Headlines #3

I think Congress should look into this one cause I'm sure it's below minimum waqe:

Haynesworth gets 7-year, $100 deal from Redskins

For those of you who didn't know the Redskins are a football team and Haynesworth gets paid for playing football. $100 spread out over 7 years comes to $14.29 per year or about 89 cents per game.

I'm all in favor of bringing pro sports salaries down, but this is a little too severe.

Goodbye to the Rocky

When we first moved to Denver in 1997, we were able to subcribe to both papers The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News for a ridiculous price of about $4 for 3 months each. So I did, just to see which one we liked better. The Denver Post had a more traditional broadsheet format (folds from top to bottom) and the Rocky Mountain News was a tabloid style (folds like a book).

The papers at that time were in a battle for subscribers and thus had the price wars for as low as a penny a paper at times. The battle continued until a joint venture for advertising and subscriptions between the two newspapers was started in 2001. Under the agreement, both papers would publish Monday through Friday, with the Rocky publishing a broadsheet edition on Saturday and the Post publishing the Sunday Edition. This amounted to reading essentially reading three different papers, and I've never really liked it. And the subscription rates skyrocketed to over $100 a year.

Somewhere along the line my wife and I got attached to the Rocky as it is called in Denver. We were used to the broadsheet papers from back east, but somehow over the years we got used to the smaller pages and sections of the tabloid style.

Today the Rocky Mountain News published for the last time. According to the joint venture the rest of my subscription will be filled out by the Denver Post. My subscription (which now costs $70 a year) runs out in September, at which time I probably will not renew, because we just don't like the Denver Post and probably won't read much of it. But maybe we'll get used to it as at least now we will only have to read one newspaper format all week instead of three different ones.

Defintely disgruntled about the news, but I've been expecting it for some time. It seems to be a trend in the newspaper business, especially those cities with more than one paper. It also probably not good news that the joint venture (which now absorbs the Post) had to renegotiate a $150 million dollar loan yesterday.

Farewell to the Rocky!

Life Happened...Part I

I saw the rest of my old friends
At our reunion at the Holiday Inn
And it seemed like it was only yesterday
Standing in the gym in our cap and gown
Full of wonderlust and glory bound

We set out to chase our dreams on wings of passion
But somewhere along the way we got distracted
Life happened

Our clothes went out of fashion with our songs
We started families and bought SUV's
Became step dads and soccer moms
I finally realized we turned alright
And we spent the night just catching up and dancing
And life happened

--Tammy Cochran "Life happened"

I can't help but get nostalgic about my own high school days and friends whenever that song comes on the radio or my Ipod. Over the years, I have joined several reconnecting sites like reunion.com or classmates.com and have gotten notes from a couple of people that I knew back when. The big problem is that they have had various costs and premium services to actually connect. The other problem was there was no online interaction between people. I sent a message out in April, the Recipient picked it up in February of the next year.

Then comes FaceBook, which until recently had been geared to the current high schoolers and college students (along with MySpace). I joined FaceBook last fall mainly to keep up with my own kids and my nieces and nephews ('phews as I call them--feel free to use it, I hope it catches on). I've slowly added friends and other relatives over the past months, mostly my kids friends--because obviously they've been at this for years, and why not--I like most of them and care about them and want to keep up with them too. Along the way, I've also come across people in my adult life.

I graduated from William Penn High School
in 1974 which if my math is still correct was 35 years ago. We had a class of nearly 500 people. Some I have been in contact with here and there over the years. At one point I had moved into a house across the street from one of my classmates. I've also been back for two reunions, the 10 and 15, and so far as I know we haven't had a reunion in the past 20 years.

Now all of a sudden, I am reconnecting with people I used to know on Facebook, bringing back many memories, mostly good, from the high school days. More and more people seem to be signing up for Facebook, and I hope to at least meet up with people virtually over time, as we reconnect.

Somewhere along the way we got to be 50 year olds, but over all it's been a very gruntling experience!

