Occupation of Independence

I'll bet you know someone who has wanted to reach across the counter at a store and choke the employee, when they answered your "Have you got a..." question with a sweet smile and a response of, "I could order it for you..." You could order it for me? Well hell, man, I could order it myself off Amazon! What do I need you for? I came in here to look at the physical object itself, and then walk out with it today. Sigh. Shopping just isn't my favorite activity, be it brick-and-mortar or online. I'm not complaining so much as wondering how business works. Why shouldn't the photographers for online shopping be as professional as the graphic artist who drew this for the NY Times? For instance, the world tells us that online shopping is taking over everything. There is so much noise about it, and so much praise for internet 'technology.' Forgive me for not being impressed. The photographs are so bad when you shop online. I can't

Once upon a time in America long ago, inventors and famous businessmen were held up to schoolchildren as great benefactors of mankind. I wonder if that is still true today. Businesspersons still become celebrities today, but the nature of their success is different than in the past. Can you really compare Facebook to the Model T Ford? Industrializing agriculture, transforming electricity and magnetism into motion, building an electrical grid, inventing countless products out of petroleum -- all of these triumphs seem so much more important than the latest buzz in tech-fashions or social media trends. Even a great modern success like Amazon doesn't really contain much that is new compared to a Sears Roebuck wish-book, drooled over on the porch of a farmhouse in the 1890s. Surely there are still many innovative businesses being born today. But they may be small enough or mundane enough that they haven't become household words. I would like to suggest a mega-success th

This time last year, I had a rather grisly encounter with the first snake of the season. I felt rather bad about killing one of the good guys, a bull snake. While mountain biking this morning, I got a momentary glimpse of something looking out of its hole in ground, but I laughed this off as excessive cowardice. Later in the day, a short 18" rattlesnake slithered his way across the dirt road in front of a couple campers. The rattles were clearly visible, but the snake didn't make any noise with them. Maybe it was too immature to rattle? At any rate, I called the campers over to have a look and take a photo.  As usual, my dog doesn't seem to even notice snakes.  Campground hosts get asked questions that I don't have a perfect answer for. Imagine a tourist from, say, Wichita Falls, Texas. They walk up to the host, and ask, "Do you got any buh-buh-b-b-b-bears here?" Meanwhile, back home in Wichita Falls, they had an F4 tornado rip through a trailer

Here is my first Craigslist ad ever! Nor have I ever bought anything through Craigslist, although I have looked plenty of times. Don't miss photo #2! They have me worried about the right way to accept payment. What is wrong with meeting the buyer, and going to his bank with him, if one is available in the area, and having the bank employee make out a cashier's check to me?