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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Don't let the New Year hit you on the way out


Okay, 2019 wasn't the worst year ever or the best year. But it was a year. I did manage to post more blog posts than I have since 2008 (just six shy of topping my 2008 number of posts). And despite my prolific number of blog posts and a record number of hits on my blog (thanks to the bots and whatever other software that keeps pinging my blog) I managed to have fewer actual readers than ever before.

Let's face it, I'll never be Tik-Tok famous.

I'm not a New Year's resolution kind of a person, so I won't make any pronouncements about 2020. I do hope it will be the last year Trump is in office. Though I just read on Twitter that he tied with Barack Obama for Time Magazine's most admired man. So I don't have much hope for humanity.

I won't say I'll post even more in 2020. Though a lack of new things to write about didn't stop me in 2019. I've slipped into blogging more and more as a release for myself since my fan base has dwindled significantly over the last 16 years.

I did learn some tough lessons in 2019 about how nasty the Internet can be. I've had to stave off hackers who tried hijacking several of my accounts due to password breeches on several sites. Apparently my old go to password was available on the dark web. I learned to develop complicated and difficult to remember unique passwords for my many accounts.

I also learned to beware deals on the Web through sites I'm not familiar with. It took several weeks going around with Paypal to finally get a refund from a fraudulent Web site called jerseyeasy.com.

I also took to social media to get a warranty on a faulty garbage disposal honored by the Moen company. They were reluctant to take blame for it leaking and said that that wasn't one of the things covered in the limited lifetime warranty. I finally called them out on Twitter and Facebook. They responded and had me send them a video of the leak. They finally gave in. My replacement garbage disposal arrived yesterday. I just have to fork out another $150 to have someone install it.

Of course there is the whole heart thing and my broken nose. I am having trouble wrapping my brain around it all because I feel fine and still spend an hour and a half a day working out on the treadmill and elliptical machines. But the new year and a new cardiologist should sort it all out.

Anyway, here's to 2020, may it bring us all hope and happiness.

Or at least not suck.

Monday, December 30, 2019

Have a nice trip...


...see you next fall.

I started the week of Christmas with a trip to the emergency room.  I woke up the Monday before Christmas and went to use the bathroom. I was half awake. Suddenly I felt light headed and fainted. Next thing I knew I had face planted the floor in the bathroom and blood was spurting out of my nose and a gash above my eye.

Needless to say it freaked my wife out. She helped me clean up and called my doctor's office. They weren't able to get me in until the day after Christmas but they told my wife to take me to the emergency room.

Maybe it is because I was raised a Christian Scientist and didn't go to doctor's until I was in my 20s.  But I hate going to medical facilities. And the ER is probably the worst place to go. For whatever reason, I felt guilty for having fainted and more guilty for bleeding all over the place.

I got checked in and asked all of the questions about how it happened. I didn't really know. One minute I was headed to the bathroom and the next I was slamming into the floor. I just wanted them to stitch me up and let me go home.

But they did a CT scan and then hooked me up for an EKG. The PA then told me they had figured out why I had fainted. The EKG showed that my heart beats were irregular. It was something called A-fib. One of the chambers of my heart wasn't playing along with the others.

Eventually I was stitched up (nine to be exact) and sent home with a broken nose and a face that looked like I'd been in a bar brawl. I was also told to see a cardiologist.

Okay, the last thing you want to hear when you are my age is that something is wrong with your heart. And although they tell me that my condition is pretty common it still kind of freaks me out. I have been working out daily for years. I assumed that my heart should be pretty strong by now. So to find out it isn't beating right is troubling to say the least.

Ironically it could be a month before a cardiologist can see me and let me know what the next steps are. My faith in medical science has not been restored.


Friday, December 20, 2019

Home for the holidays


I tried an experiment and posted this photo on Facebook. I thought it was hilarious. Apparently very few of my Facebook friends agree. Only three people liked it.

This is why I generally keep my blog life and my real life separate. I used to think people would be impressed when they knew me in real life and then read my blog.

Not true at all. I've learned that for most of the mainstream world I'm just weird.

Regardless, I am taking the week of Christmas off from work and I will be home alone with my family. And the kids are past the point of being overly excited by Christmas. So it should be interesting.

I am kind of past that point as well. I have always enjoyed the build up to Christmas more than the actual day. And not having a religious bone in my Atheist body keeps me from associating anything with the various rituals other than they are relics from my childhood.

I also no longer have the thrill of anticipating what Santa will bring me. There isn't much I want anymore. I'm moving into that phase where I just don't want to accumulate any more stuff.

I can't even look forward to all the Christmas foods that are floating around this time of year. I'm forcing myself to be aware of the calories and that takes most of the fun out of eating.

You know what? I now understand why my parents didn't share my enthusiasm around the holidays when I was a kid.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Ze complaint! Ze complaint!

Ze plane! Ze plane! 
Fantasy Island, Tattoo (played by Hervé Villechaize)
We live in a world of complaints. I get them at work. I get them at home. And most of the time I sit quietly and stare into space. But sometimes I complain back, just not generally out loud. I used to write letters, then e-mails.  Lately I use social media.

Case in point. Our garbage disposal broke a year ago in April. You don't know how much you miss a garbage disposal until you don't have one. I tried buying a composting bucket, but my wife complained about the smell and the fruit flies it attracted. So I ordered a new garbage disposal on Amazon.

Now not being an expert on garbage disposals, I ordered one by Waste King that seemed highly rated on Amazon. It was also on sale. Still it cost me around $100 which still seems like a lot to me for something that grinds up food scraps. And since my handyman skills stop at changing light bulbs I also ordered professional installation through Amazon that set me back another $147. 

The garbage disposal arrived. A few days later the installer came and installed it. And for almost a year, all was right with the world of garbage disposal. But then a few months ago my wife noticed there was a leak under the sink. She traced it to the bottom of the garbage disposal.

A search online told us that when a disposal is leaking internally, it is time to get a new garbage disposal. It also said a garbage disposal was supposed to last at least ten years. So I go on Amazon and find my garbage disposal order and find a product support link for the disposal. Turns out the Waste King is a Moen product. I found the limited warranty for the disposal on their Webpage. Reading through the legal mumbo jumbo, I determined that the disposal should still be under warranty. It has a support number to call. I send it to me wife because she does all the verbal complaining to companies for the household.

She calls and a very assertive customer service person says the warranty doesn't cover leaks (although it does specify what leaks it doesn't cover...flange ring leaks, dishwasher connection leaks and elbow joint leaks...it said nothing about internal leaks that the Internet world claims mean the disposal is toast). The customer service person promises to send us an email explaining how to trace the leak. She does and it is of no help whatsoever.


