Friday Follies...

End of another week, and I'm ready for another shooting in the Summit City...how about you?
The Hoosierland weather today will be nice for such an event.
The temps are expected to rise into the low to mid 70s again, with plenty of sunshine after the morning fog (where?)
Tomorrow will be even warmer with a high of around 77...just in time fo confuse the hell out of the plants, right?
I've got hot pepper plants with FLOWERS on them...geez.
Anyway, let's sit back, top off that morning beverage and get busy with what's going on...
*** First off the pad today is a bit of a sad note - the death of astronaut Scorr Carpenter, one of the original groups of our Mercury program, and he was the second American to orbit the earth (after John Glenn).

Here's the story:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20131011/NEWS03/310119952/0/SEARCH
And HERE is his WIKI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Carpenter
And finally his website:
http://www.scottcarpenter.com/
Carpenter piloted the Aurora 7 capsule back in May 1962
And in spite of several malfunctions, he manually eased the craft back into reentry and splashdown,...albeit 250 MILES from the target area.
When recovery craft found him, he was sitting in his life raft, next the floating capsule, with his feet up...offering some of his space food to the recovery team.

That's the kind of guy Carpenter was...easy going with a keen sense of how to do things to achieve success, even if the odds were against him.
Unfortunately, Carpenter never flew another space mission, due to controversy over his overshoot.
He began to train for and participate in the navy's SEALAB program, but after a motorbike accident which injured his shoulder (1963) , we was ruled ineligible for spaceflight and he resigned from NASA in 1967.
Godspeed Scott...we will miss you, but we know you're in VERY good company now.
Moving on...
*** You just know when you;'re having a somewhat GOOD week down here in the crotch of Ft. Wayne, that SOMETHING (or someone) will come along and f$ck it all the hell up... welcome to yesterday.
The S. Anthony K-MART will be closing as of mud-January 2014.

Here's the story link:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20131011/LOCAL/310119971
Yeah, that's the store that made it THROUGH all the crime...the cretins infesting the area surrounding it, prior store closings, the loss of Southtown Mall and so on...only to get THIS stick in the eye.

Fort Wayne USED to have FOUR K Marts, then several years ago, two of them were closed, leaving the N. Coliseum and S. Anthony locations.
And it was said back THEN, that the SE side store remained pen because of HIGHER SALES than the two that were closed.
Do a search of this blog, and you will HOW many times I all but applauded the fact that K MART was here. This just pisses me off even more, and here's one good reason...
The city will bend over backward and break it's damn neck to "improve" several square blocks of the DOWNTOWN area...and yet, it won't do a damn thing to improve ANYTHING down here.

Cripes, when Southtown was "allowed" to close, putting plenty of people out of work (thanks to the crime), the city sold off the area to some jerkoff from Michigan, who SAT on the damn property for over SIX years...before the city took back control and MANAGED to persuade a Wal-Mart and Menards to move there (thanks to those tax abatements, no doubt).
Well, that's about ALL we have a far as retail shopping goes now.
We can thank the Sears people for their foresight...(yeah, right)
You people close down a well-operated store, and tell us it's because of " a series of actions we're taking to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our tax base, and accelerate the transformation of the business model..."

WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT...!!!
There's the damn word again, too - "transformation"...just like Obummer said, and lokk at what HE'S done to this nation.
Maybe this Sears Holding spokesjerk, Howard Riefs needs to pick yp a book by Peter F Drucker and READ the damn thing, for what he had to say was smoke and mirrors. Or maybe the rising costs that precipitated these closings are due to...(wait for it)...OBAMACARE???
(cue the Darth Vader theme music)
That evil empire might have caused all this...but we're not being told the truth (as usual).
All I really know is yet again, we decent people on the SE side of the city get the shit end of the stick...
Add THIS to the well over 100 businesses that have ALREADY left this part of town...and all the while the black community wants newer and/or renovated housing (like Eden Green and Renaissance Pointe)...so my question at this point becomes clear.
WHERE THE F$CK are all these people you want to move in down here going to F$CKING SHOP?