And one more thing: My clothes in high school were NEVER in fashion! :-)

Play Ball!

Two words can never be more gruntling to me, today marks the start of the exhibition season for Major League Baseball, and the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies (I love saying that!) got to work getting ready to defend their Championship along with the other 29 teams including my favorites, the Colorado Rockies.

It's also time for me to start evaluating the talent, so I can finalize my order for drafting my fantasy baseball team and determine who I keep from last year.

And once again I get to maximize my XM Radio subscription by listening to a lot of baseball from all over the country over the next 8 months.

In the meantime I'm heading to the mountains for a few days of skiing (and escaping the oppressive 70 degree heat of Denver) before resuming my job hunt in earnest.

Hope everyone has a Totally Gruntled day!

Weight Loss, Weight Gain, Weight Loss, WAIT!!!

Starting in January, 2005, I made the conscious effort to lose weight. My plan was to exercise more, and eat less. Yeah, sure that's what everybody says. But I was pretty successful losing about 25 pounds by August. (No, I'm not going to tell you my starting or ending weight).

By January, 2008 I had gained everything back plus about 10-15 more pounds, so I started again to try to lose weight. This time, we started using the smaller plates, which made smaller portions, we kept snacks in single servings around the house rather than great big bags, and even got Weight Watchers type ice cream and other desserts (also in single servings.) I cut out most sodas except for one or two diet sodas a week, and started walking more. Once again by August, I had lost 20 pounds. Between August and December, I gained back around 13.

So January, 2009 rolled around and I went back on the diet. In the first 8 weeks I've lost 8 pounds. I'm walking more, eating generally less, and I'm finding a lot of the usual treats too sweet (which I think is a good thing.

I'm not sure that setting goals doesn't frustrate me more, but currently my goal is to lose weight each week, even if it's only 1/2 pound. I also look at losing inches off my waist. Last year at one point I dropped 4 inches, and bought new pants that didn't look so baggy. When I gained the weight back, I put two inches back on and the smaller pants didn't fit anymore, or were tight and uncomfortable. I'm happy to say that I'm back down into the smaller waist sized pants, and hoping to go down 4 more inches this year.

And this year I will stay totally gruntled if I am able to keep the weight off between September and December.

Responding When Bad Things Happen

Many times we expect companies to be perfect and serve us well, but occassionally things happen, and I like to judge some companies I deal with on how they treat me when something adverse happens. Many of us choose Car or Home Insurance because the premiums are low, but I would never leave my insurance company (USAA) even if I didn't think they had good rates, because when I have had a claim, they have responded quickly. I had claims with other companies in the past, and they were a lot less responsive.

How about another industry--airlines for instance. Obviously they have been forced to cut back on services as they individually try to survive. I have been flying for business for the past 6+ years and have likes and dislikes about some of the airlines I have flown on. Since 2006, I have been flying almost exclusively on Frontier Airlines, based here in Denver. I find their flight attendants generally more friendlier than the others, the only delays I have experienced were weather related and never mechanical.

Last week, my wife and I flew to Nashville, as we went to visit our daughter and son-in-law in Knoxville. We checked three bags, none of them arrived in Nashville on our flight. Now in all the time I have flown, I have only had a lost bag once which is amazing in itself. In that instance it took nearly 24 hours to get the bag back. Kimmy, who was The agent on duty dutifully took our information (along with several others who were missing bags.) We told her we were driving to Knoxville (about 3 hours away) and she told us that it would be no problem to get them to us once they came in there. I asked her to call us if the bags came in on the later flight that night and she told me she would. She not only called me, but also had a courier ready on stand by to drive to Knoxville, Thursday night to deliver them around 3:00 in the morning as it turns out. We made arrangements with them to leave a signed note on the door and they were there the next morning for us.

When I checked in last night for the flight home, I happened to see Kimmy again and I thanked her for taking care of getting the bags to us with minimal delay. She apologized again for the delay (as if she personally had not loaded the bags onto the plane) and asked how our visit with our daughter went.

