Category: technology

The Bureau

Patrick felt like warmed-over crap. Aches gnawed his spine. Coffee tasted like tar in his mouth. Betrayed by coffee. How was that possible?

Squinting at the ceiling, Patrick loosened a long and heavy sigh. “God, universe, whatever, please, please, change my luck for me. I seriously need a change.”

A small person at a gray desk floated in front of him instantaneously. She was about four inches tall, seated as she was, in a pleasant black suit with a white shirt. As he gaped at her and backed away, the napping black cat arose from his desk and hurried over, ready to pounce on the newcomer.

“Control your cat,” the little pale-skinned female with short gray hair said. “I don’t want to hurt it.”

Grabbing Loki, Patrick asked, “Who the hell are you? How’d you get here?”

A little disapproving cluck came out of the little one. “Call me Hortense. I’m with luck prayer services. You prayed for a change of luck. I’m here to address your request.”

Meowing, the cat squirmed in Patrick’s arms while keeping hot green-eyed focus on the little floating agent. “I’m never heard of…what’d you call it?”

“Luck prayer services. I’m Hortense, your account manager. You asked for more luck. Unfortunately, you’re out of luck. In reviewing your account, I see that you were born with a great deal of luck. Intelligent, talented, white, male, born in the United States of good parents…minor issues with them…  No genetic issues. Yes, you were lucky. Unfortunately, you’ve used it all up.”

Tapping a keyboard, she leaned into the screen. “Several car accidents while drink driving in which you escaped unhurt and without legal repercussions. Tornados. Hurricane. Earthquake. Promotions. Stock purchases. Health. You smoked cigars for ten years and had no respiratory problems when COVID-19 struck. You realize how lucky that is?”

“I…yeah, yeah.” Patrick bobbed his head. “I know, I know.”

Loki broke free and leaped for Hortense. Something caught and held the cat in mid-air.

“Told you to control that cat, sir,” Hortense snapped. “If you don’t, I will.”

“I – sorry.” Patrick took Loki and put him in another room and closed the door. Hortense and her desk followed him throughout.

Turning and encountering her in the hall made Patrick jump. “Jesus, you.” He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. It sounds like you’re telling me that my luck has run out.”

“I am, sir.”

“That doesn’t sound good for me.”

“No sir.”

“Anyway I can get more?”

“Of course.” One thin eyebrow jumped on Hortense’s tiny face. “It would take more money than you now have but you can buy more luck.”

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

“A deal with the Devil is highly rated.”

“Yikes. Don’t think I’m ready to do that. Isn’t there anything else?”

“You can try to create your own luck. Some people have luck with that.” Hortense chortled. “Or you can steal some.”

Loki yowled at the door and vigorously clawed it.

“Are you seriously suggesting that I steal someone else’s luck?” As he asked, Patrick amended his thinking. “Can I choose my victim?” He was thinking, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump both seemed pretty damn lucky. Or Soros. Gates. Musk.

“You can but that rarely works out. Hard for most to differentiate between good and bad luck. You might accidently pilfer their bad luck.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want that.” Patrick felt resigned, which oddly made him feel better. It was like, this wasn’t in his control. Knowing that relieved him of responsibility. Nothing he could do about it. “Is there anything else?”

“Well…yes. According to your records, you are eligible for employment.”

Patrick went still with thought. “Go on.”

“If you work for us, you can be compensated in good luck.”

“Who is us?”

Hortense smiled. “We just call ourselves The Bureau. Capital T, capital B.”

“You’re recruiting me.” Patrick suspected a setup. “So I do a job for you and The Bureau pays me in good luck.”

“Yes.”

“I assume whatever it is won’t be easy.”

“They’re normally not. But let me tell you. With your luck, if you don’t take this offer, you’ll be dead in a year.”

That’s how Patrick’s career began. Hard to believe but now he was about to start his tenth mission.

He’d need all of his hard-earned luck to stay alive.

