Monday, February 27, 2006

look at the bright side

Now we find out that if you think positively and have an optimistic outlook, you have a better chance of living longer. This is the result of a study of 545 Dutch dudes. Here is the story.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060227/hl_nm/optimism_dc

You may recall that the study I cited earlier this evening about chocolate consumption leading to lower blood pressure was also a study of Dutch subjects.

This leads me to one inescapable conclusion. If you are optimistic about the possibility of getting some chocolate tonight, you’ll live longer. If your optimism is warranted and you actually do get some chocolate, your blood pressure will go down. If your blood pressure is down from eating chocolate, then you should live even longer.

I think I’m going to be optimistic that there is some chocolate downstairs, and perhaps I’ll live long enough to enjoy it. If that happens, the chocolate will be the elixir that feeds the cycle of good health.

The night is getting better and better here in Jimbo’s world.

sweet dreams are made of this

Those of you who come back to read this weblog on a regular basis know that I am always looking for tips to make us all more healthy. One theme that keeps coming up is that cocoa and chocolate are about the best thing you can eat if you want to stay healthy. Here is the latest I read today.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060227/ap_on_he_me/diet_chocolate_health

Now, those of you who know Jimbo, know that he has a history of high blood pressure and he takes an assortment of medications to keep that hypertension under control. Now it seems, Jimbo has been swallowing the wrong stuff. Had he kept a steady diet of chocolate, he would probably have such low blood pressure that people would misidentify him as someone who is laid back.

It seems the magic ingredient in chocolate is called flavanols, and whatever flavanols are—they sound flavorful, don’t they—they increase nitric oxide in the blood, and I guess that’s good.

Damn! Life is full of missed opportunities. While I was typing the paragraph before last, Jimbo’s girlfriend called from the supermarket. She has to wait at the pharmacy there for twenty minutes to get a prescription filled. She asked if there was anything I needed. I could have had her fill a shopping cart with chocolate candy and get some cocoa mix and bring it home to me. Maybe she could have gotten some cookies, too. You know, the ones with chocolate all over the outside, or maybe some chocolate chip cookies.

And when she got home from the store, I could have had her open the candy and pour it in a large bowl and put it on the kitchen table. I could just bury my face in all that chocolate in the bowl and eat it like a dog would, without using my hands. In just a short while I would be able to feel that chocolate coursing through my veins like a very healthy screaming brakeman, on the railroad to good health. I’d have so much nitric oxide flowing through me that high blood pressure would simply be an unpleasant memory.

You know, I’ll bet the cost of that chocolate could be considered a tax deduction—right up there on the top of Schedule A of form 1040. In that case chocolate could make us healthy, wealthy and wise. Okay, healthy and wealthy, anyway.

I don’t know about you, but I think I need to get downstairs right away and see if we have any chocolate in the house. Maybe the rest of you should follow my lead. Because we never can be too healthy.

At least that is our mantra, here in Jimbo’s world.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

whistling through a graveyard

Have you ever walked through a graveyard and you were the only one there? I felt like that Friday as I was walking across the manufacturing floor where I work. The people on the shop floor are trying to get their vacation time used up before the place is shut down, and so, on a spring-like Friday, people were taking the day off. I couldn’t help thinking that in a few months, the place will be void of people every day of the week, and that got me thinking some more.

There was a sign over the copy machine the last place I worked that said something like:

If you don’t think your customer is most important, think again!

There was a sign above the urinal saying something like:

If you’re not thinking about pleasing your customer right now, you can be sure your competitor is

The only sign above the urinal where I work now is:

Wash hands before returning to work

The truth of the matter is that I have never worked anywhere that didn’t have signs all over the place reminding everyone how important the customer was, with the exception of the place where I am currently working.

“Ah,” many of you are probably thinking right now, “No wonder they are shutting the place down.”

While your conclusion might seem to be valid from the point of view of signage, I will respectfully contradict your thought. We don’t need signs all over the place to remind us, because we are the single-mindedly most customer-focused organization I think I have ever witnessed. If our customer orders something this morning that we agree to stock for him, the order ships today. If he orders something special that has to be made from scratch, it’ll probably ship today, but it will ship tomorrow, for sure, if not. If he wants something just a little longer or shorter than his specification, we’ll change the specification and ship right away. We’ll bend over backward and spare no expense to get our customers exactly what they want by tomorrow at the latest, even if they haven’t imagined what it is, yet, and it has never been designed or made before. And, we’ll do it for a rock-bottom price.

