Tag: modern life

Thirstaz Wandering Thoughts

My thoughts are wandering as I sit in the Pittsburgh Airport, looking out at the rain, eavesdropping on others’ conversations. Most of my focus keeps shifting to Mom’s paperwork. Her paperwork is just like our paperwork.

Pulling out every bill from 1998 on, I laugh. Notes are on sheets of paper and bills. Who was spoken to, time and date, result. Most simply end like that. No further updates. There are insurance and banking papers, visits to hospitals, doctors, and specialists, and the ever-present pile of warranties.

We are the same back home. For the last how many decades, paperwork was needed for ‘just in case’ reference. Bills and payment records could go wrong, and it was incumbent on us to prove what we did. Even then, that sometimes isn’t enough and required we the customer to scale the corporate ladder past the drones and managerial kings and queens until a person was reached who could overrule the bureaucracy.

The paperwork at Mom’s has some interesting personal choices. Lot of paper clippings for things done by her children back in 1970 through 2010. Yellowed, brittle clippings of newspaper death notices for family members and friends. Crisp sheets of white papers in file folders with emails from family printed out. Things from me from my last days in the military in 1995. Travel information for visits in 1998, 2005, etc.

Mom is now battling Verizon. We’ve all been involved in this fight. It’s classic enshittification. Gotta sign in to do anything with them. Calling them? Hahahahaha. What a joker you are. Should be a stand up with your own HBO or Netflix comedy special. Calling them provided us with a window when it would be okay to call them. Mom had it down to fifteen minutes and counted it down to one, phone in hand, doing little else. The appointed minute arrived. Mom moved her hand. “Oops.” Gone! Her new wait time to reach them was eight hours later.

Meanwhile, we parsed Mom’s crazy notes for userIDs and passwords. Several were found for Verizon. None worked. One sister then went through the ‘Forgot Password’ route and tried to change the password. Hahahahahaha. Easier to turn an apple into a ruby.

This is modern life, yeah? At least in first world America, and maybe only among my family. I, of course, cheat. I maintain a spreadsheet of passwords. 112 lines. They’re for my accounts and my wife’s accounts. If that thing ever falls into the wrong hands, it’d be disaster for us. It’s encrypted and password protected. Every time I go in for surgery, I remind my wife of the password.

All of this has cause us to resolve, do a pare down. Purge paperwork and warranties. Get ruthless about it, and damn the consequences.

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Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts

My wife and I are traveling east in October to attend Mom’s 90th birthday celebration. I bought my airline tickets this morning. I have twenty-four hours to cancel them without punishment.

Wasn’t a pleasant process. I’ll put it out up front is that part of this is that we do fly first class. It is elitest, I guess, because we can afford it. Not really our choice, though, I’m gonna claim. My wife and I are naturally frugalish. That comes from parents who were tight with pennies, people who emerged from rural areas where the depression lingered a while. They taught us not to waste money. Then, in the military, enlisted in the 1970s through 1990s, we were solid lower middle-class earners. We’re not wealthy but we’re comfortable, yet my wife and I remain ‘natural savers’.

So saying, “Let’s fly first class,” goes against our grain. But, my wife suffers medical conditions. That’s one. Stack the airline propensity to squeeze us into tinier and tinier spaces to minimize their costs and maximize profits and executive bonuses, and you can understand why we spend the cash on first class.

Going first class automatically limits a lot of options. They aren’t many first-class seats. Usually just a few rows. On many aircraft, the last row of first-class seats do not recline or recline only a little. That severely limits the comfort level, in our experience, so that last row is out. Well, usually. That gets complicated. It’s like that on some aircraft and some airlines.

Then there’s the matter of the first row. They typically lack storage. If you’ve flown, you know that the standard storage for people is under the seat in front of them. Guess what the first row lacks? That’s right, a seat in front of you. That means your belongings must be stored elsewhere. Typically, that’s in the overhead bin, but that requires you to get up to get it. Yet if you have bad weather, you can’t just get up and get things at will.

I know, it’s a lot of complaining, isn’t it.

I’m not done.

