Last week found me looking for a company in Crawfordsville, IN. Or rather, outside of Crawfordsville, IN. Near county road 400 south which translates into a road running east west four miles south of the center of town. The street address was 4414 east which means that it was something more than four miles east of the center of town. The town isn't very big although not small for that part of the country.
I found myself at the intersection of County road 400S and Ladoga road where 400 dead ended. I knew that it must continue somewhere further east but wasn't sure where, so being at a stop sign, I stopped and took up my trusty GPS for a look.
One of the difficulties of doing any kind of manual route planning using a GPS instead of a paper map is that in order to see the whole picture, you need to zoom out to a large scale but then you can't see enough detail to be useful. Then too, each time you zoom in, the place you are looking for appears at a different location on the screen because the scale changes and becomes difficult to find.
Anyway, fooling around with the GPS for a while, I determined how I wanted to go. It struck me that I had spent about 10 minutes at the intersection and in all that time, no one beeped me from behind. In fact, I realized to my amazement that I hadn't seen a single car on either road in either direction.
Here I was, alone, surrounded by a million corn plants and as many soybean bushes their leaves firing in the mid-morning stillness. It isn't empty, it isn't quiet; you can hear the birds calling, the insects buzzing and the plants rustling in an occasional gust of air. It's the solitude, the lack of any other human being in an area encompassing the size of Manhattan.
Truly awesome!
Monday, September 19, 2011
Nobody and Me
This seems to be the season to bash the good Doctor.
I had gone to tovel some things yesterday morning. This morning, Boo asked me why I only did three items when there is a whole box of stuff to be done. I told her that I had only been given the three things, but it would have been a great time to give me more, since the place was empty, or as I put it, " it was empty, just me and my thoughts". Which prompted Lovey to state
"Wow, it was REALLY empty".
I had gone to tovel some things yesterday morning. This morning, Boo asked me why I only did three items when there is a whole box of stuff to be done. I told her that I had only been given the three things, but it would have been a great time to give me more, since the place was empty, or as I put it, " it was empty, just me and my thoughts". Which prompted Lovey to state
"Wow, it was REALLY empty".
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Oscar and Me
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Short Takes
A few short observations.
I just heard that US test scores in Math and English Reading have again dipped to the lowest levels ever. We are raising a nation of morons and idiots and no one is doing anything about it.
The drop in payroll taxes instituted in 2008 to ease the growing economic crisis is scheduled to be continued if the jobs bill passes. It's great for the workers, but that is your future Social Security money which isn't being paid into the system, so if one day, you don't collect your Social Security, blame it on this. The truth is that there is no free lunch.
A European official came up with the draconian idea (that is how it is being styled) of separating commercial banking from investment banking. It's no different from Glass-Steagall which turned out was one of the best ideas for keeping the banks from risking your money. To now consider this revolutionary (it was enacted in 1935 and repealed in 1997) is ridiculous.
I just heard that US test scores in Math and English Reading have again dipped to the lowest levels ever. We are raising a nation of morons and idiots and no one is doing anything about it.
The drop in payroll taxes instituted in 2008 to ease the growing economic crisis is scheduled to be continued if the jobs bill passes. It's great for the workers, but that is your future Social Security money which isn't being paid into the system, so if one day, you don't collect your Social Security, blame it on this. The truth is that there is no free lunch.
A European official came up with the draconian idea (that is how it is being styled) of separating commercial banking from investment banking. It's no different from Glass-Steagall which turned out was one of the best ideas for keeping the banks from risking your money. To now consider this revolutionary (it was enacted in 1935 and repealed in 1997) is ridiculous.
MICHIANA
40 years is a long time and a lot changes from then till now. A recent visit to the South Bend area illustrates the point.
What hasn't changed (at least not to my uncritical eye) is the lovely St. Joseph river which wends its way through northern Indiana and up into Michigan. In some places along the shoreline of this swift flowing river, the houses which line it as well as the docks and boathouse are almost invisible, screened by heavy forestation but in other places, one sees the typical jumble of boats, docks and house right up against the treeless shore. Driving along either shore, one glimpses short peeks of the dark water wending its way to Lake Michigan as if the water is playing hide-and-seek with the observer. For me, the river dominates the whole of western Michiana.
