Bzzzzzzzz

It was anything but an average night in South Puffin. The temp dropped almost to 50°F. I woke in the dark and didn’t want to get up because it was c-o-l-d in that room. Actually c-o-l-d in this whole house. I did get up eventually because the alarm sounded like robot bees.

That’s unexpected because I should wake to oldies music or, at worst, commercials, one after another.

I used to have a wonderful GE clock radio on my bedside table. Super-Heterodyne receiver. Direct entry keypad for time and radio tuning. “Woodgrain” finish. Gradu-wake. Two alarms, each with completely separate controls so I could set one to turn on the radio and the other the alarm buzzer. And did I mention direct entry? None of this tap-and-hold-and-hope-you-don’t-speed-past-the-time setting.

It died, darn it.

Now I have two alarm clocks by my bed, one set to turn on a gentle radio, the other to wake me with the alarm. Two separate appliances to do what one did. Two separate appliances with the same Stone Age controls my 1970s GE replaced.

Anyway, robot bees.

South Puffin is over the horizon from pretty much everywhere so we have no over-the-air broadcast TV and our few FM radio stations are the ones with antennas right here on the island chain. I generally tune to an oldies station (it’s The Mix for anyone who cares) with its antenna on Survivor Island, the island known on maps as Boot Key. There is no bridge to Boot Key any more, so when the station goes out, someone has to swim the channel.

That happens with some frequency.

Still, this morning, the station was playing; it was my antenna that screwed the pooch. I reached out to the power cord from under the blankets and the mad bees faded into the Crests singing 16 Candles.

Cold out there, so I pulled my hand back. The bees returned.

I’m thinking the mad bees are electronic noise.

I put my hand on the cord again. “Sixteen candles in my heart will glow…”

Back under the covers. Bzzzzzzzzz.

Radio Bob tells us that Most clock/table radios use the power cord as an antenna although an iPod with an FM radio uses its headphone cord as the antenna! I don’t know how the radio chip in cellphones works. FM radio waves travel line-of-sight, meaning more-or-less in straight lines. Objects that get between the transmitter and receiver weaken them.

The antenna is me.

This is not a new phenomenon; I’ve always been able to affect radios although it doesn’t always happen. I do it to the stereo in my North Puffin study. I do it to the living room A/V system here. I’ve done it at Rufus’ and Lee Bruhl’s and Fanny Guay’s. Even Liz Arden noticed it once.

Ms. Arden and I talked about it this morning. She’s an Electrical Engineer so I figured she’d know. She thinks it may be impedance matching.

Huh?

“Hmm,” she said. “You need a broadcast engineer or RF guy.”

Radio Bob says there are plenty of sources of interference like ham radio operators, computers, TVs, fluorescent lights, and electric fences. The hams have been quiet. I hadn’t started the computers, TVs, or twisty fluorescents (I was still in bed, remember?). And South Puffin ordinances forbid electric fences.

Radio Bob says Get a better antenna or a better location for it. Or move me to a different room.


In our next episode, Liz Arden asks why she turns off streetlights when she drives by.

Really. I’ve seen it happen. She can drive along in her motorized roller skate and a streetlight will go out as she passes only to come back on again a minute or so later. It’s happened often enough not to be coincidence.

I think it’s her Cerulean aura, but I’m open to other theories.

 

Taxing

My friend Nina Smith has a small business in Vermont: she’s a media producer and trade show designer in North Puffin where she works about as much as she wants and has time off to garden or swim in the brief summer and to ski on good winter days. Most of her clients are out of state so her business occasionally sells them goods at retail but not very often and only on special order. Still, she has a Vermont Sales Tax ID and has to file the Sales and Use Tax Return annually.

She called the tax department.

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies…

“I am now on hold with the Vermont Tax Department for the second time,” she told me. “It took two hours the first.”

“We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume…”

VT Tax changed to a new website. “VTbizfile” morphed into “myVTax” but it’s not “myVTax.gov.” It’s “myVTax.vermont.gov.”

Sheesh.

Vermont Tax changed our business ID numbers. And passwords last only six months which is a real boon for annual filers.

Of course, no one at the tax department ever actually communicated any of this.

“I was even online for the current instructions earlier this month,” she said. Those are still at the same old link and don’t mention the changes.

Tax Examiner Vander (not his real name) got exasperated the first time Nina called; Vander rushed through trying to get her logged in. “Just file the return manually,” he finally said, guiding Nina to right area of the new website.

She had to call back. See Vander didn’t give Nina her new VT Business Account “SUT” number. The PDF return won’t print without the SUT number. “I can do the ‘manual’ filing online without that but the site insists I pick a filing month. I’m an annual filer. He didn’t tell me how to handle that, either.”

One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies…

“We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume…”

Nina didn’t collect any sales tax this year — all of her sales went out of state — and she doesn’t need to make a payment. “They do require me to file, though. It should be easier to file a zero dollar return but I guess they needed to collect their due by costing me time instead.”

Tax Examiner Mary (not her real name) finally answered. Mary was patient. Mary was knowledgeable. Mary walked her through it step by step. Nina now has a gen-you-wine myVTax account and was able to tell the state she didn’t owe a penny.

At least we hope so. The site never told her her return was accepted.

Obviously myVTax has learned from my friends at !@#$%^Comcast. Sometimes you get a star but most of the time you hang on hold for a couple of hours before talking to someone who doesn’t help.