Freekin' Flying

I have not yet forgotten the trauma of my San Francisco debacle with Airtran Airlines and what do I do? I climbed aboard another aluminum flying tube with a different logo pasted to its side headed to London. This time US Airways is the culprit.

The leftovers of Tropical Depression Ida have been slowly working their way from the Gulf Coast north to the New England area. Up here, they do not call them tropical depressions. They refer to them as Noreasters. Thats' slang for it is raining and blowing like hell form the northeast. Or, in my case, it means I am sitting in a hotel for 24 hours in Philadelphia rather than my luxury suite in London next to Hyde Park.

I know US Airways is not responsible for the weather, but they are accountable for treating me like livestock riding up I-65 on a semi-trailer headed for the International Beef Packing Company outside of Logansport to become next week's deli sandwich. How can they expect me to return as a customer when they offered no notification of my flight delay, no assistance to stow my luggage from a nasty flight attendant that Julie almost decked, no options when my connection was in doubt, no chance of making my connection by having the London flight leave EARLY before its scheduled time, no reasonable effort to get me on another flight, no eye contact as they told us we'd have to wait and get on a flight a freakin' 24 hours later, and finally offering me their condolences on an 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper that offered to put me up in an EconoSludge in ghetto-Philly..at my cost no less.

So, heads up American Airlines in February and Southwest in April. All I want is a tad more humanity, a smile, on-time arrival, a Diet Coke, and a little bit of legroom. Hold the peanuts!

Thermostat Control

Who is in control of the thermostat in your abode? If you are a man, you are in control. If not, buy a skirt. No self-respecting man ever relinquishes control of the one thing that women are incapable of understanding.

Oh, I sense the ladies are not happy I could make such a claim?Well, answer these questions:

(True or False)

1) Will raising the thermostat setting by five degrees warm the house up faster?

2) Will lowering the thermostat five degrees cool the house down sooner?

3) Can you properly adjust the settings on a programmable thermostat?

4) Does it make you uncomfortable to have the house temperature set at 55 degrees during the winter when you leave town for a few days?

5) Are you going through menopause?

6) Did your husband kill ants with a magnifying glass when he was young?

Correct Answers:

1) False. The furnace can only warm the house as fast as he can "heat" you up. It takes awhile.

2) False. I think I just cooled down my wife.

3) False. You should stick to cooking, cleaning, and bringing home a paycheck. Leave the technical stuff to your hubby.

4) If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a noise? Same concept. If you don't get it, leave the thermostat alone!

5) It depends. If you have messed with the thermostat in the last 24 hours, you are in menopause.

6) If so, he understands thermo stuff. Need I say more?

Oh, BTW, the same goes for the car.

Bicycling Downtown Indy

I no longer have a car of my own! When I hung it up a month ago, I turned in the keys to my "free" company car and walked home. The office is only three blocks away, but it was a one-way strut into retirement from working and having my own set of wheels.

However, I have a couple of sons who have shown me the light of living without owning a carbon dioxide-belching American icon.

My oldest, Kyle, lives in New York City where having a car is more of an inconvienence and expense that he can live without. Besides, the Metro can get you anywhere in about thirty minutes if you don't mind walking a couple of blocks to the station only to descend into a grimy subterranean and somewhat odoriferous underground. But, it works and it's cheaper than a taxi.

My other son, Joel, lives in beautiful and just as pricey San Francisco. You can get around in the Bay Area in a car as long as you do not need to park it. Parking is a sport in San Fran. You must be able to track Google Maps on your iPhone, talk to the old man(that would be me), and drive 80mph without having a high-speed collision in the morning fog. He prefers the Google Shuttle and it's free(that's my boy!)! When he needs a car, he either rents one by the hour or mooches his sweetie's wheels.

So, what am I to do in Indy? We have no subways or shuttles (unless you live in Hamilton County), but we do have IndyGo. It can take you anywhere as long as you are not in a hurry and you need to go to a suburban mall. IndyGo is an incomplete answer to Indy's urban sprawl and low population density, but I am getting off the subject. How do I get around town?