Cheek by jowl with the natural scenery of the river is the manmade industrial landscape of South Bend. The brick and cement multi level buildings with their mullioned windows, which lined the whole southwestern corner of the city, have slowly given way, over the years, first to other industrial uses but lately to demolition.
The Studebaker automobile company built a huge manufacturing complex here in the early part of the 20th century. A landmark of the period was a building encompassing half a million square feet which stretched along 1500 feet of Sample street, built as Studebaker's engine plant. When the company closed in the 60's the building was taken over by the South Bend Lathe company, the largest lathe manufacturer in the world. They made the best lathes. The company eventually fell on hard times and the building was abandoned. When I first visited South Bend, I was impressed by the size and length of the building and on subsequent visits, it never failed to impress me. When I visited this week the building was no longer there. In its place was partly a cultivated field and partly an excavated demolition site. If the builders could see the site now, reclaimed into the open fields they originally were, what would they think?.
A metaphor for the history of American industry.
What hasn't changed (at least not to my uncritical eye) is the lovely St. Joseph river which wends its way through northern Indiana and up into Michigan. In some places along the shoreline of this swift flowing river, the houses which line it as well as the docks and boathouse are almost invisible, screened by heavy forestation but in other places, one sees the typical jumble of boats, docks and house right up against the treeless shore. Driving along either shore, one glimpses short peeks of the dark water wending its way to Lake Michigan as if the water is playing hide-and-seek with the observer. For me, the river dominates the whole of western Michiana.
Cheek by jowl with the natural scenery of the river is the manmade industrial landscape of South Bend. The brick and cement multi level buildings with their mullioned windows, which lined the whole southwestern corner of the city, have slowly given way, over the years, first to other industrial uses but lately to demolition.
The Studebaker automobile company built a huge manufacturing complex here in the early part of the 20th century. A landmark of the period was a building encompassing half a million square feet which stretched along 1500 feet of Sample street, built as Studebaker's engine plant. When the company closed in the 60's the building was taken over by the South Bend Lathe company, the largest lathe manufacturer in the world. They made the best lathes. The company eventually fell on hard times and the building was abandoned. When I first visited South Bend, I was impressed by the size and length of the building and on subsequent visits, it never failed to impress me. When I visited this week the building was no longer there. In its place was partly a cultivated field and partly an excavated demolition site. If the builders could see the site now, reclaimed into the open fields they originally were, what would they think?.
A metaphor for the history of American industry.
Monday, September 12, 2011
9-11 Tragedy or Triumph
9/11 found me in Detroit early in the morning. I had flown in on a ridiculously early flight, especially for a Sunday morning, but such are the vicissitudes of life.
In the days leading up to 9/11/2011 many articles appeared in the media discoursing upon grief, renewal, remembrance, forgiveness and love. Glaringly absent from all this syrupy, touchy-feeley pap was any mention of those who did this to us. It's as if a hurricane or a tornado or some other divine accident caused those towers to fall down. Let's not point any fingers, no one's to blame, let's all hold hands and forgive each other. To paraphrase something I read in a book by Mary Doria Russel, if G-d can forgive this, hell must be an empty place.
Back in Detroit, at the zoo in beautiful late summer weather (similar to conditions on that lovely Tuesday of 9/11), while New York and the nation mourned, I was surprised to see some ragheads, strolling there in full regalia, bold as brass, as if they had nothing to do with 9/11 on its tenth anniversary.
It reminded me of the celebrations in Gaza and other middle eastern cities as the towers collapsed.
WAKE UP AMERICA! Europe has already been overrun, let's not have it happen here.
In the days leading up to 9/11/2011 many articles appeared in the media discoursing upon grief, renewal, remembrance, forgiveness and love. Glaringly absent from all this syrupy, touchy-feeley pap was any mention of those who did this to us. It's as if a hurricane or a tornado or some other divine accident caused those towers to fall down. Let's not point any fingers, no one's to blame, let's all hold hands and forgive each other. To paraphrase something I read in a book by Mary Doria Russel, if G-d can forgive this, hell must be an empty place.
