My Potted Plant Outfit Has Come In Handy Again

Last week I put on my Potted Plant Outfit and went slithering around our Transportation Department in Washington D.C. to see what’s going on in the world of Transportation. It just so happened that I picked an action packed day to go slithering about.

 

It was absolute chaos! The office was full of advocates from People for the Advancement of the Right to Take Any Animal Anywhere who were busy advocating their cause.

 

You may not be aware that our Airlines are under assault by this and 32 other organizations of a similar persuasion.

 

Here is one of the conversations I overheard...

Ø Animal Advocate (AA) said, “Peacocks are not that big! An Ostrich is big but a Peacock is only large and large is not big”.

Ø Beleaguered Transportation Official (BTO) said, “Looks pretty big to me”. (What the BTO should have said, “That’s silly! Get the hell out of my office!”)

Ø BTO said, “Innocent passengers have been injured by Peacocks on Airline Flights”.

Ø AA said, “That’s an exaggeration! There has not been an Airline Peacock Attack since last week!”

Ø BTO said, “You may have a point. I’ll take that fact under advisement but first I will need to talk to that passenger who was attacked by that Peacock”. (What the BTO should have said, “That’s silly! Get the hell out of my office!”)

Ø AA said, “You will have to wait. He will not be out of the hospital till after Labor Day”.

Ø AA said, “I’ll bet you are not going to take the feelings of the Peacock Community into consideration, are you? Peacocks are people too. These proud sensitive animals have been raised to care for their emotionally challenged caregivers. Your preventing them from fulfilling their mission in life takes a very hard toll on their psychological makeup”.

Ø BTO said, “I never thought of that. I’ll be certain to call an emergency meeting of our Rules Committee right after lunch today to consider the very cogent point you just presented me with”. (What the BTO should have said, “That’s silly! Get the hell out of my office!”)

Ø BTO said, “While you are here, we should discuss Pooping by Birds on our planes. Our Janitorial Union has filed a grievance against this new rather unpleasant responsibility”.

Ø AA said, “Well I never! I am of a mind to file a counter grievance against their grievance with my Congressman. You may be aware that he is a proud owner of 2 Dogs, 1 Cat, an Iguana and a growing Baby Elephant. Just yesterday he told me he is planning to take a trip to his Tiny House on Lake Tahoe. You think you have trouble with my single Sensitive and Caring Peacock. You just wait!”

Ø BTO said, “Oh, my gosh and here I am only weeks before retirement!” (What the BTO should have said, “That’s silly! Get the hell out of my office!”)

 

The Bottom Line: As soon as our 9% Approval Rated Congress gets back from vacation it ought to pass a Federal Law that a BTO ought to be allowed to say to an AA, “That’s silly! Get the hell out of my office!”

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

Lagniappe: If you want to know more, read below but I warn you there is a lot of Silly and Frightening in this article...

 

Pets-on-Planes Crackdown by Airlines Gets Boost from U.S. Agency

By Alan Levin and Mary Schlangenstein

 

May 16, 2018

 

Regulators are making it easier for U.S. airlines to limit the growing number of dogs and other animals being brought onto flights by passengers saying they are needed for emotional or psychological support.

 

The Department of Transportation Wednesday said it won’t penalize airlines if they refuse to let passengers take aboard more than one support animal, demand assurance that a passenger has a disability or require proof of an animal’s vaccination and training. The agency also will allow airlines to impose “reasonable restrictions” on the movement of emotional-support animals in a plane’s cabin.

 

Service animals including seeing-eye dogs won’t be restricted under the proposed changes.

 

“The department has heard from the transportation industry, as well as individuals with disabilities, that the current regulation could be improved to ensure nondiscriminatory access for individuals with disabilities, while simultaneously preventing instances of fraud and ensuring consistency with other federal regulations,” the agency said in a release.

 

The DOT’s actions come as the three largest U.S. carriers have altered their policies on animals since the start of this year in reaction to soaring numbers of passengers claiming they needed them to provide emotional support. Those increased numbers also led to at least two incidents in which passengers were injured, including a man who suffered severe facial wounds from a dog last June on a Delta Air Lines Inc. flight.

 

Delta and United Continental Holdings Inc. in March began requiring 48-hour advance notice to travel with an emotional support animal, along with documents that could include proof the animal is trained and vaccinations are up to date, and a letter from a doctor or mental health worker on the person’s need for an animal or identifying the disability involved.

 

American Airlines Group Inc. said May 14 it will adopt similar policies July 1. The carriers have not changed policies for trained service animals used by people with visual or hearing impairments, seizures or mobility issues.

