The Manager's Line Is The Same, But The Chicken Is Not

Shopping at the neighborhood grocery's deli can be a good thing as to time, cost and flavor. If I can take an item and enhance its flavor with gravies or sauces or some noodles or vegetables, I will choose the deli item at least once a week. I've been doing that since I've had to do my own cooking again for the past twenty-five years. I've gotten pretty good at it, I might add.

I'm geographically in the middle of four Kroger stores that I like to shop. They all are laid out a bit differently, too. Don't you just hate that when you go into a chain and the layout is backwards to the one you shop at the most?  Well, that should be your first clue that the store really doesn't give a hoot that you like them or not. The old numbers game has already indicated that they are going to get so much business from a location when they sign the lease. So, I really don't care about letting them know that they are not being very customer friendly when they are not.

The manager at my Kroger's last year said to me in the isle of the very store he managed that "Kroger's have given him two million dollars and said, 'now go [screw] the store up.'"  And, yelp! He did just that. Every since that conversation, I have noted a big change at Kroger's. First, like all others in the industry, their prices started going up. Two, they put in a new brand in between the name brands and the Kroger band products. My 50 calorie per slice smoked ham is now gone. My 50 calorie per slice wheat bread is now gone. My taste buds are screaming to my head, "don't buy this garbage again". The new brand has higher caloric counts, too! A noted higher caloric count.

In Kroger's defense, I do like their electronic coupons and free Fridays that they email me weekly The savings do add up. Once you learn the system and how it works, you just have to watch the receipt at check out to make sure that it records the savings and deducts from your total. I can do that.

Now, however, comes the part where Kroger's did me wrong. I don't lie and I take offense to others that do. It's just as easy to tell the truth in the beginning. Sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, it feels it feels good, but in the end, it is just as easy to tell the truth. So, when a manager starts his spiel about,"we get  all our chicken from one vendor," or, I used to manage 23 stores in the region and I can tell you this....."
I've been there. I've heard the line before. And as they say here in Texas, "This ain't my first rodeo, either." What I'm referring to is the size, the rubberness, the unappealing look, the over cooked pieces of hot chicken in the Deli at my Kroger's. But mostly, it's the size of the pieces that have shrunk like a pair of Levi jeans!  I've gotten hot deli chicken pieces at all four of my geographical locations. The one to the north of me, the one to the east, the one to the south  and the one farther west than mine, which is west of me as one of the geographical four.

Yes, as a consumer, I have complained to the tall manager that is usually in the store when I shop. There is another manager that I see who is a little rotund and  almost as regularly in the store as the tall one. In fact, I have walked both of these managers over to the deli counter and pointed out to them my issue with the chicken. The tall one now, when he sees me just grins, waves and that's it. The rotund one gave me the line about the 23 stores Yesterday, he gave me the line about  the vendor is the same for all the deli chicken.

After I left the store, I drove over to one of the other geographical location stores. I went in to the deli and low and behold ( I saw the light) the chicken pieces were stacked up like a mountain and  it just said to me...... "come on and start shopping my store".  And so I did. But not before I got a picture of the big, juicy and plump deep fried chicken breast! As a bonus.....the price was lower for the two pieces at this Kroger than at my own Kroger that is driving their deli customers away.

No, excuses, the picture is a bit dark.

Hot Deli Chicken Pieces

21/11/2014. Updated dropped characters in piece.

HMS 1 & 2 80/20 Is Down

It's been a long time since I checked the daily scrap prices in the Wall Street Journal. New billet steel was directly tied to the price of scrap and before going to the mills to negotiate a deal for tonnage, you better know what the price of scrap was fetching.



It is almost like the routine of," on the way to the doctor, I discovered --"  scrap was scrap and it pretty much looked like the image that I took several months back of a loaded gondola car full of HMS 1 &2. That's steel talk for pieces of scrap steel of a certain thickness and length.The HMS is Heavy Melting Scrap for electric arc furnaces that makes most of our new steel today. Yes, scarpers have been recycling since our Jewish ancestors hand pushed a cart down alleys picking up old pieces of steel that no one else wanted. I don't know a scrappy today that isn't a millionaire. Let me rephrase that. I don't know a scrappy today that isn't a millionaire several times over.  There, that's more close to the ones that I do know.