Back in Detroit, at the zoo in beautiful late summer weather (similar to conditions on that lovely Tuesday of 9/11), while New York and the nation mourned, I was surprised to see some ragheads, strolling there in full regalia, bold as brass, as if they had nothing to do with 9/11 on its tenth anniversary.
It reminded me of the celebrations in Gaza and other middle eastern cities as the towers collapsed.
WAKE UP AMERICA! Europe has already been overrun, let's not have it happen here.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Reflections on American Business
Note:
I wrote this a month ago after a bout of feckless shopping. I returned to this today after another bout of feckless shopping.
Finally, I bought what I needed from Amazon (a company I dislike for various reasons)with no frustration. I got a better deal than I could get in any store.
As I write this, the American business community is experiencing a blue funk. With nothing to buoy the system, the market has dropped like a stone, presaging another drop in economic activity which the wrangling in congress and the incompetence of our financial controllers has done nothing to prevent.
There exists a lack of sincerity in corporate dealings with both their potential customers and the public at large. They seek to create an image of altruism which is so false that no one is fooled by it. The mystery is why they persist in this nonsense.
Many E-mails today carry an admonition not to print a message unnecessarily in order to save paper. On the other hand, I found this tag line at the bottom of a message today:
I would be more impressed with this paean to the workers in the forestry industry had it not come from a manufacturer of papermaking machinery.
Products, especially electronic ones, have become increasingly complicated to operate for customer satisfaction. On the other hand, a customer's ability to determine if the product fills the bill for his application has increasingly dwindled. One cannot easily get information about a product from its packaging and the trend in retailing is to discourage hands-on inspection. You are limited to reading the few lines - for which there is still room on the virtually unopenable package - dedicated to product description . Most of the packaging is dedicated to warnings in the nature of "Don't eat the packaging, it will cause stomach aches" or "This knife is a sharp instrument and can cause severe injury when used to assault another human being" and similar messages. Repeating these warnings in three or four languages further diminishes room for substantive product information. Even stores with product displays carry only non-working, facade models which frustratingly can't be moved or picked up and is of no more use than the product's picture on the side of the box.
I visited a Walmart where every model of laptop displayed in their iron fetters had most, if not all, of their keys popped off their keyboards. The sales counters were unmanned and the products were locked behind closed gates.
The importance of customer service in the health of any business is a principle that was inculcated in me by my bosses from the moment I joined the business world. Indeed, even today, good customer relations is a cornerstone of our business. I guess it's a universal concept, but among giant businesses with tens of millions of customers, it is honored more in the breach than in fact.
Case in point: Cellular phone providers. Their first response to anything you say to them is to apologize. They can't seriously be sorry for your troubles because they have just made you wait 15 minutes subjected to loud jungle music interspersed with recorded messages telling you of their commitment to your full satisfaction, etc., etc. If you are lucky enough to get in touch with someone who speaks and understands English you are still not assured of having your question answered, especially if it is technical. This hand-holding is what passes for customer service. The truth is, they don't care! And why should they? They have millions of customers with revenues of billions of dollars; does it really matter if they lose a $600.00 a year customer. They will lose him to the competition, true. But the competition experiences the same scenario so no one loses. They expect their system to run flawlessly, which it usually does, and only have customer service to maintain the public's perception that they are concerned.
Woe to us all. The large retailers both brick and mortar as well as online, Walmart, Home Depot, Amazon, and their ilk have destroyed the hands on shopping experience where once a buyer could touch a product, see a real live product in action, ask questions on its use and features before comitting to a purchase. Today, you can return any product when you have determined it doesn't do what you bought it for, but your waste of time and the disadvantage to the guy who buys the product after you have disassembled and repackaged it with likely some parts missing is UnAmerican!
I wrote this a month ago after a bout of feckless shopping. I returned to this today after another bout of feckless shopping.
Finally, I bought what I needed from Amazon (a company I dislike for various reasons)with no frustration. I got a better deal than I could get in any store.
As I write this, the American business community is experiencing a blue funk. With nothing to buoy the system, the market has dropped like a stone, presaging another drop in economic activity which the wrangling in congress and the incompetence of our financial controllers has done nothing to prevent.