 

“Delta supports regulatory reform to further ensure the safety of all our customers and employees while supporting the rights of customers with legitimate needs for service animals,” said Ashton Kang, a spokeswoman.

 

Delta said in January it was flying about 700 service animals daily, a 150 percent increase since 2015. The company also reported an 84 percent rise since 2016 in “animal incidents,” including urine, feces and aggressive behavior.

 

United noted a 75 percent jump in animals on board from a year earlier, and a “significant increase” in onboard incidents involving them. American and United are banning certain animals totally from traveling in the cabin, including hedgehogs, ferrets, insects, rodents, snakes, spiders, amphibians, sugar gliders and non-household birds. American also barred those with tusks, horns or hooves, except for trained miniature horses acting as service animals.

 

The Transportation Department is also seeking public comment on possible new regulations to restrict the use of support animals.

 

The government should issue clearer guidance as soon as possible to deal with the “exponential increase” in passengers claiming the need for such animals, said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

 

“Flight attendants and passengers have been bitten, attacked and inconvenienced by animals that are not properly trained to be in a confined public environment,” Nelson said. “This is interfering with the rights of our veterans and people with disabilities who legitimately need these animals to travel.”

 

 

 

If You Believe I Am Great, Tell Me I Am Great And I Will Give You A Gift. If You Don’t Believe I Am Great, Tell Me I Am Great And I Will Give You A Gift.

Hundreds of thousands of times a day companies seeking to make what they make and sell better ask for input so they can Sell More, Satisfy More and Make More Money.

 

Here are three of the ways this is done...

Ø Hiring Mystery Shoppers to go into their retail outlets and actually experience how customers are treated on any given day.

Ø Sending out Surveys to their customers to find out the truth about what the customers think about their product and what they experience when they try and buy their product and/or how their product functions after the customer actually tries to use it in the real world.

Ø The Food Industry prints a link to a Satisfaction Survey on the back of Sales Receipts. In return for participation in the survey, the customer is offered a reward like 2 pieces of chicken and a biscuit, a food item, etc.

 

Notice the keys kinds of information the seller is trying to obtain in order to ensure future success...

Ø Actual purchase experiences.

Ø Does their product fulfill the needs of the buyer?

Ø Does their product taste good?

Ø Will the customer come back again for more of the same?

Ø Is their product being kept fresh up until the point where it is actually purchased?

 

All of this effort on the seller’s part implies a promise along these lines...

We commit to you that we will use the feedback you give us to improve our product in order to obtain you future purchases of what we have to sell to you. In other words...If You Tell Us What We Did Wrong, We Will Make It Right or If You Tell Us What We Did Right, We Will Continue To Do It Right.

************************

The Noticer (me) has surfaced. I have laying on my computer desk an actual sales receipt from one of the largest fast food companies we have today. On the reverse side of their sales receipt is a wrongheaded thinking offer from them to me.

 

It simply says...”Rate us HIGHLY SATISFIED and Receive ONE FREE ITEM of equal or lesser value with purchase”.

 

You know I am never at a loss for words but when I first saw this, all I could think was, “Huh!?” (Yes that’s both an Exclamation Point and a Question Mark.)

 

This “survey” implies promises along these lines...

Ø We don’t want to know our weaknesses.

Ø We don’t want to know what we have to do to improve.

Ø We don’t care if you like us.

Ø We don’t care if you like what we have to sell.

Ø Next time you come in, we promise we will have the same warts on our food and our customer service.

Ø We don’t care if you are satisfied.

 

This is the bottom so here is the bottom line...

We Really Don’t Care If Mikey Likes Us Or Not!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQ0LZSnJFE

Grown Up Mikey...

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

When The City Comes After Your Home-Based Business Don’t Expect Logic And Common Sense To Save You Home-Based Business

This article is from the Wall Street Journal...

“Overzealous regulators are targeting yoga teachers, accountants and even YouTube video creators.”

“By C. Jarrett Dieterle and Shoshana Weissmann

July 15, 2018

(The majority of this article is about Kim O’Neil and that is the only part used for this Blog Posting)

Chandler, Ariz.—a city of some 250,000 southeast of Phoenix—describes itself as “built on entrepreneurial spirit.” You could forgive Kim O’Neil for not buying it.

 

Ms. O’Neil and her family are longtime residents of Chandler. Until recently she ran a medical-billing company in the town. For years she worked out of leased office space, but when Ms. O’Neil’s father became ill in 2013 she moved the business to her home. After her father died in 2015, she continued to run the business out of her house, because she could fulfill her work obligations while caring for her elderly mother.

