Welcome
- June 25, 2018
- The Long Goodbye From my local K-Mart
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K-Mart has a location at 1500 Charleston Hwy, West Columbia, SC 29169 (803) 794-9150 which has been around since my childhood. This is a store where I shopped for Christmas presents when I was just a chap ... and it's still here in the same place with pretty much the same exterior look but a much different interior look.
You can imagine my pleasure to find that it was not going to be closed with those many other K-Mart stores in that last spate of closings recently. However, this all ended with my last few visits because I came to the sad realization that it's just a matter of time.
The management of this location is totally unsatisfactory. I repeatedly go there to find them air conditioning the airport vicinity with front doors wide open in the hundred degree plus heat indices.
This along side the other mismanagement makes me wonder if anyone really cares about profitability when I see the prices of items I can walk across the street and get for 30% less on average.
Then there are those episodes like the day I saw a young black man take his old beat up shoes and put them in the box from which he had just changed to brand new shoes only to place the box with his old shoes on the rack and walk out unchallenged by any of the several employees milling around him.
I bought two laundry products where the prices were not those at the display from which I chose them as I stood in the humdity and heat adjacent to that door which had been open all day long adding adding more to the cost of operation which I can only presume trickled down to me with a selection of overpriced products and subpar order and cleanliness of the entire facility.
Yes, the old K-Mart of my youth is dying a slow painful death from a corporate structure either too disinterested or too stupid to see the folly at hand and just why they will never be profitable at that location.
Why don't they fire these stupid employees and give the store a fighting chance ? Could it be that the entire organization has fallen into such disarray that everyone is simply too incompetent to do what is necessary to operate ? It sure appears so.
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- June 24, 2018
- Celebration of the Senses Day 2018
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When I was a child I studied health and biology. Topics within those courses included the classic five human senses:
• sight
• hearing
• touch
• smell
• taste
Later in the game came several more, including thermoception (temperature gradients) and magnetoception (direction) both of which I have as I am sensitive to heat and cold and have never been lost in many thousands of miles traveling in an automobile with neither map nor GPS.
June 24 is Celebration of the Senses Day. It is a day when we acknowledge our ability to perceive the world around us to varying degrees. Some of us have rather dull perceptions. Others of us sharp and precise perceptions.
The loss of some senses may be compensated for by others.
Regardless, they are a manifestation of that wonder called "life" and are worth consideration.
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- June 23, 2018
- The Demise of Good Chinese Takeout
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Chinese Takeout used to be one of those constant quality availabilities which are no more.
The new deal consists of a bunch of Asians utilizing Hispanic cooks and the end result is some sort of chinkoid gook mex piss poor substitute for what was formerly a smattering of deliciousness to be had late into the nights in my area.
Places I would go out of my way to patronize. They simply no longer exist in this realm of unskilled culinary fakery.
There are a couple of buffets I will visit but there too the quality has diminished. The authenticity wanes.
I suppose it was the old guard proprietors with their real Szechuan and flavors of Asia I left behind so long ago.
Now we get substitutes created by some employee who isn't even authentic chinese either.
So it stands. My pursuit of Good Chinese takeout eludes me into that fog of cheap substitutes and deviant palates so I'm just going to be less enthused than I was in the days of authentic Chinese which seems so very long ago.
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- June 22, 2018
- More Computer Repair Scams
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Though I personally feel that it would take a very gullible individual to fall for this, it appears that the presence of continuing pitfalls in the form of computer repair scams are pervasive; likely due to a lack of sophistication of the typical computer user.
Recently my elderly aunt received a cell phone call from "microsoft" saying that her machine was compromised and required immediate attention by their skilled technicians to forestall total calamity. The insinuation was imminent failure with total loss of her machine and it's content.
It was a ruse which worked to their advantage and unfortunately she suffered financial predation by these individuals to the tune of five hundred smackers.
She lacked experience with this type of low down shyster causing undue separation of cash from her payment card but at least she has not engaged them further.
It would not surprise me if microsoft held specific scammer classes in their scam called "certification training" because that's a big chunk of their revenue as well. Creating software so easily exploited is the hallmark of an over commercialized underthought technology.
Our informational footprint — that stuff you put out there provides more the scammers have with which to "get you".
Back up your data, preferably on a removable medium like a USB 3.0 drive or some flash memory component.
If approached in a "cold call" whereby you did not initiate the interaction you should hang up immediately. Nobody out there ... especially a scammer is so benevolent as to volunteer such repair service in the nick of time as claimed by these idiots who would have their way with you.
