W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r
23/04/17 07:43
Seems like it took forever to get the new Starbucks up and running here in Portsmouth. Thee were weeks on end when we saw no activity in and around the work site. If we didn't know better we would have thought that there was a work stoppage, a funding issue, something out of the ordinary that was contributing to the slow pace of development on the site. There were times when we thought that work had stopped because they had found a more suitable site. In fact, the site seemed odd in that access and egress points were not designed to deal with the volume of traffic expected once the business opened. Now that they have opened, our guess is that it is only a matter of time before there are one or more fatal accidents stemming from the flawed planning.
Our first visit on Friday raised concerns about questionable acoustics, the lack of interior seating, the absence of a defined access point/flow to the ordering area, and the flow of traffic beyond the drive through area. In other words, customers don't know where the lines to the ordering area begin and that could prove problematic during peak hours. Liken it to your banking experience without the ropes. A free for all where it's survival of the fittest and only those truly up to the task get to conduct business with the teller. Add caffeine to the chaos and that only fuels the madness. They may well be trying to discourage customers from staying too long. Whatever. As for me, I'm happy to have a Starbuckss closer to my home and I'm planning to go there often. Did I mention that opening at 5am is a plus?
It's nice to see the sun out after a rainy and dark few days. If your inclination is to stay in bed in the morning then you probably like the kind of weather that we've had over the last few days. But you can't do that forever. Now I'm just waiting for the temperatures to climb a bit, get out of the forties, and get on with shaking off the winter blues. My neighbor is already talking to me about her sweet pea plants that have begun to sprout after having planted the little buggers just a few days ago. My little gardening area remains unchanged since last Fall and is on my calendar for a good sprucing. Not a task that requires a lot of effort but is demanding of my attention nonetheless.
I think I might like to concentrate on tomatoes this year and not much else. That would be fine. I've also decided that I am going to dedicate an hour a day, or a tarp a day, of raked leaves just to stay on track with keeping the yard tidy. It might even be time to get the hummingbird feeders up before they start coming around for the 2017 season. There is nothing worse than having them appear in a fluttering floozy half dead from their migration north without so much as a single serving of fructose available for the taking. One would hope that Evan and Nancy might lend a hand doing these things but if history is any indication it appears that I will be on my own. Oh, Nancy will dilly-dally with her bulbs and may want to divide and replant an occasional hosta or two and she may even want to have some say in where the hummingbird feeders get hung. I would hasten to add that it will behoove me to get these tasks done before the temperatures get too warm. Tiime is a wastin' as they say down in the bayou. Might as well get cracking today while Nancy is hard at work in town. Somebody has to bring home the bacon.
You are going to want to be in the stock market today if the futures hold any promise for what's to come. It will be an old fashioned POP in the indices thanks to the first of two elections to be held in France for their next president. The fact that the centrist candidate, Macron, won the first round over the far right candidate, Marie Le Pen, means that the EU will remain intact, immigration will remain uninterrupted, and the march of the globalists agenda will go forward unabated. It's a little like an anti-brexit vote where the well intentioned folks in Great Britain thought they could buck the trend of their fellow Londoners and keep Great Britain in the EU. The Markets took considerable umbrage when the commoners decided that they wanted their country back and the indices swayed and swooned for the better part of two days before reaching equilibrium of sorts. I suspect that even though Macron won the first round that Le Pen and her followers will get the last laugh. The French people are one terrorist act away from saying "no" to the natty globalists. That may have already occurred this past week or so when one Mohammed somebody started shooting police officers while yelling allah akbar. Say that ten times fast.
Our first visit on Friday raised concerns about questionable acoustics, the lack of interior seating, the absence of a defined access point/flow to the ordering area, and the flow of traffic beyond the drive through area. In other words, customers don't know where the lines to the ordering area begin and that could prove problematic during peak hours. Liken it to your banking experience without the ropes. A free for all where it's survival of the fittest and only those truly up to the task get to conduct business with the teller. Add caffeine to the chaos and that only fuels the madness. They may well be trying to discourage customers from staying too long. Whatever. As for me, I'm happy to have a Starbuckss closer to my home and I'm planning to go there often. Did I mention that opening at 5am is a plus?
It's nice to see the sun out after a rainy and dark few days. If your inclination is to stay in bed in the morning then you probably like the kind of weather that we've had over the last few days. But you can't do that forever. Now I'm just waiting for the temperatures to climb a bit, get out of the forties, and get on with shaking off the winter blues. My neighbor is already talking to me about her sweet pea plants that have begun to sprout after having planted the little buggers just a few days ago. My little gardening area remains unchanged since last Fall and is on my calendar for a good sprucing. Not a task that requires a lot of effort but is demanding of my attention nonetheless.
I think I might like to concentrate on tomatoes this year and not much else. That would be fine. I've also decided that I am going to dedicate an hour a day, or a tarp a day, of raked leaves just to stay on track with keeping the yard tidy. It might even be time to get the hummingbird feeders up before they start coming around for the 2017 season. There is nothing worse than having them appear in a fluttering floozy half dead from their migration north without so much as a single serving of fructose available for the taking. One would hope that Evan and Nancy might lend a hand doing these things but if history is any indication it appears that I will be on my own. Oh, Nancy will dilly-dally with her bulbs and may want to divide and replant an occasional hosta or two and she may even want to have some say in where the hummingbird feeders get hung. I would hasten to add that it will behoove me to get these tasks done before the temperatures get too warm. Tiime is a wastin' as they say down in the bayou. Might as well get cracking today while Nancy is hard at work in town. Somebody has to bring home the bacon.
You are going to want to be in the stock market today if the futures hold any promise for what's to come. It will be an old fashioned POP in the indices thanks to the first of two elections to be held in France for their next president. The fact that the centrist candidate, Macron, won the first round over the far right candidate, Marie Le Pen, means that the EU will remain intact, immigration will remain uninterrupted, and the march of the globalists agenda will go forward unabated. It's a little like an anti-brexit vote where the well intentioned folks in Great Britain thought they could buck the trend of their fellow Londoners and keep Great Britain in the EU. The Markets took considerable umbrage when the commoners decided that they wanted their country back and the indices swayed and swooned for the better part of two days before reaching equilibrium of sorts. I suspect that even though Macron won the first round that Le Pen and her followers will get the last laugh. The French people are one terrorist act away from saying "no" to the natty globalists. That may have already occurred this past week or so when one Mohammed somebody started shooting police officers while yelling allah akbar. Say that ten times fast.