By Larry Teren
United Airlines flies friendly skies, as their advertising indicates. But sometimes it is not so friendly an experience, especially for an infrequent air traveler. Continue reading “United Airlines We Fly”
Month: August 2012
Marin County is One Big Energy Crisis
By Larry Teren
Blame the California energy crisis on all the do-gooders who call it home. Everywhere else in these fifty States of the Union, some concerned citizens make a big deal about separating recyclable items from stuff that will just lay there forever and fossilize. But, in Marin County, as everywhere else in California, they have to “one up“ the rest of us and make everything into compost. Continue reading “Marin County is One Big Energy Crisis”
Baby Boomers Envy
By Larry Teren
Now that Baby boomers are becoming the dominant generational segment of society, the others are
trying to scare us. These are some of the headlines making news on the Internet concerning Baby Boomers: Continue reading “Baby Boomers Envy”
Global Warming Conspiracy – Rainy Days and Mondays
By Larry Teren
My brother-in-law – no, not the doctor, but the expert in everything, believes that the plethora of hot days we are experiencing this summer is due to global warming. I ask him if he still believes in global warming when his neighborbood out on the east coast gets two 20 inch snowfalls within a month’s time. He says that it is further proof that the climate is changing. After all, don’t I understand that the global warming effect is causing the polar ice caps to melt? That this causes an atmospheric imbalance so that now we should experience more precipitation during the winter?
Continue reading “Global Warming Conspiracy – Rainy Days and Mondays”
Whatever Happened to Greasers?
By Larry Teren
All baby boomers remember that when a stranger didn’t like how we were behaving, he or she would call us a “juvenile delinquent”. It also didn’t help a boy to dress in a weird way or to comb the hair back in a duck-tail. That was the ‘hoodie’ look of the 1950s and early 60s. Normal boys had crew cut hair styles. But, if you looked like a punk, you were a juvenile delinquent or greaser. Clothes make the man. Appearances count. Yada, yada, yada. 
Continue reading “Whatever Happened to Greasers?”
Seikh, Watchmaker and an Insultant
By Larry Teren
What do a Seikh, a watchmaker and an insultant have in common? Not much except that the three of us were hanging around shooting the breeze at the watch repair place a block from my condo. I’m sure you’ve seen the store- the watchmaker has a big sign on his car that reads WATCH REPAIR to encourage those who get off the expressway a block away to think about putting a new battery in a watch that long ago stopped working.
Chevy Runs Deep into Marketing Trouble
By Larry Teren
General Motors tolerance for being patient for the success of Chevy marketing campaigns does not run deep. Earlier this week, General Motors fired its chief marketing person, Joel Ewanick, for failing “to meet the expectations the company has of its employees.”
Mr. Ewanick a year or so ago came up with the advertising slogan “Chevy Runs Deep”. Apparently consumers did not catch on to its ambiguous meaning. This reminds me of the time many years ago when General Motors could not understand why the Chevy Nova was not selling in Mexico and other parts south of the border. That is, until it took for a Spanish speaking person to explain to a General Motors corporate honcho that nova, or “no va” in Spanish means “doesn’t come or go”. The Mexicans thought it was a joke to own a Chevy Nova, a car that doesn’t go. I’m guessing that today a lot of truck owners have an image of a truck not being able to get out of a muddy or snowy pile while the tires dig deeper into the mire. Continue reading “Chevy Runs Deep into Marketing Trouble”