Your first reaction to that statement is probably wonder as to why a company so customer-focused is shutting down. Your second reaction is probably complete awe about how totally customer-conscious they must be at the facility to where our jobs are being sent.

My response to your first reaction is that we are shutting down because we are so customer-focused. And my response to your second reaction is that, no, they are going to turn down many of those orders we have accepted routinely and they are not going to lose money meeting almost impossible deadlines and working overtime selling low margin, low profit orders. They are not going to be customer-focused and they are going to continue to be successful.

The truth be told, if one provides the customer with exactly what the customer wants at the price the customer wants to pay, it will be at a price level that won’t allow any profit. Customers always want to pay the lowest possible price for something. I’m a customer and I want the lowest price I can get. I would venture to say that you, too, prefer to pay a bargain price.

“So, Jimbo,” most of you are asking right now, “Is this is the point in this story when you tell us your solution on how to fix the problem? Is this the time when you tell us how we can make everything better? What is your grand idea to solve this dilemma?”

I dunno.

It’s the law of supply and demand and it is not going to be repealed soon. That is, unless you are big oil and you have your guy in the white house and you know you can have your customer bend over his car on a regular basis and violate him with the nozzle of the gas pump. Perhaps we should exhibit a modicum of intelligence and make sure that next time we have the chance to step into the voting booth, we vote the rascals out.

As for the rest of us in our everyday lives, we just have to do the best we can. Make your customer happy, but do it without giving away the store.

We don’t have the answer, but we’re working on it. Our recommendation is that next time you walk alone through a graveyard, try whistling. Maybe it will scare away whatever is out there waiting for you.

At least, we think it’s worth a try, here in Jimbo’s world.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

who got game? we got game!

Jimbo’s girlfriend doesn’t have the love for the game.

No, I’m not talking about no-limit Texas hold ‘em, although she doesn’t like that one, either. I’m talking about the great game invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, by a guy they called The Deaner. It’s played on a hardwood court 50’ wide and 94’ long, with two 18” iron hoops mounted ten feet above the court, near each end of the court. Most notably, there is a large semicircle on each end of the court 19’ 9” from the center of the iron hoop, behind which a man whose prime time has past can extend his playing years, if he can stroke the three-ball.

The Deaner brought his game west to Lawrence, Kansas, where he became the first head basketball coach at the University of Kansas. Although the building in which the University of Kansas plays its basketball games is named after another legendary Kansas coach, Forest C. “Phog” Allen, the court in that building is named James A. Naismith Court, after the school’s initial coach.

You may recall last year after the Kansas team was eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tournament, I lamented the loss and predicted when winter again came to the Midwest, the Jayhawks would be back to form. Let me take you back to that lamentable day last March.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/03/ncaa-tournament-crimson-and-blues.html

I had a chance last fall to have a drink with some friends. One of them told me that the team should be good this year, only young and probably inconsistent. When the team started out with a losing record and didn’t seem to be getting better, I started to doubt that Mike knew what he was talking about.

Unfortunately, when winter came, the Jayhawks fell flat. It was only when the spring winds blew that the team started to look like a Kansas basketball team. Fortunately, winter showed up in the fall and spring arrived sometime in mid-January this year, here in the Midwest. There was a Saturday afternoon at home when we were beaten by Kansas State—something that is unheard of. Then, the following Monday night it was Missouri beating us in overtime and I thought that it was the single worst performance I had ever seen by a Kansas team. I began to doubt.

I don’t watch all of the games like I used to, because, as I mentioned, Jimbo’s girlfriend is not a fan of the game, nor a believer. I watched that Missouri game from beginning to end. How, I thought, could they dig themselves out of this hole?

Well, tonight Kansas plays Texas and the winner has sole possession of first place in the Big Twelve. Kansas hasn’t lost since the Missouri game six weeks ago. Of course Mike was right as he is most of the time.