 

In the summer of 2016, Ms. O’Neil received a letter from the city of Chandler informing her that she was illegally operating a home-based business. She needed to apply for a permit within seven days or face action from the city government. Ms. O’Neil assumed the permit would be easy to obtain. Her business was conducted entirely within her home, had no signage or visiting customers, and didn’t require the storage of commercial equipment or inventory.

 

Chandler officials didn’t see it that way. They told Ms. O’Neil that her three employees were not allowed to work on-site, though they parked in her driveway and didn’t cause traffic concerns. Eventually, in an attempt to appease city officials, Ms. O’Neil instructed her employees to work from their own residences rather than her home.

 

City officials were still unmoved. They informed Ms. O’Neil that she would have to build a parking facility, submit architectural drawings of her home, and obtain approval from every neighbor within 600 feet. Doing so would have been expensive, but that wasn’t all. The city even suggested Ms. O’Neil might have to attend monthly meetings with city officials. Her business bothered no one and was entirely self-contained in her home, but Ms. O’Neil eventually gave up. She shut down her business, calling the episode “one of the most stressful experiences of my life.”

 

Some regulation is necessary and nuisance laws can play an important role in ensuring that a home-based business doesn’t unduly burden the neighbors. But many local rules hurt small businesses with no discernible benefit. Not all businesses may be appropriate to run out of a home, but operations like Ms. O’Neil’s are the sort of entrepreneurial endeavors that government should be supporting, not thwarting.”

 

Mr. Dieterle is director of commercial freedom and a senior fellow at the R Street Institute. Ms. Weissmann is a policy analyst and the digital media specialist at R Street.

************************

Kim O’Neil’s business was completely self-contained within her home and, if she did not tell her neighbors that her home contained a home-based business, her neighbors would probably never have known the business was there.

 

Beware of a bureaucrat with a set of regulations.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

This Is All So Confusing!

I have never bought a Papa John’s Pizza. That proves I don’t have a vested interest in protecting him and his Pizza Company because I fear I will be cut off from his delicious pies.

 

I have several reasons for sympathizing with Papa John (John Schnatter)...

Ø I like hard workers and he must be a hard worker because he started his Pizza Chain of more than 5,000 locations in 45 countries in a converted broom closet in his father’s Jeffersonville, IN Tavern.

Ø He can’t be all bad because he stood up to all the craziness of NFL players kneeling during our National Anthem.

Ø My grandchildren call me “Papa”.

 

It now appears he has been kicked out of the company he has worked so long to build because of what people within his company are saying about things that happened in his company and a report that he used The N- Word!

************************

First Let’s Talk About The People Reporting About What Happened Within Papa’s Company

I decided that I would drive up to Kentucky and ask the reporting people about what they have reported and see if I can figure out if what they have reported has a basis in fact.

 

I tried to find out the names of these internal company reporters but that was not easy. I read an extensive article in the Wall Street Journal and here are the “names” I came up with...

I have listed their “names” each and every time I saw their “names” repeated in the article. 

Ø “citing people familiar with the matter”

Ø “People close to the company said”

Ø “they said”

Ø “said one of the people”

Ø “said one of the people familiar with the company”

Ø “The people close to the company said”

Ø “said a person familiar with the meeting”

Ø “this person said”

Ø “said the people close to the company”

Ø “one of them said”

Ø “said a person who attended”

Ø “this person said”

Ø “said some of the people close to the company”

Ø “A person familiar with the company said”

Ø “said one of them”

Ø “said one of the people close to the company”

Ø (Again) “said one of the people close to the company”

Ø “One of the people close to the company said”

 

It’s must be only in a court of law that the accused has a right to face his accuser but not in a Pizza Parlor.

************************

Now Let’s Talk About Papa’s “Use” Of The N-Word

Quote from WSJ... “John Schnatter’s relations with Papa John’s International Inc., the pizza giant he founded, appeared to crumble abruptly and irreparably after reports this month that he had used a racial slur.”

 

I know what most of you are thinking... A Racial Slur! He ought to know better! He ought to be fired! Adios, Papa!

 

Paul Harvey is visiting with me today and, as usual, he asked me to tell you the rest of the story. Here is another quote from the same article in the WSJ... “The company agreed to bring him (John Schnatter) back to events such as one involving the National Hot Rod Association in Chicago in May and arranged to have Laundry Service (Papa John’s Ad Agency) conduct a role-playing session that would pose tough questions he might face from reporters. Asked during the session whether he was racist, he said, he answered “no,” and went on to use “n—” when explaining that Colonel Sanders used the word but Papa John’s didn’t. He said he resisted the marketing firm’s suggestion to use rapper Kanye West in ads with him because Mr. West used the “N-word” in songs.”

