Category: Uncategorized

A Two-Year Old Anti-Trump Blog Was My Most Popular Ever. What Else was in the Top Ten?

four-fathers-for-four-years
Four Fathers for Four Years

This month marks four years of my online blogging. What started as “Downsize, Maybe,” a chronicle of Barb and I building our empty-nester home, morphed and metamorphosized in ‘Getting More from Les,” —  topically diffuse, told with different voices, but always with the goal of having at least one reader say “yeah, I get that.” With over 350 posts and 175000 words, I could have written two average novels (that’s average in length, not necessarily in content.) But for immediate feedback, there is little that beats blogging.

When people ask what my favorite post is, I usually say that it is the most recent one, whichever that is. The newest baby is always the freshest, the one with the labor pains foremost in memory. All very subjective. But as to which posts have been most widely read, there is factual and objective evidence via Google Analytics, a program that tracks every hit on the blog site. I may not know who is reading the blog, but I can tell what they are reading.

So looking back over the last four years, here are the ten blogs with the highest readership:

10. Would We Still Want to be on Family Feud? We never got the call, but we KNOW we would have won.

9.  Seven Words Pathologists Should Never Use  A reaction against a surprising story from the CDC.

8. Woodman’s Market. This Wisconsin Invader is Worth a Visit. An unsolicited glowing review of Woodman’s Market. I still shop there.

7. A Middle of the Road Democrat’s Letter to Presiden-Elect Trump. Some pre-inauguration requests from a more naive me.

6. Is Curiosity Worth Losing a Job Over? Lessons from the Jessie (sic) Smollett Affair. A look at how some Northwestern Medical Center  employees fared worse than Jussie Smollett.

5. Trump News Conference: Both Sides Responsible for Solar Eclipse. You never know what he will say next!

4. Is Terry Boer’s Autobiography the Bore of a Lifetime?  My zombie book review. It keeps rising from the dead.

3. An Open Letter to Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines. Yes I grumbled over having to spend a night in Detroit instead of Miami.

2. Carson’s Department Stores are Closing for Good and I Care. Do You?  Reminiscing over a lifetime with a Chicago icon.

And at #1 on the hit parade, by a wide, wide margin. This post didn’t quite go viral, but it at least went bacterial.

1. It is Time to Repeal and Replace Donald Trump. My feelings during the health care legislation situation. Who thinks my feelings have changed since?

So that, in a nutshell are the highlights of the last four years. I don’t know what’s ahead for the next four years, but I promise to keep writing and do my best. Thanks to all the loyal readers. Keep those cards and letters coming!

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Is the Next Best Generation Saying Goodbye?

for-anniversary-sepiaI had a getting-to-the-end-of-the-year tax planning phone meeting with my long time accountant the other day. Well, actually it wasn’t with my longtime accountant. The meeting was with a perfectly capable younger accountant to whom he has transferred the nuts and bolts of my financial life. It’s a phenomenon that I am experiencing more and more. It’s not about me; it’s about the aging of my generation.

The changes were presaged when my dentist merged his solo practice with a larger group a few years ago. My dentist was assuredly NOT of my generation. He has been taking whacks at my teeth since I was a pre-teen. He has always been good for a lament about the White Sox (except in glorious 2005) and one awful off-color joke. But Florida fairways have been calling to him with ever-growing frequency and it has become hard to schedule my 6-month visits with him. Through no active choice of my own, I have become a patient of the youngster in the practice, who will now be responsible for my continued ability to chomp on granny smith apples as my old fillings begin to crumble.

Next, my internist, another White Sox fan, announced his imminent retirement while spreading the word that his nephew would be joining his practice. The implications were clear. This time I took action, reasoning that as long as I was going to need a new internist, I might as well choose one closer to home and with more experience than a newbie (I know, I know, I was once a young physician too.) So I made the switch, even though in the interim Internist #1 has delayed his retirement. I’ve had some nice conversations with my new practitioner, though I have not yet broached whether she is a Sox or Cubs fan.

Oh, and Barb and I had a nice Greek dinner with our financial advisor the other evening. Let me clarify. It was with our financial advisor and his son. Yup, the transition there has begun there as well, as Advisor Père spends more time roasting in Arizona while Advisor Fils assumes the duties of safeguarding our future retirement. I hope the young whipper-snapper knows what the word means, and the fears that can accompany approaching it!

There have been a few exceptions to the hand-over pattern. When my corporate attorney passed away at a much-too-young age, his office mate declined to take over our file. But since my new corporate attorney is older than I am by a year or three, I expect I will be introduced to a young go-getter the next time I need a legal consultation. My hair-stylist still has three kids in grammar school. I suspect I will be her client as long as there are hairs on this head–at least another year or two. As for my tennis trainer, he will never retire; he’ll still be telling me to get my toss up higher when he is six feet lower.