Monday, December 16, 2019

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

I can be so dense (or pirates of the Internet)


I usually am pretty savvy when it comes to shopping online. I usually just use Amazon and eBay because I can trust that, even if something goes wrong with what I ordered, they'll stand behind it. But I also try to get the best price. Sometimes, however, finding the best price isn't the best deal.

So last night I get ready to order a second controller for my son's XBox for one of his Christmas gifts. I find it on Amazon for $45 and I have free shipping. But I decide to search Google to see if there are any better prices. And Google has this thing pop up that compares prices for you. Most of the prices are more than Amazon's $45. But this one site pops up that offers if for $36 and no tax and a relatively low shipping cost.

I go to the site -- jerseyeasy.com -- and it seems legit. They have all the bells and whistles. They indeed have the controller and it is cheaper. And they have the option of checking out with Paypal so I think it is safe. So I put the thing in my shopping cart and start to check out. And although Google had said there would be no tax, tax does pop up on the order form. But it is still cheaper than Amazon.

So I complete the transaction. And I get a confirmation e-mail, but it is pretty vague. And my confirmation from Paypal shows payment is made to someone with an Asian name. That sets off red flags because I've ended up buying things that come from China before and they take forever to arrive and there have been many cases of counterfeit items being sold from China. The confirmation e-mail just says standard shipping in five to seven days.

I start to feel uneasy about the order this morning and do a Google search for jerseyeasy.com (something I should have done before ordering from them). Sure enough I start seeing multiple complaints of ordering items that don't arrive and Paypal being notified but not issuing refunds because the seller shows proof an item was delivered. The people complaining say that they receive tracking notices, but find out something was delivered to another address, not theirs. This screams of fraud.

Turns out all of the contact numbers and e-mail addresses on  jerseyeasy.com are fake. Even the storefront photo they show of an address in New York is actually a Google maps photos of a different city and state.

I did contact Paypal and opening a complaint to try and cancel the transaction. But from what I've read from other people who have filed complaints, Paypal hasn't been very sympathetic. It could take up to a month to resolve. Meanwhile me trying to save a few bucks cost me $42. And now I'll have to order it from Amazon anyway.

It just comes down to acknowledging that if something seems too good to be true, it isn't.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Just one, wafer thin impeach-mint


I would be remiss not to acknowledge that Trump is finally being impeached. And despite almost incontrovertible evidence that he is guilty, there is a snowballs chance in hell that a super majority of the Senate will vote to convict him. And his "deplorable" supporters are more rabid than ever in the their belief that he is the best thing since sliced Wonder bread.

So I kind of wonder, what is the point in spending all of this time, money and energy trying to pop this pimple out of the White House? The morons who support him just claim that it's all made up and the Senate not convicting him will be their proof that the constant verbal flatulence he spews doesn't stink.

The sociopath doesn't even have the decency to resign. He just keeps up his deluded blather that he is the victim of a witch hunt. Truth is, there is a turd in the White House punch bowl and the country keeps drinking out of it no matter how many times it is pointed out.

What truly depresses me is that none of the so called checks and balances of power that the founding father's tried to put in place seem to work when you place a morally corrupt mad man in office.

And I say that with the utmost respect for the office, not the mad man.

Monday, December 09, 2019

It's beginning to look a lot like Monday


It is a gray Monday in Seattle. That in itself is nothing new. Most days are gray this time of year (and much of the rest of the year as well). The holiday lights help. I kind of wish they would stay up all year round.

I was walking with my son yesterday evening. He and I take the dog on a walk a few times a week more to get him away from video games for a few minutes than to exercise the dog. She is a nervous little thing and probably burns off enough energy bullying the cats without having to be drug around the neighborhood.

Anyway, we were walking and I was enjoying all of the various approaches to decorating with lights that people attempt this time of year. My son, a budding young curmudgeon, was less impressed. He was especially repulsed by a larger than life inflatable Santa wearing pajamas and bunny slippers in one person's yard. The dog seemed startled by the thing, too.

I admit, I'm not a big fan of the inflatable things, either. My wife purchased a couple of inflatable snowmen a few years ago that I reluctantly staked to our front yard. One was Olaf from Frozen. I just think the things are tacky. One of them lost it's inner glow last year so we finally tossed it. I'm not sure what happened to Olaf. I couldn't find him anywhere in the garage. I am a bit relieved.

I used to go to great lengths decorating with lights. I spent hours on the roof clipping icicle lights to the gutters. At one point they ran the entire length of both the front and back of our house. It was quite a feat. But I just can't do it anymore so I confine the light show to the bushes and trees and around the garage door and on the fence. It looks just fine.

Again, I wouldn't mind having lights all year round. I put them up for Halloween already. What would be cool is lights you could hang that would change color according to the season, orange for Halloween; red, green, white and blue for Christmas; red for Valentines; green for St. Patrick's Day; purple for Easter; multi-colored for spring; red, white and blue for the 4th; then orange and brown for fall and then back to Halloween.

I should Google it. I imagine someone makes all season lights.

Friday, December 06, 2019

Nothing pressing


It is difficult not to get caught up in the flurry of activity to prepare for the holidays. Halloween had barely passed when Christmas merchandise and decorations hit the stores. Thanksgiving was a blip on the radar. People had Christmas trees and lights up before the turkey was even digested.

I put the Elvis tree up the day after Thanksgiving.


I started putting lights on the outside of the house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I will finish putting them up this weekend. I have given up going onto my roof to hang lights on the gutters. It is hard work and inevitably you put up a string of lights and a patch goes out. I'm sticking to lights in the bushes, trellis and trees in front of the house.

I have much of my Christmas shopping done. It is a challenge because my wife also has a birthday a week before Christmas so I have two celebrations in a row to plan for. So there is birthday cake and balloons to pick up in edition to stocking stuffers.

On top of all this both of my children have indicated they don't buy the whole Santa Claus myth anymore. Part of me is relieved because Santa has gotten credit for gifts I purchased for years.  So I kind of want to feel the love.

Well at least when Christmas is over I don't have to worry about anything until Valentines Day.

Sigh.




Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Mindfulness


I have been practising mindfulness for more than a year now using the Calm meditation app. It guides you through ten-minute meditations on a daily basis. The concept is to teach you how to live in the moment and stop your brain from fixating on negative thoughts or memories.

I think it has helped me a bit. It has forced me to take that 10-minute break everyday and at the very least focus on my breathing instead of what I am supposed to be getting done (like figure out what to get my son for Christmas that doesn't involve a $400 virtual reality headset).

As you know (there's that "you" again), I think a great deal about what the brain is creating all the time for me. I struggle with understanding why, if I create my own reality, I can't come up with a better one that doesn't include Trump.

But I digress.

Looking at the photos above, I am mindful that the hair on my head and my beard are almost white. But my eyebrows are still dark brown. Why is that?

