What Would Jimmy Do?

We watched the Academy Awards, or Oscars, on Sunday night — we actually watched the entire thing to the finish. I didn’t know a lot of the “famous” people and hadn’t seen any of the movies nominated for best picture. I could have probably made the same statement about last year’s telecast, and the year before…..

If you didn’t already know, you’ve probably figured out by now that I don’t go to the movies very often anymore. There are a number of reasons — one reason is people. People in the movie theater don’t go to watch the movie anymore, it’s a social event. I don’t like people all around me talking while I’m trying to watch the movie. Then of course, there’s cell phones — I know that people are asked to turn them off, but people talk and text constantly during the movie. Apparently, most theater chains don’t care how the audience acts — I’ve never seen anyone called down for disturbing others in the theater. Another reason — the commercials. You pay money to see a movie, you shouldn’t have to sit through 20 minutes of commercials in addition.
I’ve read a lot lately about the movie industry bemoaning the fact that people aren’t going to the movies because they’re at home downloading movies. I think maybe they’re missing the point — there are a lot of entertainment options available and it’s not so much the movie, but the experience of going to the movie that people miss. Remember when a date used to be to go to the movies? I’m pretty sure the movies aren’t the first thing dating kids think of nowadays. I haven’t even talked about the cost. Movie tickets are expensive and add in a bag of popcorn and a drink and it becomes outrageous. One last thing — the movies themselves. Maybe it’s age, but neither myself or Claire get particularly excited to see a movie when its announced.

The last movie I watched was downstairs. It was on a 60-inch screen, had stereo sound, I sat in a comfortable chair, the food was good and I had a glass of wine — and — if Claire decided to talk on the phone, I had a Pause Button. The downside? I could have seen the movie sooner if I’d gone to the theater. Seems to me that the theater business has a lot to figure out — but I did enjoy the Oscars, even if I didn’t know anyone….
— 30 —

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know that I periodically go off about insurance and specifically insurance companies. Seems like there isn’t a week goes by that we don’t have some issue with some kind of insurance. I have been of the opinion since about the time I turned 16 and eligible to drive, that insurance is basically a scam or rip-off. I understand that insurance (rates) are supposedly based somewhat on statistics, but it has never made sense that I had to pay the highest rates for car insurance solely because I was under 26 years old, a male and not married. When I was 26 years and 1 day old, according to my insurance company I was such a much better driver that my rates were reduced by 40%. Just like that — in one 24 hour period, I was no longer a high risk to the insurance company.

A lot of people seem to think because you pay your monthly insurance premium, you don’t have to worry about accidents, unforeseen circumstances or just plain bad luck — after all, that’s what your insurance is for, to protect you from all that stuff. The truth is insurance companies will do whatever they can to squirm out of their responsibilities and use all sorts of stonewalling tactics to take your money without giving you any of theirs.
Insurance is an instrument used by individuals and organizations to protect themselves against a risk. The idea is that you pay a (relatively) small amount of money over time to protect yourself from a possible catastrophic financial loss. The insurance companies do extensive research to determine the likely amount and frequency of payouts, then add their (fair/unfair) profit margin, and come up with the premium to the policyholder. Of course you have to take into account they also add pay for agents and account for insurance fraud. You will almost always pay more into insurance than than you will get back. I have heard that occasionally someone does experience a catastrophic loss that the insurance actually covers. I believe that is a rare case, indeed.
My grandfather paid health insurance premiums for well over 50 years and never filed a claim. After 50 plus years of premiums, he got sick — twice. The second time he got sick, the insurance company walked away, leaving him with no insurance. If you say, “I’m unlucky,” or “I’m a careless person,” so I will buy good insurance, I can assure you the insurance company will figure this out and cut you off before long.

So I’ve accomplished nothing except venting a bit. Insurance companies aren’t going away, and they’re not going to become any more accommodating. They’re still at top of my dislike list, way above used car salesmen and aluminum siding salesmen. As they say, there are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
— 30 —

There was an article in one of the local papers a few days ago that discussed a problem the author was having with a utility company over some billing charges. I expect this sounds all too familiar to everyone old enough to remember when the customer was “always right.” Today it seems that the customer is always presumed to be wrong.