 

I have a question for my Dear Readers... Is saying the N-Word the same as using the N-Word? If you say that someone else said the N-Word, is the sayer who said that someone else said the N-Word just as guilty as the sayer who actually said the N-Word?

I don’t think so.

 

What if you say the N-Word in your sleep?

 

Now I’m getting silly...Or am I?

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

Lagniappe: The CEO who replaced Papa declined to be interviewed.

 

Was Jesus Conceited?

Saint Matthew at 26:11 quotes Jesus as saying...“The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me”.

 

Can you imagine how the Modern News Media would treat Jesus for daring to say such a thing as this?...

Ø Jesus caught on a hot microphone being heartless!

Ø Does Jesus really think he is that special?

Ø National Inquirer: Inquiring minds want to know. Is Jesus really as uncaring for the poor as he appears?

Ø How can he really be the Son of God when he apparently is so self-centered as to say, “You will not always have me”?

Ø A Gallup Poll reveals that 72% of Americans say they agree with the statement, “We prefer a God with at least a modicum of humility!”

 

Jesus showed how really smart he was because he did not wait till 2018 to come walk among us.

 

If he had waited he might have been overheard on a hot mike saying, “Beam me up, Father, there’s no intelligent life down here”.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

They Used To Announce, “Elvis Has Left The Building”. Now We Think To Ourselves, “The Mental Midget Has Not Left The Car”.

I saw it with my own eyes. I timed it on my Apple Stop Watch. I am here to tell you she was a certified (certified by me) Mental Midget.

 

At this point you are saying to yourself, “Self, what the heck is Fella talking about?”

 

I apologize. Sometimes I get carried away. Please allow me to walk this one back to the point of clarity.

 

I was pumping gas in a crowded gas station. On the other side of the pumps a lady pulled in but did not get out of her car right away and start pumping gas. Instead she started Texting. Right away the question hit me about how long she was going to Sit There and Text, so I started my Apple Stop Watch.

 

She sat there for 4 minutes and 17 seconds while the lady who had pulled up right behind her waited to get her gas. She looked like a nice person but, to my way of thinking, she was being discourteous and oblivious to the lady behind her.

 

I found myself thinking... Does she not know she can start the gas flowing and, while it is flowing, she can get her Important Texting done?

 

Important Texting means different things to different folks. Here are 3 examples of what passes for Important Texting in the mind of a Texting Obsessed Mental Midget...

Ø Do you wanna do lunch today?

Ø I’ve about had it with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’m going to go into the grocery store right after I pump this gas and buy some ham and cheese. (It does not dawn on her that “after” she pumps her gas will never come if she does not start pumping her gas.)

Ø Did you hear that Agnes and Walter are calling it quits again?

 

What I found hard to believe was that the person behind her in line did not get out of her car and start shouting at the Sitting and Texting Mental Midget to Start Pumping Your Darn Gas! (Or some such words.)

 

Then I looked at the Potential Pumper behind her and saw why she was not shouting at the Not Pumping Person...The Potential Pumper Behind Her Was Texting!

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Where Do Litterbugs Come From?

At the end of this Blog Posting you will see pictorial evidence of the end result of Litterbugs being Trained, Nurtured and Educated to be what they are.

 

As you will see at the beginning of this Blog Posting, the Trainers, Nurturers and Educators of the Litterbugs are doing one hell of a job and they are everywhere.

 

The smaller print below was sent to me by one of my Dear Readers…

Reading your blog made me think of one of our pet peeves – litter. I “walk the street” (not in the biblical sense though) every Sunday AM and pick up litter along our front property (about 600 ft.). It’s amazing how many cigarette butts I pick up with my “Grabber”, along with the many sandwich bags, cigarillo plastic holders and every fast food in the world’s stuff. Louisiana is such a dirty state!

 

I am the Secretary of “Tangi Clean” for the past 8-9 years where we try to make a difference in educating folks about litter. Our Chairperson personally supervises community service workers who have been given service hours to pick up litter (DUIs, minor offenses). It’s amazing that they can pick up an area around a street and then a couple weeks later go back and pick up just as much trash as they pickup two weeks earlier! It’s a generational thing; maybe because we recently got the State to legislate that school children get taught about how bad litter is – maybe they can make an impact later in their life.

 

What brought this “pre blog” on was the regular image of a driver flicking a butt out the window – many of which I have picked up. What’s worse than a reformed smoker? A reformed smoker (over 50 years ago) who is also an anti litter nut!

 

Foolish – or not??

