3737 Wasting time...

Sunday, June 2, 2013

You can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,

or you can teach a man to fish and he

will sit in his boat all day pouting because no one gave him another fish.

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Amost all birds, no matter what they eat as adults, feed their babies meat (bugs, worms, larvae) because the babies need protein to grow muscles and bones.  Even adult seed-eating birds need real seeds.  They won't get the nutrients they need from processed stuff like bread.

So I have to (secretly) snort at my neighbors who toss out bread scraps to "feed the birds".  It's ok once in a while, to attract birds to look at them, but I wish people wouldn't make a habit of it.

If you want to feed baby birds, you should put out a chunk of rotting meat, to attract bugs.  The parent birds would appreciate that.  Or half a container of cottage cheese.  That'll be full of nice fat squirming maggots within hours.  Yummy!

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I went to the country house last Thursday, returned yesterday, first visit since last fall.  I was very worried about what I'd find.  Afraid the house would be full of yellow jackets, mice, spiders, snakes.  Afraid I'd find all the pipes and wires stolen.  I was worried enough that I reserved a hotel room for Thursday and Friday nights.

Actually, I was surprised that the house was actually fine.

Well, the mice had gone to town over the winter.  There was nothing for them to eat, but it was a warm place to hang out.  And they did nibble the buttons on the TV remote.  Finger oils on the buttons, I guess.  (Maybe potato chip flavored oil.)  They had gnawed them down flat.  I could still use the remote, by pressing the buttons into the base.

I had taken my laptop so I could keep up with the mail and feed reader, and because there was an eBay auction I wanted to snipe.  And because the country house has no internet, I took along the portable wifi pack I'd bought a few months ago to replace the (lost, accidentally left at a hotel) plug-in DSL dohickey that had served me so many years.  (I try never to use "public" wifi like in hotels and coffee shops, because I don't trust their security).  I tested the setup again just before I packed up Thursday to leave.  Worked fine.

Got to the (internet connection-less cheap place) hotel Thursday night, and although my cell phone had four bars, the wifi pack had only none or one bar.  First thing Friday morning I took it to the Verizon store, waited for a half hour for a rep to get to me, complained that it wouldn't pick up a signal, and that although I had been told that the battery would last a week if it was left on and a month if turned off, I'd never gotten more than two hours use before it needed charging.  So they kept it for the day to test the battery.

Then I went to the house but didn't get much done because I had to meet Piper for lunch.  I absolutely did not go to his office, because every time I've done that I've ended up sitting there for an hour or more waiting for him to get loose.  Damn!  If he's going to insist that we meet, he'll do it on my terms.  I called him and said I'd be at the village diner at 2 pm (that's when I eat lunch on this six-meal plan), and that I'd be there one hour.

Well, Piper being Piper, the lunch was the usual almost two hours.

Didn't get make much forward progress back at the house, had to clean up mouse poop and refill all the plumbing traps that had dried out over the winter, stuff like that, and then go back to Verizon early evening.  They said the battery was fine, that it will last a week left on but asleep and a month turned off, but if you're using it, two hours is about right.  What the hell!?  But, they noticed that even there, where it should have had 4 or 5 bars, it was picking up only 1 or 2.  So eventually they swapped out the SIM card, and it went to 4 to 5 bars.  They have such crowds in there that you have to sign in and wait.  I was there about an hour and a half.

But now it's all fixed, right?

Back at the hotel, now it would come up and connect to the laptop, but not to the internet.  "Local connection only".  Huh?

Friday morning back to Verizon.  Sign in and wait again.  This time I took the laptop, too.  The device is bad.  It worked in NJ, but the last thing it had done before I packed it up to leave was auto-install a software update.  They figure the update must have gone bad, but that doesn't really make any sense.  No idea. It's still under warranty so they will send me another, will arrive Tuesday, then I have to go to the NJ Verizon shop and get the laptop tweaked for the new device.  That's going to eat up half the day Wednesday.

