A Brick and mortar approach

I read about Barnes and Nobel on NPR  It’s an interesting approach to rebuilding for retailers:

The biggest change borrowed from the playbook of independent bookshops: Daunt gave local Barnes & Noble stores much more authority to order what their readers, in their area want to see.

It's "a huge shift, frankly, in philosophy for us as a bookseller," DeVito says.

"It's not an algorithm. It's not something that's dynamically pulled from a code," she says. "It's very much a — I read this, I loved it, I know this area really gravitates towards beekeeping books, so I'm going to create the best beekeeping display I can because this is my local store."

[https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161295820/how-barnes-noble-turned-a-page-expanding-for-the-first-time-in-years]

The part that struck me is that they relied on their people. Often you go into a chain store in any city, and it looks like the same chain store in any other city. For many this can be reassuring for the customer, but in the case of a bookstore or other more specialized retailer, I can see where, carrying the product that the people in your area want to purchase is the best approach. 

It is especially interesting that the store is not only choosing products, but re-organizing to emphasize those products and gain additional sales. More stores need to realy on their people and not some computer algorithm to boost sales. The people in the local store are the ones that know what their clients want. Use their ideas for product selection and placement.

By extension, you need to listen and understand your customers. We aren't all the same, especially across a country as large as the United States. Know what people want and will buy. Don't rely on your suppliers (kickbacks), but talk to and watch your customers.

The idea is that people will tell you what they want, but you must listen, understand, and then act on what they are telling you. Then enjoy the profits.

Fewer Blogs

 Reduced number of blogs. I have reduced blogs to three:

• Bob Breedlove: Juat general ramblines
• Old White Dude: Thoughts about being an old white man and all that implies vs. the reality of my beliefe
• Bob's Third Place: places that I am on the internet

Things certainly have changed in my life. I retired at the end of 2019, then came the COVID thing, and now, I am doing retirement things. I have been lax in updating these, but will attempt to make more efforts to keep my thoughts up to date.

The Drought will continue

Even if California were to have above-average rain and snow this winter, warming temperatures mean it still likely won’t be enough to make up for all the water California lost. This past year, California had its warmest ever statewide monthly average temperatures in June, July, and October 2020.

Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, said people should not think about drought “as being just this occasional thing that happens sometimes, and then we go back to a wetter system.”

“We are really transitioning to a drier system so, you know, dry becomes the new normal,” she said. “Drought is not a short-term feature. Droughts take time to develop, and they usually linger for quite some time.”https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/10/21/rain-end-drought-united-states/

We need to realize that it may be wet today, but we are in for drier times due to climate change. Don’t be fooled by the rain over the next several days, dryer, hotter climate is here for a long while and will be the new normal. 

I’m back

 More to come…

Goodbye My Friend

My good friend and neighbor, Bruce, passed away unexpectedly, recently. The emphasis is on "friend". It was very unexpected. I was outside when the EMT's arrived. When his wife, Pat, came out and told me that Bruce had a major heart attack, the only thing that came to mind was "Damn!". I drove Pat to the hospital emergency room and, when her friend who met us there came out to tell us that Bruce didn't make it, my only thought was, "Damn!".

Bruce was the kind of person who stays with you. He was intelligent, educated, experienced, and the consummate story teller. He was committed to the environment and, especially to trees -- oh, and big horn sheep.

His tribute was a tree planting -- actually three trees. They were planted by the Sacramento Tree Foundation along the North Sacramento bike trail right in front of trees that Bruce's team planted 15 years earlier as part of the first planting by the tree foundation. It was a fitting tribute to this man who gave so much to so many people. There were a large number of people there and all participated in the event. Some of Bruce's ashes were spread in the holes where the trees were planted so that his essence could help the trees grow and flourish.

 Bruce will be missed, but he will never be gone. He left a little here, on your mind . . .

and a lot here, in your heart.

Goodbye, my friend!

One Week of Retirement

I have been retired for one week. Managing to keep busy -- writing this is one of the things I'm doing. Just got a call from a retired friend, so I'm taking my time to write this. He and his wife -- also retired -- are giving me pointers. So I'll continue in a while . . .
OK, that was fun. Don't want to overtax myself.

I went my first volunteer shift at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. 3-1/2 hours of warehouse work. Not strenuous and benefiting the work on Habitat for Humanity. If you have a Restore in your area, and you want to do some work on you house, need some appliances, or home decor, lighting, etc. you should check them out. Many of the things are unused or very lightly used, can save you a bunch of money and benefit a great cause. I'm signing up for more shifts just to keep busy.

I'm also starting to investigate day trip options. I have been keeping articles that I see online and will start to evaluate them. One of my first trips will be to Breedlove Road in Georgetown, CA. It's only about 54 miles from home (about 1 hour 10 minutes). Nothing particular there, other than the name. Curious. There is a "Robert Way" within walking distance of home that I've written about. The weather will have a lot to do with my timing. Right now, it's snowing in Georgetown and I don't necessarily want to chance that.