 

Oh yea, the Training Part I promised at the beginning of this Posting…

It goes back to 1976 when we were living in California. My daughter came home one day bug-eyed because of what she had just witnessed…

Ø She was riding in the back seat of a car being driven by the mother of a school friend.

Ø The school friend finished eating a candy bar and she dropped the wrapper on the floor of the car.

Ø The mother admonished the school friend (educated her), “How many times have I told you! Don’t drop your trash in my car! Throw that out the window!”

 

Yes, our parents are the First Litter Teachers of the Good Ole USofA’s children (future teaching adults).

************************

The picture below is conclusive proof that that Littering Child has moved from California to Georgia...

I confronted this family about their dumping their dinning trash out the window of their car...

Ø I said... “Why do you feel it is OK for you to throw your dining trash out of the window of your car onto the ground in this parking lot?”

Ø Their leader said to me, “It is OK because, while we admit it is our Dining Trash, any fool can see it is not our Parking Lot! You ought to learn to mind your own business!”

 

When confronted with such irrefutable logic what could I do? I apologized for questioning their Trashing Rights and humbly smiled and waved while every single one of them gave me the finger as they drove away.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT FOOLISHNESS...OR IS IT?!

I have now gone over 100,000 Page Views in Blogger!

That's a big number!...Or is it?

I decided to compare myself to Justin Bieber.

I wish I had not bothered to compare myself to Justin Bieber because I found this...

Justin Bieber just became the first artist to crack the 10 billion total video views mark on Vevo. The company said that the lofty global click total was accumulated in just over six years (2,316 days, to be exact).

I don't think I'm going to catch up with Justin because it took me 4,380 to get to my measly 100,000.

Fella

As Long As A Janitor Is Paid $500,000 A Year This Is Manageable Home Price...Or Is It?

I read where the Median Home Price in San Francisco is $1,600,000.

 

I’ve figured it out...

Ø I’ve often heard that California is the Land of Fruits and Nuts.

Ø I have also heard that a lot of Crazy People like to live in San Francisco.

Ø This must mean Nuts Have A Lot of Money.

 

Did my use of “Median” throw you for a loop? It threw me too. I looked it up...

Median

The median is the value separating the higher half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. For a data set, it may be thought of as the "middle" value. For example, in the data set {1, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9}, the median is 6, the fourth largest, and also the fourth smallest, number in the sample. For a continuous probability distribution, the median is the value such that a number is equally likely to fall above or below it.

 

Now that I have gone to all this trouble to explain “Median” to you, do you feel smarter?

 

I know I don’t.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

Lagniappe: A Starter House must be somewhere around $1,000,000.

Amazon Prime And Gigantic Minutiae

Many years ago I created a blog about how easy it was for a modern Internet Company to increase cash flow (make more money)...

Ø A company had subscriptions from 20 Million customers.

Ø If it raised their customer’s Monthly Subscription Cost by $1.

Ø They would have just increased their income by $20 Million a Month or $240 Million a Year.

************************

What follows is not an indictment of Amazon for their recent increase in the Annual Subscription Cost for Amazon Prime. It is just Wow! Interesting!

Ø As of March 2017 it is estimated that there are 80 Million Amazon Prime Subscribers.

Ø This new increase in the subscription cost is $20 per Year.

Ø That calculates out to an increased Cash Flow of $1.6 Billion or 1 Thousand 6 Hundred Million Dollars per Year.

Now you understand why they pay you no never mind if you write them a letter and say you refuse to pay the increase and you are cancelling your subscription. It’s because they still has 79,999,999 Subscribers to fall back on.

************************

A Little Further Analysis...

Ø  A few years ago Amazon did another $20 per Year increase and the Folks Back Home (that’s us) did not blink.

Ø Amazon Prime Subscriptions have been growing dramatically over the years.

Ø In 2014 there were 41 Million Subscribers and March 2017 (as stated above) there are 80 Million.

Ø The average Prime member spends about $1,300 Each Year on Amazon, nearly double the $700 Each Year spent by non-Prime members.

 

Actually, Fella dropped his subscription when they did the last $20 Increase. Later I picked up the subscription again and Amazon proved it did not hold a grudge for my disloyalty because they immediately started taking my money again.

 

Do you think they knew I would be back? ... I do.

 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

 

Lagniappe: Kitty Kallen sang Little Things Mean A Lot in 1954. They still do. AT&T (and some other carriers) has an Admin Charge on the bottom of their bill listed near Federal and State Taxes (which makes some of us think the Administrative Fee is also a Government-Mandated Charge but it is simply an extra charge by AT&T). The fee was just raised $.76 a Month. This Small Increase will generate about $970 a Year to AT&T.