As my contemporaries say sayonara, their gravity exerts its pull on me. We aren’t the “Greatest Generation,” but maybe we are the “Next Best Thing” and it will soon be time to relax.

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Ten Headlines You Never Will See-It’s No Joke

no-guns

You won’t see these headlines in your morning news feed any time soon.

  1. Archer Arrows Kill 10 in Crowded Club
  2. Crazed Slingshotter Stones 15 on School Playground
  3. Upset Jockey Whips Seven to Death in Paddock
  4. Frenzied Fencer Fatally Fragments Five
  5. Neo-Nazi Lumberjack Axes Four to Death at Rally
  6. Slighted Sumo Wrestler Stomps Eight
  7. Ancient Mace used in Mass Murder
  8. Crowbar Criminal Kills Nine
  9. Former Spy Wielding Poison Tipped Umbrella Kills 17 at Festival
  10. Beleaguered Butler Bashes Seven at Gala Dinner

And one headline that never seems to go away

Mass Shooting in (fill in the blank). (Pick your number) Dead

Isn’t it time we do something about it?

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photo credit: wuestenigel <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/43016009525″>Blacklist</a&gt; via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;

The Election is Over. Now Thinking Outside the Box for Amazon HQ2

election-and-amazon-2
Maps of congressional districts (left) and Amazon HQ2 choices (right.)

Amazon must be seeing blue.

One election is over. It’s the big one, with decisions on federal, state, and local elections. There will be a change in our next Congress with the Democrats winning the majority in the House of Representatives. But what I see when I look at an electoral map is lots of blue on the coasts, but a big red middle. Oh sure, there are some Democrats away from the Atlantic and the Pacific, but it is mostly in urban areas, our own metropolitan Chicago for example.

But one more election, or more properly, a selection, is coming. Amazon will soon choose HQ2,  the second headquarters of one of the biggest success stories of the last 20 years. The pins in the green map above are areas that have met Amazon’s list of requirements, from available big buildings to abundant labor to transportation to quality of life. These are the 20 locations still in the running for the billion dollar Amazon lottery prize.

Put one map on top of the other and what do you see? With the exception of Toronto (and do we really think the headquarters will be in Canada?) all of Amazon’s choices are rolling in the blue. That’s where the facilities, labor, and culture that Amazon wants for its headquarters seem to be located.

But what if Amazon had taken a different approach? What if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had said “We want to be pioneers. We want to find a city, a region, a state that needs us more than we need them. We can bring jobs, help create infrastructure, attract top-notch engineers. We can provide a stronger tax base that will lead to better schools and improved healthcare. We might not have a symphony overnight, but we can learn of, and support, the local culture. We can be the new frontier.”

And what if Amazon were only the first? What if all those new unicorns looked beyond Silicon Valley and Wall Street and brought their economic might to all areas of the country? They could stop making “liberal elite” dirty words to half the population.

Oh, I know it is a terrible short-term business proposition. Sthareholders would hate it. They would want to replace the Board of Directors, cast out the CEO. The Dow Jones would feel the ripple.

But wouldn’t it be nice if the world were a little more purple?

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Democrats Seek Hoaxer for Nation-Wide Opportunity

trump-and-blasey
President Trump calls Dr. Ford’s allegations a hoax.

It was all a Democrat inspired hoax! At least that is what President Trump now has to say about Christine Blasey Ford and her allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Wondering how those sly Democrats (almost)  pulled it off I decided to do some research.  I hit paydirt when I found the following want ad in the July 10th edition of the Tribune, just a day after the Kavanaugh nomination. It was listed under the category of “Jobs No One Could be Paid Enough To Do.”

The want ad read:

Wanted: Middle-aged professional woman to play the role of “hoaxer”  in the nationally televised production of Let’s Screw Brett Kavanaugh.

The successful candidate for this position must:

  • Have no history of political activity.
  • Have attended high school in 1982-1983 in the vicinity of Georgetown Preparatory School.
  • Have previously discussed with husband and therapist a fraudulent attempted sexual assault against her while a high school student.
  • Be willing to compose phony letters describing above and submitting them to her congressional representatives.
  • Have the ability to illegitimately pass a polygraph (lie detector) examination verifying the above.
  • Be willing to have her name released to the media.
  • Be willing to face death threats.
  • Be willing to relocate her home and go into hiding.
  • Be able to testify in a Senate hearing in a manner that the President of the United States might call “compelling” and “very credible.”

Salary negotiable.

Please apply to Democratic National Committee or The Deep State. You know where to find us!

Poor Dr. Ford. I’m sure it is one job application she wishes she had passed up.
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