There exists a lack of sincerity in corporate dealings with both their potential customers and the public at large. They seek to create an image of altruism which is so false that no one is fooled by it. The mystery is why they persist in this nonsense.
Many E-mails today carry an admonition not to print a message unnecessarily in order to save paper. On the other hand, I found this tag line at the bottom of a message today:
Notice: It’s OK to print this e-mail. Paper is a biodegradable, renewable, sustainable product made from trees. Growing and harvesting trees provides jobs for millions of men and women, and working forests are good for the environment, providing clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat and carbon storage. When you are through, please remember to recycle it.
I would be more impressed with this paean to the workers in the forestry industry had it not come from a manufacturer of papermaking machinery.
Products, especially electronic ones, have become increasingly complicated to operate for customer satisfaction. On the other hand, a customer's ability to determine if the product fills the bill for his application has increasingly dwindled. One cannot easily get information about a product from its packaging and the trend in retailing is to discourage hands-on inspection. You are limited to reading the few lines - for which there is still room on the virtually unopenable package - dedicated to product description . Most of the packaging is dedicated to warnings in the nature of "Don't eat the packaging, it will cause stomach aches" or "This knife is a sharp instrument and can cause severe injury when used to assault another human being" and similar messages. Repeating these warnings in three or four languages further diminishes room for substantive product information. Even stores with product displays carry only non-working, facade models which frustratingly can't be moved or picked up and is of no more use than the product's picture on the side of the box.
I visited a Walmart where every model of laptop displayed in their iron fetters had most, if not all, of their keys popped off their keyboards. The sales counters were unmanned and the products were locked behind closed gates.
The importance of customer service in the health of any business is a principle that was inculcated in me by my bosses from the moment I joined the business world. Indeed, even today, good customer relations is a cornerstone of our business. I guess it's a universal concept, but among giant businesses with tens of millions of customers, it is honored more in the breach than in fact.
Case in point: Cellular phone providers. Their first response to anything you say to them is to apologize. They can't seriously be sorry for your troubles because they have just made you wait 15 minutes subjected to loud jungle music interspersed with recorded messages telling you of their commitment to your full satisfaction, etc., etc. If you are lucky enough to get in touch with someone who speaks and understands English you are still not assured of having your question answered, especially if it is technical. This hand-holding is what passes for customer service. The truth is, they don't care! And why should they? They have millions of customers with revenues of billions of dollars; does it really matter if they lose a $600.00 a year customer. They will lose him to the competition, true. But the competition experiences the same scenario so no one loses. They expect their system to run flawlessly, which it usually does, and only have customer service to maintain the public's perception that they are concerned.
Woe to us all. The large retailers both brick and mortar as well as online, Walmart, Home Depot, Amazon, and their ilk have destroyed the hands on shopping experience where once a buyer could touch a product, see a real live product in action, ask questions on its use and features before comitting to a purchase. Today, you can return any product when you have determined it doesn't do what you bought it for, but your waste of time and the disadvantage to the guy who buys the product after you have disassembled and repackaged it with likely some parts missing is UnAmerican!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Once Again into the Breach
As an end of summer treat, the chief multitakser and I took a day off. She from a grueling few weeks of hard work, and I for a pre autumn lazy day.
Of course our destination was once again, Manhattan. There seems to be an unlimited number of things to do there but boiled down, it's the same as can be done elsewhere only without the variety. I do have to admit, though, it's more interesting than the High Plains. All in all, it was a very relaxing day, and I'll tell you why.
I usually get uptight every time I even think of going into the city. It has never completely occured to me why, but yesterday was an exception. We traveled along the Jersey side of the Hudson River, parked the car at Port Imperial in Weehawken and boarded the ferry for the very short trip across the river to land in the heart of Manhattan.
I didn't take my car into the city!
There were no parking problems, and no traffic headaches. When we disembarked, free busses provided by the ferry company were on hand to take us along the main cross streets of midtown Manhattan; 34th, 42nd, 50th, 57th and up to Lincoln Center and even a bus that drove along the west side south of 39th street. These busses can be flagged down along any of the routes in order to get back to the ferry pier and theoretically to travel along the route from point to point. They even have a web site which tracks the busses via GPS so if you have an internet phone, you can check where the busses are at any time.
