Avery Unlimited

So I’m driving to town this morning listening to the early guys on Sirius Nascar radio. The race at Indianapolis last weekend was a joke and the callers were letting the hosts know exactly how disappointed they were with the race, with Nascar, and with the Goodyear tires that couldn’t last over 10 laps. The hosts had the nerve to call their audience, at least the part that believes that Goodyear should apologize for the mess they caused, “juvenile”.

Let’s get it straight. The Goodyear people are at fault. It is their job to deliver usable tires to a racetrack. I heard every blah-blah excuse made, “should have done this”, testing not enough, etc.. There is no excuse. It is their job to have the right alternatives available for selection. It is their job to know what is needed. No amount of testing will make a bad tire better.

OK, they screwed up. And they admitted it. So what? They have screwed up over and over this racing season. It doesn’t seem to have taught  them that saying they screwed up does not fix the screw up and make it OK.

They also don’t seem to get the difference between admitting they are screw ups and saying that they’re sorry. Saying that you are sorry means that you accept responsibility for how your failure affected others. While it cannot change the failure, it provides a signal that you actually care about the people affected by your failure. Saying that you are sorry is an admission that you have failed to live up to an expectation (for decent tires in this case) that you had engaged in and tried to live up to. Trying is not good enough. When you try and fail, aside from accepting responsibility, you say you are sorry. Only then can trust begin to be re-established.

Not only, as a former marketing consultant, am I shocked that the Goodyear people didn’t start by saying they were sorry, whether the problem was their responsibility or not (which is an absolute requisite for any good PR), I am shocked that so-called radio professionals do not get it. Saying that you’re sorry is completely separate from saying you are responsible.

I wonder if any of these guys (and they are all guys, by the way. Hmmmm) are married. Some marraige if they havn’t learned to say they are sorry even if they don’t know what they are sorry for. What you are sorry for, fellows, is how the other person ( or in the race’s case, the millions who watched a frustratingly lousy race) feel. And if you’re only sorry because somehow you are in a corner being forced to say you’re sorry, say it anyway. Then figure out what the problem is and how to solve it.  Then you don’t have to be sorry the next time.

The boys on Sirius don’t get it. When they start calling their own listeners ‘childish’ the reflection is on them. When you point a finger at someone, there are four fingers pointing back at you. Namecalling of any kind is inappropriate, and only means that you have nothing substantive to say to defend your position. Just verbal bullying.

They need to say they are sorry to their listeners for their comments this morning. Of course, I won’t hear it as I won’t be tuning them in anymore.

This is our little Rose - only 12 pounds but a heart filling giant of personality and joy. Yesterday, out chasing a truck with the big dogs, tire biting and yapping, the tire bit back - and Rose was instantly gone forever.

She was a happy critter, apple of Geoff’s eye and she reciprocated - always at his feet or perched on the pillow head rest of his recliner, surveying her realm. She had no worries, barked when she wanted something, and generally got it.

The other dogs liked her and knew she was special. She enjoyed a go at a cat from time to time, just to show off. Most of them are bigger than she is, but never bothered her.

We have - had - 10 dogs so who would think losing one could matter so much. But each is an individual, and worms their way into your world and your heart on their own terms. And we have lost several of them that meant a lot to us. Chester, Tubby, Pebby and Max, whom we lost just a year and a half ago - with Rosie stepping in to successfully fill his formidable pawprints in our hearts. So Rose was a new gal on this block, but loved as much as any pet we have had. We lost another “short-timer”, Maggie May, just after Katrina, and you simply don’t forget. Each pet, in their special way, gives unconditional love and loyalty, and has indiosncracies to enjoy or drive you nuts.

Now Rose is with all our other “babies”, resting in the garden with gardenias in bloom. She will have her special plant just like the others, and her special place in our hearts.

Having finally finished the www.averyltd.com front page for this website, here I am again. Thanks Wendy, and especially ‘mom Julie’, for taking a moment to comment! My first!

It’s been pretty exciting around here. Normally, we live quietly with almost no one here for days on end. Out here there’s no one to be here. We are surrounded by cow pastures (beef cows - the dairy farm is the next pasture over) and acres of pine trees, harvested for pulp every 20 years or so. One neighbor a half mile one way, the next a mile the other. Our dogs (10), cats (more or less 10) and horses (2) are plenty of company. And that’s how we like it.

But for the past 10 days or so, we have have some fellows here building a shop that will become the home of Audela, Geoff’s new endeavor to create beautiful things from our gorgeous cypress and antique lumber. First, before Christmas, we had the site cleared and the slab poured. Then, about that time, the building arrived from Pennsylvania. Of course, the usual kerfaufles ensued. The truck was late so the neighbors with the forklift had to come back and unload in the dark.

The guys assembling the shop have been great. Unlike most of the people here, who constantly ask for work but do none, they show up and get the job done. It’s a quonset type steel building that is assembled in sections, then each is raised and bolted to the next. On Wednesday, the table saw and other very special equipment Geoff ordered arrived but the ‘turkey’ truck driver had allowed Walmart to load the whole back of the truck with pallets of returned merchandise. There was no way to get to Geoff’s pallets so the driver had to go all the way back to New Orleans (90 miles) to unload, then come back the next morning with only our load. His boss was pissed, a lost day costs money, in addition to the $60 he reimbursed us for the people we had here to unload. Thursday, no help was available so Geoff and I did it with Bingo, our “new” little Bobcat. It was the first time we used it for anything so heavy, but aside from attaching the forks, which was a little awkward, all went well, and Geoff was (and still is) in 7th heaven with all his new gear and building.

Between a big Angus bull getting loose twice in the yard, shopping (an hour round trip to the nearest town), working on sales and cooking/cleaning, it’s amazing that I also managed to do a little yard work clearing brush where I cleared it a few years ago, but it (and so much more) has regrown since Katrina - we are still cleaning up.

Of course, it’s raining today, so no one here. Just quiet, wet, cold and damp so a day under the electric blanket with my laptop, writing HTML for Averyltd.

Time to feed the horses.