It's people like Kimmy who make a difference when things go wrong and I'm pretty sure I will continue to fly Frontier as long as they continue to fly.

As for the rest of us who are in the service industry, remember that it's not necessarily how things go right that will keep your customers, but it's how you handle things when they don't go right. Even if it's not your personal fault, you need to accept responsibility for your company and take care of the customer.

Here's to Kimmy, from one Totally Gruntled customer!

Opportunity Hunt Week 3

Time to make an update on my search for new employment. This week starts the third full week of the search, and so far there have been no solid leads that have ended up in an interview. There was one early in the first week that had been interested but they put the position on hold for the time being. It may surface again later, but we'll see.

My official layoff date was February 4, so I promptly filed for unemployment on Wednesday. This is the second claim for unemployment that I have filed in my life. I hate taking money from the government, but the money was put there essentially by my company, so in a way I can rationalize that it was one of the "perks" of my job. As soon as you sign up though (it's all possible online--no waiting in lines, yeah!) they send you about 10 things in the mail. Now apparently they can't send it all out as one package, they have to send everything individually--what a waste! I've now got the Handbook, a pin number (for my bi-weekly claims submission), verification of my income from my employer (and the fact that they laid me off), a calendar showing me which weeks I need to file my claims, an income tax withholding form, along with additional information from the County Job Works Center (which you also have to register with in order to collect your payments.

You never really know how important networking is until you need it. I have probably contacted about 20 people that I know over the years who I thought could help me, and then a couple other people have seen my resume back up on the job sites, and contacted me, and have even introduced me to some other people that they know that could help me. I still have another 10 people that I still need to contact.

There was another programmer who was laid off at the same time that I was, and he has managed to get on for a couple months at one of his former clients. A third programmer, who will probably get laid off at the end of her current contract, was extended from March to June, so that's good news for them and in a way, me too.

This week will be a short one in the job search, as we head to Tennessee Thursday afternoon through next Tuesday, for the holiday weekend to visit with our daughter, her husband and their friends. It should be a nice break, but I have lots to do before then.

Why I Love Living in Colorado!

I moved to Colorado in 1997 from the East Coast. Besides the great outdoors here (minus beaches), I've always thought that Colorado has a perfect climate.

In Delaware, which I always refer to either the Ice Belt or slush belt, we rarely got real snow. Most of the storms came due east from the west and usually occurred at temperatures around 30 degrees, which meant the storm either started or ended as rain. The best snow storms were the ones that came up from the south (gathering Atlantic Ocean moisture with it) and had a cold front in front of it, plunging the temps into the teens and 20's and would drop a foot or more of snow. The best winter there was 1979 when 3 such storms came in. The worst was 1994 when the conditions were just right that we had several Ice Storms--literally frozen rain coming down and creating natures ice rink on our lawns and roads--and folks, you just can't drive on ice.

The rest of winter in Delaware were Overcast warm days and cold sunny days, and the humidity was high, so the cold days in the 40's were bone chilling as well.

Now here in Colorado, we are on the last day of a string of about a week where the temperatures are in the 50's to 70's in January and February. Now of course tomorrow or Sunday it may snow, but right now people are pulling "Colorado Doubles"--Ski in the morning, Golf in the Afternoon.

The snow here is snow--real snow--the white fluffy stuff. Some of the spring storms are more moisture laden, but I can think of only one or two storms where it was slushy/icy. The day after the storms the sun comes up and the roads are bone dry because of the low humidity.

Even when it gets cold here, it doesn't seem as cold because as I always say "It's a dry cold". Single digits here especially when the sun is shining feels much warmer than 30 degrees back in the east.

Our first snow storm in Colorado came in October, 1997 when about three feet were dropped on us on a Friday and Saturday. The kids were ecstatic, because a similar storm had come in Delaware the spring before and they were off from school for an entire week, so they thought they were going to get significant time off from this storm. On Monday they went in an hour or two late. They weren't so gruntled about that.

So I'm going to finish this post and enjoy the weather. Hope it's nice where you are.