Watch those mouse clicks when encountering any web page. It's far too easy to click a redirected link and end up with a cryptolocker exploit ... particularly if you haven't maintained an external backup like you should as a matter of routine.
If you need support, get someone you trust even in the presence of computer services that are largely inflated on the cost side. Expect to drop some cash; often more than you might expect.
Acquire knowledge of simple maintenance procedures and exploit preventive measures. They will go along way to keep yu safer over time. I recommend the malwarebytes software and personal firewalls available for free. Just be sure of the download source ... they too can be problematic.
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- June 21, 2018
- Summer Solstice 2018
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So it's been real hot of late and today we have the first day of Summer. Running into the high 90s with the heat index well into the hundreds I have been working that HVAC and dehumidifier in an effort to control temperatures to a more tolerable level.
Summer solstice 2018 in Northern Hemisphere went down at 6:07 am EST today Thursday, June 21
This solstice marks the onset of summer, as well as the longest day of the year — June 21 in the northern hemisphere and December 22 in the southern hemisphere.
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- June 21, 2018
- World Humanist Day 2018
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World Humanist Day is a secular celebration of humanity.
It is a time for frolicing in the woods naked and making quick like a bunny with your favorite town pump.
It's about people and things pagan and fraught with those aspects of "humans are everything" and all else is nothing.
It is a solstice celebration where symbolism of coming out of the darkness and into the light represents the transition from ignorance to enlightenment.
Only problem is the focus ... too many trying to ritualize and influence the masses with a seedy spin on what people are all about in the total absence of boundaries.
If only this man made movement were worth the effort being shoved into it.
The doctrine centers on human interests or values — particularly a philosophy allegedly rejecting the supernatural ...
Until you start getting into the rituals — where the emphasis is placed on an individual's dignity and worth coupled with the capacity for self-realization through reason.
Too often this movement appears to transmorgify humans into those deviant liars call democrats, so called "progressives", the followers of George Soros, and other humans who lay waste to the earth in pursuit of their particular spin on humanity.
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- June 20, 2018
- Altered States
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From time immemorial man has assumed intoxication with various substances primarily as a form of recreation. These substances which provide escape have been many and varied ranging from various liquors and other alcoholic concoctions to cannabis and even the exotics like datura, salvia divornum, peyote, psilocybin, and a host of other means toward what is claimed to be elevated consciousness and/or the simple copping of a buzz.
Of late there has evolved industrialized intoxication utilizing substances like drain cleaners and solvents to produce high powered drugs of dubious quality made by amateur 'chemists' with many disastrous results from their use. These include freebase cocaine, the dreaded 'crack', and methamphetemine, ecstasy, the so-called "bath salts" and other chemical means to escape the surly bonds of reality.
The issue with all of these drugs, designer and engineered alike are those consequences such as the recent 'bath salts' epidemic with persons ingesting things not meant to travel metabolic pathways much less enter into synapse formation and activities of daily living ...
Now we have two newer modalities for altered consciousness in the form of 'alcohol smoking' with people breathing in fumes of concentrated ethyl alcohol via mechanical means for a mainline approach to pulmonary intoxication and 'vaping' whereby individuals intake a concentrated cigarette chemical laced vapor of nicotine, flavors, and other chemicals instead of lighting up and puffing on cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and so forth.
The issue, as with all the others remain those consequences which go unrealized, unrecognized, unsubstantiated and unintended. The means and the ends are progressively incongruent ...
Expand your consciousness only to have less of it over time. These dangerous approaches to ingesting alcohol and nicotine are fraught with very real morbidity for those who partake — yet proponents continue to do so at alarming rates.
The sad part about it all is the fact that these mechanisms of "getting off" receive participation with a consent which is sometimes totally uninformed. "Thinking something is safe" does not "make it so".
Investigate before ingesting. The hazards are a real and present danger to life as you know it. It's a tough thing to realize too late the folly of those popular notions which are borne of faulty logic and sold at a convenience store or elsewhere regardless of the sophistication of the purchaser. Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware!
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- June 19, 2018
- World Sauntering Day 2018
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Today is World Sauntering Day. It's a day for setting aside the rat race which our workaday world may frequently become ... and stroll through this sliver of life which presents itself this day with casual stylish form.
If you can, try to spend a few moments walking slowly with aimless happiness and embrace the crux of what the day is all about — the leisurely pace of a saunter instead of that wide open stressed-out trot to your next appointment !
