Disaters in the Midwest.................

It's another spring after another winter after another................I'm so sorry for the folks in the Midwest from Minneapolis down to the Delta, once again at this time of year we have floods, storms, Tornado's, Cyclones, Twisters, hail storms, devastating thunderstorms and you name it. Literally hundreds of good folks dying and being put out of their homes, folks losing everything they had to raging waters reaching hundreds of yards and blocks from once peaceful rivers. Wind and rain and twisters that pick-up and destroy homes, businesses, and public buildings, without regard for whom or what is in the way or path of destruction! We pray for these folks year in and year out, pray that they find lost loved ones and can pick up the pieces of their lives and move on. Take Joplin, Missouri for example, a tornado rips through the middle of the town/city and destroys families, lives and property into the millions of dollars and a day later 8 to 10 inches of rain and hail on top of all the tragedy already there! I can't imagine 10 inches of rain anymore, I can't imagine 10 inches of rain and hail destroying whats already been destroyed once, what's wrong with this picture? Once again I'm deeply sorry for the lose of life and property being lost all throughout the Midwest this year once again.

Often times I still wonder what makes folks continue to put up with the death and destruction of property, lives, and belongings. All I can say is the 2 to 3 months where they only have to put up with the high humidity must be reward enough to endure 8 to 9 months of miserable weather. Reward enough for putting in the hard work to survive and the rebuilding each year of yards, homes, gardens, playgrounds, parks, businesses, repairing water damage, adding and repairing levee's in what seems to be a never ending cycle. I'm not sure anymore if I give the folks of the Midwest credit for putting up with such disasters and coming back for more each year or wonder what they use for common sense. I think I could only go through tragedy like that once and look for a better way or a better place to set up camp, hell I lived in the Midwest and opted to leave. Me and the family opted for the Southwest were we put up with a bit of heat a couple of months out of the year and the rest of the time pretty much paradise! There just seems to be something awesome about waking up each morning to sunshine and the vast majority of the time clear skies! We don't need or want 10 inches of rain and hail each time the clouds roll in, somewhere around 7 inches a year seems to be plenty. They say somewhere around 20,000 folks are moving just into Arizona each day, and more into Nevada and others of the Southwest, so there are those who are also tired of annually rebuilding and repairing deeds of Mother Nature.

Yes, I'm praying for a quick recovery to the storms and praying the storms of the rest of the season are not as devastating as those so far and that there is no more lose of life due to these disasters. I can only think of a few that maybe don't look forward to the seasons but definitely profit from them and have their best times of the year............Home Depot, Lowe's, Menard's and even the Ma and Pa Ace's! You talk about wanting to "save a tree" look at the lumber being used each storm system, but that's another story for another time.

Maybe too harsh!

After thinking about it I might have been too harsh on those few good employee's in our government who actually earn their incomes and don't deserve the lazy tag as most others do. But the fact still remains that our government run postal service is in dire straights and will no doubt go out of business before too long or become a privately run company. I still contend that for the most part it's the overall customer service or lack there of within this agency that is helping in it's demise. You just can't have employees with the attitude that I'm here to put in my X number of hours and take all of my scheduled and unscheduled breaks regardless of who or how many folks are waiting in line.

In a privately run business not governed by a Union employee's do what they have to do to keep the costumer happy and returning, if that means getting up from a break and taking care of business that's what is done. Now I'm quite sure you won't see that happening too many times in our Post Offices and I'm sure most of you have witnessed the same. In all my years of managing the key to our success was number one Customer Service, without it we would have no customers or continue to lose customers to other ceramic flooring companies just like the Post Office is losing customers to the likes of FexEx or UPS.

So maybe after two blogs we can all agree the Customer service sucks in our government and not just the post office and it keeps costing us tax payers to keep these agency afloat...........again not all employees but you and I both know it most likely the majority!

USPS (U.S. Postal Service/Office)

I rarely have occasion to visit one of our Government run Post offices, one of those Government run operations going bankrupt or losing money hand over fist. Today I needed to mail a package and decided to use the US Postal service rather than UPS, FEDEX, DHL or one of the other privately run businesses making a profit year in and year out.