Jury Duty Part V: Reflections

Note: to read the case from the beginning start here

After the verdict we left the court room and went back to the Jury Room to wait for the Judge.

She thanked us again for our service and told us that the verdicts we gave were the ones that we had to based on the information we had. I'm still not certain whether she told us that to reassure us, or whether she truly believed it.

We asked some of the questions that had been bothering us. One of the biggest was that it seemed to us that someone could beat the DUI rap by refusing to take the Roadside Maneuvers as well as refusing the Blood Test (which prevented the prosecution from having a number introduced.)

The judge told us that there was a consequence to refusing the blood test--mandatory suspension of the driver's license for a year. We then asked if the prosecutor could have brought that information in, and the judge replied sure, she could have simply asked the defendant if his license had been suspended as a result of his refusal.

From the reaction of the other jurors, this simple fact probably would have changed the outcome of the trial. I'm still not convinced I would have gone for the DUI, but I would have been more likely to convict on the DWAI.

My overriding feeling is that the prosecutor blew it. She kept on pushing this idea that he didn't let us "look in his bag" while not letting us know that there was a huge consequence to not letting us look in his bag. She also put the forensic expert on the stand for no purpose, BTW--the delay on the first afternoon, was a hearing on whether or not the judge should allow the forensic expert to even testify! If I had any advice for the Prosecutor it would be to not overlook anything.

I'm sure the defense attorney thinks he did a great job, but IMO he didn't. But he didn't have to. The prosecution never really made the case, so there was nothing to really defend. I was actually annoyed by him asking the same questions the prosecutor had asked seemingly to confirm something to us. His one brilliant moment came when he only asked the one question to the forensic witness, and then promptly sat down. Had he made some attempt to defend the turn signal charge, he may have gotten his client completely off.

I think there's a good chance that the defendant "got away with it," but hopefully if he was drinking or drunk, he considers what he did and how much it cost him to successfully defend the charges. The next time he might be up against a better prosecutor, or this one learns from the experience.

Overall Jury duty was interesting enough, and I'd like to do it again. When I watch cases on TV or the movies, I realize you see all the sides and back and forth, but the one amazing thing to me is that--other than the things that were said in the courtroom, that we were told to disregard--the court system really did prevent us from hearing or seeing things that would prejudice our decision.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you really do have to decide the case on what's presented in court, and not personal feelings that develop regarding the participants.

Have a Totally Gruntled Day!

If I Won The Lottery...

I've always thought that if I won the lottery, I would put some money aside to give away. The rules would be that anyone who asks for money would not get any--ever. I always hear stories of people who win the mega-lottery and then go broke fairly quickly, and hopefully that rule would take care of the people who glom onto those who win lotteries to stay away from me.

Then I'd look through the papers and internet sites and find people who are deserving of something, because they did a selfless act for someone else. I remember when the Minnesota Bridge collapsed, there was a youth counselor on a bus that fell toward the river, who rescued the camp kids on his bus and made certain that they were all okay before he got out, without knowing what danger he was in. A story the next day said that he couldn't afford college so he went to work as a counselor. So I thought my imaginary lottery fund if I had it at the time would be used to help him go to college.

I bring this up, because there are many people in the world who act selfishly a lot, or for their own good, and some on the celebrity level seek adulation and recognition along with praise for relatively minor things that they do, while others toil every day in relative anonymity for no recognition at all.

Then you have people like Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who gained fame last month for the incredible landing in the Hudson River, and miraculously losing no one in the process, due to the efforts and training of the crew and passengers.

It's probably been a whirlwind month for the guy, what with TV interviews, Super Bowl Appearances, and his humbleness has been incredible. But I became aware of a small story today, that speaks volumes about the good Captain. One of the casualties of the crash in the Hudson, was a book that Captain Sully had with him that was left behind. Presumably, the book is in the Hudson or at the NTSB where they are inspecting the plane to determine what happened. However the Captain had borrowed the book, and despite everything that has happened in the three weeks since the accident, the Captain took time out to personally make sure the borrowee was aware that they weren't going to get the book back. He didn't get some assistant to do it, he did it himself. He actually called the library he borrowed the book from, and let them know he couldn't return it. The library waived the fee. Good for them! If I had my lottery fund they would get some books funded by it.