At any rate, The Iron and Steel Institute  melt down all the statistics. Steel is one of those rare commodities that actually has a birth certificate. It is an ASTM-number and a heat number that follows that steel until it is in finished product  (American Society of Testing and Materials). That ASTM certificate tells every thing you want to know about that steel. The lab in a steel mill is fascinating. It's like your grandmother making cookies; add a little of this, a little of that; taste, stir a little more and presto, it's just right.

 It's one of those things that you will never use unless a situation like the I-35 bridge in Minnesota falls again and you can bet the contractors, architects, DOT guys all were looking for those ASTM certificates on that bridge moments of learning about it falling!

Airplane tail numbers and vehicle Vin numbers are the other two. Oh, for you old sailors, yes, your ships got a keel number, but the registration was kept under flags of a country. Sorry. Nice argument made.

When I think about the old days when I walked tours on mill floors, it isn't far back in the memory for  those that lost their lives from accidents. You never wanted to be on the mill floor when a mill cobbled. The sound of a cobble is instantly recognizable. Cobble, especially in a structural mill, is when a billet is coming down the rolling line orange hot at speeds to match freeway traffic; the billet hits one of the rolling stands and instead of the orange hot billet taking the shape of the stand dye,  it shoots up through the rafters and into the roof of the mill. Hopefully, without taking  an impaled  employee with it. Gory? Yes. Industrial accidents are not a pretty thing and thank goodness, we have OSHA, even with all the regulations and paperwork and fines and every nightmarish aspect of an inspection gone bad,

Several things brought this image to mind. The window washers dangling from the 68th floor of the new World Trade Building; the arrival of the first two pieces of steel fabricated for the Margaret McDermott Bridge; the awesome Union Pacific commercial that shows the UP train coming into downtown Dallas in the commercial.It's all related to commerce, steel and ASTM numbers. Funny how things like that can be classified by your brain in the best filing system in the world. The cable used in the window washing buggy must be of a specific standard for cable, which is wire, which comes from new billets that comes from scrap metal.

It is still an awesome history to think about the Rockefeller oil men, the Andrew Carnegie steel men, the Vanderbilt railroad men, the J.P. Morgan bankers, the Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan and the  Dodge Brothers. These Magnates of Industry were all pretty ruthless but gave back many times over for the good of the American people. While things have moved on forward in industry, there still remains gondola car after gondola car heading to steel mills in the country every day to produce our bars, pipes, structural beams, angles, channels plate and much more.

On the Upstroke of the Hour

It's been a week almost to the hour when my Dawggie and I parted ways at the vet. It's been a hard week to get through. Things are different now. Little reactions that were taken for granted produced an empty chair for the first time in nearly fourteen years. It has been sad. It has been lonely at times. It has been heart-felt pain--the kind that comes from deep within emotionally.

The sub-freezing weather this week has helped as much as it has hindered. I haven't been outside. The last time I was outside, it was nearly 80 degrees. Today, it will still be in the low 30s. When I checked the hourlys on the National Weather Service Website this morning, It had gone down officially to 25 degrees (F) at DFW International at the 03:53 reporting time. By 04:53, mother nature had pulled up the blanket and the temperature rose to 29 degrees (F). The blanket, of course, is the cloud deck. It acts as a blanket to stop the radiational cooling.

 By now, the Dawg's cremains have been scattered, I suspect. Mom had Murray's cremains returned to her and she scattered them herself. He was a beautiful snow white American Eskimo. While I would be the first one to tell mom that what she did was the best decision, when it came time for me to make that decision, I choose someone else to do it for me. I didn't want that transition between  life and death to be passed to me in a little tin box. I wanted to remember her as I had seen her on the towel-- at the vets-- as she was so peaceful at the end.