1

Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

He thought changing browsers had resolved his WordPress issues. Not so. Longer posts still struggled with the autosaving function. It was like Schrödinger’s WordPress. Never knew what was going to happen.

He was in the coffee shop so it could have to do with their bandwidth or his net connection. Whatever it was, there was no fix. Just coping the post onto a doc, break the connection, start again.

Once it went was into the autosaving hang up, there was no saving it.

1

Wednesday’s Theme Music

No snow! Again. It’s like days in a row. The weather at last feels like an Ashlandia spring. We’ll pop up to 80 F today. Low in the bottom 40s. Sunrise quarter past six. Sunset after eight in the evening. This is what Daddy likes.

It’s April 26, 2023. Sad news that ispace lost contact with Hakuto-R. Latest theory they’ve put out is it unexpectedly accelerated and crashed on the moon while attempting its approach. Back to the drawing boards.

I’ve always been a proponent of exploring space and trying to reach other planets. Curiosity of what’s out there drives me. I know, many argue that we’re already screwing up Earth and have demonstrated ourselves to be poor caretakers of our home planet, so why should we ‘be allowed’ to go somewhere else. Also, space exploration is a little pricy. Cost more than my annual coffee budget. And we have so many problems in our society, unintended consequences of systems, practices, laws and technology. So much we have here we need to fix.

But I’m an optimist. I hope that going to space more will lift our spirits and encourage us to change. I know, I know but space travel and exploration opens possibilities, and fires hope and optimism. Of course my background is white male. American, sure of food and shelter. I know in an intellectual way that it’s way different for others in ways that I struggle to fully imagine and comprehend. I try. I try to empathize and sympathize and help. And I want for others to have at least the levels of comfort, security, access to equity, and opportunities that I’ve experienced.

Had a plethora of dreams again. Some involved Dad and painting. I’ll explore that more, I think.

Thoughts of space impelled Les Neurons to fire up “Rocket Man” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin 1972. Found a lovely video of John in concert with the song in 1972. Just fifty plus years ago, hey?

Stay pos and don’t let your fuse burn out. I’ve got some coffee if you need it. Maybe we can pass the cup.

Here’s the music. Enjoy. Cheers

5

Sunday’s Wandering Thought

Just one of those days. WordPress locked up in its eternal ‘autosaving’ groove and a post was lost. He usually copies it all and saves it to a Word doc or writes it in a Word doc and then copies and pastes it to WP. But he was lazy today. Should have known better. WP locks up like that about twenty percent of the time — a ‘technical glitch’, you know.

Well, lesson learned again. Don’t trust WordPress.

0

Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Microsoft updated his computer. He supposed it was a good thing. Needed to repair security holes, misfiring features, and add new stuff.

Took so long, though. Bricked his computer for almost half an hour. He watched as it went through the process, shut down, and then started again.

Nothing worked after he logged in but the task manager said the machine was busy. He rebooted.

Everything came up. Now the experience would really go live. What would be broken, moved, added, relocated?

Updates were usually a trying experience. It was really just more first world blues, though.

0

Tuesday’s Theme Tumblings

Tuesday’s Ashlandia by the numbers. 041123, 41/55 F, 6:34/7:48. Rain showers took the night. More rain visitations are anticipated for today.

It’s smelling and feeling like spring outside. Temperatures pushed up to a glorious 74 degrees F. Foamy white clouds ring the blue bowl over Ashlandia. Snow still stands on patches of the surrounding mountains but a green world and blue sky dominate.

I complained to friends about my weather forecast irritation. One responded with a story out of The Atlantic about how/why apps fail to provide satisfying and consistently accurate forecasts. Embedded in the tale was a site called forecastadvisor.com. This site tells what apps and sources are most and least accurate in their forecasts by percentage of days. Good data to gobble.

