Dan from Madison

Thoughts on the Waukesha Christmas Parade Trial

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Sometime later today I expect to hear the news that Darrell Brooks has been sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, plus around 900 years in prison without the possibility of parole. I would like to watch it live but have some business matters to deal with so I will watch it later on YouTube (Law and Crime has livestreamed and archived the whole trial). This ending to an unspeakable tragedy has received a ton of press locally here in Wisconsin, and I have seen quite a bit nationally as well. What follows are my thoughts on the subject.

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Things Missing – Supply Chain and Groceries

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I have had some first world problems for a while now.

Last night at the grocery store (Kroger chain) there was no iceburg lettuce. Zero. I resigned myself to paying the fifty cents more for the leaf lettuce. Iceberg lettuce has been of pretty poor quality in these parts for some time and I have seen small quantities or none at all as of the last few months.

Berries – I always toss a hand full of berries onto my shredded wheat every morning and the berry selection at the store has been awful or non existent as of late. I’m hoping that Michigan has a fantastic harvest (probably going on right now or very soon) as we are quite fond of the blueberries, apples, peaches, and other things that come from across the lake. We may even take a short road trip over there and pick up a bunch of stuff ourselves. But back to the berries. I have seen blueberries from all over the USA in the store (I always look at where my produce comes from) and also Mexico and a few other places. I wonder if there is some sort of supply chain disruption in berry world.

Anyways, let me know in the comments if you are seeing things missing, and don’t limit it to groceries if you don’t want to.

In industrial distribution world, we are still missing quite a few things but this is almost all a chip deal now. And the good news is that we are doing pretty well for the most part.

Supply Chain in Ukraine

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I’m wondering if any of our readership can answer a question that has been lingering in my mind for a while.

There are a lot of weapons pouring into Ukraine from a lot of places and I’m glad to see and hear about it and look forward to seeing these weapons used against Russia.

What I always wonder is that when I see something like this…

…are they also sending:
Sufficient Ammo
Mechanics
Fuel
Lubricants
Spare parts of all shapes and sizes
Trained operators
Cranes, lifts, and other equipment needed to work on this monster (essentially, a “shop”)
Winterization components

and all of the rest of the stuff needed to support this type of equipment? I always hear that country “x” is sending “y” number of (insert equipment here) to Ukraine, but if all of the rest of the back end isn’t sent, it is going to be a “one and done” for these things.

Let me know in the comments if you perhaps have some insight.