Tonight will be a big game, but when the days start getting longer and March is only a few days away on the calendar, the games that count are still ahead of us. One of the announcers on ESPN on that ragged Monday night against Missouri said that the loser might risk not going to the NCAA tournament. No matter what happens tonight, the crimson and blue should be there when they start playing for real in March.

And you know we’ll be watching, here in Jimbo’s world.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

a man and his dogma

Jimbo was reading the news online this morning so he could ad lib comments on this blog site after seeing items in the news. I came across an article about Pat Robertson saying that the televangelist was losing favor with some of his ecclesiastical contemporaries for some of the off the cuff comments he makes. While I was wholeheartedly agreeing with the opinion of his peers, I read that Robertson had been interviewed on a recent segment of Good Morning America and he commented that he likes to ad lib comments after seeing news segments.

Oops!

Does that mean that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Pat Robertson and Jimbo? Does that mean that Pat Robertson and Jimbo do the same thing? Does it mean that both give their comments about religion, politics and life in general and are mirror images of each other—except that Pat will occasionally lead his audience in prayer?

Nah!

Jimbo would never call for the assassination of a foreign leader. Jimbo would never say that God would turn his back on a small town in Pennsylvania because they practiced logical thought. Jimbo would never say that God had struck down the leader of another foreign country because the man went against something some English King had translated from some ancient scrolls and attributed it to God.

Jimbo has never claimed to be the spokesman for God, nor has he ever tried to put words in God’s mouth. Okay, maybe once or twice.

The biggest difference, however, is that Jimbo will cut you some slack. Pat Robertson will promise you hell if you act up just a little bit. Jimbo will let you slide, as long as we’re all sure you are trying to behave. With Pat, it’s all black and white.

We have shades of gray and all the colors in the rainbow, here in Jimbo’s world.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

guns don't hurt people-- vice-president's with guns do

It appears that a member of the Bush administration took a day off from injuring the mass of the American people on Saturday and ended up hurting someone he was with.

The story goes that Vice-President Cheney shot his hunting companion with a shotgun in a hunting accident yesterday. Here is the story:

Dick Cheney: gunslinger

When you go to bed tonight, say a prayer to whatever deity you worship thanking him (or her) that you are not a hunting buddy of the Vice-President.

The veep never extended the invite to us, and we are glad, here in Jimbo's world.

friends and lovers

It appears I may have a bit of a wrong to right. After reading my blog yesterday, my girlfriend insisted that I had misread her feelings and that she was, indeed, sympathetic to my situation. She is concerned that my family is going to think she is a “bitch” and that she has a callous attitude toward my current state of affairs.

We had this conversation yesterday, on the way to Wal-Mart, where she purchased some high-quality printer paper that made ones resumes look more professional and offered a better chance of the user’s resume to be noticed by potential employers.

I would like to apologize for any misstatement that I may have made or any misreading of her feelings on this matter. It is good to know she is behind me 100%.

And that is good news, here in Jimbo’s world.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

pounding the pavement

I’ve written in the last week about the tragedy that has befallen me. I’m not looking for sympathy, mind you, but I am getting a negative vibe around chez Jimbo’s girlfriend.

“I think you wanted to lose your job,” the little woman told me.

“No, dear,” I responded.

I think Jimbo’s girlfriend is a little like George Thorogood’s landlady in the song One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer. While Thorogood aficionados probably remember the discourse verbatim, let me remind the uninitiated of the conversation between the two.

The landlady said, "You got the rent money yet?",
I said, "No, can't find no job"
Therefore I ain't got no money to pay the rent
She said "I don't believe you're tryin' to find no job"
Said "I seen you today you was standin' on a corner,
leaning up against a post"
I said "But I'm tired,
I've been walkin' all day"
She said "That don't confront me,
long as I get my money next Friday"
Now next Friday come I didn't have the rent,
and out the door I went

Now, Thorogood’s song is the sad tale of a brother whose job parted ways with him, much as mine is going to in a few months. The song is the lamentation of the difficulty of finding another job in the economy that has been raped, pillaged and destroyed by the Bush administration. While many of you would be quick to remind me that George was not the original artist to record the song, and some might even say it was John Lee Hooker, I think I can successfully support my facts. The song was actually written by Amos Milburn and recorded by Hooker, but the original song didn’t have the story of George and his landlady. From what I have researched, that part was pure Thorogood. Some of you might correctly remind me that Thorogood performed the song and wrote the part about his landlady many years before Bush was elected President. I would contend that Thorogood’s artistic sensibilities helped him anticipate a day when the Bush administration would wreck the economy and leave guys like his character and me out pounding the pavement, looking for work. I also contend that he anticipated that there would be those who didn’t believe we were dedicated in our search for employment. Anyway, back to my story.

