New Tricks

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Food for thought…

Yes, you can.

I grew up on Skippy Peanut Butter and Kraft Mayonnaise.

No, not in the same sandwich although I am partial to peanut butter and raisins.

Anyway, I like mayonnaise and use it on things that need it, like eggs and chicken and tuna and in cole slaw dressing. And it can get the gum out of your hair. Not Miracle Whip, though. Never Miracle Whip. Eeeew.

Miracle Whip tastes funny and is probably evil.

My neighbors cleaned out their fridge into mine when they headed north. One of the bonus materials is an open jar of Miracle Whip.

Hmm. I’m out of mayo and here’s this free jar of the spawn of the devil.

Turns out one can make a darned good chicken sandwich on sourdough with a little mouse cheese, a slice of tomato, and Miracle Whip.

Yes, you can.

I’ve long thought Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) was pretty typical of our more than slightly bent South Florida politicians and about the best the Democratic National Committee could find as party chair. After all, even the liberal stalwart Politifact rated her public pronouncements as ranging from half truths to having her pants on fire more than half the time.

Slice, dice, and spread on bread.

Turns out one can make a darned good career just whipping up a Miracle. It’s a good recipe for Ms. Clinton who put Ms. Wasserman Schultz on staff.

Yes, you can.

“I had made some carnitas so I had that with corn tortillas and a little salad for supper,” Liz Arden told me last night. Literally “little meats,” this pulled pork-style dish originated in Mexico. Carnitas “are made by braising or simmering pork in oil or preferably lard until tender. The process takes three to four hours and the result is very tender and juicy meat, which is then typically served with chopped coriander leaves and diced onion, salsa, guacamole, tortillas, and refried beans.” Some recipes add a little lime juice and I like to add Key lime.

I thought she didn’t like cilantro?

We served turkey-and-“cheese” sandwiches with mayo at the concert last night. That was a mistake. Not the mayo; that was fine. Processed cheese is a food product made from cheese and, more than likely, other unfermented dairy by-products plus emulsifiers, vegetable oils, salt, food colorings, and more. Store brand “Singles” may well leave out the cheese and anything else that came from a cow. The package I bought tasted like it had some cow by-products, just ones that came from the wrong end of the cow.

Turns out one can make a darned good turkey and cheese sammie. I’ll peel the “singles” out and put real cheese in the remainder before I eat another, you betcha.

Fortunately, we had good cake.

 

Irksome Revelation

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Longtime San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan retired last week. The 40-year-old forward was one of the oldest players on the court; he had spent his entire 19-year NBA career on the Spurs. “It wasn’t any fun any more,” he said.

You can be washed up as a basketball player at 30 or as a race car driver by 50 but the Stones and Chicago and show you can still be a rock star at 70.

Robert Lamm who may be the youngest of the old rockers is the old man of Chicago; he was born in 1944. There’s a long list. Mick Jagger was born in 1943. Paul McCartney, Al Jardine and Brian Wilson (born 1942). Eric Burdon, Paul Simon and Artie Garfunkel (born 1941). Ringo (born 1940). Dion (born 1939). And Leonard Cohen, forced by finances to go back on tour in 2008, was born in 1934.

Chuck Berry (born 1926) will perform his 207th show at Blueberry Hill in his native St. Louis on August 13.

“So do you think you should’ve been a rock star?” SWMBO asked. “With the drugs, sex, fame, fortune and all that annoying crap? Because you want to be on the road at 70?”

Jeez. Sex, fame, fortune. When you put it that way…

The full Social Security benefit age — the unofficial official retirement age in the U.S. — is 66 for people born in 1943-1954; it gradually rises to 67 for those born in 1960 or later.

Huh. I turn 67 this week so I did the “fun” test, too. First I had to list what I actually do. Alphabetically, of course.

  • Goof off
  • Invent stuff
  • Keep an Arts Council going
  • Photograph stuff
  • Renovate houses
  • Repair houses
  • Run a small business with engineering and IT clients
  • Stage concerts
  • Travel
  • Write other stuff

I like to be on stage but I never wanted to be a rock star. My hands aren’t big enough to hold a basketball but I never wanted to play ball. I was a race car driver and would still do it if someone would pay me but it’s tough to win as we get older.

Upside Down Camaro Races at LeMonsDangerous, too. Ove Andersson was a Swedish rally driver and the first head of Toyota’s F1 program who died at 70 in a vintage rally crash in South Africa. Bob Akin, journalist, television commentator, and champion sports car driver, was killed at 66 in a crash while testing a Nissan GTP for the Walter Mitty Challenge. J. D. McDuffie, 52, died in a crash at the Glen. Dale Earnhardt was almost 50 when he died in a crash at Daytona. Neil Bonnett died at 47 when he returned to racing after retiring.

Still, Morgan Shepherd took the wheel of the Number 52 Toyota at age 71 and became the oldest driver ever to start a race in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series and became the second-oldest NASCAR Cup winner (after Harry Gant) when he won in Atlanta at the age of 51. He had made his Cup debut in 1970 but, even with no chance to grab a competitive ride, he still has no plans of slowing down.

OK, no slowing down, just changing direction.

  • I’ve already spent entirely too much time doing Windows 10 upgrades this month and didn’t have any fun. Some of my IT clients have already retired and I have now passed all but one of the rest to a really great shop in St Albans. Cool. IT Department will close this year.
  • I like goofing off. Keep.
  • Ditto inventing stuff, photographing stuff, renovating stuff, traveling, and writing other stuff. I should do more of that and improve the workflow so I have time to do #2.
  • I’m ready. If I never have to fix anything in an old house again, I’d have time to do #2 and #3.
  • I like the arts and enjoy the people but I’m not in North Puffin enough any more to do it justice.

