Ed Icionsub

We’ve been helping my daughter and her boyfriend out with bills since her boyfriend isn’t working but I am starting to get concerned as to why he has been out of work for so long. He is a nice enough young man, polite and clean, although I’m not really thrilled with the long hair. His last job was working in a warehouse down in Chattanooga, doing fulfillment for a medical supply company. He quit that job almost a year ago when he started dating our daughter, with the thought that he would move up here and should find a new job relatively easily. But that is not proving to be the case.

I have helped him put together a resume and showed him how to search for product fulfillment jobs posted on the local jobs boards. There are always a dozen or so openings posted, all over town. I really thought that he would be able to get a job within 6 – 8 weeks.

I ran an order fulfillment department back in the 1980′s and I know a lot of things have changed since then. For one thing, we can use bar codes and computer printed manifests for shipping. That saves a lot of time and avoids errors from bad handwriting on shipping labels. Even packaging has changed a lot since then, and running a warehouse is much easier, with conveyors, rollers and motorized forklifts to help workers find the inventory items and get them pulled for packing.

In all these years that my neighbor has had this swing, I have never seen her sit on it and actually swing. But we do have a lot of squirrels and birds who love this swing. I wish I could have snapped this photo with a couple of bright red cardinals on the swing with it sprinkled with fresh snow. I really like red cardinals and they look especially bright against the dark brown of wood and the white of a fresh snowfall.

Tags: snow, swing, wood

As a kid, we would rake leaves into huge piles that lined the street and then run and jump in them. We would spend hours out in the yard helping Dad rake leaves. Then, after we had jumped around in them, making tunnels and covering each other up with leaves like you do with sand at the beach, my dad and our neighbors would light the leaves on fire and stand around in the street tending to the burning leaves. It was a big part of autumn and a big part of being good neighbors.

Somehow it is just not as satisfying to rake the leaves from the backyard into a pile and then have to dump them into oversized brown paper bags and wait for the county yard waste truck to drive through collecting the bags. It’s just become another mindless, isolated chore that has to be done. I miss the good old days of leaves burning and all the neighbors gathered around, telling stories and jokes and being part of a close knit community.

Tags: backyard, community, leaves, neighbor

One of the best parts of our monthly commercial real estate brokers meetings comes at the very end of the meeting. Usually we start with a short mixer as people arrive. Then we are invited to take our seats at the dining tables and we are served lunch. About halfway through eating the lunch, when it is easier to get people’s attention without the distraction of servers dashing about the room, asking to pass the butter or the salt, and the exchanging of pleasantries with your tablemates, a speaker begins the program.

The talks and presentations continue as we finish our lunch and then right before we adjourn, the President invites the attendees to take turns standing and declaring any wants – such as looking for a particular type of property – or any haves – such as a listing just signed since the last monthly meeting.

The announcement of haves and wants is a great advantage to people with hot properties or anxious buyers. This is when we hear about deals that are underway or have just been signed. We hear about the deals before they hit the internet and we also have the ear of the brokers involved. Access to this type of information is invaluable and there is no better way to get an edge on the competition then eating lunch with and rubbing shoulders with the dealmakers.

Farewell to 2011 and HELLO to 2012! I’ve been looking forward to this year, and we had a nice party last night to properly welcome 2012 into our lives. I hope this new year is kind and generous to us all!