Hill's Pet Food is BAD

Editing original post as I acquire additional information

No, I'm not talking about the product. I'm sure it's a fine product (I have in fact previously used Hill's prescription products for other animals in my household). My complaint has to do with their business model which requires their prescription food dispensing partners carry no other brands of prescription pet food or they pay higher prices for the Hill's product. This puts my local supplier in a very difficult position.

I have a 12 year old dog. She eats Purina j/m formula dog food. She's eaten it for the past 4 years. The LOCAL pharmacy where I purchase this item is having to cave into Hill's demands that they stock and dispense only Hill's labeled product to get pricing breaks. This is an independent pharmacy. They should be able to dispense whatever products veterinarian's write a prescription for without penalty.

I am not changing my dog's food. I will change my pharmacy first. And if I have to change my dispensing pharmacy for one item, I might as well switch all my pet's prescription needs to another pharmacy. I have some expensive dogs in the medication department. This may cause the local pharmacy to go out of business. Great work Hill's. The economy could use more companies like you.

Hill's pet food has made a serious enemy today. Let the internet trashing of Hill's begin.

11-18-2011: Hills adamantly stands by their claim that they enact no coercion on the companies they supply to carry only their product. MyVetsMeds adamantly stands by their claim that their contract with Hills is contrary to Hills' claims. MyVetsMeds has changed their business model and I am no longer able to get ANYTHING from them on a local level so at this point I am despising both companies equally.

Kansas Primary: August 3, 2010

Before we move on to our day-before elections coverage, let me just say that Dad's settling in nicely at what we lovingly refer to as Shady Pines, but what I really came here today for was to get some of this election poison out of my system.

Get out and vote. Don't sit there and tell me your vote doesn't matter, it does. If you want our elected officials to stand up for the principles they espouse, you need to get off your ass and stand up for the principles YOU espouse. You have a better chance of seeing the candidate you want elected than you do of winning the lottery.

I know I knowingly came to a Red State when I moved to Kansas so I am pleasantly surprised by the wealth of candidates the Democrats are fielding for the primary. Unfortunately I think they could have winnowed out some of the less-likely-to-win candidates in favor of a cleaner ballot and spending more on the few to reach more "undecided" ears. Hopefully this oversight will be rectified by the time November rolls around.

I'm not going to leave my party (too much) in my nit-picking other than to say that I was unaware that there was so much voter fraud going on in the state of Kansas that someone felt the need to make it the #1 issue in their campaign and, really, do you want to send someone to Washington who's only campaign promise is that they're going to "stick it" to Obama and Pelosi? That frightens me more than I can say.

Please note that I am only commenting on races in which I am actually able to vote. The rest of you can do your own research 'cause that's part of the voting process.

For US Senator we're fielding:

Robert Conroy, a man who has no idea how he ended up on the voter rolls as a registered Republican. Thanks, I don't need someone that clueless representing my interests.

David Haley, the only one with legislative experience and my common-sense vote but for the fact that he's so soft spoken I don't know if the people in Washington or Kansas can hear him.

Lisa Johnston, whom my gut and my heart tells me will do the best at the job but for the fact that she has no experience swimming with sharks.

Charles Schollenberger, who says many things I agree with but again, no time in the shark tank.

Patrick Wiesner, who has ten things on his to-do list, seven of which I agree with but I vehemently disagree with those other three.

For the US House of Representatives our choices are:

Cheryl Hudspeth, who is far too valuable at the local level to let go to Washington.

Thomas Koch, a man who can kindly be described as an eccentric Kansan.

Sean Tevis...I don't believe I'd ever seen a left-wing nutcase until I took a browse through his website. I believe he must be friends with the KU alumni who is convinced the Russians are controlling the weather and using it as a weapon against the United States.

For Governor/Lt. Governor there is only one choice, Tom Holland and Kelly Kultala and I don't have a car with a big enough bumper for that sticker but I would vote for Satan himself if he was running against Brownback. Oh wait, he is running against Brownback...

