Can Mike Get It Done? (Whatever "It" Is)

You know Mike Bloomberg has long money when he gets a new commercial on the air every week depending on what's happening. When he apologized for Stop and Frisk, he immediately made sure to run commercials featuring him and Obama, like they were BFFs. After he got slammed at his first debate in Nevada last week, he immediately came out with a new commercial featuring a multi-racial group of women who worked for him to sing his praises. Now with the coronavirus running rampant, Bloomie has a commercial running that touts his ability to lead during a crisis (after 9/11) and how he's helped to fund medical research. Bloomberg's ads often end with his slogan: Mike Can Get It Done. What I'd like to know is what, exactly, he's going to get done. What is the "it" that he's talking about? It's a mystery (pun intended). At this point, I'd vote for a ham sandwich for POTUS to get rid of the current occupant and we could do a lot worse than Bloomie. (Yeah, I'm not feeling the Bern, kids.) No candidate can be all things to all people. They're all flawed. But I don't intend to let my disagreements with anyone running against Donny to stop me from voting.

Cranky Traveler

I had to take a quick trip to New York last week (after being there only about two weeks earlier) for my day job and found the experience to be both exhausting and annoying. I'm just not cut out to travel constantly. Getting up early to get to the airport, going through the hassle of checking in for a flight, schlepping through security, boarding, the flight itself, deplaning...it's all exhausting. If I had to travel constantly for work, I'd have to find another job. This last trip, while not bad in terms of my flights leaving and arriving on time and having no real problems, still annoyed me because I just wasn't in the mood to travel. I was the cranky traveler. Everything was pissing me off. The sweater I wore when flying out of O'Hare set off the security monitors, so I had to get a pat down complete with a check around the waistband of my pants. Lovely. And O'Hare still doesn't have their monorail working, so I had to get on the shuttle bus from the economy parking lot to get to the terminal. This thing has been down for, what, two years now? Ridiculous. That adds an extra half hour onto my commute time. Coming back through Newark, I had a terrible burger at an airport in the restaurant. (Everyone doesn't want ketchup on their burgers, folks.) Then the woman sitting next to me on the flight kept elbowing me every time she turned a page in her book, so I had to contort myself to avoid contact with her. I didn't get home until after 11:30 pm Thursday and I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep. Great. Again, I was cranky, and there were no real problems. The weather was great in NYC and I usually enjoy going there even though my time is short when I'm there for work. I really need to take a week off or do a long weekend in New York so I have time to actually enjoy the city.

Too Much!

I went to the Chicago Auto Show today to check out the new cars on the market. Not that I'm in the market for a new car myself especially considering I finally paid off the used car I have. I'm looking forward to NOT having a car payment for a while and I intend to drive my heap until the wheels fall off. But I digress. At the auto show, I saw one car after another priced so high that I don't know who could afford such a vehicle. Only rarely did I see a car that started under $20K. Most of the small crossover vehicles were $30K and up. No wonder the kids are calling for Uber and Lyft. They can't afford to own a car! And, once you get the car payments taken care of, what about insurance and maintenance? People are financing cars for 7 years now. That's crazy. I'm all about used cars these days. If I had to get another one, I'd get a used car again. One of my coworkers made fun of me for buying a used car, but I'm beyond that kind of nonsense. I buy what I can afford. So while he's digging deep to make payments on a new Mercedes, my Volkswagen was financed at a monthly rate I could afford and now that baby is paid for. In my old(er) age, I've stopped caring about what people think of my financial situation. I buy what I can afford and I'm not ashamed to tell anyone I don't have the money for something when I don't. Now that my car is paid off, I'd like a new refrigerator so that's what I'm planning to purchase this year. And they're crazy expensive too! I'm not even looking for some fancy, stainless steel model. I just want an old-school freezer on the top white fridge to replace the cutesy one I have with the freezer on the bottom that holds NOTHING. When I bought my place from the previous owner, the appliances came with it, so I didn't purchase them. I was glad to have them, but the fridge is not my style at all. In due time, it'll be replaced.

Now More Than Ever!

I did a post a week or so ago arguing against having states like Iowa and New Hampshire be the at the forefront of the presidential candidate race because neither state represents the country in terms of racial, religious, whatever demographics. With all of the shenanigans going on now after the debacle that was the Iowa Caucuses, the powers that be need to get moving and make sure the state of Iowa isn't the front runner in the next election cycle. The demographics issue alone should be enough to make the political committees decide to take both Iowa and New Hampshire out of their lead spots, but now with the caucus issues, there's even more reason to move on from Iowa in particular. I disagree with caucusing anyway. What happened to casting your ballet anonymously? All of that goes out the window when you have to declare your vote in a public forum.

In other news, is anyone really surprised that Donny T. lives to ride another day? Did anyone really think he was on his way out of office? Come on. The only way to get rid of him at this point is to vote him out. The mere thought of spending another four years dealing with this guy's juvenile behavior, ridiculous tweets, and overwhelming idiocy is enough to make me run, not walk, to the polls on election day. I saw a survey today that claimed only 61 percent (or something like that) of people intended to vote in the next election. That number seems ridiculously low, especially given the situation the country is in right now. I shouldn't be surprised but I am surprised that the number isn't higher. I know better than to trust pollsters in this day and age, but this poll does leave me concerned. Are people that apathetic? I know it's hard to believe in democracy these days, but we need to keep hope alive. Now more than ever.