The glitch in my "Buy American" plan

I don't buy many things sight unseen.  I do buy a lot of things online, but I'll usually go to a store first, see / feel  the product, then go online to price-shop and buy.  (If it turns out my local retailer has a reasonably competative price, I'll just buy it there and be done with it.)  This is compounding the difficulty of my "Buy American" plan.  It doesn't do me much good to get a list of products made in America if I can't see / feel it at a retailer in my area.


Yesterday I went by REI Co-op, an outdoor products supplier.  I perused sleeping bags for K (I've had a good quality down one for years) and found that every single one they had was made in China.  Then I looked at vests they had on sale.  (I figured if everyone thought a vest was enough to keep them warm, maybe they knew something I didn't.  It just seems like half a coat to me.)  Again, none were made in America.  Their REI house brand, Patagonia, North Face, Marmot, Sierra Design....none made here.  A few were made in Vietnam, Bangladesh, or Indonesia, the rest from China.  The same with bicycles.  My one ray of hope was in kayaks.  I found one I like very much that was made in North Carolina.  It made my short list.  Actually it's a list of one.  It was a rather depressing trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have to work this afternoon and again next Sunday afternoon, but after that, the weekends are all mine.  Unfortunately, my weekdays will be all mine, too.  I haven't heard back yet from the doctor who I bid recently.  I do know they visited Friday with a banker I referred them to, so things are moving, just at a snails pace.  But after I get the current home I'm working on finished in a couple of weeks (photos forthcoming), and until I get a firm contract signed to start another, I'll be effectively unemployed.  It isn't as bad as it sounds as there will still be a nice income stream from the recently completed home.  Trouble is, I don't like to rock.  Or whittle.  :(

S

North Dakota invades Texas....w/ UPDATE

Actually I should say "North Dakota State University invades the Shops at Legacy".  (That's where I live.) Last night K and I went out for our usual Friday date night, then returned to our neighborhood to find the mother of all traffic jams.  What the....?  We managed to finally get to our controlled access parking garage, then walked down to Fun Street to see what all the commotion was about.


Background:  We live in a mixed use neighborhood....townhomes, apartments, and a large Marriott hotel all surrounding a small man-made lake, many upscale (read: overpriced) boutiques, an indie theater, a very popular jazz bar, and dozens of eateries of every description.  The main drag is Bishop Street, but I call it Fun Street because it is.


Things are usually jumpin' on most Friday nights with a thousand or so people milling about.  Last night there were 5-10 THOUSAND people on the street.  Most were wearing attire proclaiming their allegiance to North Dakota State University.  I asked a couple of guys what was going on and they told me NDSU was playing Sam Houston State University for the NCAA Division I Football National Championship in Frisco (a few miles north) on Saturday.  This was their Super Bowl, and our Marriott was their alumni association headquarters, reception hall, and party central.  Woo Hoo!


They were a happy, fun bunch.  (Wouldn't you be if you got to leave North Dakota for a few days in January?)  We referred a few who asked to the best area restaurants depending on their tastes and pocketbooks, and enjoyed seeing them having such a good time.


I suppose I should root for Sam Houston State U since they're a Texas team, but I'm not.  I want my new friends from ND to go home with great memories of their road trip, and making that looooong drive back north while nursing a crushing defeat (and maybe a hangover, too) would be a definite bummer.


GO NDSU!   ;)


S


UPDATE:  North Dakota State won, 17-6.  :)

I told you she was brilliant

Several weeks ago when my dog, Emma Belle, was very sick I rushed her to the vet's office as soon as they opened on Monday morning.  The vet took her to the back for an X-ray and some more blood work to find out what the problem might be, and said she would call me later in the morning with some news.  I fully expected to bring her home that afternoon.  Instead she called to say it was very bad, and our options were essentially nil.  I knew what had to be done, so I called K and we agreed to meet at the vet's office immediately.  When we walked in the vet met us in private and told us Emma had passed away about 20 minutes earlier.  


I always regretted that I wasn't with her when she passed.  Yes, I'm one of those people who "humanized" my dog.  I scratched her head, looked her in the eye and talked to her, asked her if she needed to go outside or was hungry, etc.  We talked a lot, she and I.  I had this haunting fear that she died alone on a cold, hard table, wondering "where is he?", or however you say that in dogspeak.


Last night on ABC Evening News, and also reported online, were the findings of a study that said dogs have cognitive abilities similar to that of a 2 year old child.  They listen, look you in the eye, follow your eyes if you turn to look at something else, know when you don't feel well, can understand a vocabulary of over 100 words, etc.  In other words, our humanizing efforts aren't wasted.  They know when they're loved and can often develop telepathic communication skills with their owners.  I guess you could say they're bilingual.


I'm glad to hear of this as it allows me to think she knew she was loved and that I had taken her to the vets office for treatment and was not abandoning her.  She knew me better than that.  :)


S

O'Billery for President?

One brief bit of political news, then on to other things:  Now the scuttlebutt is President O'Bama's political handlers are considering switching the jobs of Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and V.P. Joe Biden.  Apparently they think O'Bama / Clinton, H. would make for a stronger Democratic ticket.  Really?  I can't see Hillary bringing anyone new over to the Democratic party.  Anyone who would be enthusiastic about her being on the ticket probably wouldn't be caught dead with a Romney / Santorum / Paul bumper sticker on their car in the first place.  