And WHY hasn't the CRIME/GANG/DRUG issues been dealt with so that businesses will WANT to open a store down here?
Man, there is SO much blame to go around, I'm running out of fingers to use when I point at their primate faces.
( I do prefer the MIDDLE finger most of the time with these morons)
Okay, so we STILL have WAL-MART (which has a storied history of picking up and MOVING stores at the drop of a hat), and a MENARDS (there are always houses in disrepair down here, thanks to the "clientele" the deadbeat landlords manage to find).
Funny how mayor (read King) Henry hasn't addressed the peasants and serfs down here promising another business to take the place of k-mart..all I can hear are CRICKETS from City Hall (as usual) None of the politicos giver a rat's ass about down here, or there would have some meetings to KEEP Sears holding from closing the S. Anthony K Mart...right? THAT would have been a much better use of a tax abatement...to keep the 70 employees from having to transfer to the ONLY remaining store in a city of over 200K people...or look for work elsewhere.
Now, Wifey and I prefer K Mart to wal mart...dunno why, we just do. Personally, I like the Big K because they sell SEARS products (since they were bought out by them years ago), And our location has a Little Caesars Pizza joint INSIDE the store. They also have a good selection of items, decent (not the lowest) prices and a REALLY good garden shop (that we visit a few items every year.

There's also the K MART CHRISTMAS BEAR we have bought every year since we were marreid, and I DO NOT plan to stop collecting them now.
I DO have a "plan B" for that - we drive down to DECATUR and shop at THEIR K Mart...simple, huh?
(that's if the Colisuem K mart turns too ghetto for us)
I have said all along that if "you" (referring to this city and what passes for it's leaders these days) do NOT get a handle on the CRIME down here...don;t expect ANY new businesses to come...and expect the businesses that remain to think long and hard about continuing to stay here (because too many have already left). You can't spell it out ANY plainer than that...can you?
Retail always moves into an area where there is a need for it...with a caveat.
A business will not open with the expectation of having it's store or employees robbed, their vehicles stolen, or an atmosphere of anything less than a "pleasant shopping experience"...believe, I've seen this first-hand.
Add to the crime this "affordable health care act" which is not only NOT affordable, but IS an act...like a comedy act of the absurd.
The city would be well served to come out and SAY they're written offf this part of town.
Many of us see opportunity IF specific and certain measure are taken.
*** Lastly today, it hurts whenever we LOSE something or someone.
Doesn't matter if it's a family member, a good neighbor, a beloved pet, or even a treid and true retail landmark.

And it SHOULD bother us, because while we cannot change some results in life, we damn sure can affect the outcome of others.
I've stated for YEARS what needs to be done,m tried to hammer my point home, and got ignored, save for TWO journalists in this city with enough of a backbone to print the truth, not as I see it, but as it REALLY is.
And I get damn sick and tired of seeing every other part of the city THRIVE, while our part goes deeper into the societal crapper, when the REAL problem is NEVER spoken about...namely the PEOPLE that infest this area.
Largely, it's the MINORITY communities who are to blame, because they can;t control THEMSELVES, but instead of calling them out,m we build them a new recreation center and new houses they can move into (and trash the hell out of just like they do to previous houses an apartments they are allowed by HUD to acquire)
That shit has to end...or you can drive to Detroit and watch the future of this part of town unfold.
Hold ALL these assholes accountable, every mother-loving one of these ethnic morons, and please add in the white trash that emulates the minority idocy with their actions, too.
Take this part of Fort Wayne BACK...NOW, so you can say you truly have an ENTIRE city you can improve...
After all, the LOSSES keep on adding up, don't they?
Do have yourselves a good weekend.

Be well, make a difference to someone today, and as always...
Stay SAFE out there, America.