the desired outcome.  The left did not know what the right was doing.

Years ago I worked in manufacturing.  I did stuff. Running turret lathes, automated drilling machines, punch presses and large power shears were my deal.  As per the union contract the company was to provide certain supplies like aprons, safety glasses (no hearing protection in those days) and gloves.  The guy who handed out gloves would only give out a new pair if both gloves were worn out. 

I was reminded of him today.  As a predominantly left-handed but somewhat ambidextrous worker the wear patterns make no sense but this is how all my gloves wear.  It would be nice to partner up with someone with the opposite wear pattern.  Back in the 'plant' the simple fix would have been to hand out 'left' or 'right' or 'both.'  It was not the only manufacturing plant in the US with the same wear patterns.

Little Blue Stem

Remodeling Caffeine

Door 'Shim' Debris

5-Minute #2 11% & Customer Service

 Customer service is quite simple.  Big box retailers use 'big data' to know what people need.  Walmart is excellent in this discipline.  Lumberyards had terrible customer service and many continue to make you feel like you are inconveniencing them AND you must be an idiot because you don't know all the grades of plywood.

During the previous remodeling I visited Menard's, a regional home improvement store, at least once a day.  The closest store is not one of their mega-footprint outlets but the people are generally good.

Menard's regularly runs store-wide 11% off sales.  You just need to go through the mechanics of filling out a small form and mailing in your receipts.  As a frequent visitor during those promotions I also leave some receipts in my pockets and miss the cut-off dates.  The sales are frequent enough that you can wait for one.

Today I needed six feet of additional molding.  The smaller store has been challenged with having adequate supplies of the type I needed, and today was no different.  The rack contained three eight foot pieces, each with cracks half the length.  The location intended could certainly be pieced.  Gathering up all three I headed to the checkout.  The first clerk said she'd call someone when I asked for a discount.  They should have been culled and put in the trash.  She called the head checkout clerk; we waited a few minutes for her to show.  Immediately she paged some sort of 'front of the store person'...we waited a few minutes for person #3, also.  It seemed that I should simply leave at this point but I kept thinking of the the missing six feet and the next nearest Menard's.  Person #3 showed up and picked up another phone and said she'd have to get the department head.  We're talking three pieces of $6.92 molding.  We now have quite a bit of labor added.  After five minutes the department head showed up and I showed my frustration.  "So it takes four Menard's employees to make a decision on three pieces of cracked molding?"  The response "that's why I'm here" gave me hope until he picked up his phone saying "I have to call someone."  This would have been the fifth person involved in the sale.  "I'll just skip it."

As I approached my car I remembered there was one other piece of molding in the rack, less damaged than the other.  Walking back across the parking lot and through the city block long store I approached the cabinetry section and found my rejected three pieces of broken molding back on sale.

Obviously the checkout person or the front of the store person should have been willing to offer 11% off on something obviously broken since everything is 11% off every month and it would have made no sense for me to break three pieces of molding selectively simply to get an 11% discount.

A few weeks ago the store manager and I had a nice long chat about the difficulty of finding employees who actually show up, can speak English, can interact with customers and who can make simple and meaningful decisions in the difficult retail market.  It's not enough to give up on Menard's or this particular store but the management staff needs to understand how little flaws lose customers.

Other than that the weather is nice.

Smoothwall Bob and the Loss of Digits

Minnesota has had a strange spring.  A week ago Sunday we set a heat record of 92 degrees which beat the previous record set in 1930 something.  Following that, last Friday it snowed a bit.  With two nights of frosts our fruit shrubs and apple trees may have taken a hit.  Recently this Dolgo Crab has come into it's own in production.  We'll see how the global warming spring works out.

 Over a few years we used Smoothwall Bob for some minor remodeling.  At the beginning he was missing parts of a couple of fingers.  Each time he worked for us he was missing more parts (none on our jobs).  Then he died young.

Each and every time I use a miter saw I think of Smoothwall Bob, and check the location of my hands and fingers twice.  Five years working around large power shears and punch presses may have been a good warmup.  I'm not missing anything and I'm still alive.

Art is where you find it, Art.  Remodeling has it's moments.  With work and time we can have impact.

For three of the past five years I've had issues with Java and scripting on this PC. A upgrade not during tax prep time is in order.  In the past I had people that did that sort of thing.  Now, I am them.

My iPhone 5 has been giving recurring "No SIM Card" errors. A Google search suggested many corrective options. The first logical one was to remove the SIM card, look at it for a moment and re-install. That was interesting but did not solve the problem. The next suggestion was to put the phone in airplane mode for a few seconds. Wishing to be authentic but lacking an airplane I went outside, removed my belt and shoes, put everything in my pockets in a plastic tray, set off no alarms, jumped in the F-150, visualized the flight attendant's directions for using oxygen, followed his/her instructions and fastened my seat belt snugly. Fortunate to have an empty seat next to me I relaxed, turned my phone to 'airplane mode' for a few moments, imagined that the flight had been aborted and stepped out of the truck. The phone works. Often we're limited by logic when our imagination should prevail.

Five Minute Post #1

11:11 AM

• Had to to cancel Firefox and reload using Task Manger.  This PC always has Java issues, but who doesn't.
• Downloaded this image twice but could not find it.  I also downloaded one additional image which has been downloaded somewhere yet to be found.
• I lost my internet connection. Alex, my pleasant Amazon Echo device, said she was sorry when I asked for Pink Floyd.

 Jobless but frantically busy I remain.  The remodeling project is now on a two week countdown to completion...with the exception of carpet selection and installation and 'staging.'  You cannot sell an empty housing unit now.  Buyers apparently lack the ability to look at a bedroom and think (or say) "this is a bedroom.  My bed could go on this wall or one of the other walls or in the middle."  You have to show them how each room is used.  America is seriously in trouble.  "Staging" is simply one more indicator.

There are large fires in Canada which are bringing smoke to MN which in combination with all the tree pollen is making the entire state wheeze and cough.

Generally speaking it's prudent to use a 3" rather than 2" angled brush for edging.  Unless you have a roller spinner (I've lost mine) it's prudent to buy "contractor pack" groups of rollers and disregard the environment.

11:16 AM ...  I'm out of time for the five-minute blog.  Certainly all of this was 1) going to come to some point and 2) I was going to address:

• the decline of education in America
• how Trump will bring us to more rather than less warfronts
• why kids can't use a tape measure...and neither can the workers at Home Depot
• how Bernie Sander's has ensured a Trump victory
• last weeks planting of 300 seedlings
• this weekend's upcoming planting of 300 seedlings
• the loss of a 40 year friend/acquaintance
• the open opportunity for an ERP consulting gig