The Blog Less Traveled

I’ve pretty much kept my mouth shut on Obama since he became President in January. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt and see how he would lead this country. I’d give him a chance to prove he could govern the country.

Well, time’s up, and you sir, are no president. Without a doubt, you’ve proven what most sane Americans believed in their gut – you were never qualified to be the U.S. President. You lack the experience, maturity and judgment for the job. I can think of no other president who was as unqualified and inexperienced as you. You spent the majority of your life in school or campaigning for office. You never held any position of authority in the real world. And no, “Community Organizer” doesn’t count. You were basically a legal counsel for ACORN, an organization that has finally been exposed for its total corruption and blatant disregard for true American values. You lied to the American people on numerous occasions. How can you claim you were unaware of Reverend Wright’s beliefs and positions when you sat in his church for 20 years? He married you, baptized your children and you even used one of his sermons in writing your Audacity of Hope book and yet you can look the American people in the eye and say you didn’t know those were his outrageous views? You’ve associated yourself with radical individuals for most of your life. I, for one, am not the least bit surprised by the Socialist agenda that you’re trying to drive through Congress. Why the big rush, Mr. President? If it’s such an important piece of legislation, why not give it the time it deserves to get it right? That’s your current excuse for why you’re so indecisive about dealing with Afghanistan. You and your administration have made so many outright blunders over the past year that I could probably write a book on them. However, you’re given a free pass by most of your fellow liberal brothers-in-arm in the media. If it had been Bush in office at the time, all of your gaffes would have been filling the front pages of most newspapers. Speaking of President Bush, I’m tired of you constantly blaming him every time you have a problem. That, sir, is the sign of a very weak leader. Leaders are decisive and take responsibility for their actions. By and large, our current economic situation is the result of bad policies forced on banking institutions under prior Democratic administrations. I don’t recall Reagan constantly whining about Carter every time he faced a difficult or unpopular decision. You’ve never led a day in your life, and quite frankly, it shows in spades. You’ve pretty much been insulated from the tough decision making by all your campaign advisors and handlers. Your body language telegraphs the uneasiness you feel. If it’s obvious to me, then any world leaders you have to deal with will see it, too. Your “rock star” fame won’t cut it in the trenches of real world politics. We’re already seeing that based on your lack of success in dealing with several international situations. You have no clue as to what it takes to lead. I can guarantee you that the majority of the military have little real respect for you as a Commander-In-Chief (CIC). I had the privilege of serving my country under six different presidents. I never thought I’d say this, but you actually make Clinton look good as a CIC.

I’ll give you one thing. You’re good at giving prepared speeches with a Teleprompter. You excel at that. You’ll probably give a fine speech when you finally reveal your Afghanistan strategy on Tuesday. However, you pretty much suck when it comes to impromptu or extemporaneous speeches. I’ve never in my life seen a president say the word “Uh” so often. You really need to work on that. You don’t come off as being very presidential. You remind me a lot of Caroline Kennedy and her overuse of the phrase “you know.”

You and your fellow liberal cohorts sold the American people a false sense of hope. You have failed miserably and you are taking this country down with you. You do not deserve to be the President of the United States. You never did. I’m so glad that I didn’t fall for your lies and deceptions during the campaign. I’m proud that I didn’t cast a vote for you. You are so wrong for this country. When we really needed a strong leader, we got a politician. God help us all.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you all had a happy and restful Thanksgiving with family and friends. Our daughter came home for the holiday weekend so that made it even better. We got together with a few of our in-laws and had a nice turkey dinner with all the fixings. There was plenty of turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies and pies galore. No one left hungry.

Today, all the crazy folks got up bright and early to hit the stores for all the Black Friday specials. Standing in line and fighting the crowds is not my idea of fun, even if you do save a few bucks along the way. Some people actually look forward to the event – you folks are crazy! Of course, I got up at four this morning (zero dark thirty) to meet a group of fellow runners in downtown Grand Rapids. Today was a free training session to see if we want to join for the long haul (26 sessions). We ran through the covered skywalks that interconnect all the downtown hotels, restaurants and garages and ran up and down the multi-level parking garages and periodically stopped and did pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, etc. I’m trying to get my body in shape for the hills in the Boston Marathon in April and I thought this might be a good way to get in condition. If the weather gets real lousy, we’re pretty much covered most of the time. The place is pretty deserted so traffic isn’t a problem. There’s a personal trainer running the show and we even have “Marathon Don” working with us. He’s the Grand Rapids Marathon Race Director and he has run over 180 marathons – all 7 continents three times and all 50 states and DC. Now that’s crazy!

Maybe I better rethink calling all of you Black Friday shoppers crazy. I guess we all do things at one time or another that other people think are a little odd. Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend – crazies and non-crazies alike!

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on my computer. There are a ton of books out there in electronic format. Many of the books are in the familiar Adobe pdf format that can be read by many Windows and Mac ebook readers. There is also the open standard epub format as well as a plethora of proprietary formats with various forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM). The library system in our area carries many books in electronic format and that makes it easy and convenient for checking out and reading. I’ve checked out a few in the past week or two. No need to trudge to the library if you don’t want to – a book is just a few clicks away! Ah, but I digress.

