Thursday, May 25, 2017

Why No, I Haven’t Written Much Lately

Yes, I’ve been busy.  I’m about to be even more so, as today marks the beginning of the summer tourist season.  Traditionally, I write a final pre-season post and say goodbye for the summer, so to speak.  Once the tourists are gone in September, I return with a flourish.  Since I started this post several weeks ago, it’s now turned into that post. 

Yeah, I haven’t written much lately.  It’s certainly not from a lack of material to write about.

For example, take President Trump.  Please.  There has been so much one could discuss.  I’ve considered it several times, but, just as I start up the ol’ laptop, another bombshell hits and attention is diverted to the chaos du jour. 

There are two reasons I don’t talk about Trump – one, many others do it far better and with more vitriol than I (see: “100 Days 100 Horrors” here), and more importantly, it’s preaching to the saved.  The 36% who still see him as Making America Great Again see nothing wrong here.  Two recent quotes (from Facebook comments) are telling:

“Trump has done more in his first three months than Obama did in eight years!”

“Never, never in my lifetime seen a President be scrutinized over every word he speaks, humiliated by the public, insulted, lied to…Every other President after they got in office were left alone…”

It’s just a different reality, I guess.  Oh, BTW, the election was six months ago and yes, we’re well over that.  What we’re not over is what’s going on now.  THAT’S what is pissing us off.  Just sayin’.  See “100 Days 100 Horrors” here.

Anyway, as the “well-oiled machine” turns into a “dumpster fire” into a “train wreck” and is now in “full-blown Hindenburg,” we’ll all wait to see what happens.  I know where my money is.  Hello, President Pence (ick).

I could be writing about the ongoing battle to restore online poker to its pre-Black Friday glory.  In 2013, three states legislated legal and regulated online gaming and poker.  And we still only have three states.  We push ahead and contact legislators in the various states that show interest in moving forward (California seems like a dream to us now), but…progress here is very, very slow.  There have been signs of life lately in PA and NY, but…well, we’ll see once summer is over.  Perhaps I will return to a much different online landscape.

And speaking of slow progress…the real reason I’ve written hardly at all.

I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I was optimistic about 2017, and that was because we had a lot going on.  That’s one reason there haven’t been many words scribed to this blog – we’ve been involved.  Running the business, selling the business, building a house – all of that at the same time.  It’s kept us very busy, but, sadly, there’s been little real progress.  Like watching glaciers melt.  We wanted to get a lot of the paperwork and decision making out of the way before we started the busy part of the tourist season.

Fat chance.

I realize designers and contractors and bankers are busy people, and they have many other things on their plate.  But the thing that gets me is that I never hear back from them when I ask a question or inquire as to the status of our project.  Deadlines come and go.  “Life stuff” comes up and gets in the way (some of it has been legit, so I am only half-complaining here). Remember how email and cellphones were supposed to speed things up and make communication fast and effortless?  Apparently that’s not true if you never look at your email and never answer your phone.  Who knew?

All I know is that the next person who tells me “I’ll have something to you by Friday” gets it right between the eyes.

But here’s the best part of all this – work, house, selling the biz – I write this knowing that it’s gonna get worse (busier) before it gets better, but I also know that most likely this will be the LAST TIME we do this.


We hope.