Happy World Sauntering Day.
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- June 18, 2018
- Yesterday was Father's Day
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Yesterday was Father's Day. I didn't blog about it; but I did remember it ...
Only quietly in the background as both of my fathers, my biological father and step father are passed these long years and it's really not a celebration anymore more a time for wistful rememberances of those days gone by.
It was a hard thing to let them go so I have relegated them to those memories and I have small conversations periodically because it is my understanding and belief that they can hear and understand me from that other dimension to which I cannot go.
So I chose to spend the day celebrating my mother and the anniversary of her birth which occurs concurrently and toward that end I spent time sketching, blogging, and entertaining various silly notions during our visit of a few hours early in the day.
Call me old fashioned but this growing up and responsibility mess isn't as fun as that irresponsible young clod thing I used to have going on what seems like centuries ago.
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- June 17, 2018
- Happy Birthday Momsey
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Your Birthday
The years fall gently from thee, love,
as petals, when the blossom's done.
I gather each one tenderly,
and save the petals, one by one.
I place each one within my heart,
and very slowly, one by one,
the petals form a rose again...
forever sweet; forever young.
Martin D. Buxbaum
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- June 15, 2018
- Remembering Jim Varney
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I recall early on that my tolerance for Jim Varney was pretty low.
James Albert Varney Jr
American actor, writer, and comedian
June 15, 1949 – February 10, 2000
Therein is the crux of Ernest P. Worrell and 'Do ya know what I mean?' and Vern and that schtick which carried him so far and successfully through the commercial market, movies, and beyond.
It was that persistence of his characterizations which won me over after all.
That multitude of characters he often played concurrently were amazing gave me pause during his occasional interviews and all I could do is marvel at that very unassuming talent which was his classical thespian training which enabled him to produce flawless and consistently funny amalgums of those I have encountered during my lifetime.
In that clarity of hindsight I only wish I had gained the true appreciation for his talent much earlier for he passed very young from the sequela of chain smoking and I can only imagine his departure being that preventative of so much more which would have been ours to enjoy.
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- June 14, 2018
- Flag Day 2018
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I've always been pretty patriotic. I think it's drummed into military brats from the beginning. Some sort of subliminal indoctrination that is simply passed down.
I was obligated to show adequate respect for those ceremonial aspects of the presentation and retirement of the colors of the United States as far back as I can remember. There are many things far worse that acquiring some modicum of respect as a function of your activities of daily living.
Today is Flag Day in the United States, the day when we commemorate the adoption of our National Ensign.
The Second Continental Congress adopted the flag on June 14, 1777; which coincides with the adoption of the army of the continental United States by consensus of the Committee of the Whole on June 14, 1775.
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- June 13, 2018
- I Voted
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Yesterday we held primaries for various state and county offices. I went and duly voted at the polling place I have been assigned.
Those candidates for which I voted won their primary with the exception of the county council candidate.
I voted for the candidate who visited me. The man who won was an old friend from way back. These are the breaks.
I'm not a political animal and it simply doesn't weigh on me like it does others I know.
Visiting the polls is one of those civic duties I try to attend to each time upon which I am called. I figure that if you don't vote, you don't have any say whatsoever.
At least if I don't like what is going on I attempted to steer thing in that direction I thought was more beneficial for the local constituency.
It's a difficult matter to keep up with everything sometimes. I entered this election without knowing a lot of the issues.
I spent some time with the various literature sent by the candidates and the actual voting took miniscule time ...
But the correct choice remains to be seen on my end anyway.
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- June 13, 2018
- fatties and uggos
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OK ... had a taste of disturbing moment on a Big Bang Theory syndication on the teevee last night. Raj and Stuart are riding with Bernadette and Howard when they started discussing problems communicating with women.
Howard suggests that if Raj is intimidated by talking to attractive girls, maybe he should practice by talking to regular people.
With a look of disdain he says "You mean like fatties and uggos?" to which Bernadette softly suggests maybe just stop talking.
It has been my experience that in that dull throb which sometimes evolves from interpersonal relationships it's far better to be who you are as opposed to appearing to be that which you aren't.
In my life I went from a young fattie who was uggo to a 28 year old superman adonis in blue jeans and now I'm just an old fattie uggo.
However, I'm much more authentic from a standpoint of "me" at this stage of the game than I ever was in my heyday.
Now, if I could only quit consciously toying with people for the fun of it.
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