I walked into one of the busiest branches here in Phoenix and as usual when I walked in even at 3:15 pm and with what seemed to be only a handful of cars in the lot there were 20 folks in line. The place had 4 station to serve patrons and as I walk through the door noticed 3 of those 4 stations were maned and thought 20 people wouldn't take that long. No sooner than I stepped to the end of the line a gal at the second station got up and left......must have been a 3:15 break time or something because she never returned while I was in the joint. So now there are two postal workers to serve us and in a minute I was like 18th in line but at the same time a couple more had joined the line. From the time I entered the line of 20 persons the line never got any shorter but in fact at times counted up to 22 and 23 folks waiting on those 2 postal workers!

Well believe it or not I have become more patient at times with age and understand there are times we must wait and hey, just do it and before long the wait is over, but it does leave one with some time to think. In this particular case I began thinking about our Government run Postal service and the fact that it continually loses money and should eventually be shut down, close it's doors like any other business that continually operates in the red and why this might be happening. Why can UPS or FedEx make profits and our postal service can't, well here are a few of my thoughts on the issue and number one might be the man in charge. The Postmaster General is a political appointee and not a business savvy CEO who knows how to run a company and show a profit, probably the last really good Postmaster General was our first one in Benjamin Franklin but not much since. Next would be the employees themselves, what the hell their government employees for Christ sake what more do we expect? Everyone knows the cushy jobs are government jobs and there is plenty of job security even more so that a union job where in it takes an act of Congress to fire one of them. They get more time off than anyone in the working world, more holidays with pay and sick days with pay and raises like clock work. We all know from the latest finding in these days of budget cuts that government workers are paid ungodly amounts compared to the private sector for doing the same thing and it's damn hard to get fired or lose your job! Let's not even go into retirement and pension plans because you all will end up fired up to rehash those numbers and then most of them end up "double dipping and living like kings for working like lazy bums for 20 to 30 years. Am I jealous you bet I am, why didn't I stick with my government jobs of which I had two different ones, the USAF and FAA, hell when I hired on the FAA just for being in the Air Force I got a jump of two pay grades...sweet huh? Back to my point of this postal visit, two folks with a line of a constant 20 patrons and not giving a damn if they all got taken care of before break or not...........hell were did that third gal go? After 25 minutes her break should have been over but we never seen her again...............I'm just saying maybe running this operation like this with some of the poorest customer service you can imagine witnessing and I even checked out the displays of point of sale etc. and that was just thrown up and not much attention given to customer appeal as if no one cares if they sold anything off those rack or not and they probably don't care with little or no incentive to do much better because rain or shine they'll all be back tomorrow doing the same half ass job!

Moving...........

OK so we decided to downsize for retirement and start taking it easier on ourselves financially and physically. This in turn would also free us to travel more without having to worry about what needs to be done at home, like landscape, pool, animals etc. If you take those things and everything else that goes along with living on an acre and a quarter in a 3000 plus square foot home you have way too many worries if traveling. Oh sure we'll miss so much about our place in north Phoenix, it was a dream of Bev's that came true and that we enjoyed for 7 years. It was 7 years of entertaining of all kinds, 2 weddings, way too many BBQ's to remember, showers (baby & wedding), grandchildren birthday parties, our swim parties and those many given by our daughter Lisa. The BBQ pit and bar area did it's job all year long no matter if it was winter or summer or anytime in between, sure it was a lot of work and a huge expense but you can be sure we enjoyed each and every outing! Let's not forget those wonderful neighbors on Tanya road, the Cox's became dear friends and the rest of our neighbors even though a pit younger were good neighbors also, we enjoyed them all and the parties!

Now that brings us to moving, what an unpleasant thought, what an unpleasant chore one has to go through to change residence....even your friends ate it when you move for obvious reasons! At our age we thought it best to hire a company like "2 men and a truck" or the like to handle the big stuff, we'll pack the boxes let someone else move them from on place to the other.....you know the "hard work" as we like to put it. Right, the hard work, hell their done and gone and we're still working our tails off! There won't be a next time, but if there were maybe we'll haul and the stuff and pay someone else to pack and unpack and put things were they belong, hell that's the hard part! It took a week to find the silverware and all boxes were marked very well like kitchen, living room, bedrooms etc. and it still took a week to find the silverware. It's been almost two weeks now and I'd venture to say we still have half the boxes to open and unpack yet. Now let me say it didn't or doesn't help moving into a 1500 sq. ft. double-wide from the over 3000 sq. ft. we had but in the end it will all be worth the trouble. Trying to bring a '72 model (that's in great shape and the price was definitely right) up to date a bit has been a minor challenge at times but we're going to like the upkeep cost when comparing the two places....yep nearly 1/7th of the cost to maintain on a monthly basis!