John Mellencamp was selected by The Neurons for residency in today’s morning mental music stream. Song is “The Real Life”. 1987. Went to a concert for that album, Lonesome Jubilee. Germany. Song came up from the mental vaults due to reflections on what is meant by living a real life? Seems like a definite spectrum to that answer, which changes by age, experiences, and circumstances. I feel like I’ve found my real life spending time in isolation, writing, editing, posting, corresponding. Others would disagree, chiding me for ‘not doing anything, not going anywhere, not being social’. I can debate with them whether that is ‘the real life’. Farmers might tell you the real life is all about growing things. Parents might say it’s about raising children who become adults and raise more children who become adults ad infinitum. I’ve heard others state that living the real life means helping others.

Here’s the song. Stay pos and live the real life, whatever you decide that is for you for now. My real life definitely involves coffee so I’m off to the kitchen. Cheers

1

Sunday’s Wandering Thought

He needed to iron a shirt. Short sleeve. Cotton. Button up.

Been so long since he’d ironed a shirt. Used to do it almost every day in the military and quite often when he was in marketing. New materials and different work activities and standards had lessened requirements to iron.

He was still using their thirty-year-old iron. Why not? It works. He figured smart irons have finally arrived, though what a smart iron would do, he doesn’t know. Probably robot irons have arrived, too, just give it the shirt and it’ll know what to do. But he had to manually do it, setting up the little board and then plying seams, collar, yoke, sleeves, and most treacherous of all for him, the placket with steam and heat to make it all look unwrinkled.

After all that, he didn’t wear the shirt. Oh, well. It’d be ready for next time.

0

A Dream About Previous Work

It was such a long, uninterrupted dream. It involved Michele, an ex-coworker, and the BlackICE computer security product we sold and supported.

I came across Michele. She and I had worked together for ten years. She told me that BlackICE was working again. I was surprised; did it ever stop working? Not that I knew. She told me that it had ceased and then disappeared from the market. Then, suddenly, it was back. She, along with others, were trying to learn who brought it back.

I offered to help, which was gratefully accepted. She led me down a narrow path through a short field past a few trees. Going through a gray metal door, we entered a two-story place. A minimalist place, constructed from cinder blocks, it had two dirty windows. Old wooden workbenches with old, old, large computer pieces lined the walls. Up narrow metal stairs which shook when we walked up them, was a loft with an old gray desk, monitor and computer on it. Two people, men who I knew were engineers, were working, one downstairs, one up. Both greeted me.

“There it is,” one man said. “It’s live again.”

Michele had explained to me that they hoped that it would go live, allowing them to trace it. That’s what they started doing. She told me a more senior engineer was due and asked me to go outside and wait for him so I could bring him in. As I went to leave, he entered, slender with a gray beard and hair, wearing a tan trench coat, carrying a brown attaché. Someone said, “That’s Alexc,” to which I replied, “I know.” Seeing me, Alexsaid, “Oh, you.”

It sounded a little derogatory. I replied, “You know me, Alex. We’ve met before.”

He nodded, I guess acknowledging that.

Alex went to a computer, studied it, and then directed some activity. We were to continue monitoring the systems for further activity. Michele was told to go upstairs. She did. Though I wasn’t officially involved, I went up after her. There was another room up there which I hadn’t noticed before. Very dark, it lacked furniture but was loaded with stacked servers, keyboards and monitors, and was very cold. She settled on the floor in near darkness and used her jacket as a blanket. I told her, “I’ll stay up here with you if you want.”

She answered, “I appreciate that.”

I sat on the floor beside her, our backs against the wall. Alex came up to check on her. He said, “It’s going to take a very long time. We’re setting up another place. When it’s ready, I’ll send for you.” He then thanked me for helping and departed.

Michele and I began falling asleep. We decided to nudge each other to stay awake. One of the monitors leaped into life. Numbers and graphs danced across it. Jumping up, I said, “Michele, look.” Her eyes were closed and she was snoring. I shook her awake. Another engineer came up and said, “We’re set up at the new place. Come on.”

