Winter 2015 January 12 Monday

35 degrees this morning, 45:58 minutes walking four earthquakes

Finally took the bullet by the horns this weekend (or something to that effect), and decided to get more “audiobooks” downloaded.  

Aliene and I enjoy listening to them, but we still like to listen to them on CD’s in the car (it is a lot easierI), so i back them up on CD’s to listen in the care.  (We can legally make one copy).  

We had been listening “The Goldfinch”.  It was a good book which was entertaining and we had been listening to it for several months so we felt rather lost without a book to listen too.

For some reason, Apple, in all their wisdom, or lack thereof, completely changed their way of handling playlists.  Even the Apple store took a while to figure it out.

I listen to Audiobooks as downloads and and glad I don’t have to mess around with CD’s.  While I am walking, I am  really glad I don’t need to mess around with CD’s or cassettes.  Right now I am deeply involved in “The Winter of the World” somewhere around 1941.  (This is a trilogy of the time from 1900 to 2000) while I walk.

I realize it is fiction (The Winter of the World), but it also provides some enlightening history (such as concerning Franco and the Spanish Civil War, the possible reasons for WWII etc.  

Over the past few years, I kept a list of “Tu it” books (I’m going to read when I get a “round tu it”.  I actually am checking some of the books out of the library and checking them off my “tu it” list, either because I read them or because I decided not to read them for some reason.

It has been interesting and rather satisfying to mark a book off the list.  Of course, it seems like every week I add more….! I guess I’ll never catch up, but why would I want to do that?

I have really been noticing the cities that are “repurposing” areas for their residents, and in most cases the businesses follow the residents and you get quality businesses rather than businesses that don’t add much to the community.

I went to the Apple Store this afternoon.  No matter how much I am down on Apple, I always walk out of the store feeling energetic, or perhaps energized, and enthused about Apple products.  

The Apple Store is almost a perfect example of what a City should be like.  One that energizes residents and makes them proud to be residents of the City or customers of the City.  

There is a difference in Apple Stores, just like cities.  For example, the I liked the  Memphis (Germantown) Apple Store a lot better than my Apple store here.  I just thought the staff was a lot more customer service oriented and more just into Apple products.  

I don’t know what the difference is, but i’m sure it is partly the leadership and the attention they pay to hiring people who truly buy into the Apple culture and it shows when customers deal with them.

I think the same applies to cities or any business.  I have certainly been to businesses where the staff makes me forget I am in a chain store and they are paid minimum wage (if they are lucky) and they still make me feel like a valued customer.  

On the other hand, there are stores like Starbucks (and Apple to some degree) where somehow they seem to inoculate the culture in the employees and it is rare you run into an employee who is not in tune with customer service and dedication to the culture.  

Of course there also are a few stores where the vast majority of the staff are surly and unhelpful.  Those are the ones that are now empty buildings or replaced by a more enlightened store!

That’s it for now, Monday, Jan 12, 2015