Anyway, moving is a bitch and I've decided this morning (while waiting for the installer to install the new dishwasher....which needs some plumbing updating) that I will take one box a day at least and empty it. I'm not going to say that emptying it doesn't mean I won't throw it's items into the garbage, but we are running out of room it seems. Yes, I think if we both unpack one box a day from here on out we could be all unpacked by the end of the month!

Hey two weeks and I haven't touched a yard tool of any kind, my green painted asphalt yard hasn't even needed to be blown off yet..................yippee!

Moving and/or downsizing..........

Have you moved lately? Have you given any thought to moving or downsizing in this Topsy Turvy world of economic shortfalls we now live in? It's something I think about being 64 years old and it's just me and the wife living on a acre in a 3000 sf house. A very large house for just two people and a very large yard for just two people all of which needs much attention to keep up and maintain. When you're entering your mid 60's these really aren't things we like to think about on a daily basis, we feel more like thinking about seeing the grand kids and going out for ice cream on a sunny day. We think about things like taking off in the motor home for a few weeks or longer enjoying each other and our great nation, not trimming 23 trees, raking an acre of granite, maintaining a pool and BBQ area for gatherings and painting the trim or dusting and mopping 2000 sf of porcelain tile and all those nooks and grannies, and windows.....

Just imagine for a minute if you wanted to downsize from 3000 sf of well furnished living and spaces filled with what at the time didn't matter the cost and now need to fit things into 1600 sf. Going from 3 bedrooms, den, office, 3 baths to 2 bedroom, office and 1 bath may not seem to bad until you start having to pick and choose what you really need to fill the smaller space and what to do with the remainder! I would imagine you'd be using Craigslist and having garage sales every weekend until you got rid of the stuff that just won't fit in the new place. There's always the kids that could use some of the stuff and that always works as long as they both don't want the same things, or want you to make a buck or two on the stuff just to help out. Yes, it might be a task we wouldn't want to face or tackle right now. You know at the age of the mid 60's you really aren't built to move like you used to be, you don't even have the energy some days to get started but this you must do. There may be deadlines, dates when this would have to take place or that would have to be done and we all know the older you get the faster those days come up on you, deadlines yep there sometimes hard to meet now a days! I think if I had to tackle these problems and didn't have a handful of young helpers around who hate moving friends anyway, I might consider a company like "Two men and a Truck" to tackle those heavy and awkward things for me. Hell packing it all in boxes would be a big enough job let alone moving all those heavy boxes YOU packed to the brim with heavy stuff! Yep the $45/hour may be the way to go and hopefully you can get the help to tear things all down and put them back together again.

Well this is something we're tackling at this time in our lives, we've decided to downsize and take the plunge into a retirement community.............my God does that make us sound old! We've decided we can't handle the ranch and need to go smaller, we've decided we can't afford to keep up the ranch and need to go smaller, we've decided we need to start gearing up for full retirement and soon. Yes it's us packing all the boxes we can get our hands on, it's us having multiple garage sales and using craigslist, yes and it's us with way more junk around that we need to fill a 1600 sf place. With closing on homes it also puts us under the gun to meet times and dates set in the near future and the clock ticks faster and faster each day.

You know we really thought we needed all this stuff at one point, and we really thought we needed to spend outrageous sums of money on filling this space and that space and having this toy and that toy and right now none of that matters. Enjoying the rest of our lives matters now, enjoying each other rather than material things matters more right now and it's down that road we're steering towards and looking forward to it with must enthusiasm. Life starts over in a month or so and we're looking forward to it............pray for us!

Made in America?

Did anyone catch ABC world news the past couple of days? Made in America was a topic and they actually went into an American home and took out everything not made in America and the home ended up gutted, watch tonight to see if they can fill it back up with products "made in America".