I am also pissed because they no longer sell the simple little plug-in I had used for so long with no problems, so I was forced to upgrade to this thing, which is complicated enough to need software updates, and therefore has the potential to crap out again at any time, especially after the warranty is gone.  I hate being forced to upgrade to something less reliable and more complicated (and more expensive) than the old thing!  (My cell phone is a little clamshell that takes and makes calls, and that's enough for me.  I think it can text, too, but I've never tried.  It needs charging maybe once a week. I hope to hell it never breaks.)

Crap.

So, between Piper and Verizon, I got nothing done on that trip.  And a trip to the country house isn't cheap.  $40 in gas, 260 miles worth of tolls, and this time at least two nights at the (cheap) hotel.  I am royally pissed.

So, ok.  I get home, and the first thing I do is start up the laptop to check all the things I hadn't been able to check.  Here I use the house cable wifi.

"Local connection only."  Huh?  No internet again!?

Oh, my God!  Is it the laptop that's screwed up, not the little device?  What do I do now?  What about the new device that will be arriving, and my laptop is screwed up?  How much time have I already wasted on this?  Oh Good Grief!  I completely freaked.

I went over to Daughter's house and asked if I could use her laptop to check my mail and feeds.  Hercules was there, and I asked their advice about what to do with the laptop.  He said if I want to buy a new laptop (this one is six years old, and the a, e, t, and h keys are worn blank, and I don't touch type, and that's the least of its problems)  he'd transfer all my junk for me.  He suggested that I bring Herman (my laptop's name) over and try it with their house wifi.  So I did, and guess what - it worked.

My city house wifi somehow got messed up, too, and I wasn't even here!

So back to my house, and I reset the house wifi (pulled the plug and plugged it back in again) and it worked just fine.

Two separate unexplained problems.  Weird.

Someone is trying to tll me something.

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I'm going to have to do something about Piper.  He wants to have lunch every time I go up there.  I've explained to him over and over that I don't really have the time when I'm there.  This trip I tried to limit him to one hour, but that doesn't include that I get dirty working there, and there's no A/C so I have to wash up and change clothes and drive into town and back again and then change again, so even one hour for lunch is actually more like almost three.  And it's never just one hour anyway.  Not to mention that the house is cooler earlier in the day, before the sun hits the glass walls on the west.


New rule:  I will have lunch with him every fourth trip.  Period.  And I'm considering making it an early dinner, so I don't lose the earlier part of the day.

Wish me luck.  I must not cave in when he starts acting hurt!
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3661 Warnings

Thursday, November 15, 2012

"Actions lie louder than words."

-- Carolyn Wells  --

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I was going through the backlog of email I hadn't been able to handle during the 11-day no-power no-internet period.  I found an email from Verizon Wireless listing emergency charging stations and all kinds of other assistance.   Email?  They KNOW what my cell phone number is!  They KNOW the power is out.  So they send email?  What tiny mind decided to send emails to people they know don't have power?  Like, they think everyone checks email from cell phones?  I KNOW they know how to make robot calls, but that seems to be reserved for "your bill is ready".  Piss me off.  On the other hand, I shouldn't be surprised.  It was Verizon who sent info on how to reset your FIOS WIFI if you lost internet connection after the storm.  The info was a link to a website.  Wow.  That's thinking ahead....not!

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The following is a repost from Sunday, June 14, 2009.  Somehow, after the hurricane, I thought it was appropriate to repeat it.

If you love something, set it free.
And if it flies away, run after it and kill it.

Saturday night I accidentally watched "earth2100". Apparently ABC aired it on June 2, and then repeated it late last night. I was on my way to bed when I caught a bit as I was turning off the kitchen TV, and was fascinated, and ended up watching it all the way through.

The story is told as comic strip panels (or as the non-readers call it, "graphic novel" format, bleck, and no, that doesn't make comic books sound any more intellectual, sorry, good try but no cigar, beeeeep, thud). The Wikipedia entry linked above pretty much covers the story. It is speculation, science fiction, depicting a possible future.

I found it depressing, because global warming or not, human causes or not, whatever one's opinion or theory, much of the ball is already rolling - the water problems in the west, the melting of ice caps, overpopulation, the cutting of rainforests, the movement of tropical flora and fauna into temperate areas. No one can deny any of that. It simply IS.