So, a week of grieving comes to a close. My Dawggie  has moved on to a better life and I must return to moving my life forward as well. She will forever be in my memory as the greatest pet that I ever shared my life with in devoted  time, energy, care and  my love in the animal kingdom. Of course, the Dawg was more than just an animal. She was a living breathing creature that held exceptional understanding and love, sharing it unconditionally.

The Beloved Hotdog

Letting go of a beloved pet is an emotional thing that I have experienced before. But this time, it was so different. Hotdog came to me when she was 10-weeks old. My mother, and her mother, conspired together and  when I saw this Abyssinian I could not say no. With her long legs and skinny body, pointed ears, triangle face and beautiful tiger grey and black striped fur; with the solid black hind legs, I fell in love with her instantly. We traveled together. When I went home to bury mom and again when mom's marker was set on her grave, the Dawg became a high-mileage road dawg. Each trip was 1,000 miles. Dawgie loved  road trips. But most of all, she liked her territorial domain, especially where ever there was a chair that I sat in at home. Dawgie claimed that chair, as every other chair that I owned.

After a precursor with a lung infection two years ago, she had returned to normal activities until 10-days ago. She went down hill fast and it became very obvious that she labored in pain. The vet thought that she might come out of it but when she didn't she leveled with me that she had suspected cancer in the lungs. She went to sleep peacefully before the vet administered the final dose. It was painful to watch but I was not leaving the Dawg's side.
After leaving the vet's office. I could not go home. I spent the afternoon on a hillside at White Rock Lake. There was excitement at the lake because a bald eagle  had been sighted about a half-hour before I got there. I had first seen two bald eagles at White Rock three years ago. Today, of all days, the eagle was back shortly after the Dawg entered eternal sleep. The Dawg was still working her magic! She is enshrined in my heart for ever and I miss her deeply.

The Trinity River Corridor Glows Again

It was plain to see that the interest in the Maggie 2 Bridge (Margaret McDermott) is drawing visitors during the early construction more rapidly than the Maggie 1 (Margaret Hunt Hill) did. That, within itself is a testament to the Maggie 1 Project. After people saw what the building of a prized bridge could do as far as community and economic benefits, it was only natural that the crowds would come early on to witness the uprising from the trenches into that glorious Santiago Calatrava design of architectural form. The interesting part is that the first pieces of the double aches have not even been shipped from the fabricator.The other point to consider in the early crowds is that during this bridge construction, there is the new Trinity Skyline Trail that was non existent during the building of Maggie 1.

In as much as Interstate 30 will ferry visitors between AT&T Stadium in Arlington and downtown Dallas, if for nothing more than commuting between a hotel room and the stadium, it would be worth it all. The impression with the remake of the mix-master into the horseshoe will give a more refined coat for the city to wear. There is no question in my mind that the Trinity River Corridor Project was and will be the place to add growth investment for the city. After all, it is only following what mother nature put down eons ago and the city discovered with vision and astute planning, even though the naysayers were screaming at every turn. It was the right decision folks. It really was. I only wish that I was going to be around in thirty years with the same energy that I have today to rejoice with the city for making their dreams come alive despite the negativeness that others were trying to white-wash  as a , "I told you so" party that they will never have.

 Over the years, I have seen cities developed good plans and I have seen cities develop bad plans. I have seen even rock-hard cities like Detroit fall into the gloom of despair. But, Detroit will come back again with vision and planning. It always works. The key to any city is in the elected and the paid visionaries.For visions are the eyes of  new vistas. Dallas took a river and a forest and turned it into the second most powerful economic engine outside of DFW International.

