Category: technology

Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

Every once in a while, a website that I visit will change their layout. WordPress has done it today, forcing me to ‘search’ for the stuff I generally use, adjust to where they put things, and new features. I say ‘search’ like that because I can’t just slide my mouse to its usual position and click. I’m forced instead to use my eyes and scan the page and then employ my brain. It’s difficult. TG for coffee.

Inspired by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, I’ve come up with my five stages of coping with a website redesign.*

Warning: there’s a ton of f*****g cursin’ involved with a website redesign for me because I’m easily irritated and was enlisted in the military for twenty years. Back then, before cell phones and computers, swearing was our primary pastime as we hurried and waited.

  1. Realization. Where is the — what the actual f**k – m*therf****r, they changed the f*****g web page.
  2. Complaining. Jesus, WTF did they do that? Where is – damn it, they changed everything. They f*****g changed it all. Now I have to find my favorite things and the things that I use all over again. Jesus Christ, just what I f*****g needed today.
  3. Promises. I’ll tell you what, if I ever find another f*****g website that works as well as this one does – or did, until they did this s**t – I don’t know how it’ll work with all these god**n changes they’ve made – I will switch so f*****g fast, their f*****g heads will f*****g explode.
  4. Grasping. Okay, wait, here’s what I wanted. A pull-down menu. Well, that’s f*****g stupid. Why the f**k did they put it there? WTF. It was fine right where it f*****g was. There was no f*****g reason at all to move that. What else did they f****g move? S***heads.
  5. Stewing. Okay, I think I can live with this crap and these f****g changes, but I don’t f*****g like it. grumble grumble mutter mutter imprecations

*These stages can also be employed for when a store rearranges its aisles and products, and you rush in to grab the one thing you need and it’s not there because they moved it, forcing you to run around the store in search of.

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DIY Fail

I’ve been working on my home HVAC system. The AC did not kick on when needed two weeks ago. Playing around with the system, the fan didn’t come on, the heat didn’t turn on, the air conditioner did not engage.

After tracing wiring and troubleshooting, I drew down on the stepdown transformer. The board wasn’t getting energy. The board’s fuse was intact, all circuit breakers and switches in the proper locations, etc., but the board’s diagnostic light was dark. I thought I’d accurately followed all the steps that led to the transformer but replacing it did nothing.

That leaves me at a circuit in the road. Call in a pro or keep at it myself. I’m reluctantly inclined to bring in a pro but my inner idiot (I2, also sometimes referred to as I squared) is saying, “No, mate, don’t give up, you got this.” That aligns with my overall philosophy that to succeed, failure must be risked and overcome.

My wife seems inclined to let me continue. Although we have high heat, she’s been using an electric fan and shrugging it off. That reminded me that we’ve existed without AC before. Both of us grew up in homes deprived of having AC. Early duty stations in the military included Randolph AFB, Texas, outside of San Antonio. I remember us enduring a string of days over 100 degrees F. Our military homes on Okinawa and our home in Germany also didn’t have AC.

So, you know, we can survive without the air conditioning if we’re prudent and thoughtful. It is a nicety we’d like to have but we don’t find it overly necessary. As far as fixing the AC, I’ll get with my wife and talk it over.

I think I’d be happy either way.

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A Lost & Confused Dream

I was in a small corner office with three other men. We were cold as hell and huddling for warmth. I’d made a sort of bed and had a thin blanket. One of the other men snuck in to spoon me. I was like, fine, I need the warmth, we need the warmth.

Feeling him shivering, I got up to find a better blanket. I’d just found a heavier one for him when the other two men returned. One told me that he’d lined up a job for me, so come with him. As he spoke, I was staring out a window. A gray dawn was breaking over a crusty snowscape

I went into the other area with him where I was surprised that it was teeming with energetic people mostly in their twenties and thirties. I was introduced to them as their new co-worker. But what was my job? They were going to figure that out. The man who hired me took me back to where I’d be working, showed me a modern desk that was my ‘station’, and gave a new iPhone. Then he told me to go with him for orientation.

We rushed around the busy building. Several stories high, it struck me as tres modern with multiple mysterious and exotic-looking projects going on. At one point, we entered what was some kind of space vehicle simulator. A cockpit was on one end with seating for about twenty. I walked around, and in doing so, it shifted forward, startling me. The others laughed, calling me a newby.

My boss disappeared into a noisy crowd. I realized that I’d forgotten my phone back at my station and wanted to retrieve it. I asked for and received directions but became thoroughly lost. As a crowd of people left a meeting room, one recognized me and asked if I’d been to HR yet. I admitted that I hadn’t, so she told me where to go. Once again, I became lost, and entered rooms where I was forced to ask others for directions. Everyone was unstintingly helpful, encouraging, and engaging.

Noticing signs I’d not seen before, I followed them back to my zone. Once there, I got my iPhone. My boss was there and told me that I needed to check my emails because meetings had been set up for me. Using the phone, I began reading my emails and learning where I needed to go, and then found that the phone would tell me exactly when to go, and where, but I still remained clueless about what I was supposed to be doing.

Dream end.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

My laptop’s keyboard has been giving me troubles, by Cat. ‘T’ and ‘G’ needed extensive pressure to make an appearance. The tab was stumbling and uncertain, and one of the control keys was not up to snuff.

So, since I was limited in movement, I sat down and cleaned the keyboard, key by key. The general filthiness found shocked me. It was amazing any keys were working. Now, they all do.

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

Some website claimed, “You’re getting old if you can identify ten of these objects.”

I had to laugh. I know I’m getting old. Don’t need some silly game to verify it. Didn’t need one after graduating high school in 1975, and need one now even less.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The thing about growing old is how you accumulate memories of so many of your firsts. I don’t know how much of it is true, but my mind informs me about many remembered firsts. Kisses and sex, purchases and experiences.

A big first for me was watching John F. Kennedy’s funeral on television. Another was watching the first moon landing.

But I remember buying my first car, and my family’s first color television. A big Magnavox console with a 25″ screen, my stepfather procured it after it fell off a truck.

Other big first include my first broken bone, meeting my wife and the first time we told each other, I love you. Another memorable first was the first funeral, for a school mate. Firsts fall in line: aircraft flights, purchasing a microwave, VHS player, CD player, home computer.

Now my latest firsts are witnessing a former POTUS declared guilty by a jury of his peers for crimes he committed, and NAZI flags being flown by his supporters as we commemorate the Normandy Landings done to fight NAZIs eighty years ago.

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Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts

Couldn’t connect to the coffee house’s wireless network here in Ashlandia today.

Ran diagnostics. That awesome system told me that my computer isn’t set up to automatically connect to SEA-FREE-WIFI, which is the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Why they think that’s a problem for me in Ashlandia, over 300 miles away from SEA-TAC, is another unfathomable technological mystery, the likes of which may never be solved.

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

Boys and girls in clean baseball uniforms come into the coffee shop and wait for drinks. Last names and numbers adorn the jerseys. The young players all wear their caps with its team insignia. Crocs, or Croc wannabes adorn their feet so they’re not wearing their cleats into the shop.

The parent situation varies. Sometimes a solitary adult accompanies the young athletes; less frequently, it’s a couple. I wonder about the family situation and whether about the significance of the adult situation.

None seem particularly happy. Phones are often studied, arms crossed, as they wait. But one father and the children talk, joke, and laugh.

All so different from my years of young ball playing. This is part of the new Americana, Starbucks, phones, and Crocs. I wonder how many times these scenes play out across the land on this Monday American holiday.

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