For Attorney General and Treasurer we have Steve Six and Dennis McKinney respectively, so unless I'm doing the write-in thing, X marks the spot.

And, finally, we have the battle of the Chris' for Secretary of State. Chris Biggs hasn't put much on the web to defend his current job or give retention reasons but Chris Steineger has a "billion dollar list" on his website detailing things he'd like to try to reduce the deficit. Because the list contains humor, he will get a vote from me.

So there you have it Dems, these are our choices. All three of us need to get out tomorrow and vote!

March Madness

How did I succumb to March Madness this year? I've never been a basketball fan. I don't think it's the game that I have no interest in, I'm pretty sure it's professional basketball players. The ones I have the most exposure to are the ones in my birth town and the ones that get the press there are just not nice people off the court. There is nothing about them that I think should inspire the sort of worship they receive.

By virtue of where I work, sports are a big thing. Every year there are brckets to fill, this year they happen to be tied in to some charity donations, but they would be there even without the altuistic tinge. This year I filled one out. It's my Underdog Bracket. With the exception of how I determined the winner in the Michigan game, every one of my choices was based on advancing the team with the worst seasonal record. I actually made it through 3 days of play before my bracket bit the dust.

Today is Elite Eight day and my local team is still in it. The game they played the other night, the one that landed them up against Butler today, was the most exciting basketball game I've ever seen. I'm watching the game today for two reasons. To see if my enjoyment the other day was a fluke and, if they win, I'm going to have to go in to work to open up the phones for retail. They will put in some extra hours so they can sell Final Four tee shirts. Don't laugh. We sold out of our Elite Eight shirts in less than a day. Go Cats!

New Eats in Town

We've got a new restaurant in Wamego, Barleycorn's Downtown Bar & Deli. I've eaten there twice now and the food is really good. The first visit I tried the soup of the day, three-cheese tomato. It was awesome soup. You could really taste the cheeses and I'm sure it was made with milk, it had such a rich taste. Paired with a Chipotle Chicken Wrap it made the perfect meal.

Today the sides offerings included warm potato salad which sounded pretty good since it's getting colder. And it was. I wonder if they'll share the recipe with me 'cause I'd like to make that at home myself. I had the same chicken wrap as the first visit and I can say the good food is not a fluke. Spicy chicken and warm salad. I'll definitely be back for more! They have an amazingly large menu for a bar so it will take me a while to get through all they have to offer.

Weather or not

Note to Mom...

I obviously did not die in the massive tornado swarm the weather guys were predicting a few days back and their doom 'n' gloom predictions regarding the quantity of snow that might fall upon my little Kansas burg last night have come to naught. Unsure what the weather guys are thinking lately. Is their software failing? Their gut instincts? Are they just looking for ratings? We maybe got 3" out of the early spring snowstorm. Probably just enough to damage all the budding plants in my yard.

So what's up in the Heartland today? Laundry. A movie (Wanted-on DVD) I rented last week along with two others. Of course I did not have time to watch all three movies in the week I was allotted. I never do. You'd think I'd learn by now and only rent two instead of having the third one run into an extra week rental. My learning curve must be flat.

I guess my bitch-of-the-day is going to be about my patio. We had a retaining wall and pavestone patio installed off the dining room deck last May-June. It went where our beautiful Clump River Birch was located prior to it's demise in the ice storm of 2004. At that time we had the stairs that leave the deck re-designed to eliminate the steepness that prevented our Lab with the bad hips from climbing those steps.

It really is a beautiful patio, It overlooks the woods and pond (although those in the know know that our pond is not always a pleasant sight). About two months after it was finished (and the job took a while), stones at the bottom edge of the patio started sinking. The soil here is very sandy and my guess is that a combination of that sandy base, poor compaction, and not installing landscape cloth between the wall and the sandy soil (both failings on the part of the contractor) were to blame for the sinking stones. But if I was a landscape contractor, I wouldn't have had to hire someone so what do I know?