I don't think that is technically what mindfulness is supposed to be about. But it does try and teach you not to be judgmental. So I try not to focus on how big my nose and ears look in the photos. Though I did hear on Tik Tok the other day that the nose and ears are the only part of the body that continues to grow as you age. So it must be true (I also Googled it and Dr. Oz confirms it).


Tuesday, December 03, 2019

A star is dead


If you (and "you" know who I'm talking about) have followed my blog for some length of time, you know that each Christmas I decorate an artificial white tree with Elvis themed ornaments. It is a tradition I have carried on for almost 20 years.  I've even tried to get my children to participate (if not understand) the tradition. When they were younger, they happily did, primarily because many of the ornaments play music.

But this year I was the only one who showed any enthusiasm when, on the day after Thanksgiving, I pulled out the white tree and my ornament bins and declared it was time to put up the Elvis tree. My son, who has become quite the curmudgeon basically refused to help. My daughter played along for awhile but got distracted and began drawing on a green Christmas ball that has been in the Elvis ornament bin for years but never goes on the tree because I only allow blue Christmas balls on the Elvis tree.

So I more or less decorated the Elvis tree by myself which is fine because I like to place the ornaments in a certain order and the kids tend to just toss them willy-nilly on the tree only to be rearranged by me after they have left.

But my children's lack of enthusiasm kills any hope I had of the tradition continuing after I've joined Elvis in the great Graceland in the sky (which we know isn't on the moon). My only hope is that they will at least sell all the ornaments on eBay and not just give them to Goodwill to be shoved in a bargain bin.


Monday, December 02, 2019

Footprints in the dust


I've been watching the third season of The Crown on Netflix.  It's a bio of Great Britain's royal family. And since all of my DNA results indicate that 99 percent of my ancestry stems from England I find it interesting if not fascinating.

The episode I watched last night was about Prince Philip having a mid-life crisis around the time Neal Armstrong was walking on the moon. Prince Philip felt as though his life was meaningless compared to someone who had actually reached the moon. He felt as though by actually reaching the moon, the astronauts had been given some cosmic knowledge.

So Prince Philip, being a Royal, arranges to meet the Apollo astronauts and ask them some philosophical questions. He is seated in a room in Buckingham Palace with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins and asks them what they discovered on the moon. They all stared blankly at him (in between cold induced sneezes) and said they were too busy following their astronaut protocols and check lists to have had time to wax philosophical about what it meant to set foot on the moon. They had simple reached the heavens, took some photos, picked up some rocks and left.

Prince Philip was a bit pissed. He realized the astronauts, although brave, were really not very deep people. They shrugged off his questions and instead wanted to know what it was like being a prince and having umpteen palaces. Then they dashed about Buckingham Palace taking snapshots with more gusto than they had on the moon.


Monday, November 25, 2019

And miles to go before I sleep


The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
 But I have promises to keep,
 And miles to go before I sleep,
 And miles to go before I sleep.
--Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
 It is pretty clear that Frost is talking about death when he says, "And miles to go before I sleep." He's also talking about having lots to to before that happens. But since none of us can really know when the big sleep is coming, you can't really count on how many miles you have left.

In the movie The Crow, the villain talks about being given a snow globe as a child that contained a cemetery. His quote was, "Childhood is over the moment you know you're gonna die." I remember my grandmother (who lived next door to where I grew up) used to tell me on a regular basis that she wasn't going to live for another year. This went on until I was 17 and she really did die. She died at home in bed and for some reason my mother made my brothers and I go next door and look at her lifeless body.

She was my father's adopted mother and my mother never did care much for her. My parents had her buried next to my grandfather (who had died when I was four). There was no funeral. They claimed she hadn't wanted one. Not that there would have been many people to attend. My grandmother never visited with anyone but our family.

Regardless, it was the first time I'd ever seen a dead person. The next time was when I attended the funeral of my other grandmother and they had an open casket funeral. I remember filing by the casket and looking at my maternal grandmother and thinking she looked nothing like my grandmother. I also remember my Uncle Ira standing next to the coffin and waving at her and saying, "Bye, bye mommie." Uncle Ira had been released from the state hospital to attend the funeral. And I remember my Aunt Gladys standing next to the casket snapping photos of my grandmother's corpse with one of those old cameras that used flash cubes. She later appalled my mother by asking her if she wanted to see photos of their mom and showing her a packet of the shots of her lying in the casket.


Monday, November 18, 2019

Old dog, old tricks


I wonder a great deal about the futility of a lot of the things humans do (like TikTok) only to end up with the inevitable date with the Grim Reaper. Continuing to take classes after you hit 55 or so is one of them.

I know, I know, you are saying that you are never too old to learn something and that it keeps the brain active. But I end up taking a lot of training for my work and the information seems to pop in one ear and out the other.

Plus, I never really learn anything new. I have come to the conclusion that there isn't anything new. All ideas have been thought, recycled, forgot and thought again. Just Google it.

Part of it is the futility I feel about furthering my formal education at my age. What would I do with an advanced degree at this point? My career is where it is going to be until I retire. If I left my current job, it is highly unlikely anyone would hire me at my age. Especially since I am a marketing person. They all want youth because most of the market is young.

I know I am sounding rigid and negative. But it is my truth. I'm not going to become a scientist and discover something that will change the world. I'm definitely not going to become a software developer.

Part of it is that I am tired of jumping through hoops and chasing balls. I feel like I deserve to curl up in my dog bed by the fire and dream of chasing rabbits.

Why do I suddenly have the urge to howl?


Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Is it live, or is it Memorex?


I realize that by using the phrase "Is it live, or is it Memorex" I've lost 90 percent of my audience who wasn't alive when Memorex, a company that sold recording tapes, had ads that used famous singers recording their voices and then having people guess whether they were listening the live version or recorded version.

I suppose I also have to explain that recording tapes were magnetic tapes (first on reels and then in cassettes) that could be used in tape recorders to record music or voices. Tapes sort of replaced vinyl disks or phonography records.  Tapes were eventually replaced by Compact Discs. This was before Mp3s became a thing.

That's a long digressive way to talk about the comments I've been getting on my blog lately.  They are all anonymous. And most if not all have been on random posts from the past. And they are all strangely vague and general things like, "It's hard to come by knowledgeable people about this topic, however, you sound like you know what you're talking about! Thanks," and "It's amazing to visit this website and reading the views of all mates regarding this piece of writing, while I am also eager of getting knowledge."

There are many comments like that. They never really reference anything from the actual post, nor do they get specific about what they liked (or didn't like). So I have to assume they are automated. I just don't know why. Or I didn't know why until I Googled auto blog commenting and discovered there is software that can automatically leave comments on your blog without anyone actually reading the post.