The scariest part to me was the thawing of tundra, which would release massive amounts of methane. I hadn't thought of that before. If the glaciers and polar ice are melting (and they are, NOW) how long will it be before the tundra thaws? Is that a tipping point? Or have we already passed it?

By the time it was over, I was glad I had no grandchild. Even if things don't go as the movie suggests it might, I have a feeling the future is grim.

Since then I've read various opinions of "earth2100" from both sides of the global warming debate. I am disturbed by the number of people who just wave it off. They say it's a natural cycle, no big deal. Well, yeah, no big deal to the earth and cockroaches. They'll continue. But will we?

One blogger pooh-poohs "earth2100" as fear mongering:

"If you have tweens and teens, this is one show they don’t need to view. Let them live their lives hopeful and knowing our world is ok – because it is, and it will be for their kids. If we all believe that, we’ll take the necessary steps to ensure our futures."

"Knowing that our world is ok ... we'll take the necessary steps"? Um, that doesn't compute.

And that's the problem. I don't think we will take the necessary steps.

We waste water, and large parts of the country are drying up. We waste oil, but, hey, I NEED my Hummer. We pollute the air, but hey I can buy those allowance thingies and keep right on doing it, ok? We cut down rainforests, and then wonder why weather patterns are changing. We refuse to acknowledge there's any problem until it affects us directly, then we want the government to fix it.

Easter Island once had a thriving population. The island had plenty of fresh water, and was heavily forested. And then, for some reason, possibly in part to raise all those stone heads, they cut down all the trees. That changed the ecology of the island drastically, in a bad way. And then all the people died. One of the lines I remember best from "earth2100" was (paraphrased), "I wonder what the person who cut down that last tree was thinking as he did it?"

I can pretty much figure out what he was thinking: "But *I* need it! I'm cold! If I don't get it, Joe will, so I may as well."

Replace those big stone heads with dollar signs. Would we have done any better? Been any smarter?

(Everybody wants their little piece, and the Earth as we need it might die the death of a thousand nibbles.)

I have absolutely no faith in mankind's ability to "take the necessary steps". The human race is too selfish, too greedy, unable to think ahead, and when they don't already know what the solution is (and have not been assured that a solution, when found, won't require deprivation on their part), then they will deny that there is any problem until it's way too late.

There IS a problem. Forget the words "global warming" if they bother you. Forget "Al Gore"; this is not a political discussion. Look at what IS happening, and what the results of that *might* be. How sure do you have to be to even consider it? By the time you get to 60% sure, it's too late.

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I searched briefly, and the only place I could find "earth2100" for safe free viewing was on YouTube, in nine parts. I thought ABC might have it available, but they don't. Part 1 of 9 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmWivCTcvE. Starting there it should be easy enough to find the other eight parts. (Actually I prefer movies in parts. That makes it easier to wander away and pick it up again later.)

1608 Scary

Friday, December 21, 2007

There's an Ambien commercial wherein a streetlight bends around and sticks its head through a window, and examines a sleeping couple.

The ad agancy probably doesn't realize that that commercial is frightening to people who sat through '50s sci-fi movies featuring death-dealing alien robots with heads like the streetlight, and who then after the movie rode home on a bicycle through the dark.

Fifty-plus years, and that silvery head with a glowing eye on a flexible neck is still scary.

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I called the number in the letter in the previous post, and asked what my temporary password is. The Verizon person insisted the password was in the letter. I read her the sentence. Several times. She still insisted the password was in the letter. I finally convinced her I was too stupid to figure it out, and she should give me another.

That's scary, too.
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1607 What's My Password?

Several days ago I attempted to open an account with Verizon. I understand that I can send photos from my cell phone to that account, and then just download them.

So, I went to the website. The procedure was that they would send me a password, as a text msg to my phone. For some reason, they couldn't. I don't know why. So the website said they would send it snail mail.

This is the letter I received Thursday:

"Your temporary Password for My Account is ."

Very helpful. Why am I not surprised?
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