On my bike! Indy is not New York or San Fran, but just about everything you need is within a 10 minute ride on a bicycle. The streets are wide and the sidewalks are plentiful albeit illegal as I found out on a Sunday while cruising around downtown before a Colts game. I almost received two tickets from the police because I wasn't willing to play chicken in the street with a bunch of drunks driving scores of re-cycled school buses painted blue with "Go Colts" painted on the side.

Anyway, it's good exercise and it makes the neighbors giggle when I peddle by. And heaven knows, people need a reason to laugh. It's my new job.

Wi$hard Ho$pital Re-Do

I'm either paranoid or I am just starting to figure out why Indianapolis proposes a major construction project just as another one comes to completion.

Case in point. Remember when the Hoosier/RCA Dome was built in the early '80's? Well, our fair Mayor Hudnut felt, and rightfully so, that Downtown Indianapolis needed a kick in the pants. So, he proactively proposed building the Dome with the enormous help of the Lilly and Krannert Foundations even though we had no promise of landing the Colts or numerous NCAA events. It cost the city less than $40 million (and a 1% restaurant tax). It was a GREAT deal. The downtown immediately began to change for the better. On the bad side, we also got the Irsay's. Mayor Hudnut also made the choice to use union labor on the condition that they promised to never strike as a tool to negotiate during its construction.

However, just like the greedy bankers in NYC, the locals saw an opportunity to squeeze a lot of cash out of the local citizens of Indianapolis. Soon after the dome, we landed the Pan Am Games in 1984. Subsequently, we built the Natatorium, the Velodrome, the Track & Field Stadium, and upgraded numerous facilities using Hunt Construction and Wilhelm Construction, the same folks who built the Dome.

In the meantime, the bonds for the Dome were being paid down rapidly by the 1% food tax, so Hudnut decided to roll them over and add onto the Convention Center. Thus, since it was connected to the Dome, the tax would not expire and Hunt, Wilhelm, and the unions had a meal ticket extension. Not to drag this out, but we soon had new buildings all over the IUPUI Campus, Conseco Arena, Lucas Oil Stadium, a new billion dollar airport terminal, and a new $300 million addition to the convention center being built on the land where the RCA Dome once stood with a $48 million debt that was built in 1980 for less than $40 million. Hmm, something stinks.

Now, we have forked over about $25 million to help a billionaire build a new hotel across the street from the convention center. So, what do all of these projects have in common? Nearly all were all built by Hunt or Wilhelm with union labor at increasingly ridiculous costs. Moreover, none of these government funded buildings pay a dime in taxes. Meanwhile, the hotel, rental car, local income, property, and food taxes have all increased dramatically as people like the Irsay's have increased their wealth. The Colts are now valued around $1 billion. Next time they threaten to leave, I'll help load the Mayflower van.

Which brings me to Wi$hard Ho$pital's proposal to build a new $700 million facility. The current building is tired and out-of-date. But, the city would be the guarantor of $600 million of new bonds. Looks like Hunt, Wilhelm, and the trade unions are going to have plenty of work. The taxpayers? They are getting lots of new debt and taxes, but we get to vote on this one.

I hope to see you at the polls on November 3rd. It's your money.

Everyday is Saturday

I love Saturdays. Who in heaven's name doesn't? It is the day that you can do whatever needs to be done or more importantly what you want to do. College football (IU-ugh!), sleeping in (with my sweetie), eating breakfast out at your favorite restaurant (City Cafe'), working in the yard (Not me! I live in a condo), or driving to the place where you fell in love (Admit it. You've been there).

Well, in my current situation, I am "voluntarily retired". So, I am in the training phase of living everyday as if it is Saturday until I screw it up by doing something else. Why would I screw up Saturday? Well, it is human nature to change the status quo. So, what is Saturday when you "drop out:? Well, yesterday was the day after Friday, today is Saturday,and tomorrow will be the day before Sunday .I still feel as if two days from now it will be Monday and you all know that Monday is not a favorite of the masses. What am I to do?

Enjoy it! After 37 years of chasing the buck, I am looking for something else to spend my remaining time before the Grim Reaper comes knocking. But, before I make any rash decisions, I am not doing anything except enjoy the illusion that today is Saturday.