Customer service is not what it used to be and certainly not what it should be. I see it every single day and, in fact, experienced it a couple of nights ago in a brand-new, just opened restaurant. If they don’t have good customer service/relations the first few days of being in business, imagine what it’s going to be in a few months. Currently the number of companies we deal with that I consider to have good customer service can be counted on one hand. I’m satisfied with the Credit Union we use, the car dealer and Costco. All the rest are marginal at best and most are unacceptable.
People seem to blame poor customer service on the newer generation, or just another example of the decline of civilization. I think the solution is simple, but often I tend to over simplify problems, Actually, we’ve gotten to where we are over a period of time and a number of things have caused it.

Due to the high cost of providing employee benefits, many companies/stores have reduced their full-time staffs and a lot of the employees work less than 40 hours and are considered part time. Obviously these employees often don’t have the incentive or desire to provide the service customers expect. Another trend has contributed to the problem — the rise of the “big-box” stores and the resulting decline of the privately owned businesses. Managers today are focusing on ways to “save” money and most do it by cutting back on things that the customers “won’t notice.”  The fact is, that at some point, customers do notice and business drops off. Of course it’s easy to blame the decline on the economy or brutal competition — it’s never poor customer service that causes business to decline.

Now to try to keep things in proper perspective, part of it may be our (the customers) fault. We all claim we want good customer service, but in the end we often end up going to Walmart, or Sears or some other large volume retailer rather than a local merchant, because we save a few bucks. Good customer service is expensive to deliver; we all say we’d be willing to pay more for good service, but I’m not sure that’s true.

Today when I tell someone about a horrible experience I’ve had with a company, their response is usually, “same thing happened to me” or worse yet, “you should have known better.” What? I should have known not to trust what they told me? That’s where we are? I should not trust anything a company tells me, and if I do, it’s my fault for believing them? What kind of a message does this send to the company? They think a big part of the problem is me and its permissible to continue on the current track because I have developed a coping mechanism and will continue to put up with the level or lack of customer support being provided.

As I said earlier, I tend to overly simplify some problems, but here’s my view.
Companies are in business to make money. They will trim and cut costs (by head count, employee skills, salary, etc.) as far as they can and customer service is an easy target for cost cutting. As long as its not stopping you from doing business with them, they’ve got no incentive or motivation to change.
The obvious solution is to stop giving them money. Take your business elsewhere. If we insist on better service and don’t patronize those that don’t provide it, eventually someone else will. That’s what free enterprise is all about.
Someone once said that customers are like teeth. Ignore them and they’ll go away. Maybe corporate America should take note of that….
— 30 —

Today is Chinese New Years, but it also happens to be Tet — the Vietnamese New Year. A lot of Americans never heard of Tet before the Vietnam War, and the Viet Cong offensive in 1968. Tet is often associated with the Vietnam War, but it’s an ancient festival that, unfortunately, only became widely known in the west, due to the war.

Tet Nguyen Dan — Tet, for short — is the biggest and most popular holiday of the year in Vietnam. It is celebrated on the first day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar, but lasts for several days. This year, Tet is February 19 (today) but the actual holiday will last 1 day before and about 3-5 days after today. In fact, a new Vietnamese restaurant that just opened here, started their celebration yesterday. This year Tet and the Chinese New Year fall on the same day — that’s not always the case, but they are always close because they’re both based on the Lunar Calendar. Referring to our calendar, the (Lunar) new year usually starts in late January or the beginning of February.

Tet is the occasion when Vietnamese express their respect and remembrance for their ancestors as well as ringing in the new year with their family members. In the past, Tet provided one of the few long breaks during the agricultural year — it fell between the harvesting of the crops and the sowing of the next ones. Tet is like a combination of our Christmas and New Year; families get together to have big meals, decorate Tet trees and eat Tet food to welcome the New Year. There isn’t the direct religious association with Tet that we have with Christmas, although the holiday does play an important role in the Vietnamese’s religious beliefs.
Vietnamese begin preparations for Tet well in advance — in an effort to get rid of any bad luck of the old year, people spend a few days cleaning their homes, and even repaint their houses. They decorate the house with kumquat trees, branches of peach blossom and other colorful flowers. Almost all the homes have an ancestral altar; that is decorated especially carefully and colorfully. Everyone, including the children, buy or make new clothes and shoes to wear on the first days of the New Year. People also try to pay all their debts and resolve all arguments among colleagues, friends and family members.
Vietnamese believe that the colors of red and yellow will bring good fortune, so you find those colors almost everywhere during the New Year celebration. People consider what they do on the dawn of Tet will determine their fate for the whole year, so everyone always smiles and behaves as nice as they can in the hope of a better year. Gifts are exchanged, much as we do on Christmas, and children receive lucky money — always in a red envelope.