As near as I can figure, it somehow can increase traffic to the person who left the comment's site. I just don't know how. So I figure I now need to not allow anonymous comments on my site and see if that gets rid of the auto comments.

I don't get how I can be blogging for 15 years and still not understand all the rules.

Thursday, November 07, 2019

Doing the write thing


I have been writing a blog for 15 years now. I've written about countless random things. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is reflective. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is entertaining. And sometimes it is not.

In the beginning I was enthusiastic and wrote pretty regularly. I remember being amazed when the first person commented. And there was a brief period where several people read and regularly commented. I developed, for a lack of a better term, virtual friends. But it turned out that that they were just virtually friends. They for the most part scurried back to their real lives.

My blog stats indicate that on some days my pages get a couple of hundred hits. Not totally understanding how metrics work, I have grown to assume that very few of those hits are by humans. I now assume they are bots roaming the Web searching for life. I feel like my blog is like the moon, lifeless and scarred by bot-meteors striking it randomly.

I miss real comments instead of  nonsensical things like, "2016 En PopĂĽler Kitaplar Tavsiye Edilen Kitaplar (which is apparently Turkish for 2016 Most Popular Books Recommended Books."

It's not even legitimate spam.

Since I am by profession a marketing person, I have tried marketing my blog. You can subscribe to my blog through Amazon (no one ever has). There is a Dizgraceland Facebook page. And I have a Twitter account and an Instagram account. There is also my YouTube account that I tried to create video versions of some of my most popular posts. I even have a TikTok account. But I never post anything to it because the average age on TikTok is 18 and I would be ostracized if I posted. And I'm more than a bit pissed that some people on TikTok have thousands of people following their crap and all they do is post short videos of them brushing their teeth.

I suppose I am reflecting on all of this because at times I wonder why I still blog. It is clear that few if anyone still reads it.  But I can't seem to bring myself to stop. It is one of my only creative outlets. And although most of the photos I Photoshop are of myself, I still get a kick out of creating the images.

So I continue to write my messages on my desert island of a blog, slip them into a bottle and toss them into the Internet ocean.  After all, who knows who will ever find them.






Wednesday, November 06, 2019

Pieces of the puzzle


I hardly ever used to do jigsaw puzzles much. I never seemed to have the time or patience to just sit down and do one. Oh, I'd do ones with the kids when they were small and easily entertained. But they were never very challenging.

I think it was my birthday or maybe it was Easter, my wife gave me a Vincent Van Gogh jigsaw puzzle of Starry, Starry Night. It sat around for weeks until she bought this huge tray that was big enough to work on a puzzle but then move it off from the dining room table when I wasn't working on it.

I started working on the puzzle and found it therapeutic. It kept my senses occupied and my mind engaged. These are important things you discover as you age. The brain needs to be challenged. The puzzle did that. It was the combination of matching shapes and colors. It was kind of like being an archaeologist piecing together fragments of a skeleton or pottery.

I was hooked. I finished the Starry, Starry Night puzzle after working on it over a period of several weeks. It was a great way to fill the time I spend waiting for the kids to finish brushing their teeth before I tucked them in. And it was a welcome relief from filling my time playing Fortnite.

I took a photo of the finished puzzle, posted it on Facebook and then tore it apart and put it back in the box. What else can you do with a jigsaw puzzle? I felt a rush of pride for finishing it, but then a let down now that it was finished. I asked my wife to pick up some other puzzles at Goodwill.


Tuesday, November 05, 2019

The porch lights are on but there's no one home


It is election day and of course I voted. I always vote. I have voted in ever election since I was 18. The first person I ever voted for was Jimmy Carter. Although he wasn't the most effective president in history, he was a decent person and he is still a decent person.

Unfortunately, not everyone votes. At least not everyone who should votes votes. Watching the circus that is going on in democracy these days confirms my theory that maybe a benevolent dictatorship would be a better.

I do kind of miss the days when you had to go to a polling place in your neighborhood and physically cast your vote. It seems less dramatic to sit at the dining room table and fill out the ballot and stick it in the mail.

Though voting by mail does give you more time to try and decipher all of the advisory votes, nut job citizen initiatives and loonies running for public office for the first time. There were quite a few people running for city council in my town this year. I am sick of all the yard signs. It is a terrible way to campaign and should be banned. Even my 11-year old son recognizes it as a waste. What does a yard sign tell you about a candidate.

Though I tried to explain the concept of name recognition and that some people will vote for a person simply because they recall seeing their name.

Those are the people who should not vote.

For some unknown reason, I did apply for a vacant position on my local city council once several years ago. The incumbent had died and the seat was open. You just had to apply and be interviewed by the rest of the council who then voted on the replacement. I was one of nine applicants and I don't think I got a single vote. I did come to the realization that all of the people on the council and in the audience were major whack jobs. I no longer have any desire for any kind of political career.

But still I vote.

Monday, November 04, 2019

Vic-tims, aren't we all?


"Victims, aren't we all?"
--Brandon Lee, The Crow
I was walking across the street from the train station to my office. It was the usual crowd of commuters swarming across the crosswalk. One lone person was crossing against the stream with their arm raised in the air, middle finger extended. He was screaming "Murder is hot blood." He was pulling a suitcase with crap popping out the edges so I assumed he was a street person. Hell, he could have been a commuter, but most don't scream on the outside about murder and hot blood.

With the state of the country, I'm surprised more people aren't walking around pulling suitcases, flipping the world off and screaming about murder and hot blood. I was in L.A. last week and everything seemed to be on fire. It's hard not to think we are all being punished for what humankind has done to the earth.

Sad though, that most people think they are victims and aren't responsible for where their life has taken them, including the screaming homeless man flipping off the cosmos. Of course, he was likely mentally ill. You can't really blame a person for being out of their mind.

Our of their mind. Funny we use that phrase to refer to a crazy person. But every day I meditate and technically am trying to be out of my mind. Being in your mind is what causes most of the problems.

I catch myself thinking I'm a victim sometimes when I'm in my mind. I feel unappreciated and inconsequential. Then I remind myself that I am where I am and who I am because of all the choices I've made. And I'll be where I'll be because of the choices I've yet to make.

Then I grab my suitcase, raise my middle finger and start screaming.

Friday, November 01, 2019

Hell night


I stopped dressing up for Halloween after 6th grade. On occasion I would wear a costume for a party but I always felt self conscious. I started dressing up for Halloween again when I had kids and would take them trick or treating. But they have reached an age when they want to trick or treat with their friends. While I still have to shadow them to make sure they are okay, it will be from a respectful distance.

Since I don't want to appear like a creepy old man in a costume following around a bunch of kids, I am not going to wear a costume tonight. And honestly I am relieved. Because I'm a bit tired of being a geriatric pirate or skeleton or zombie. It will be nice to just walk along with my regular, every day me mask.