And I'm lovin' it!

It's Only the Beginning

When you stop to think about it, you can break down your life into chunks-youth, work life, and everything else after that.

I don't remember starting my youth. I just became aware one day that I existed. There were rules, and I was breaking them. School was challenging yet things came to me with relative ease. I never had much money only to realize I had everything I needed. I guess my largest obstacle was finding my soul mate and lo and behold she arrived two months after I started to work. It may sound like I am simplifying things, but this is a blog-not a book.

At the age of twenty-one I started to really work for a living. I always had jobs, but that was just for mad money. This time it was for real. I needed to pay my own way. There wasn't a lifeline back to Mom and Dad when I was short a few bucks. It was stressful to learn a career, pay the bills, and be madly in love all at the same time. Then, before I can say "Jack Sprat", I'm married with three kids. Guys are built to take on things one at a time. That's at least four things! Once again, I'm simplifying, but that's another book.

Fast forward to today. I'm retiring this afternoon. I have handed off all of my work to others, it's 3PM, and I have two more hours to go. Come 5 o'clock, I will turn in my car keys and credit cards, but I'll hold onto my cell until it stops ringing. What now? What in the Sam Hill am I going to do with the last chunk of my life? I have some ideas like mentoring some of the kids who find it unnecessary to finish school, aka...life chunk numero uno. I will need to change my perspective from "Leave it to Beaver" to "South Park". It's a big shift from the Beav and Wally breaking a window to Kenny getting killed every week.

Should be interesting. And, it's only the beginning.

What I Live With!

It was our first Sunday morning in months to relax. A morning to take it easy...lay low, goof off, do whatever! So in total relaxed form, I climbed out of bed, put on my most comfortable, scrubby clothes and found my way downstairs.

To immediately get this remark from Ted..."you look like Conway Twitty"! Followed by that dreaded Dreyer chuckle...followed by an online look-up of Conway...and sure enough...my hair is a dead match! I need a haircut...FAST!

What I live with!

So Long...Farewell... Auf Wiedersehen...Good Bye!

Pardon the indulgence, but this post is about me. I've come to that moment where I'm fully cooked. Stick a fork in me. I'm done! Selling printing supplies and equipment just doesn't instill the "thrill of victory" in me anymore. The last decade in the printing supply industry overall has been more like the "agony of defeat".

Just like all industries that come and go over time, the process of putting the printed word on a piece of paper is becoming dangerous to your wealth. I do not need to tell you what technological wonders have occurred in the past twenty years. But all those innovations have diminished a wonderful business that was started by my father around the time of my earthly arrival, right smack dab in the middle of the twentieth century on July 1, 1950. That business, Modern Photo Offset Supply, has provided a wonderful lifestyle for our entire family over the last six decades. And, the company will continue to operate under my two older brothers as long as someone continues to read newspapers, clip coupons, mail Christmas cards, or ask for a brochure at Government Motors rather than checking out the website. So it's with lots of memories, lots of gratitude and lots of anticipation for what lies ahead, that my last day will be September 30th.

So what's next? Well, I want to do something else other than chase the buck to feel...fulfilled? Wanted? Needed? Necessary? Called? I have been thinking about it for awhile and two things I have always tried to do in spite of the occasional faux pas are be a good husband and father. Well, I'm out of kids and I'm already hitched to my one and only who says she's keeping me around long term despite my occasional mess-ups. So, maybe I can help some kid who doesn't have a father figure in his or her life. The new buzz word is "mentor", but that sounds like I would have all of the answers. I don't.

Nevertheless, I think I can help. Currently, only 22% of the males in IPS graduate in four years. That's disgraceful and probably a good place to start my new journey.

Twitter is Bringing Down Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The Israeli's can't do it. Obama can't do it. Who's going to take down the Middle East nuclear punk?

Twitter? Give me a break.

Armageddon must be closer than I can imagine if all of the "sticks and stones" the civilized world can throw at that twerp can't bring him down, how can a pseudo communication app that can't pay its electric bill do it?

By using your thumbs.