I don’t believe my girlfriend believes I am actually sincere in my grief. These weren’t her exact words, but this is a paraphrase that I believe depicts her actual opinion.

“I think you’re happy that you’re going to lose your job,” she said. “Now, while I’m at work all day, putting in the long hours, slaving for our rent, you will be out enjoying yourself. You’ll be sitting in some smoky gambling hall with your unsavory associates, smoking cigars, leering at the waitresses and telling your ribald stories. You’ll be playing pool and poker all day long and watching sports on television, wagering on the outcomes of the games. You’ll be drinking away all your severance pay, along with your friends, who won’t remember who you are when all of your money is gone. You’ll stay out late and come home in the middle of the night reeking of whisky and smoke and looking for loving. You’ll be piddling away your productive years in a life of sloth and debauchery and playing around on the Internet.”

“But, dear,” I’ll respond, “You know I don’t drink. Especially when I’m playing poker.”

This, unfortunately, will not dissuade her from thinking negatively about me. I suppose it always has been and always will be the lot of the workingman to suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” and the skepticism of those who don’t believe we are actually trying hard enough.

And, that is our sad tale this morning, here in Jimbo’s world.

Friday, February 10, 2006

feed the kitty

Last night we faced danger. If you are squeamish about bloodshed and violence, please don’t read on, as the following tale will send cold chills down your spine and your usual pleasant sleep will be interrupted by nightmare visions of impending doom.

Our night began much as in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Instead of a ship called the Nellie, our journey into darkness began in my car—a faithful beast that has gotten me and mine to many a far-flung destination. The sky, to paraphrase Conrad, “seemed condensed into a mournful gloom.”

Just as Conrad’s story had formed a basis many years after it was written for the movie Apocalypse Now, it might as well have formed the basis of our journey. While we were not seeking Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, the object of our escapade was just as frightening. No! It was even more frightening.

“The horror! The horror!”

Perhaps I should start at the beginning, because the story begins so benign. What could be more wholesome than for a mother to tend the pet of her son while he traveled across two states to attend the wedding of a young man and woman? Ah, the betrothal of a young couple—a fresh springtime in the prime of life. The young man who journeyed those many miles to attend the wedding was the son of Jimbo’s girlfriend, the mother who would attend to the needs of her son’s cat in his absence.

On the first night of the young man’s journey, his mother came to his apartment, fed and watered the feline and then came home to the arms of Jimbo—a gentleman with whom she shared her life.

“That stupid cat hissed at me,” she said upon arriving home. “He scratched me, too. I’ll have to put peroxide on this. I guess I got too close to him while he was eating.”

She showed me her bleeding hand.

“Never get close to a cat when he’s eating. I’ll go with you tomorrow night and help out,” I told her.

Sometimes twenty-four hours can pass in the blink of an eye, and in that amount of time, it was necessary to go back to feed the cat again.

When we arrived at the apartment, the cat was in a back bedroom with the door closed, as he had been left the night before. When we opened the bedroom door the cat ran out, seemingly happy to see us. I reached down tentatively and petted the cat’s head with my index finger. The cat pressed himself against my hand, as cats will do and sort of petted himself with my fingers. I took the cat’s water and food dish and rinsed it out and put fresh water in it. The entire time the cat was rubbing up against my leg. Sure, when I tried to put the dish back on the floor, next to his litter box, the cat was rubbing against my arms and we spilled a little water, but cats will get a little anxious when it’s dinner time. I rinsed out the coffee pot in the kitchen sink and put a little water in it and poured it into the dish. The cat followed me back to the kitchen and I reached down to pet it again after putting the coffee pot back into the sink.