More on my adventures in retirement soon.

Longevity

I have with the same company for 22 years. I just found that I am employee 15 still active out of about 600. I have been working since I was 14 years old and am now 70. That's 56 years. I have been unemployed for exactly 1 day in all that time. It's time to not be working. Looking forward to 12/31/2019.

Retirement Ahead

So, I'm looking at LinkedIn and I got to thinking, I am looking toward retirement in the next couple of years, what am I doing here?

Then I got to thinking, what will I do there...

I need to start thinking about what I will do once I am retired. I hope I won't have to continue working, but I do want to keep active so that I have a long and happy -- or at least contented -- retirement.

So what does something to do during retirement look like?

1. Keep Active
   I think I need some interests which will keep me active. I'd like them not to be yard work or such, but something which keeps me moving.
2. Keep the Mind Active
   I need things which will keep my mind active. Don't want to lose the circuits once I give up thinking for a living.
3. Keep Involved with People
   Because I'm not much of a joiner, I think I have to make a special effort to keep involved in the community and in contact with people. The Internet doesn't count. I mean real contact -- face-to-face.

Retirement: Volunteering

Days Until Retirement:

• 22 work days
• 45 calendar days

I just signed up to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity Restore shifts. I will start after 1/1/2020. I wanted to volunteer for something where I would be more active than my current day job which involves sitting at a desk all day.

Volunteering here allows me to pick shifts. This is good as I also plan to travel some and I can skip the weeks/days when I will be on the road. It will allow me to be around people and will also serve a good cause. I'm looking forward to it.

Retirement Getting Close

December 31, 2019, is approaching. As of today I have

• 46 calendar days
• 23 work days

People ask me if I'm excited. I'm not sure excited is a good description -- but definitely ready. I have been unemployed one day since I was 14 years old. That's 56 years of working.

• 675 Months 24 Days
• 2,938 Weeks 3 Days
• 20,569 Days.

Wow! I'm ready.

People also ask me what I will be doing. Will I consult? Right now, I think the answer is I will volunteer. But, I want to volunteer in something at which I can keep active, not sit at a desk.

I also plan to travel. I'd like to have the money to go around the world, but I'll start with something a bit more local. My wife is still working, so I'll probably just get in the car and go to places I haven't been. Perhaps just turn down the road that I pass as I have traveled in the past the thought, "I wonder what's down there." It's time to find out.

News Junky?

I have come to the realization that I may be a news junky. I do spend time on sites which have news on them. Some of my regulars are:

• Feedly
  An excellent RSS site.
• Facebook
  Yeah, I know.
• Twitter
  Ditto

There is one thing about Facebook and Twitter that I hate. That is THEM selecting the order of things I see for me. I want the new presented in chronological order (maybe reversed), but I don't want some service selecting what I see first. I don't care whats trending or popular or has the most likes. I don't want some algorithm determining what I "prefer". I want the new simply presented and I will decide what I want to read and not read and in what order.

Enough said.

Retirement Thought

It seems as I near retirement (81 days) that things at work are more irritating. I work in a job where I have to do on-call, and it seems things are going somewhat bonkers. I definitely will NOT miss this part of the job -- although my employer is excellent to work at. I think it's more me than the actual job. I have been unemployed one day since I was 14, so it's has been a long slog and I am just ready to not work.  OK, I'll work, but not at a job, if you know what I mean.

I need to keep busy, so will come up with something to do. One of the first things is to lose about 20-30 pounds and get into some shape other than that of a ripe avocado. The next is to make sure that I do things around the house. Then to come up with something to keep my mind and body active.

PG&E Power Outage

I have been watching TweetDeck and the Tweets about the Northern California power outages. It's interesting. Most are irritated by the blackouts. Some are ranting about it being "communism". Many are complaining that PG&E has not maintained it's equipment over the years in favor of shareholder profits and executive bonuses. I think many of the comments may be valid. Some complaints about their web site which was overwhelmed by people seeking information.

As an interesting aside, KCRA 3 in Sacramento reports that there have been 50 fires reported in the Sacramento area over the past day. Six were residential and commercial, the remainder were grass fires. Maybe there is something to this wind thing?

[By way of disclosure, I'm not affected either at home or work as we are in the SMUD control area.]

Retirement Update

I am retiring 12/31/2019. A new phase starts. Now I just have to figure out what to do.

Retirement

I plan to retire next year or early 2020. I'm going to be putting my thoughts here mostly to keep them organized for me. Retirement seems strange. I have been unemployed ONE DAY since I was 14 years old. So, I guess, I'll need to keep busy. Probably not working, but with hobbies and such. I'll be putting my thoughts on that subject here and perhaps a bit about the tasks involved in winding down a long career.