The contractor returned and repaired the patio. It once again looked quite beautiful. But then these past couple of months the same stones started sinking again in the same manner. The contractor returned once again for repairs, this time basing an inch of quickrete before resetting and grouting the pavestone. Again, it looks beautiful and good as new but my gut says that all that's going to happen is the sand is still going to erode from underneath and the quickrete will hold the stones until the void underneath becomes so great that they once again sink into that void.

I had several issues with the contractor when he originally did the work. There were days when he did not show up on time (or show at all) causing the job to drag on for longer than necessary. He installed some perforated drain tile under the patio but his termination of the drain elbowed straight up out of the ground leaving a 4" round pipe that would hold gallons of standing water forever creating a great big mosquito breeding ground located two feet from our outdoor living space.

He'd undid two sections of our very expensive fence in order to bring in equipment for the job and promised to stretch the fence back and terminate it so that it looked just like it did before he started. He replaced the corrugated plastic that roofs the dining room deck. When the job was finally complete, he'd forgotten to fix the fence and the plastic he roofed the deck with stuck out 7" beyond the rain gutter which created 80 tiny waterfalls every time it rained. He also left a lot of pavestone grout smeared into the top of the retaining wall.

I called him about the poorly constructed drain, too long roof, unfinished fence, and sloppy grout work. He scheduled a date to return and take care of these items. He did not return on the date promised and to save being eaten alive by mosquitoes I redid the drain myself. I wasn't going to climb up on the deck roof, have no way of stretching and securing the fence, and no intention of removed the excess grout so all these items were left for him and he did return to take care of the fence and deck roof. He wanted to wait to see if a couple of months would weather the grout off and we agreed to that. Needless to say he never checked back about the grout but by then we needed to contact him regarding round one of the sinking stones.

Upon being informed of the first incident of sinking stones he had the cajones to tell me that he couldn't keep coming out to our house for free. Huh? The only thing he's been called out for was to fix things that either weren't done right in the first place or things that were left unfinished. Since I needed him to come out and fix the damn things, I was unable to drive into town to rip his head off and shit down his neck, marking that task for a future date on my mental calendar. Once he came out and saw how bad it was he apologized profusely and he did fix it. And it did last almost 6 months...

So right now the patio looks stunning but only time will tell if it is truly fixed. I was going to post some pictures but uploading them and getting them where I want them to appear on this page is apparently beyond me right now so I'll try that tomorrow when I'm not so effing tired.

Democrats in Kansas?

Sort of an endangered species in these parts. Well, maybe not. That implies they were there to begin with and are slowly disappearing which is clearly not the case.

The ballot I voted on this past election was really, really sad if you look at it from a balance point of view. In so many local offices, the elephant candidates ran unopposed. There were no donkeys to run against them? Is that a decision where the party at large doesn't want to spend the money to support a candidate for such a small office or is there merely a lack of candidates?

I guess finding the answers to these questions would require getting off my lazy ass (read---trying to find some time in an already over-booked life) and meeting other donkeys to find out what the story is...

Did someone say I'm incoherent?

You bet your ass I am. How can Kansans vote the way they vote? What can they possibly be thinking?

I realize that people have a tendency to surround themselves with people like themselves, but really. What the people surrounding me have said and what actually went down at the polls has me scratching my head. Did the people I spoke with say one thing yet do another? Did the people I spoke with pull a Floridian and not understand how to operate a ballot? Did the people I spoke with not actually go to the polls and vote?

By dint of the small population in Kansas, they had no effect on the country at large, but the havoc they wreaked in Kansas will echo for at least another two years.

I was pleased to see that the apathy generation* turned out well and I hope you know you made all the difference in the world on a national level. Please, keep coming back. Only you can make it better.

*The ones that were "...waiting, waiting on the world to change." That song has always pissed me off. Too bad it's got such a catchy hook.