This cat has been given a bad rep, I thought to myself. He can be very friendly and he is not at all as mean as he has been described to me. It was at that point the cat hissed and swung his paw at me, scratching the side of my hand and putting a claw deep into the palm. I went into the bathroom and got a piece of toilet paper and soaked up the blood with it. My girlfriend recommended I put peroxide on it, which I did. Afterward, she went back and finished cleaning out the litter box.

The cat re-entered the bedroom and saw my girlfriend straightening up after bending over to close the bag of litter. From seven feet away from her the cat leaped and buried his claws into her upper arm. Jimbo escorted the cat from the room and closed the door as his girlfriend swore oaths. Although the state senate is debating making carrying concealed weapons legal, the law has not yet been enacted. Therefore, fortunately for the cat, neither of us were in possession of firearms, so his life was spared.

We treated her wounds much as we had treated my own, and then we put food in the evil feline’s dish and the cat went about eating. One of us walked near the cat and he hissed again, and again my girlfriend swore oaths. The cat looked up at us with the eyes of Beelzebub himself—red as the fires of hell—so we booked it out of there, turned out the lights, locked up the apartment and left.

Yes, we had looked deep into the eyes of Satan and deep into the heart of darkness, and we lived to tell the tale. We discussed it much more that evening, and my girlfriend swore oaths many, many more times. Sometimes it is necessary for a man to go to hell and back—and a woman, too.

It certainly makes a tale for the ages here in Jimbo’s world.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

a long day's journey into unemployment

This blog is just for me and just to vent, so please don’t feel obligated to read it if you don’t want to.

Fifty-one weeks ago yesterday I had a job interview. I interviewed with five different people and I felt I did well. Fifty-one weeks ago today I wrote a blog on the nature of work. It was unremarkable. Fifty-one weeks ago Thursday was my brother-in-law and sister’s anniversary, and the day I was offered a job by the company with whom I had interviewed on the previous Monday. Here is the blog I wrote about that.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/02/anniversary-and-event.html

Fifty-one weeks ago Saturday I began working at that job, where I have been, since. I’ve told you the stories of my travels on several occasions last year that were required by my job, but what I may not have told you about are some of the successes I have achieved. When I started working there I was told by one of the senior managers that I would have my hands full and that the two previous incumbents in my position had failed to be able to control the situation. It appears one of them was universally hated and either that one, or the other had just walked out the door one night and never came back. I found immediately that the company had extreme supply chain problems. I was told that “We’re out of everything all of the time.”

While that had to have been an exaggeration--because I remember the first day there I saw there were some materials in some of the stocking locations—it wasn’t far from the truth. And a successful manufacturing company needs to have the proper materials in stock in order to be able to produce finished product on schedule. Unfortunately for this company they had some serious problems. Fortunately, they had the good sense to hire me. It wasn’t overnight, but the problems went away.

I’m not one to brag on myself, but I’ve had a lot of experience and I’m good at what I do. Okay, maybe I do brag a little.

During the last nine months of last year, the supply chain problems solved, it exposed the fact that the company was having manufacturing problems. In September, they fired my boss. I figured they would put me in his place, but they brought in a temporary boss from another plant and sort of let us fight out who would be the top guy at our plant. We continued to have manufacturing problems, but our supply chain was just fine.

Anyway, in December things were going pretty well, but I decided I needed to turn it up a notch. I sent a memo to management telling them that their supply chain management had been third world when I showed up there and I had obviously improved things, but now I was ready to make the management of materials first-rate. I came in to work the first day of the year ready to kick ass. There was an announcement that day that our company had been purchased and the rumors started immediately that our plant would be closed down.

I put in eight hours on a Saturday and several ten-hour days and I had everything really in good shape by the end of January. We were all convinced that it was just a matter of time until they closed down our plant, but I wanted to go out on top.

Today, fifty-one weeks and one day from the day I interviewed for the job, we had a management meeting and they told us they were shutting down the facility. They gave us termination letters and my last day will be May 8. I have three months to work and look for another job. I’ll get four extra weeks of pay if I stay until the end.

Later in the day, there was a meeting with the entire workforce where they broke the news. Many of the rank and file were peeved, but there was no violence. The cop they brought in was nondescript, not uniformed and not needed.