Anyone remember the old days when you could do pretty much anything maintenance-wise on your own car right in your garage?  Now computers run everything on your car, and unless you have your own $50K engine diagnostic computer to plug into, you can do little more than change a tire.  Now I read that hackers are using new car's Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and On Star systems to sabotage them.  A wrecker company's dream come true?  Surely those fine upstanding folks wouldn't do that.  *snicker*


I'm still doing my every-other-day running, trying to get in shape for a 5K run some day.  It's a gradually increasing in intensity program that they say will get me built-up slowly without blowing out any important body parts, but I gotta say right now my legs feel like rubber.  I make a much better armchair quarterback than I do athlete.   Last night I watched a documentary, 180 South, about Yvon Choinard, the founder of Patagonia, and how to this day....he's in his early 70's....he still goes mountain climbing.  I say screw climbing mountains.  Right now I'm having trouble just climbing up onto my desk chair.  Ouch!


S

He 'da man....

....that would be Willard Mitt Romney, according to the voters in last night's Iowa caucus.  He nosed out Rick Santorum, who is vying with Michele Bachman to come across as the rightest of the right wingers.  She crashed and burned, leaving her free to go home and have a Tea Party.  Good 'ol Ron Paul still makes good sense now and then, in between lapses into mild insanity, and did well in Iowa, too.  And thankfully Iowans saw Newt "I'm different now, trust me" Gingrich as what he is, a hypocrite of the highest order, and Rick "look at my cool hair" Perry as simply a doofus.


Willard...er...Mitt should do well in New Hampshire, while Rick will feel right at home in South Carolina.  Ron has fringe appeal everywhere.  Of those, who is actually electable?  I'm guessing Willard Mitt. (Doh....I hate it when I do that!)  His past is liberal enough to be able to appeal to middle-of-the-roaders, and of course he has Wall Street money in his corner.  His buddies there are already salivating over their soon-to-be-swelled-even-more bonuses. Dom Perigone anyone?


Here's what concerns me:  If Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives and can gain control of the Senate (heaven forbid gaining a veto-proof 60 votes), AND see their nominee (Mitt?) win the White House, it will be seen as a mandate for the kind of hands-off / business-as-usual governing that gave us the economic debacle of '08.  The rich will get richer, while you and I....well, you know how that turned out.  Even with partisan politics being as rancorous as they are today, I think we need to split power between the parties.  The gridlock would be hell, but IMHO giving EITHER party a blank check to run the country as they saw fit would be even more disastrous.  What's so wrong with compromise?


What say you?


S

A different kind of "New Year's resolution"

I've never been big on making New Year's resolutions, mainly because mine never seemed to last past about February.  I think most people fall off their resolution wagon long before they meet their goal, so why bother?  Yet here we are starting a new year....again, and all over the blogosphere I see people proclaiming their resolutions for 2012. OK, I'll make one, too.


Well, actually, mine isn't so much a "resolution" but a pledge, as it isn't a black-and-white issue where you either win or fail.  *drum roll*  I pledge to do everything I reasonably can to buy products made in America, and to avoid as much as possible buying products made in China.  Understand, if you want an iPhone, it's going to be made in China.  If you want the latest, greatest child's toy, it's probably going be made in China.  You just can't escape it entirely, but I think in many instances we DO have a choice, and I'm gonna go out of my way to look for those products made in the USA, and I'm willing to pay a little more for them, too.


I think it's time we face the fact that saving a few bucks on a cheap imported product actually costs us more in the long run than we save.  Yes, as you walk out of the store you may feel like you saved $5 or $10 or whatever, but stop and think how many Americans are NOT working because their jobs were "outsourced" so the company could hire cheap foreign labor and make a little higher profit margin. (The stockholders demand it, they say.)  Whatever you saved is indirectly eaten up in welfare/unemployment benefits (your tax dollars).   At this rate, pretty soon we'll all be either cutting each other's hair or flipping burgers.  I say "enough"!


Anyone care to join me?


S

HAPPY TWENTY-DOZEN!

Happy New Year, everyone!  It's that time again....time to wring out the old, wring in the new, and just move on with our lives in general.  I for one was happy to turn out the lights on 2011.  It really wasn't a bad year, but just one I'd rather not replay.


I had a small but comfortable home to live in, more than enough food to eat, reliable transportation, and a job.  It saddens me to think of all the people who didn't have one or more of those luxuries.  The only thing that really matters, of course, is that I had my wife and my health.  Both K and I and our extended families were blessed with good health all year, especially my daughter Erica who's expecting my first granddaughter in April.  She and baby "Gladys" (kidding....I hope!) are doing great.  K's dad fell and broke his hip in February, but his recovery was so speedy his doctors are still shaking their heads in amazement.  That episode barely moved the needle on the "ill-health meter".


My real heartbreak in 2011 was losing my dog, my best friend Emma Belle, just two weeks ago.  I miss her more than you'll ever know, but I do have some wonderful memories of all the good times we had during the 6+ years she was in my life.  (When I got K I also got Emma, a pretty sweet twofer, don't you think?)


Looking at things in a macro sense, the world in 2011 was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami's, not to mention all the man-made catastrophes around the globe, just made me shake my head.  And I'll be darned if I can see a leader anywhere, now or even on the horizon, who can put things back together.  I'm just gonna keep my head down and try to slink through 2012 unnoticed.  As long as He's looking over me, and He is, I'll be fine.


On a positive note, every new year brings hope for a better tomorrow, so maybe this will be the year where everything good just falls into place.  After recently feeling myself falling back into some old habits, I'm pledging to myself to try and live according to Teddy Roosevelt's old adage, "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have."  Lot to be said for simple living.  


So how was your 2011?  Two thumbs up, two thumbs down, or just a "pass"?


S