We live in southern Oregon. Our airport is Medford. It’s a small airport. We’re flying across the nation to Pittsburgh, PA. That means we must go through hubs. San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Portland are the main hubs for us out of Medford. So, what time do we want to leave?

We’ve learned from nasty past flights that going early is the best option. That’s because so many friggin’ flights get canceled or delayed. Going early gives us more options when things go awry.

Then, though, there are the layover time gaps. One fight offers five hours in an airport. Another offers six minutes between flights. Six minutes. How the hell are you expected to raise from gate to gate in that time? It’s bullshit, innit?

So, those are the basic parameters for trying to cope with cost, times, space, distance, health, comfort, etc. Whatever we do, a long day is guaranteed. The best we can do is try to make it as easy as possible.

Even though the airlines seem to be actively against that sometimes. Label this as first-world blues.

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PINs & Passwords

PINs and passwords are integral to first world life. Friends and I discussed how we manage our passwords and PINs. All that caused me to think and smile.

There’s an article out there about ‘things our children wouldn’t know about’ because whatever it was is now obsolete. Telephone party lines, rolodexes, TV ‘rabbit ears’ and outdoor antennas, carbon copy or carbon paper, and those sort of things. I was thinking of the reverse mode, and how astonished our children might be that we had no PINs and passwords when I was growing up in the 1950s to mid-1970s. We never had to figure out and remember a magical combination of letters, numbers and ‘special characters’ to get in and out of our online accounts. Number one, we didn’t have online accounts. We lacked the Internet and home computers. Now, there’s a PIN to learn to use a bathroom. Another PIN to access my voice mail. A different PIN to use my credit card, depending on the card reader, and to withdraw money.

I wonder, though, how many years it’ll be until the next generation is amused with our tales of PINs & Passwords and our explanations for how they were used.

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A Prime Update

I posted this morning about last night’s problem accessing and viewing streaming television via Prime on my Roku. Yes, and I uninstalled and re-installed, and researched.

‘lo, I came home and acted on a whim to see if Prime now worked.

Yep.

They — Roku, Prime, or others — fixed something last night. All that I did was probably for naught. If I had more patience, it probably would have resolved itself today. But I couldn’t resist trying to fix it.

In the Air Force, we used to refer to problems like these on our C130s as a Lockheed fix. That’s a problem that ‘seems’ to take care of itself. After, you know, we worry about it for a while.

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Wenzda’s Wandering Thoughts

I announced, “They want me to send them a photo.”

This aggrieved me. Everyone wants photos of things sent these days. I consider the trend of wanting photos part of the inexorable enshittification of modern society.

My wife was non-committal about her take on it. Sympathetic noises were made. I suspect she wasn’t paying attention.

Breaking down, I dragged out my phone, opened it to the camera app, and took a photo of our Lifepro Near Red-light Therapy belt. Yes, it took about twenty seconds. The time is not the point.

The belt had ceased working. We’d purchased it in October of 2023 through Amazon. It has a lifetime warranty.

The RLT impressed my wife and me. She used it to cope with painful back and shoulder flares caused by RA. I regularly used it to reduce swelling on my legs, ankles, and feet, where I’ve been dealing with lymphedema. I missed using it.

After the belt quit working, I went into my Amazon records and contacted the sellers. Happiness responded for them. Seeing that it was ‘happiness’ answering made me suspicious. We’re in a world where a documented liar calls himself the most honest man in the world, a world where the same man has cheated throughout his life but is supported by people as the Second Coming of Jesus. It has made me a little cynical.

Happiness asked for the order number and date of order. I provided that. Now they wanted a photo and directed me to a form.

The photo was part of an online form I needed to fill out. Grumbling about it, I put the order number in — again — click/copy/paste, filled out all the info, repeating many of the things already done, and then attached the photo. It took almost two minutes. Yeah.

Returning to email, I replied to Happiness and told them that I’d submitted the form. They thanked me and told me my issue would be reviewed and they’d get back to me in two to four days.

I expected to be given a return number. Told how to box it up and where to send it.

Instead, they sent me a new product. This wasn’t from Happiness but from Lifepro Support. Gave me a UPS tracking number and everything.