So this is the beginning of the end. It’s been a good ride and worthwhile, but it will be over soon.

What is the next adventure that awaits us here in Jimbo’s world?

Sunday, February 05, 2006

plan 9 from washington, dc

Last year I watched the DVD of Ed Wood starring Johnny Depp as the title character. Wood, of course, was a director who made weird movies. His movie Plan 9 From Outer Space could very well be the worst movie ever made. I can speak from first hand experience because after seeing the movie Ed Wood, I watched Plan 9 From Outer Space. It was bad.

There is no doubt that Ed Wood aspired to make good movies and he was passionate in what he did. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t very good. You have to give credit to the man, however. He may have been a cross-dressing weirdo and he may not have had the artist’s eye or the journeyman’s skill, but he pursued his passion. Many of us have a passion for something and we never get the opportunity to pursue it. For example, Jimbo has always thought he would like to handle the rock in the NBA. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) his opportunity has not materialized. You just don’t see enough retirement-aged fat, bald white guys, who can’t run or jump playing in the National Basketball Association.

On some occasions, however, one sees examples of men who have a passion for something who manage to achieve a position of influence—like Ed Wood—who share Mr. Wood’s lack of competence for what they do. I saw an example last week of such a man, when I tried to sit through a TiVo-ing of the State of the Union Address. I quit watching after a while. I was reminded that we actually legitimately elected this guy once. I’m sure the man is pursuing his passion. I just liked it better when his passion was dope and booze and he was not steering the ship of state—or trying to.

I was hoping that the image of Leonard Pynth-Garnell would come on to the screen and tell us, “Oh, that was really bad, wasn’t it? That was our own Ronnie Bateman playing the part of the President of the United States.”

By the way, I quit watching right about the point that I thought there was a possibility that Bush was going to tell us the terrorists hate our freedom. If I hear that one more time it will have been a couple of times too many. The truth is the terrorists hate us for our cosmetic surgery. Not to disrespect the terrorists (okay, maybe I am disrespecting them) but they are, in general, a homely lot. Let’s face it, we’re better looking than they are (not me, just us in aggregate). Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and George Clooney have nothing to fear from the terrorists, if their concern is the terrorists taking acting jobs away from them.

All of this leads me to the point I originally was going to make before I wandered off, somehow.

Ed Wood had a story he wanted to tell, but he couldn’t be taken seriously. It wasn’t just the zombies from outer space, the pie pans suspended on strings that fluttered in the breeze, which were the zombies’ vehicles of transportation to earth, or their bad acting (and bad directing). It was that the story itself was not believable.

The Bush Administration reported this week that unemployment has dropped to 4.7%, which means we have virtually full employment. That would seem to be great news, except there is something wrong with this picture. When one uses the practical test of circumspection of the society around him, the numbers being reported to us appear to be as fictional as Ed Wood’s zombies. If you know anyone who is looking for work, please tell them about these figures and tell them they just aren’t looking hard enough because the jobs are out there. Well, maybe you shouldn’t do that, as they might reply with the proper response and deck you.

I would contend that you know, or know of, several people looking for jobs who seem to have been looking for a while. The ones who do find jobs seem to be take them for less money and less or no benefits.

How many raises have you gotten since Bush took office? Are you working more hours for less pay? Does someone cover for you when you go on vacation, or is the work waiting for you when you get back? Do you even have any vacation time? Do you even still have a job? Has your net worth increased or decreased since 2001? How about your benefits? Are they a lot better, now? Is health insurance more affordable? Is housing more affordable?

Is life more fun?

Do you feel safer from attack from terrorists?

Do you have it better than you did in January of 2001?

The measure of life is progress and that progress has slowed dramatically in the last five years. Is our problem the team or the coach? I look around myself every day and look at my teammates—the people I work with, my family and friends—and I say we have a damn fine team. It is the coach. He isn’t getting the job done—never has; never will—and it makes the team’s performance suffer.

So, President Bush can stand before congress and the American people and tell us that we have it good and his administration can show us numbers to convince that life is grand. Numbers lie. The proof is all around you. Believe your own eyes.

At least, that’s our take, here in Jimbo’s world.