A lot of these traditions may sound like a description of the Chinese New Year celebrations, but as they say, “same — not same.” Anyhow, Happy Tet, everyone. Yet another chance to get those resolutions back on track….
— 30 —

Tomorrow we start another new (Chinese) year. This year, Chinese New Year begins on February 19 and it’s the Year of the Goat/Sheep. Some people refer to it as the Year of the Ram.
As both the faithful readers of this blog know, Chinese New Year is one of the holidays that I celebrate and usually every year in this space I discuss what lies in wait for me during the coming year. This information is based on Chinese Astrology of the purest tradition. Chinese Astrology doesn’t just predict the future, it gives you pertinent advice to help you live a richer and more satisfactory life.
In order to use Chinese Astrology, you must know the Chinese year in which you were born. I was born in the Year of the Tiger. So here we go — let’s see what us Tiger people can look forward to in the year of the Sheep.

But — before I get to that, let’s look at the Year of the Goat (Sheep) itself. The Sheep, or Goat is a Yin energy, a symbol of Peace, Harmonious co-existence and Tranquility. That is the primary and fundamental mood for the year. This is a year to use mental abilities over brute force. Those who wish to be aggressive, can expect to be out-maneuvered by strategy and common sense. Sounds like it’s gonna be a pretty good year to me.

But back to us Tigers — At first glance, the energies of the Tiger and the Goat do not combine. The Goat is related to the peaceful development of life, in which extremes are avoided, whereas the Tiger has a predisposition for great challenges and a radical approach to life, so it seems to Tigers that in the Year of the Goat, everything is too slow, dragging and uninteresting. Nothing ever runs smoothly in a Tiger’s life, but there will be fewer surprises this year.
So the magic word for Tiger natives during this year will be “concentration.” People born in the Year of the Tiger will achieve almost everything they yearn for through a correct mental attitude and activation of creativity. But they cannot get to the extreme of letting themselves go blind because of their own ambition of success — that would be destroying the magic.
The best months of the year 2015 for Tigers: February, March, June and November
What Tigers should strive for in 2015: being serious and truthfulness
And our lucky numbers for 2015 are: 4, 17, 23, 30, 33, 41.

All in all, it’s looking good for us in this the Year of the Goat, but Tigers are very unpredictable and there is no off switch on a Tiger. Mao Tse-Tung is quoted as saying, “In walking a Tiger, use a long stick.” So keep checking back here to see how us Tigers are doing during the year….
— 30 —

Tomorrow is Presidents Day — a fairly recent holiday when the banks and post office, government, usually schools and a few other establishments close and the remainder of the population sell stuff, or buy stuff. Presidents Day is mostly known for Presidents Day Sales.
When I first came to Washington, there was no Presidents Day, but the Washington area celebrated Washington’s Birthday in a big way. When I was living in Oklahoma, Washington’s Birthday came and went every year without much notice. But in Washington, they had huge sales on Washington’s Birthday. You could often buy a typewriter (if you don’t know what a typewriter is, go back to playing your X-box) for three cents and some dealers offered a car for about $100.00. This was all before stores stayed open 24 hours and had a sale for any actual, or made-up, event.

Of course that’s all changed, Washington has been pushed aside; some people don’t even know when his real birthday is and believe this or not, don’t even know who George Washington is.
I think it’s a shame, but it is what it is. A few days ago, Emily told her mom that she heard there was a holiday coming up — Presents Day. I guess even the four year olds have figured out what Presidents Day has really evolved to….
— 30 —

Well, here it is again — that most romantic of all days. The day when all the retailers convince you that your level of romance is directly proportional to amount of money spent…. and the day it’s impossible to go to dinner, of if you do you have to sit with strangers because the restaurant has added fifty more tables and if you drop your fork, your plate will be gone and the next romantic couple will be sliding into your chairs.

Like everything else, Valentine’s Day has been commercialized to death, but it’s still a pretty neat day. We probably all remember that in grade school we all got and gave valentines to everyone in our class. We probably didn’t want to give everyone in our class a valentine, but our mothers made us.
But here we are at Valentine’s Day, 2015 and according to something I read, long-stemmed roses cost about 30% more around Valentine’s Day than any other time of the year. More than nine million pet owners will buy their pets valentine gifts. Teachers receive the most valentines, followed by kids, mothers, wives and sweethearts. One billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making it the second largest card-sending holiday of the year — exceeded only by Christmas.
According to legend, in the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. This probably led to the current phrase “to wear your heart on your sleeve,” which means being transparent with your affections. The Catholic Church struck St. Valentine’s Dy from its official calendar in 1969.

