Bump's Stump

You've bought yourself an existing, operating, small business. The deed is done. You have avoided most of the start-up problems and learning curves by purchasing a going business. You believe the business was priced low. It will be at least a year before you find out for certain. Most buyers don't really pay a lot of attention to the minor problems and weaknesses. They often come as a surprise and cause a new buyer to question if he or she made a mistake. Usually a mild case of buyers remorse shows up, but only temporarily.  You may, for example, find that sales are lower than you expected, operating costs are higher, and personnel problems happen just when you don't expect them.  Yikes! The business isn't exactly as represented. You are now the owner just beginning to deal with things like this. Now you understand why the previous owners were so anxious to sell. Despite words to the contrary they  probably  developed an increasing lack of enthusiam - and de...

The older you get - the faster you get older. I'm 77 and in relatively good health. The important word is relatively. Aches and pains I've got plenty. Several decades ago I had a heart attack. That's when the pills began. Every day I drop these magic marbles into my yaw. There's beta blockers, aspirin, statins, antidepressants, and about 10 more lesser pills. They must work. I'm still here.  A few years ago my conversation acquired holes and pauses. Aha! Dementia. I've found ways to cover embarassment by mumbling something unintelligible or gathering a polite cough behind my bony claw.  Apparently there is a small chance that I will eventually get parked in a  blithering facility where someone will tell me if I ate breakfast or didn't. Meanwhile: "I ain't going nowhere." At least no where soon. Our shaggy long hair mini dachshunds wake me if the doorbell doesn't. If the housae was on fire they would sleep through it. Prioritie...

The First Warning In 1955 Germany was still a scene of considerable damage.  World War II had thoroughly devastated most of the country. Bricks, dust, broken glass and other debris lay in piles at the side of the road. There were scarred and broken buildings, rooms missing a wall or two and the remains of furniture exposed to the elements. Evidence of firestorms told a story of horror that few Germans had survived. In the cities and villages the pock marks of ordinance, twisted pipes, and other remnants of distruiction, were serious survivors of horror, and death.  Germany was raw and exposed like an untended graveyard with broken headstone.  The country was divided into four areas; French, American, British, and Russian.  I was then a member of the first tactical guided missile group deployed in Europe. We were physically located in Sembach, a small village not far from Kaiserslautern. We were within   the French partition. Our guided missiles were ...

Living in Tripoli While out on the test range we shot several missiles toward the Atlas Mountains in the south.  We usually stayed deep in the desert for a few weeks before returning to Wheelus A.F.B.  From time to time we had  a short rest period. We took a supply helicopter or a weapons carrier back to the big city.   While in Tripoli they tried to keep us separate from regular base personnel. Impossible. Space was short on the base and our crews had to find a place to stay outside of the base. Our Lieutenant at the time, (probably Manny Groves, Richard Bass, or Prahalis), after a major search,  found a small house for us. It didn't look like much from the outside, but inside it was worse. The rooms were small with much sand on the floor, but generally clean. It was  a palace compared to our nearest neighbors hovel 100 yards away. Each of our small rooms held from 4 to 10 of us, and w e slept on war surplus Army cots, wires and springs, and no m...

There are a few American politicians who are either stupid, incompetent or both. These people never give up trying to change our government - whether it needs it or not. They purposely ignore, avoid or disregard following the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and other founding documents. Their intent is destroying America's carefully balanced trilateral system, diminishing the effects of the Free Market, and eroding our position as a world leader.  And we, you and I, LET THEM DO IT.   The extremists, radicals, and social engineers have moved in to  rebuild our government by imitating the failed European Socialist models. It makes no sense whatever. Forgotten in the wind is the fact that socialism alone does not work, and their notion that a larger and growing government should control more and more aspects of an individuals life is CONTRARY to our American tradition.  (1)  This week our President spec...

While America plugs away in Middle East, argues about it's new national health scheme, and moves further and faster toward national bankruptcy - three additional problems urgently need attention:  (1) At the end of World War II  everyone was frightened by the overwhelming power of nuclear bomb. We believed that nuclear energy, if misused, could bring the entire world grief on a an unimaginable scale.  We were told that nuclear technology was at the edge of our ability to control it. The subject faded when we  re-focussed on war in the middle east. We have fought there for years and now know there is nothing to win. Our forces are gradually coming home.  (2) Meanwhile, during the middle eastern war, the world has rediscovered Islam. Now America is threatened as never before by  militant fundamentalist muslims.  They are thought to be a small faction of dissatisfied radical muslims whose primary ambition  is to  murder all non-Islamic pe...

Our national credit card is about to burst. Americans should put their house in order before attempting any social program the size of Obamacare. It's like we have a rogue elephant in the White house with a massive ego and no common sense. Perhaps we should make healthcare part of the national fabric. But not all at once. Implementation over perhaps twenty or more years would better ensure that each provision was discussed, debated, edited, and lawful - BEFORE enactment. That's not a stall. It's prudence. The media is loaded with opinions about Obamacare but the 'for and against' people are insistent that each knows best. Most citizens are skeptical, but everyone, regardless of their pro or con opinion, are disappointed that our government has passed this legislation by using political misinformation. Even more important, In my circle of friends there isn't one person who believes Obamacare was properly investigated and debated before it was made a law. Not...