But the best part of this story is that the book--although we don't know what the exact title is--was purportedly on Professional Ethics!

Here's Wishing Captain Sully much Gruntledness!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Today is Groundhog Day, the day when Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of a hole and determines whether or not there will be 6 more weeks of winter or not. He bases this on whether or not he sees his shadow.

His Pronouncement earlier this morning (as translated from Groundhogese):

Hear Ye Hear Ye
On Gobbler's Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009
Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators
Awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper
And greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers,
Phil proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time
And a bright sky above me
Showed my shadow beside me.
So 6 more weeks of winter it will be.

He has been officially predicting for since 1887 and according to his website his predictions have been 100% correct.

I love the fact that a town gets up at an ungodly hour in early February and makes a spectacle out of a rodent predicting the weather. If only the human weatherpeople were accurate even half the time! Hmmm, maybe the stations should hire Groundhogs to give the weather forecasts.

Speaking of weather, I hope that anyone reading this blog who has been affected by the recent ice storms in the southeast are doing okay. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Odds and Ends:
This post marks the 6th day in a row that I've blogged. I'm going to try to keep it going at least until the 12th when I head down to Tennessee to see the kids.

Thanks for the comments regarding my Jury Service blogs. I kind of enjoyed the serial nature to it, and may do other stories in the future like that. Feedback is always great. And I will wrap it up later this week.

Steelers 27 Cardinals 23--What a game! Hope you enjoyed it Kim!

About Things Random Me

This is the list that is taking Facebook by storm. I finally broke down and wrote some things down.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you, but I won't be upset if you DON'T tag me back. If I tagged you, there’s no real special reason behind it, unless of course you tagged me and therefore I must tag you back—unless I don’t. (If confused see #14 )

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25. I’m a non-conformist

24. I like to make made up words and phrases from real words and phrases because I feel the other words should exist too. Examples are “Gruntled” and “Illegally Blind”

23. I used to be described as an introvert. Now I’m more of an extrovert, and can do some silly things sometimes, but I have never ever sung Karaoke in public.

22. I have been unemployed 5 separate times in my adult life ranging from 1 month to 1 and a half years.

21. Every time I get a job after being unemployed, I have been much better off than before.

13. I get annoyed with Oblivious people who seem to have no idea that other people exist around them.

12. My favorite oblivious people are those who stop at the very top of escalators for a moment before they decide where they want to go--forgetting that the escalator is still moving with people on it.

4. Sometimes I turn out to be one of those oblivious people.

18. I have been married for over 28 years.

10. My wife tells me I have been happily married for over 28 years.

2. I used to have two children.

6. Now I have four adults, because my two children have grown up and got married.

8. Raising my children to adulthood is probably the greatest achievement of my life.

5. Not going insane while raising my children to adulthood is probably my second greatest achievement.

20. I am not very religious, but I have a strong faith that there is a supreme being in charge of things.

17. I believe in karma.

9. I once left a job after 13 ½ years, and surprised just about all of the management. They thought I was a “lifer” and would never leave.

11. I was told that leaving that job would be a big mistake. I thought staying would be a bigger mistake.

13. After 12 years, I still think I was right.

7. I like to play games.

3. Game nights are big in my family.

14. Sometimes, I play games using different rules than everyone else is playing.

15. Some people refer to this as cheating, but I disagree.

19. I invented “Full-Contact Nertz” which is a wonderful enhancement to the game “Nertz”.

1. I belong to a professional organization that calls itself WUSS. I have also been called a geek. So I guess I am a WUSS and a geek. But I have a sense of humor.

26. Have I mentioned that I’m a non-conformist?

Be Gruntled! Enjoy the Super Bowl!