Which is apparently an old man.

Ironically, years ago when I still lived at home with my parents I put on this old man rubber mask and old man clothes and went to the front door and freaked out my mother. Little did I know that forty some years later I wouldn't need the mask.


Friday, October 25, 2019

Why I don't dye my hair and other thoughts on aging


My father's hair started turning gray in high school. It was pretty much white by the time I was born. Then he started losing it on top as well. But he never dyed it or went for the painfully bad comb over.

I asked him once why he didn't dye his hair. He was working at a warehouse at the time. He told me that one of his coworkers had gray hair and came to work with it dyed and everyone made fun of him (this was before such behavior would have triggered an HR witch hunt). So my father just accepted that his hair was white and lived with looking 20 years older than he was.

I think my hair started getting gray when I was in my 30s. It stayed relatively brown until I was in my late 40s. It is now a silvery white. And I have all of it. I suppose I have my mother to thank for that.

I have never considered dyeing my hair. Part of it is because of my father's anecdote.  The other part is I think it is painfully obvious when a man in his sixties dyes his hair because it looks so unnatural. So I accept my hair color that makes me look like a grandfather because I am indeed old enough to be one.


Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Why we don't exist


If you Google "why we don't exist" you don't get nearly as long a list as you do when you Google "why do we exist." And none of it really speaks to why humans don't exist. If you Google "is life an illusion" you start down the path. But still it is mainly just a lot of mumbo jumbo.

"Mumbo Jumbo" btw comes from the Mandinka word, "Maamajomboo", which refers to a masked male dancer who takes part in religious ceremonies. It has come to mean, according to the Oxford Dictionary, "an object of senseless veneration or a meaningless ritual."

But I digress.

Being raised a Christian Scientist, I was told repeatedly by my mother that sickness and death were an illusion. Life in fact was an illusion and that we were neither born nor would we die. She'd point to circle on the cover of Science and Health with key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (the founder of Christian Science) and ask me where it began and where it ended. Of course unless you see it drawn, a circle has no beginning or end. That is life, she'd say.

I have to say, I had a hard time buying the concept especially when my mom tried downplaying birthdays because she believed we were neither born or died. I also saw a lot of pets and family members die. So this concept of neither being born or dying didn't jive with what I was seeing going on. For the longest time I thought it was just because I wasn't a good enough Christian Scientist.

In retrospect, Christian Science is a bit like Buddhism and the concept that you can end the cycle of birth and rebirth by eliminating attachment and desire. Christian Scientists just think you do it by praying.

I was a Buddhist for a short time, too. But I was about as good at being a Buddhist as I was being a Christian Scientist.


Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Why we exist


Yesterday I waxed philosophical about time and ended pondering why we exist. I thought about it a bit and then did what everyone does these days. I Googled it. And there were tons of pages out there touting answers. But they created more questions than answers.

Most of it fell in the Hallmark realm with answers like to love, to make the world a better place, to be happy, to experience and to leave a legacy. Some just say we exist by accident. Some claim we exist because of a god and point to the bible as our user's manual. But as with most things on the web, everyone spoke with a great deal of conviction but very little evidence to back up their claims.

Because no one really knows.

I've been binge watching three seasons of The Good Place. It's a sitcom starring Ted Danson who plays a demon architect who creates an experimental hell to torture damned souls. His approach is psychological instead of literal torture. The plot centers around four people who are told they are in the good place but are actually in Danson's hell.

In the show, people are judged by everything they do in life. If they don't accumulate enough positive points, they go to the bad place. Danson tells his subject that only one person on earth ever came close to figuring out what happens after death and that was a guy who had taken mushrooms and had a vision in the woods. In the third season of the show Danson visits the man who had figured out the afterlife and discovers he is living a miserable experience because his sole purpose is trying to make other creatures happy in order to accumulate enough points to get to the good place once he died.


Monday, October 21, 2019

Killing time


It is amazing the amount of effort (and time) we spend trying to kill or pass time. Granted, you do more of it in your inpatient youth because you can't wait for something to happen. It's not until you realize that you really don't have that much of it that you rethink the logic of trying to kill time.

In the past few months though, I've taken up doing jigsaw puzzles. I do it when I have time to fill. Because I do find myself spending a great deal of my limited time waiting for people. Doing the jigsaw puzzles exercises my brain while it occupies it. And I have to admit it is quite satisfying. But it is a bit disturbing when I finish one and the only thing to do is tear it apart and put it back in the box knowing I'll never redo it.

Life is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle.

Ironically, time is actually infinite, just not for people. Time has always been and always will be. But humans see it as linear and limited. In addition to trying to kill or pass it, that also try to save it. Sometimes in a bottle. But in a cosmic sense it surrounds us and doesn't just move forward.

Time just is. In a way, time is very much like the way people imagine a god would be.

Time travel has always intrigued people. I don't think it is possible. Because it would have to assume that time is like a river flowing forward and all you have to do is figure out is how to go against the current. But since most philosophers and physicists believe time isn't linear, there wouldn't be anyplace to go back to. You are just in one continuous now.

So what we do when we kill time is just kill "now" trying to get to "then". But then is just another now.

But still, as flesh and blood creatures, our bodies wear out over time. So it is little wonder we view time as a finite construct that can be measured and parsed out. It isn't time that we are killing, it is us.

This gets into a broader philosophic discussion of why we exist at all. But I'll leave that for another blog post as soon as I figure it out.


Thursday, October 10, 2019

To delete, or not to delete...


I pride myself on generally being able to begin writing with a germ of an idea and expanding it quickly into a cogent (if not necessarily entertaining) blog post without a lot of editing or rewriting. I may not be able to improvise playing music, but I have always seemed to be able to improvise writing on just about any subject.

But after 15 years and 1345 blog posts, I'm starting to notice that sometimes the stuff doesn't flow as easy as it used to. For one, I think I'm running out of things to say. Which is kind of ironic, because the blog post that prompted this one was one I just deleted called Talking about yourself. It was prompted by how I feel about blow hard's who can't talk about anyone but themselves.  This led to a declaration that I don't really like talking, period.

Then I realized that all I generally do is blog about myself. So I deleted the post. Because sometimes even I can't deny how self-centered and boring some of my blog posts are.

This is where feedback (something I truly hate) would be nice. When people used to read my blog and comment, I at least had some indication that I was being entertaining or educational or thought provoking. But no one but spammers leave comments anymore. And the joke is on them. Since no one reads my blog, no one is reading their spam either.

I can take some comfort in that.

Reflecting on things, it is not just my blog that doesn't get comments. In day to day life I don't get much feedback anymore. I don't hear, "Nice haircut" or "You look nice today." I don't hear many "thank you's" or "you did a great job on that," either.