So I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day, and you do something special with that special someone. There’s an old saying that, “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” By the way, during my extensive research for this article, I discovered that penicillin, a popular treatment for venereal diseases such as syphilis, was introduced to the world on February 14, 1929. Make of that what you will….
— 30 —

Last night we had a guest for dinner and when Claire was planning what to serve, she mentioned that maybe she’d make a Harvey Wallbanger cake. Those of you old enough to have been drinking in the late 1960s and early 70s will remember a once popular drink known as a Harvey Wallbanger. The ingredient that made the concoction a Harvey Wallbanger, and not just a Screwdriver, was an Italian liqueur known as Galliano. If you have a bottle of Galliano sitting around from the 70s or you want to make the liquor store clerks look at you funny, go buy a bottle; here’s how to make a Harvey Wallbanger:
1.25 oz vodka
3 oz orange juice
0.5 oz Galliano
Add the vodka and the orange juice to a tall glass filled with ice. Stir, and then float the Galliano on top. The Galliano is heavier and will drift down through the mixture. If you ordered this in a fancy restaurant, it was usually garnished with an orange slice.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, lets get back to that big towering yellow bottle that wouldn’t fit on any bar shelf and really wasn’t particularly good in any drink — the exception being the Harvey Wallbanger.
At the turn of the century, thousands and thousands of Southern Italians were immigrating to California to seek their fortune in the gold fields. Arturo Vaccari, a young Italian distiller, created a new spirit for his countrymen to take with them on their journey as a souvenir of Italy. The original blend was made from local Italian ingredients (anise, lavender and mint) and some foreign spices (vanilla, cinnamon, and coriander.) Vaccari named the liqueur after Major Giuseppe Galliano, a supposedly handsome Italian hero of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. His final touch was to color the beverage gold, as a symbol of the gold rush that had inspired its creation.

As I said, I remember it being most popular in the early 70s — after being around since the late 1800s, it rose to prominence in the 70s primarily due to clever marketing by a Galliano sales manager based in California. The drink was supposedly named after a California surfer who liked it and one day after losing a surfing contest, walked into his usual watering hole, ordered his drink and banged his head against the wall, displaying the agony of defeat. His name was Harvey — there you have it. Anyhow, the drink became popular almost strictly due to some crafty marketing. An advertising man named Bill Yound came up with a goofy cartoon character to represent Harvey. Harvey had a famous phrase, “My name is Harvey, and I can be made.” The Harvey Wallbanger was even a featured cocktail on TWA flights. Some of the flights had a plastic blow-up doll of Harvey on board as a promotional gimmick.

Now you’re probably wondering why I’m providing you all this information… to provide you with adequate background information and allow you plenty of time to prepare for the big day. November 8 — National Harvey Wallbanger Day. Mark your calendars.
— 30 —

… to my old friend, Abraham.

Abraham Lincoln would have been 206 years old today.
Happy Birthday, Abe!!
— 30 —

One of the activities that I’ve been able to participate in more since we moved to West Virginia is golf. The courses aren’t crowded and the cost is reasonable. Four or five of us play on a pretty regular basis when the weather cooperates. The nice thing about our group is that for the most part, we’ve all decided that it’s okay to play golf just for fun!

Someone once said that golf was called golf because all the other four letter words were taken. I guess our group leans more toward defining golf as, Getting Old & Living Fine…

With the exception of our group, most golfers I know seem to take the game too seriously. Golf is the hardest sport to consistently play at the highest level. It can also be the easiest sport to play if your goal is to enjoy yourself and have fun.
First of all, like anything else, you need to have realistic expectations about your abilities. We usually use the scorecard as a map to the next hole — we rarely keep score. When we hit a ball out of bounds or in the woods, we generally don’t bother looking for it, we just amble down the fairway and drop another ball where we figure a good shot would have landed.
I even made up a score card that we use sometimes — it gives everyone a few “freebies” along the way, like having a few mulligans… Of course my score card is much more imaginative. One of the rules we play by and rigorously enforce is to meet any serious or competitive behavior with the ridicule it deserves.

Since the weather is really too cold for golf, we’re currently playing Winter Golf. During good weather, after our round of golf, we always stop for a beer or two and solve a few world issues. Since it’s so cold now, every week we play Winter Golf — we just skip the hitting the ball part and get right to the beer and world issues. So golf can truly be played year round, even here is West Virginia.
— 30 —