Although my musical roots are in rock music, it’s not too conducive when you’re trying to read a book, especially if you’re trying to comprehend technical material. For reading books, I select easy listening- or instrumental-type music for a background. I was going through my iTunes library the other day and came across some albums that I hadn’t listened to in years. When my wife and I lived in Monterey, CA, we would visit various vineyards and local wine tasting rooms. Many had background music playing and many of those CDs were available for purchase. Danny Wright was one of the first artists we became acquainted with as a result of those little trips. Another was Jim Centorino and Carole Cole. They made a CD called Footsteps in the Sand back in 1990. My three favorite songs are below. I couldn’t find any YouTube versions for Ultimately Love or Ancient Romance. I put these songs on my local server so you could still listen to them. The Child of Dreams link will take you to YouTube. BTW, the YouTube link displays the title of the song as, Ultimately Love, but it’s really Child of Dreams. In looking at the liner notes on the CD, I noticed that all three songs I chose were composed and produced by Jim Centorino. I guess I like Jim’s compositions over Carol’s. Anyway, enjoy the songs.

• Child of Dreams (my favorite)
• Ultimately Love
• Ancient Romance

So much for my first marathon being a bucket list item. When I ran my first marathon a few weeks ago, it was with the idea that it would be a one-time deal. I wanted to push myself to accomplish something that would be tough both physically and mentally. It was a pretty good test. Those last 5-6 miles definitely test your resolve to push yourself to the limit. I guess I must have enjoyed the satisfaction of crossing that finish line too much or I’m just a glutton for punishment. I’ve decided to run at least one more marathon. Last Wednesday I applied for entry into the Boston Marathon. I received my official acceptance postcard in the mail today from the Boston Athletic Association – the graphic above is a portion of that postcard.

For those who don’t know, the Boston Marathon is the oldest running marathon in the world. It began in 1897 and the next one this coming April 19th, 2010, will be the 114th. You can’t run in the Boston Marathon unless you run another marathon within the last 18 months with a fast enough qualifying time for your age. I was fortunate enough to have run my 1st marathon fast enough to qualify. This marathon will be a tougher test for me. There are a series of hills 16-21 miles into the race and the last hill at mile 20-21 is the highest and is called Heartbreak Hill. Hills at any time are no fun, but hitting a big one this late in the race will definitely push you to the limit. That hill will turn your legs into rubber in a hurry. Hopefully, my legs will be in good enough shape to make it past that obstacle.

I’m really looking forward to the challenge. The race course runs through a total of eight towns, starting in the town of Hopkinton and ending at Copley Square in Boston. I hope that I’m able to enjoy and appreciate the history of this event as I run it. Maybe it will help me to take my mind off the toll it will be taking on my body.

Interesting Boston Marathon facts:

• In terms of on-site media coverage, the Boston Marathon ranks behind only the Super Bowl as the largest single day sporting event in the world. More than 1,100 media members, representing more than 250 outlets, receive credentials annually.
• The legendary John A. Kelley started a record 61 Boston Marathons and finished 58. Kelley, who won the race in 1935 and 1945, first competed in the race in 1928, but it was not until 1933, in his third attempt, that he completed the course, placing 37th in 3:03:56. He last completed the course in 1992 at the age of 84. Kelley lived to be 97 (1907-2004).
• Approximately 500,000 spectators line the 26.2-mile course annually.
• Since its inception, the Boston Marathon has been held on the holiday commemorating Patriots’ Day.

One of my pet peeves is customer service or lack thereof. It bugs me to no end when I have to deal with a rude or indifferent customer service rep. Customer Service is not rocket science. It’s just common sense. Treat people the same way that you’d like to be treated if you were in that situation. It doesn’t sound that hard to me. Granted, there are obnoxious people out there and it can be a true test of your patience to deal with them. In those cases, if they cross the line and become truly belligerent, I would thank them for their past patronage but in a firm manner I would tell them that their business is no longer appreciated nor wanted. And that brings me to my recent encounter.

I recently needed to get a legal document notarized. As I no longer have a local bank account in Michigan, I went to the nearest bank, which happened to be Mercantile Bank on Gezon Blvd. When I went into the bank that morning, it was completely empty. There were no customers at the teller area nor at any of the bank desks. I walked up to one of the ladies in the office area and asked if I could get a document notarized. She asked if I had an account with them and I told her no. She said she couldn’t help me since I had no account with them. I told her I was willing to pay for the service but she still said no. I then told her that I used to have a business account with their bank in the past. This was true. She called a supervisor but the answer was still no. I next went to the Byron Bank branch in Byron Center. I went to the customer reception desk in the main lobby and was greeted by Beth. I told her what I needed and she said she’d be happy to notarize the document for me. We had a pleasant and friendly conversation and she quickly took care of notarizing my document. After returning my document, I thanked her and was on my way in just a matter of minutes. What a difference in customer service. She never even asked me if I banked there. She just asked me what she could do to help me and did it. She was pleasant, friendly and professional. She’s exactly the type of person that you’d want your patrons and potential customers to have first contact with.

Granted, neither bank has my business at this moment so you might say it didn’t hurt Mercantile Bank to refuse me any service. However, I think that’s a shortsighted business view. Should I need to open up a bank account in the future, whom do you think is going to get my business? Also, if someone asks me for a bank recommendation, whom do you think that I’ll recommend? Mercantile Bank could have just notarized my document in almost the same amount of time that it took them to say no and call a supervisor for approval. Instead, they’ve lost a customer for life and they won’t garner any favorable opinions from me in the future. Unfortunately, in today’s business world, more companies seem to be geared towards using the short-term profit business model. They don’t want to look forward very far and invest for the long-term. I think that’s a big mistake and it will take its toll in the long run.