Part of that is the politically correct world we now live in where everyone is afraid to make any personal comment about anyone or anything. And part of it is that dreaded invisibility cloak age puts on me.

I am speaking at a conference at the end of the month. I keep getting marketing e-mails from them asking me to attend the conference and listing some of expert speakers who are going to be there to entice me to attend. Then they list me and show my photograph.

Now that's invisible.

Monday, October 07, 2019

I'm a little bit country...


I've been binge watching Ken Burns latest documentary series, Country Music. The series has eight episodes that incorporate 16-hours of content. It begins with the roots of what we think of as country music and traces its meandering path to present day country.

I watched all 16 hours and as usual, I was amazed at Ken Burns sense of detail and history. The series brought back a lot of memories and created a few more. It's not that I grew up listening to country music. But I grew up in what I think of as a country place. And as I root around in my family tree, my people were all from country places.

I listened to Hank Williams as a little kid. I didn't know it was Hank. I remember in particular listening to his song Jambalaya.  I also listened to Tennessee Ernie Ford singing Sixteen Tons. That was pretty much the extent of the classic country that I knew. I did get exposed to some from watching television. I knew Roger Williams wrote King of the Road while staying in a sleazy motel in Garden City, a shady part of my hometown in Boise.

I also remember watching the Jimmy Dean show and thinking he looked and talked like a male version of my Aunt Irma. All of my many aunts and uncles talked country. It has a unique sound. It's slow and measured with a bit of a twang. It isn't southern, it's country. I think you can be from any state in the union and have a country accent. It's your people, not your place.


Friday, October 04, 2019

Inside my brain


I've been watching the documentary series, Inside Bill's Brain on Netflix. The brain it refers to is Bill Gates' brain. It has given me new respect for the man because I basically despise Microsoft and all of its products. But I appreciate what Gates has done with his charitable foundation once he stepped down from being the head of Microsoft (no pun intended).

I have to admit if I suddenly had billions of dollars being charitable wouldn't be my first thought. Oh, I'd eventually get there after exhausting all of the luxury things I could indulge in that I've never had before. After awhile I'd think of other things to do with the money. At least I think I would.

But it is painfully obvious that Bill Gates and my brains have very little in common. For one, although I am an introvert, I was never as socially inept as he apparently is. And although I was a voracious reader as a child and much of my early adulthood, I generally read fiction. Bill Gates is also a voracious reader but he reads non-fiction, dry as dirt stuff at the rate of 150 pages an hour and remembers 90 percent of it. I forget what I got up to go to the kitchen for.

I was a good student. I pretty much always got A's without studying too hard. Bill Gates apparently took a statewide math test before junior high and got the highest grade in the state. I hated math.

The one thing I have up on Bill and his brain is that I graduated from college. Bill dropped out and founded Microsoft. But he never finished college so that gives me a right to look down my nose at him even if his net worth hovers around the hundred billion level.

So I'm not a billionaire genius. Apparently you have to be pretty much on the spectrum to be considered a genius. So I'm wondering if it is really worth it to be a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

Okay if it means making billions of dollars I'd have to say yes. But it still hurts my brain to think about it.

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Self image


I think it is difficult to have a realistic view of what you look like to others. Because what do you have to base it on other than mirrors and photographs. And those are notorious liars.

Add to the mix the games your brain plays converting signals from your eyes and you really don't have a true image of anything let alone yourself. And let's not forget the unrealistic standards given us by Hollywood and ad agencies for what we should look like.

I have never considered myself handsome. As a boy I was, what I overheard my mother tell someone on the phone, stocky. I remember being teased by some classmates in grade school about how fast I consumed my lunch. They then started saying I had a spare tire.

The spare tire disappeared in junior high. I was pretty skinny. That lasted into college. Along the way I had your typical teenagers battle with acne. And the style for hair at the time was long and pretty much unshaped.

I never had very good muscle tone. I wasn't athletic. I hated running. To this day I have skinny arms, huge calves and the spare tire has returned in a vengeance. I also have a big nose, big ears, a few double chins and crooked teeth. Oh and I have very gray, almost white hair.

Not a pretty picture.



Friday, September 20, 2019

Faded memories


Many years ago I bought a box at an auction that contained a bunch of old photographs. Most weren't in very good condition. Some included the name of the photographer and where they were taken but none included the names of the people.  The photo above is an example of one of the photos. Despite its condition, I love the photo. It appears to be of a group of friends wearing their best clothes and posing for posterity.

When I first got the photos I didn't really think of what to do with them. This was before digital scanning and Photoshop were really a thing. But several years back I scanned most of them with the thought that I'd eventually use them on my blog. A few days ago I decided to open up the files and see what I could do to restore them. Here's the restored version of the photo above.



Thursday, September 19, 2019

On remembering death



Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of my mother's death. I didn't remember it until some things popped up on Facebook today. I haven't really noted the anniversary from year to year. The last time I wrote about it in my blog was a year after she died.

I noted then that I didn't think the day a person dies should be the key thing you remember about them. It isn't something I put on the calendar. Like I said, I wouldn't remember the exact date unless Facebook wasn't so persistent about reminding us of things.

I couldn't tell you the day my father died either. I wasn't there so it wasn't quite as traumatic as when my mother died. And my father has been dead for 28 years. A lot has transpired since then.

I'm not good with death. I suppose no one is, but some people seem to handle it better. I mainly just shut it out. Oh, I can go through the motions. I can go to memorial services and be stoic and sympathetic. But I don't like death.


Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Smile without smiling


Smile without smiling sounds like a koan. Regardless, this disturbing photo of me with a Snapchat filter does the job quite nicely. I touched it up a bit because I didn't like me without my beard.

The photo reminds me of one I did some years back using only Photoshop. It was before Snapchat. My eyes are smiling in that one though.


It just goes to show you that a smile doesn't necessarily make you happy...or look happy. Though both of these are more of a grimace. It's kind of a Kirk Douglas look (Kirk Douglas was a famous movie star from the late 1940s...he was one of the first actors to play Spartacus...he is the father of Michael Douglas...I wish I didn't have to explain these things).


I have actually been told I have a nice smile...when I smile spontaneously. Too often I smile on cue, usually when I'm posing for a photo. Those are fake smiles. All you have to do is look at my eyes to know I'm not really smiling.

It's funny that we associate eyes with smiling when a smile is theoretically all about the mouth. For example:
When Irish Eyes are Smiling sure it's like a morn in spring
In the lilt of Irish laughter you can hear the angels sing
when Irish hearts are happy all the world seems bright and gay
but when Irish eyes are smiling sure they'll steal your heart away
I suppose it sounds better than, "When Irish mouths are smiling sure it's like a morn in spring."