We took the bus to Times Square. It's been a while since I've been there. Although vehicular traffic still travels through the square many sections of it are closed to traffic and are furnished with small steel folding chairs and round tables where you can eat your lunch or just sit and watch the human traffic go by. And what traffic it is! The sidewalks and the pedestrian malls are so crowded that you can't take a power walk anywhere in the area. The side streets are filled with New Yorkers going about their business, but the more open areas are crowded with tourists and those who live off them. Wherever we walked, there were people selling tickets, mainly to the local theaters but also to sporting events and off Broadway shows not in walking distance of the square. The rest were tourists snapping pictures buying tickets, eating lunch or just sunning themselves in the stunning weather.
After deciding that the "half price" theater tickets sold in the middle of the square would pay about half the national debt, we opted to eat lunch at a fancy New York steak house but didn't have time for steak so settled for soup and salad.
It was a gorgeous afternoon and after walking around some and doing some shopping we decided to head back to the other side of the river. We ate dinner outdoors at a good suburban restaurant. Alls well and it ended well.
Of course our destination was once again, Manhattan. There seems to be an unlimited number of things to do there but boiled down, it's the same as can be done elsewhere only without the variety. I do have to admit, though, it's more interesting than the High Plains. All in all, it was a very relaxing day, and I'll tell you why.
I usually get uptight every time I even think of going into the city. It has never completely occured to me why, but yesterday was an exception. We traveled along the Jersey side of the Hudson River, parked the car at Port Imperial in Weehawken and boarded the ferry for the very short trip across the river to land in the heart of Manhattan.
I didn't take my car into the city!
There were no parking problems, and no traffic headaches. When we disembarked, free busses provided by the ferry company were on hand to take us along the main cross streets of midtown Manhattan; 34th, 42nd, 50th, 57th and up to Lincoln Center and even a bus that drove along the west side south of 39th street. These busses can be flagged down along any of the routes in order to get back to the ferry pier and theoretically to travel along the route from point to point. They even have a web site which tracks the busses via GPS so if you have an internet phone, you can check where the busses are at any time.
We took the bus to Times Square. It's been a while since I've been there. Although vehicular traffic still travels through the square many sections of it are closed to traffic and are furnished with small steel folding chairs and round tables where you can eat your lunch or just sit and watch the human traffic go by. And what traffic it is! The sidewalks and the pedestrian malls are so crowded that you can't take a power walk anywhere in the area. The side streets are filled with New Yorkers going about their business, but the more open areas are crowded with tourists and those who live off them. Wherever we walked, there were people selling tickets, mainly to the local theaters but also to sporting events and off Broadway shows not in walking distance of the square. The rest were tourists snapping pictures buying tickets, eating lunch or just sunning themselves in the stunning weather.
After deciding that the "half price" theater tickets sold in the middle of the square would pay about half the national debt, we opted to eat lunch at a fancy New York steak house but didn't have time for steak so settled for soup and salad.
It was a gorgeous afternoon and after walking around some and doing some shopping we decided to head back to the other side of the river. We ate dinner outdoors at a good suburban restaurant. Alls well and it ended well.
August in with a bang/ Out with..... Average
This was supposed to be the month that we rerally banged the post out at an alarming rate. However,I see that it is the end of the month, so I shall take stock on how we did.
Initially, I stated I would not write on the weekends, or jewish fast days. So that knocked out nine days. That left 21. I happened to go way for two days, so if I give myself a grace for those, (even though I got two posts out of the trip), I am down to 19.
We actually put up 17, so I claim the month a success for all the writers here at the good doctor.
Let's see what September brings.
Initially, I stated I would not write on the weekends, or jewish fast days. So that knocked out nine days. That left 21. I happened to go way for two days, so if I give myself a grace for those, (even though I got two posts out of the trip), I am down to 19.
We actually put up 17, so I claim the month a success for all the writers here at the good doctor.
Let's see what September brings.
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