Now speaking on this topic brings a few things to mind at least to me. I'm putting this on the unions (must be my week to bash the unions....but look at Wisconsin and Ohio right now) and I think for the most part rightfully so. Manufactures, employers, mills, plants of all sorts are closed and have been closing down for years and looking to other countries for things like wage relief in order to make a profit. Yes I know most liberals in our country don't believe in companies making a profit whether it be small business or big business, to make a profit to them is like being UN-American....you know like spread the wealth please! We allowed the unions to keep getting these massive benefit packages and sky rocketing wages which in turns forces the companies to keep raising the price of their product to the point folks can't afford to buy them and it's just continues to be a viscous circle until the companies either go out of business or look elsewhere for a way to make the company profitable. Insurance companies too like to make money, if you started a business or a company providing service to or benefits for folks you too would like to make a profit. If the unions keep getting unlimited benefits to employees without the employees contributing much of anything to the point of being almost free coverage how could any company survive with out raising prices and passing on cost to the rest of us? Sure it's great that the teacher down the road or the fireman has these wonderful pension plans to the point of making more in retirement. It's also great that the union workers that earn as much in retirement as they did when working and with Social Security make much more but now where's "spread the wealth around"?

When the rest of the country pays for these pensions by way of our State and Local and National governments raising taxes on everything under the sun and are going deeper and deeper in debt due to the fact they can no longer afford to pay these pensions..........this is not a "win win" for the rest of us! Just because you were fortunate enough to either fall into broom bushing job at a union shop or decided to become a teacher or state or government employee does not mean you deserve to continue to bankrupt our States and Federal government without helping with the debts you are causing. Hell most of those retired teachers, government workers State, Local or Federal hated their jobs..........bitched about their jobs..........complained all the way to the bank until retirement rolls around and "bingo" it was the smartest thing they ever did!

No in my opinion the Unions played a big part in companies moving to less expensive ways to make their products or closed down due to over priced employees and until we fix the problem with the Unions there just won't be a lot of items labeled, Made in America!

Here's a site you might want to check out, 22 of the States have nothing labeled made in America and a number of the rest have one item you can purchase made in America............a sad day!
http://americansworking.com/index.html

When is it all going to come to a boil.....soon I hope!

Let me begin by saying I was a staunch union man for 12 years and then even for a few years after leaving the ranks of the Teamsters and now I'm seeing the other side!
Coming from the Midwest and the heart of all farm implement manufactures up until the early 80's you couldn't help but know of unions and how they worked and helped the employees they represented. Many friends relied on these jobs and unions for their livelihood and some nice hourly wages and benefits, hell if you weren't in a union you envied those that were and the things they received through "negotiations"....... yep now I feel for most companies that have to deal with these same unions.

When you have democratic representatives of a State, representatives elected by the unions for the unions and with the unions money not doing their jobs for fear of what constituents and these unions will do or not do come next elections that's criminal. The union heads across the country right now must be hating all this negative publicity with regards to what Government union organized employees earn in wages and benefits compared to private sector employees doing the same work. It comes out today that in 41 states employees covered under the state and local government collective barging agreements earn substantially more than there counter parts in the private sector, more in wages and much more in benefits.

I'm not going on too much farther with this other than to say yes, the unions had a purpose years ago and did improve working conditions and wages for the workers of our country but how much is too far? I think they have out lasted their usefulness and should be toned down a bit to say the least. The days of a regular Joe leaning on a broom on the shop floor for 8 hours and making $18 plus an hour plus full benefits should be over. The Government worker who can't be fired or let go for missing 1/3 or more of each work quarter is absurd and our government should be ashamed, more of the citizens of this country need to know these things. Wisconsin and it's what really is the minority of their population should shut up and get back to work for all those big bucks. I hope it come to the point that all their doing is helping to bring attention to the ridiculous demands they have made and profited from in the past. Teachers that don't go to work and rather protest because they may have to pay for some of their benefits should be canned immediately, they aren't good teachers anyway if they don't want to teach!

Wisconsin, Ohio and the rest of them.................bite the bullet and help out your States because it's you union folks and your demands that most likely put your States into these budget problems.