I guess all we can do is grin and bear it.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

For the birds


Apparently the ledge outside my new office is quite the gathering place for pigeons and occasionally sea gulls. It is on the fourth floor of my building. My other office was on the 8th floor of another building and only attracted a sea gull on rare occasions.

I'm thinking pigeons are afraid of heights.

There are now four pigeons on the window ledge....wait...five. Two are staring at me rather balefully. The other three appear to be sleeping.

Two flew away.

This is dramatic stuff. I'm thinking of setting up a web cam and streaming it live. I'll call it For the birds. Apparently that phrase comes from the 1940s and was originally "That's shit for the birds" referring to birds pecking on horse manure for seeds.

I think calling the web cam "Shit for the birds" might not be a good marketing move. Come to think of it, probably not a big demand anyway for a web cam of pigeons on my window ledge. There are three of them now, BTW. I'm thinking they are hanging out because of the rain. It's hard to tell with pigeons. They always look a bit confused.

I suppose I'd be a bit confused if my eyes were on the side of my head. What is that all about anyway? What genius genetic designer thought it would be a good idea to put birds eyes on the side of their heads? They can't have any depth perception. I'm surprised they aren't flying into shit all the time.

Then it would really be shit for the birds.

Monday, September 16, 2019

I saw It (2)


I took my son to see It Chapter 2 over the weekend. I had relented and let him stream the first chapter last year around this time. So when they released chapter 2 I agreed to take him to the theater and see it.

Okay, Pennywise the Clown (played by Swedish actor Bill SkarsgĂĄrd) is as creepy as hell. But then again, I think all clowns are as creepy as hell. And It and It Chapter 2 are 100 times better than the 1990s mini-series .  And they are a munch better adaptation of the book by Stephen King (who has a cameo in It Chapter 2...and let me say age has not made the man better looking).

I think I liked It better than It 2. Both are creepy, but chapter 2 seemed to rehash the same old storyline, just 27 years later. And as with the novel, chapter 2 doesn't really do a good job of explaining who or what Pennywise is or where he came from in a way a normal person can really comprehend.

My biggest complaint about It Chapter 2 was how long it was (It was ten minutes shy of three hours long). Fortunately I was in a movie theater with recliner seats drinking a $5 bottle of water (don't get me started on concession prices). I wouldn't say the movie was slow. It made me jump several times and I'm not easily spooked.

I have to say, although the adult cast was good, I don't think they were as likeable as the young cast of the It one. The first movie had a kind of Stand by me nostalgic quality to it. Not that you can really feel nostalgic about fighting an ongoing battle with a killer clown who chewed off your little brother's arm. But you kind of got a sense that the kids in It one had created a bond of friendship that most of us long for but never really have. It Chapter 2 reveals that none of them stayed in touch for 27 years.

Though I think that is closer to reality than people being friends for life with their friends from grade school. Hell, most of my friends from grade school are dead.

Anyway, It Chapter 2 is entertaining, especially if you are a Stephan King fan.

My son liked It, too.

I do crack myself up.

Friday, September 13, 2019

Once more into the windmill



Of course, he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That's insane. But, thinking that they might be... Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn't? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.
--Justin Playfair (George C. Scott) in the movie They Might be Giants 
I have been fascinated with Don Quixote for years. I had the above poster (sans my head) in my dorm room in college. And this isn't the first post I've written about him. I think the first was back in 2006 called Windmills or giants.


It was the movie They Might be Giants, that peaked my interest in Don Quixote. It is a 1971 film starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. Scott plays a mentally ill man who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes. Woodward plays a psychiatrist named Watson. The best part of film is the above quote by the main character explaining to a certain extent why he believed he was Holmes and was trying to find Moriarty, his arch nemesis. He chased Moriarty for the same reason Don Quixote fought with windmills, because they might be giants.

It is concept that has inspired me for years. We shouldn't stop doing what we believe in just because other think it is pointless.

I think it is why I have been blogging for 14 years.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Hello darkness


Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence 
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence 
--The Sound of Silence, Paul Simon
It is fall once again in Seattle. And the gray returns. Soon it will be dark in the morning when I go to work and dark when I come home.

Not sure how I ended up in such a place. I thought Boise was depressing. Well, it was depressing. But it was more about the people and politics than the weather. Though it would get oppressively hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But I don't recall the rain.

Seattle has the rain. And the clouds. And I've begun to think the people aren't all that great either. Maybe it is cursed by the native Americans or indigenous people who it belonged to until the white people moved in. Or maybe it has always been depressing.

Not that I'm a "walk into the light" kind of person.  I've moved into a corner office at work and it has been hard for me to get used to having so much light. I pretty much keep the shades drawn. When I was a teenager, my room was in the basement. There was pretty much no light.


Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Ch-ch-ch-changes



Strange fascinations fascinate me
Ah, changes are takin'
The pace I'm goin' through 
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Ooh, look out you rock 'n' rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time
--Changes, David Bowie 
I attended a memorial service over the weekend for the husband of a friend of mine. He was in his early 80s and passed on at an assisted living home. It was a nice celebration of the man's life with many of his life long friends telling stories, mainly from their youth.

I didn't know many of the people who attended the memorial. The ones I did were primarily people I'd worked with years ago who had long since retired.  And although I wasn't the youngest person there, I was one of they younger of the older people.

What struck me about the people I did know was how much they had aged since I last saw them. It's like that when you only have occasional contact with people. You don't get to see them gradual age. It just seems to happen over night.

I can imagine they felt the same way about me.

Aging is something you don't think about until it is rudely thrust upon you. There were so many years that I honestly never thought I would get old. It would help if you never looked into a mirror or looked at photos of yourself. You could stave off old age much longer. Oh, you would start to notice aches and pains and how long it takes you to stand up. But still, inside you don't feel old (as long as your mind stays clear).

Which brings me to Bowie's song Changes. He wrote and recorded the song when he was 24 years old.  And it has been conjectured that Bowie was writing about the changes artists go through as they reinvent themselves. It has also been suggested in a Rolling Stone article at the time, that it could be "construed as a young man's attempt to reckon how he'll react when it's his time to be on the maligned side of the generation schism."

I think in plain speak, it could be said that Bowie was having a premonition of what it would be like to be old and being blamed by all of the young people for everything that is wrong in the world. Sadly and ironically, Bowie only lived to be 69, which from an old person's perspective on things, isn't very old. But as an artist, Bowie certainly did go through a multitude of changes.

Now I'm not an artist, but I have gone through a multitude of changes in my own life.And so has the world and my little slice of it. I thought about that this morning as I walked from the train to my office and passed what for years had been a Tully's Coffee Shop. That company went belly up in September of 2018. The shop, which I'd frequented for almost 20 years has been boarded up. Though I hear rumors a pastry shop is opening in its place.

