We’ve been trying to have doughnuts for breakfast since Sunday. But that was New Year’s Day, and so our local doughnut shop was closed. Monday? Closed for New Year’s Hangover, I suppose. Yesterday we had a real breakfast. Today we made it happen.
After the sugar kicked in and moved on — and after having made it through the morning edition of email, text messages and RSS reading — we decided for a light ride. Would have ridden yesterday, but it was too cold. Today it was just right, a light chill in the shade and a good breeze to keep the temperature right when you started working a bit.
Not that there’s a lot of that when you haven’t been on the bike in weeks, another victim of the holidays.
On Monday, though, I installed the new computers on our bikes. Now we’ll now just how bad at this we are! (Hint: Bad.)
The Yankee had two flats. It was one of those days.
At one point I was tucked in behind her, but went around because the time was right. We were about to hit a stretch where I perform slightly better than she does. There was a car coming, which is not where I want to be putting brakes to wheels. So I kicked.
And for one glorious, brief, sprinting, downhill, mass-forward, aerodynamically-tucked moment, I hit 37.6 miles per hour. If I could keep up that pace for 4,231 I might have been competitive in the 1987 Tour de France. The race has gotten a bit faster since then.
But I only rode 17 miles today, clearly there’s some work to be done. But that’s what tomorrow is for.
We made dinner to the Beatles, ate over the bowl game.
Somewhere along the way we put away clothes that will be donated. We ordered four pictures for over the fireplace. I found a new water filter for the refrigerator. It was a perfectly low key evening.
Finally answered one of the many nagging questions of my faulty childhood memory. It was a Woolco. The town I grew up in had a Zayre’s and one of the W stores in what I think of as the place’s two original strip malls. I could never recall if it was a Woolworth or a Woolco, though. Woolworth, you might remember, was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. They slipped in the 1980s and disappeared entirely in 1997. (Now their existing properties are the struggling Foot Locker entities.
Woolco, on the other hand, was their discount store. Think about that: the discount of store of a five-and-dime shop. I don’t remember much about it, I couldn’t even remember which name the store had. Woolco died in 1982, so I guess that’s when that store went away. Soon after Wal-Mart moved into that spot.
Not too much longer after that the Zayre’s down the street shut their doors. K-Mart went in there.
After a few years Wal-Mart moved three miles down the road to the interstate and a new Supercenter. There’s a Big Lots where the Wal-Mart and Woolco once operated. A thrift store occupies the place that used to run as Zayre’s and then K-Mart. That entire part of that town has dried up. What was once upon a time the longest lit road east of the Rocky Mountains and, prior to the Great Depression, was intended as the nation’s first freeway is a husk of itself.
For years, though, I’ve wondered: was that a Woolworth or a Woolco?
These are the questions that occupy a preoccupied mind. This all came about because of an essay I read about Best Buy:
Electronics retailer Best Buy is headed for the exits. I can’t say when exactly, but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years.
Consider a few key metrics. Despite the disappearance of competitors including Circuit City, the company is losing market share. Its last earnings announcement disappointed investors. In 2011, the company’s stock has lost 40% of its value. Forward P/E is a mere 6.23 (industry average is 10.20). Its market cap down to less than $9 billion. Its average analyst rating, according to The Street.com, is a B-.
Those are just some of the numbers, and they don’t look good. They bear out a prediction in March from the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column, which forecast “the worst is yet to come” for Best Buy investors. With the flop of 3D televisions and the expansion of Apple’s own retail locations, there was no killer product on the horizon that would lift it from the doldrums. Though the company accounts for almost a third of all U.S. consumer electronics purchases, analysts noted, the company remains a ripe target for more nimble competitors.
But the numbers only scratch the surface. To discover the real reasons behind the company’s decline, just take this simple test. Walk into one of the company’s retail locations or shop online. And try, really try, not to lose your temper.
The store goes on, sounding much like Circuit City and Service Merchandise and many others before it. The piece also included a Wikipedia list of defunct American stores that started between the 1920s and 1950s and now out of business, either consolidated, liquidated or folded. It is a great list for nostalgia.
The only thing I remember buying at that store is maybe some superhero-themed clothing. I wanted a digital watch, I remember distinctly, but my parents wouldn’t buy it for me. I needed to learn the analog watch first, they said. It was a good lesson.
I almost never misread my watch today.
The clock display on my bike’s new computer? Digital in every way.