Stay tuned . . .

A good philosophy to live by

Should have learned most of this stuff by the 2nd grade. It's not original to me, but I LIKE it.

• Live beneath your means. 
• Return everything you borrow. 
• Stop blaming other people. Admit it when you make a mistake. 
• Give clothes not worn to charity. 
• Do something nice and try not to get caught. 
• Listen more; talk less. 
• Every day take a 30-minute walk. 
• Strive for excellence, not perfection. 
• Be on time. 
• Don't make excuses. 
• Get organized. 
• Be kind to people. 
• Be kind to unkind people. 
• Let someone cut ahead of you in line. 
• Take time to be alone. 
• Cultivate good manners. 
• Be humble. 
• Realize and accept that life isn't fair. 
• Know when to keep your mouth shut. 
• Go an an entire day without criticizing anyone. 
• Learn from the best. 
• Plan for the future. 
• Live in the present. 
• Don't sweat the small stuff. 

It's all small stuff.

Salesforce Test Coverage

As those of you who code Apex know, Salesforce requires at least 75% code coverage to move your logic to production. The documentation on how to achieve that is remarkably lacking. I just spent nearly two days trying to figure out how to test a custom controller because of a Map which, apparently, would not load.

Like many things in this Internet age, I spent hours reading through blogs, posts and other on-line documentation. Finally, in an obscure post, only tangentially associated with the issue, I found what appears to be the answer. My thought is that this is the first thing that you should do.

@isTest(SeeAllData=true) 

The "SeeAllDate=true" did the job. I'm not sure why. To my way of thinking, the information in the Map should have worked just as it did when testing the controller manually, but it didn't. I know this is going to be the first thing I do on all my test classes in the future.

Encrypting the Web

One of the issues with running an HTTPS site is the cost of the certificate. Here's a solution which is trying to eliminate that issue.

Take a look at this:

http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/lets-encrypt-is-actually-enc.html

Then check out the actual site:

https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started/

This could really make the web more secure at a fraction of the cost.

Give me a real keyboard and a mouse

I learned to type in high school on a typewriter -- yes, I know, what's that? Despite the fact that the typewriter has gone the way of the Dodo, it was one of the most beneficial classes I ever took.

At one time early in my career, I was tested at 97 words per minute corrected on an IBM Selectric typewriter. When I learned to type, PC's were still 3 decades in the future and even longer than that before they became as prevalent as they are today. I type much faster than I write, at least, if I want someone to read it. Yes, I admit it, my handwriting is terrible. In fact, when I write quickly, I sometimes have trouble reading it later myself! So, a keyboard is my best friend.

And not just any keyboard, a mechanical keyboard. I'm not all that great on the on-screen ones that appear on tablets and phones. I never can type with my thumbs on the phone and am little better with my fingers on a tablet. A touch screen i little better for clicking on things. Although I have small hands, my fingers seem to expand into sausages when "clicking" on a touch screen. it seems that the spot to touch is never under my finger tip. It's sort of like Schrodinger's cat when I try to poke at it and is never in the place where my fingertip is detected on the touch screen.

About a year ago, I found that a Bluetooth mouse works well with my Dell Venue 8 Windows tablet. Combining that with some on screen poking make a good combination to click on things. With Windows, it's also good to have the right click as I never seem to be able to wait the required amount of time to make that happen while using the touch screen.

I have tried several keyboards and have finally settled on the Zagg keyboard case in the picture. Although the keyboard isn't perfect, it's good enough for some relatively quick touch typing. It also has all the keys I need, including the delete key and function keys missing from some other keyboards. It is adaptable to both Android and Windows.

The keyboard is a main element, but the factor that sold me on the Zagg was the fact that the tablet stands up without any back brace. This makes the case much more convenient than others I have found. The tablet is held in place by a spring mechanism which makes it easy to remove when I want to go into tablet only mode -- mostly when I'm consuming media rather than creating it.

So I'm still working with it, but this setup has made the tablet more usable for me and more fun to use. Now if I could just get my old eyes to work better on the small screen. Oh well...one little victory at a time...

No Saturday Morning Cartoons

This is the first Saturday morning without cartoons on the major broadcast networks in the U.S. (see http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-first-weekend-in-america-with-no-saturday-m-1642441646).

What's the world coming to? That's what you did as a kid when I was growing up -- watch cartoons. Now, kids have so many media choices that cartoons on Saturday morning are no big deal. And the networks, looking to maximize profits, are switching to other fare while the kids are on the computer or cable consuming whatever it is they consume.

I guess it's ievitable, but, I'm sort of sorry to see it go. I know it was a habbit for me and even my kids to watch cartoons on Saturday morning. I guess this generation of youngsters will just have to start new traditions. Hopefully, they will be as fun as the old ones.