It is the other annoying curse of getting old to constantly point out to less than enthusiastic listeners what used to be. So in that sense, time may change me, but maybe I can trace time.




Monday, September 09, 2019

Butt, is it art?


Okay, it's no Picasso self-portrait. Well, actually it began as a Picasso self-portrait. I just turned it into my own self-portrait because I love messing with Photoshop. And it does capture the essence of me. Or at least my nose. I think I have a pretty big nose.

Apparently Picasso had a pretty big nose, too. But then again, after a certain age, pretty much everyone's nose becomes more prominent as the rest of them shrinks.

Just something for you Millennial readers to look forward to.

I have to say, though, I have begun to question why some artists become famous and others languish. I'm starting to think it is the luck of the draw (no pun intended). Because I think Picasso was just messing with people with many of his paintings and drawings. But at least he was a commercial success. He was even touted as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century.

Ehhh...I'm not seeing it. I'm more of a Vincent Van Gogh kind of guy myself. Ironic, that he died before his work became famous. Maybe that's why I like him. He didn't have Picasso's ego. And Picasso didn't have Van Gogh's ear.

Ha, ha, ha.


Friday, September 06, 2019

Little blog of horrors


I am of an age that I remember the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland as a pulp publication that ran stories about monsters and monster makeup from old horror movies. Much to my surprise, I Googled the magazine and discovered it began in 1958 (the same year I was born) and is still being published. So apparently I have a lot in common with the magazine.

Not that I am a famous monster.  I've worked with famous monsters, though (on ad shoots).



Wednesday, September 04, 2019

Making ripples


Despite all of my whining about being increasingly more invisible as I age, I have always been a person who didn't really like to draw attention to myself. I guess that is hard to believe when you see me Photoshop my face on just about everything.

But that is my virtual self. In the real world I like flying under the radar.

Sometimes, however, I am forced into making ripples, if not waves.  Case in point, Frontier Cable.  A little over a year ago, I contacted Frontier, the company that provides my television, Internet and telephone services, trying to determine why my bill kept increasing although I wasn't getting anything new.  After literally hours on their customer service chat line, I came away with faster Internet and a monthly bill that was still close to $300 a month.

Last week I finally decided that enough was enough. We have enough streaming services that we use that we don't need cable. So I contacted Frontier again. This time I used the telephone (the chat feature wasn't available...apparently because it is too easy to keep a written record). The first person I reached was a young woman named Amber. I asked her what my bill would be if I cancelled cable and just had phone and Internet. She seemed a bit confused, but told me it would go from $294 to $88 plus tax.  I said, "Okay, I want to cancel my cable."

Amber of course couldn't do that. She needed to transfer me to Robin who apparently had that super power. When I talked to Robin, she informed me that cancelling my cable would increase the cost of my telephone and Internet because I wouldn't have the discount of a triple play plan. I told her Amber had quoted me $88. Robin laughed. She suggested I just reduce cable to basic programming (something I had asked for a year ago). Then the prices would be $124 plus tax. If I cancelled cable and kept telephone and Internet, the price would be $144 plus tax.

I said okay, then give me basic cable.  After about ten minutes of typing and apologizing for a slow computer (I assume they have Frontier Internet), Robin gave me a confirmation number and said I'd receive an e-mail confirmation as well.


Tuesday, September 03, 2019

No comment


I've always believed in allowing comments on my blog. At one time the back and forth of the comments was usually more interesting than the original post. I didn't even use Blogger's moderation function for a long time. Then I had a run in with an online stalker/bully/psycho and started moderating the comments.

The way moderation works is that someone leaves a comment, but it isn't posted until the blog owner (me) approves it. This has eliminated a great deal of spam over the years. But recently I hadn't been receiving any notifications of comments on my blog. I just assumed it was because...well...no one was commenting.  Then someone mentioned they had tried to leave a comment on my blog and it wasn't showing up.

I checked my account and sure enough, there were a slew of comments waiting to be moderated, many several months old. Now granted, many were spam.  But there were some real ones (sorry Baggy, several were from you).

And there were many odd ones, especially on a post from back in 2005 called Elvis drove a truck.  There were about 20 or so new anonymous comments from August that seemed as though some class in blogging had been assigned to go to the post and comment (not necessarily read it). They were largely generic with platitudes like:
This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger. I've joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your fantastic post. Also, I've shared your web site in my social networks!
Normally I'd suspect that some URL for Russian porn was embedded in the comment, but there doesn't seem to be any. Though only one of the anonymous posts even mentioned the content of the post:
I believe everything published was very reasonable.But, what about this? suppose you were to write a awesome post title?I am not suggesting your content isn't solid., however what if you added a title that makes people desire more? 
I mean "Elvis drove a truck" is a little plain. You should look at Yahoo's front page and see how they create article titles to grab people interested. You might add a video or a pic or two to grab people excited about everything've got to say.Just my opinion, it could bring your website a little bit more interesting.
 My writing has many faults, but writing plain headlines is not one of them. And advising me to add a "pic or two" to get people excited leads me to believe this person (?) didn't look at the blog either. I rarely post without some image.

If these are spam bots leaving these comments, I also wish they'd learn spelling and grammar. Spam me with complete sentences and I might take you a bit more seriously.

Oh well, at least I know the comment section still works.

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Milky Way



The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (galaxías kýklos, "milky circle"). From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within.
--Google
The Milky Way bar is a chocolate-covered confectionery bar manufactured and distributed by the Mars confectionery company. Introduced in 1923, the Milky Way bar's American version is made of nougat topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate, similar to the Mars bar sold outside of the U.S. 
--Wikipedia
I don't know about you, but I find it ironic that the Milky Way bar is manufactured by the Mars Company, especially because if you eat too many Milky Way bars you won't have a heavenly body.

Dad joke.


I was never really a fan of Milky Way bars though. I'm just not into nougat. Because what the heck is nougat anyway. Okay, it's sugar, egg whites with an occasional nut thrown into the mix. And it doesn't really have anything to to with Milky Way, the galaxy.

I have always been fond of the Milky Way the galaxy. Because pretty much every star you see without a super telescope is part of the Milky Way. And our star, the sun, is part of the Milky Way. So the Milky Way is basically where we live.  The nearest other galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million light years away.

That's far out...literally. Makes sending a person to the moon seem like a stroll around the block.

I've mentioned one too many times laying on my back on a camping trip staring up at the stars and marveling at the shear number of them. Is it little wonder mankind dreams of a heaven that is in the stars and a hell that is here on earth (or below it...though you already know I think black holes are where hell is at). 

But not once when I was a kid laying on my back staring up at the Milky Way did I think about the candy bar. Or at least not about that candy bar.