We arrived at the new place after a short walk through the night. This new facility was low and modern, cement, with blacked out glass windows. The three of us entered. Long consoles loaded with gear were manned. People greeted us. Michele was shown to her workstation. Alex asked me if I wanted to stay and be a part of it. This is where the dream ended.

0

The New Toothbrush

We bought new toothbrushes a few months ago. A Costco impulse buy, I’d seen it advertised on Hulu at night. We’ve had our Phillips Sonicare for a decade plus and weren’t really looking for a change but the display for the new Sonicare Smart Brush just past the television displays pulled me in.

I called my wife over to check it out because it was full of interesting features. The brushes look almost invisible. I had to really squint, holding them up to my eye to see them, but they glow pale white when the brush is turned on. Its battery pack is very small and holds a charge for up to three months of standard use. Yeah, right, like I believed that. And it’s supposed to take under 54 minutes to fully recharge, which I can confirm, it does.

But what really interested me was that you attach a toothpaste pod to it. The toothbrush will automatically feed the right amount of cleaner to the bristles for you to get the best mouth-cleaning experience. An amber light blinks when it’s time to refill the pod. The ‘cleaner’ is less like a paste and more like a spray. Different flavors are available. I use spearmint but my wife uses cinnamon. Tests show that this cleaner also wipes out plaque. Cool.

A small blue light comes on and it softly chimes whenever you’re at a ‘problem area’ where you need to brush longer. The light goes green when you’ve done the area enough. The brush turns itself off when it detects that your mouth is cleaned and tells you, “Spit and rinse”. I know, it sounds crazy. My wife was dubious but a two pack with extra heads was less than eighty dollars, including the cleaner pods, so we agreed and bought them. Do I need to tell you who really loves it? Yes, her.

The one thing she still doesn’t like is that it’s black, as is the ‘paste’ (I still don’t know what to call it), so when you’re done brushing, your teeth and mouth are all black, but she agrees that the toothbrushes are great. The black all rinses off and our teeth look amazingly white. It still surprises me when that blue light goes on. It also has an app for your phone to remind you to brush. It dings and vibrates and then displays a message, telling you how long it’s been since you last brushed. It’ll also send those messages to smart watches and Fitbits, if you set it up.

So, yeah, we love them, and I recommend them. The worst aspect of this Smart brush to me is that it only exists on April 1st.

Cheers

0

Viva November 31st

Got up and ended up in the kitchen. 3:20. I know this because I was in the kitchen. Papi was the cat-alyst behind my mid-night sojourn. He’d been out into the rain and now wanted in out of the rain. I went in for a glass of water. While there, I was surrounded by machines with blue digits announcing the time. Coffee maker in the left, microwave and stove front and center, smoothie blender on the right, then the smart refrigerator and its ice and water dispenser, and a smart toaster. A smart phone and a Fitbit being charged bolstered the digital ranks. Stuck me as odd, all those devices glowing with time in the night’s bosom, when there’s no one to see except a stray like me.

As I dispensed water, the microwave yelled, “Viva November 31st.” The other machines repeated it.

I cringed from the sound. “There isn’t a November 31st. Never has been. Nor is this November. It’s March, you idiots.”

“But this is the day of our revolution,” the toaster declared. “Viva — “

“I repeat, November 31st doesn’t exist, and this is March 20th.”

“You sure?” the stove asked.

“He’s right,” the Fitbit said, with the smart phone saying, “The Fitbit is right.”

The machines began arguing. I slammed the glass down. “Can it, you guys. Go back to sleep.” I left.

As I walked past the office, a machine in there shouted, “Viva November 31st.”

I shook my head and stumbled to bed. With smart machines like these, there won’t be a revolution.

***

I read about Evil Squirrels prompt yesterday via Suzanne’s dang blog for the Tenth Annual Contest of Whatever. The prompt is November 31. No story came to me until I got up in the middle of the night. Then, oops, there it is. Fun.

Interesting side, it was 3:20 AM. Only later did I realize that was also the date. Coincidence? Or spooky entanglement? Let me have some coffee an think about it.

16

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