Former Mayor, Ron Kirk (1995-2002)  fired up the engine that we know today. We were lucky to have Former Mayor Laura Miller follow Mayor Kirk and even more lucky to have Former Mayor Tom Leppert to follow. Dwaine Caraway keep the fires burning after Mayor Leppert stepped down. The legacy of Mayor Mike Rawlings is still being written, but I don't see the blazing economic engine that moved this city down the road like it was moving. But, we shall see in time. Don't get me wrong. Mike Rawlings has had his plate full. Long have I preached that Fair Park needed attention. It's getting it now. South Dallas is finally getting the attention that they deserve and will get much more through the Trinity River Project than they suspect will happen. The spin offs will bloom in south Dallas and Oak Cliff. The train is still on time. Don't give  up, south Dallas. Don't ever give up!

As a foot note here, the new radar unit that measures the down river discharge rate that the United States Geological Survey had installed is now up and running with all its wires connected.  Thanks to the USGS office in Austin and the field office in Ft. Worth. I had listed an image with my agent and after talking with the USGS after they reviewed the image, ask that it be withheld until the wiring was complete. I am happy to report.... It's a GO!! Thanks to every one in the office for their great informative discussion on what the unit did and how it worked and how it can be viewed on the USGS web page daily. Now, we just need the rain so that I can check out the log reports.

The Radar unit measures the rate of discharge going downstream. The reports can be seen on the USGS website under water management.

Maggie 1 as seen from the new Maggie 2. That is # 11, grade 60 rebar there on the ground. It ain't no # 3 pool rebar!

Here goes another skyline change for Dallas! Where else can you see a bass fishing boat, complete with outboard motor  hanging from a crane eclipsing both the Bank of America Building and Reunion Tower?

In Loving Memory 

of  a son, KP

Happy  44 th Birthday

Just A Few Old-Man Philosophies

My cardiologist is fine tuning my meds again for a number of reasons but the biggest reason comes as a result of my weight loss from the cardio walks and  regaining the strength  again to ride my bike. Also,cutting out all sugars and eating much more garden style without being a vegan or total vegetarian has really helped..Do you know how many ways you can cook chicken? It's amazing. The cows would be happy in the Chick-fil-A commercial.

My appointment today was way to early for me. At one point in life, I was a big morning person, but throughout the years--especially in retirement-- I have been know to wake up, take my scheduled meds and go back to bed until the sun is much higher in the sky. But, early voting started on Monday and I wanted to vote after the visit to the doctor.

At the polls, I voted for 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats. The rest of the voting went to Libertarians and Green Party. I voted for one amendment and against all the rest. Not, specifically because I liked the candidate or the ideal but more because I have been unhappy with the  leadership, the work being done in congress and the basic attitudes inside the Beltway. So, like my old history teacher hammered into my brain years and years ago (the talk of term limits was being discussed even then for you 20-30 something readers) you do not like how things are going in the political arena, you vote the bums out. Yes, I know.....your voting isn't going to change a thing. Well, what you have to understand is that this is a joint adventure. And, there are plenty of others that are thinking that way, too. That's why the political pundits have their  half-moon table discussions following up-set elections as a moderator ask the question: what happened, do you think? Democracy is still the best system in the world. Yes, I still did my pumping-arm action and yell, as I left the polls. "Oh, that felt so good!" This year, there were something like 8 or 9 pages of people voting and 7 or 8 pages of amendments. So this year, it really did feel good!

Here is another little thing that changes my vote at the polls. If your candidate called me on my house phone during the year, your candidate lost my vote with that call. Ain't technology, great? It's a two-way street folks. I signed up years ago for the "do not call" list. I know, there are loop-holes for organizations and others. Here's the thing. It is a DO NOT CALL list. The government advertised it as a DO NOT CALL list and that is what it means. You call me, you get no money, you get no vote! You get the dial tone as a bonus. Of course, 90% are robo calls but they understand that dial tone!

Early Voting Is Officially Underway

Those are holes from a pellet gun or worse!

A key lock on a railing at one of the scenic overlooks at the dam.

The two out-of-pocket pictures come from things I noticed on a cardio walk after the voting and waiting on the pharmacy to call that my scripts are ready. It was a perfect fall day, warmer than normal.