Volunteer Chief Cook and Bottle Washer Needed
Longtime local arts service organization chair is stepping down. The search starts now. Inquire within.

“When I start hitting the wall or something, then maybe it’s time to get out,” Mr. Shepherd told Sports Illustrated in 2013.

Morgan Shepherd gives us all hope innit. Maybe we could race a little again, too?

 

Service?

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The three esses or three short business stories from last week.

Surveys
Liz Arden reports that a company that sells on that mega-online-retailer we all use wanted to know how she liked her new Aloe Vera Gel.

“I didn’t order, ever, any Aloe Vera Gel from them nor anyone,” she said, “and the product I did order [through that online company] hasn’t arrived yet.”

She didn’t respond.

Meanwhile, Blue Cross has been calling two-three times a day for a couple of weeks, usually at suppertime.

Since I have Blue Cross, I eventually gave in. It was a 15 minute telephone survey that boiled down to two questions: Would you recommend Blue Cross to your friends and How much of an increase in premium would cause you to jump ship?

Note to self: Stop answering the phone!

Service, I: A Brick a Day
The Windows 10 Upgrade bricked one of my laptops by trashing its Windows activation.

Here’s the back story. See, Windows 7 Pro was activated before I started this latest trip into Windows 10. Unfortunately, it got to about 88% and quit with an error message. One of the fora answers had me check the Windows activation which is when I noticed that these OEM ‘puters don’t have the product key built into Windows; they use a generic “OEM” key. This one has a label that is all but rubbed out so I couldn’t dig out the key.

I called Microsoft.

‘Splained that the upgrade had restored Win7 but trashed the product key. I talked at length with the obstinate first level tech in India. He simply repeated over and over that they couldn’t recover the Product key. I escalated. His supervisor repeated over and over that they couldn’t recover the Product key.

“Call Lenovo,” they both said.

Microsoft didn’t really refuse to help. Microsoft refused to admit there was a problem or that they caused it. How could they cause it if there was no problem?

Lenovo was actually worse. “We don’t know your product ID. It is generated automatically and burned to your motherboard.”

Horse puckey. If they can print it on the label, they know it, and you know they printed it in a file.

“Call Microsoft or buy a new copy of Windows,” they said.

Oh. I have a problem that you and Microsoft caused and your only solution is to wipe out everything on my computer, make me buy a new operating system, and spend six hours of IT time reinstalling everything?

“Yes. The disk is $69 with shipping but you can buy unlimited month-to-month software support for $19/month and that includes the disk. Ten month minimum. The full year package is $199.”

I told the Lenovo rep that he was solely responsible for my moving all my business to Dell. He didn’t care. I couldn’t even be arsed to escalate. I hung up.

I called Microsoft back and got a tech who was nice, articulate, and capable.

“I can’t recover your key,” Bidyut Konwar said, “but I can generate a new one.” So he did. He asked for permission to take control of the computer. I gave it to him. He ran two quick tests, grabbed the machine type and serial number, generated the key, generated a check code, entered all of them, and I’m back up and running.

Note to self: ask for Mr. Konwar the next time I have to call Microsoft.

Note to Microsoft: Give Mr. Konwar a raise. He’s one of the good guys.

Service, II
The price for !@#$%^Comcast went up “only” ~$5/month from $98-and-change but breaking the $100/month barrier is a milestone. $1,200/year.

Comcast has a monopoly on broadband service in both North and South Puffin. Up north, they charge “only” $56.95 per month for the preferred Internet service plus $10 per month to rent a modem. “Basic” cable is $26.50 more and they add $5 to that for “broadcast fees.” I thought tax was only a couple of bucks but it’s a couple bucks twice for the public, educational, and governmental local access channels.

Lordy Lordy™.

I bought a cable modem. That will help a little.

I was offline for a little over 17 minutes while a service rep in the Philippines registered it to my system.

The new modem seemed to work fine the first day until some sites displayed the Comcast Activate Now page. I finally did that when Netflix wouldn’t load; activation made it load again. It didn’t happen on every page, so the aluminum foil hat brigade’s idea that Comcast does it deliberately to punish certain sites has some merit.

One forum suggested that Comcast assigns DNS servers that redirect page requests. Another says Comcast’s activation redirect is crap (they should have set it up not to get cached).

Meanwhile, I had to return the modem to get Comcast to stop charging me rent.

I drove to the St. Albans office. The door was locked. People were inside. I banged on the glass with my key until a fellow opened the door. I handed him my modem.

“I can’t take that,” he said.

I pointed at the big “Comcast” sign on the building. “Your tech rep told me to bring it here.”

“We haven’t been a retail location for three years. I can’t take it.”

I asked, reasonably politely, where I could put the modem.

“You can take it to the South Burlington office,” an hour drive down the Interstate.

That’s not an option.

“You can call Tech Support and they’ll send me out to your house to pick it up.” Apparently he couldn’t take it because he “didn’t have a work order” when I talked to him.

The tech drove by the house a couple of times. On his return trip, he rolled down the window and I threw the modem in. He had the paperwork to pick it up but no way to print a receipt.

Looks like Comcast sends their techs into our homes doesn’t trust them enough to let them write up a receipt.

Note to self: convince Google to run fiber to North Puffin.

Google Fiber isn’t available for this area
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The Google Service Plans and Pricing page is unlike any you’ll find on any cable or phone company site. Google actually tells you what they charge. Period.

Why do we let the other guys get away with this stuff?