“What trickery is this?” I asked myself.

The replacement arrived yesterday. Brand new.

I wanted to verify some things for myself. I connected the new cord to the old belt. The cord has three separate segments which can be plugged in and unplugged, etc. This allows you to plug it into a UBS port or plug it into the wall. I always use the UBS port. Through my tests, I confirmed that it was only this segment of cord which didn’t work.

I wrote Lifepro Support to inform them that it was only the one piece that wasn’t working. That meant that I now had two working belts. Asked if they wanted me to send either back.

No, they responded. You can send it back if you want. or keep both. If you do want to send one back, tell us and we’ll give you the instructions. They thanked me for my honestly.

It was a good experience. Happiness and Lifepro Support always responded fast. They were friendly and professional, and the company stood behind their product. When I began, I thought I’d be chewing my nails in frustration by the end. I’m pleased that this wasn’t the case. Kylie, Jae, Renee, and Chad did a great job. The entire process took nine days.

And one photograph.

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Munda’s Wandering Thoughts

One of the great things about the modern net is the ability to make friends. I have friendships with people I’ve never met. As I enjoy their social media posts and their blogs, I wonder what they’re really like. I’d like to be able to sit at a table with them and get to know them.

Conversely, I worry about them. Some are in Australia dealing with a cyclone. Are they okay? Some are in Ukraine, and I worry for their safety, sanity, and nation. Some of these friends are at risk for mental health or physical health. I worry about them if they’re absent from the net for a few days.

So, nice having friends around the world. I hope they’re all okay.

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Wed-nezday’s Wandering Thoughts

There’s been a weather shift. From nowhere predictable (or, shall we say, it wasn’t predicted), sunshine and blue sky burst in on Ashlandia. Clouds flee like birds chased off by a cat.

Woo hoo, sunshine! Its warmth pushes the digits to 56 F. 56! I stand in a blaze, face up, sucking in fresh air and imagining sunblessed vitamin D pouring into me. Although…

The sun is the sun, even if it’s winter, almost solstice. I used moisterizer on my face. (Excuse me, I’m not a barbarian.) But does that moisterizer have any SPF rating?

Unable to recall my moisterizer’s nuances and protection, I hasten out of the sun.

This is modern life.

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Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

It’s a complex world out there. You got to be vigilant. Take care of yourself.

This isn’t about me. This is about women and vaginal infections.

My wife related a Reddit story. A woman had a vaginal infection. She went to the doctor numerous times. Antibiotics were always prescribed. They always failed.

She suspected her underwear and shifted. New materials and styles were tried. Nothing. So she went commando. Nothing.

Sugar was removed from her diet, along with other foods. Nothing.

Her boyfriend didn’t have a rash. The two abstained from sex, in case it was something from him. No change.

Finally, she stumbled onto a Reddit post where thousands of women had reported the same struggle. The answer: toilet paper. She changed brands and the problem disappeared.

Sometimes it’s the most mundane and overlooked aspect of life. The edgier lesson was that in all of these thousands of stories from women, no doctor ever suggested, “Change your toilet paper.”

They just prescribed pills.

The end.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

When I returned from the coffee shop writing session yesterday, my wife related a story she’d read.

A man began a new habit of going to the coffee shop every Saturday morning. He enjoyed the atmosphere and would surf the net on his phone and text friends while nursing a coffee drink and nibbling a pastry. After a few weeks of this, he discovered he and the owner had once been friends. Then, life happened. This disconnected but now reconnected in a casual way.

One day the guy received an email from the coffee shop owner. The owner said that the barista complained that the man was ogling her on Saturday mornings and that the owner was going to have to bar him. The man refuted what was happening. Through a back and forth series, he convinced the owner that wasn’t the case.

Meanwhile, the barista was moved off Saturday morning to another schedule. Therefore, the owner said, the man would be welcomed back.

Fuck you, the man wrote back.

I wholly understood and agreed. That place would never be the same for him, and other coffee shops would probably be tainted for him as well.

Sad that it came to that. Made me wonder, as I sit in the coffee shop and people watch, what did that barista think she saw?

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