Author: anthony Page 18 of 72

I got a notice on my phone yesterday that my Amazon package – a DVD and a new case for my phone – had been delivered.  I was home, hadn’t heard anyone out front, and when I looked on my porch there was no package.  I had dismissed the notice and figured it was instead “your package will be delivered before 8 pm”.

But, 8pm came and went with no package.

Today, I hopped on the Amazon website and did a little checking.  Sure enough, they showed that it had been delivered and Amazon said it was to my address.

Hmmm….

I dug a little deeper and the USPS tracking also confirmed that it was delivered.

To Sarasota, Florida.

And that would be a long drive to pick up a phone case.

I looked around on the amazon site for a while and finally triggered enough of a help menu to get me to a chat.  I dumped in all the order, tracking, and date details I could, started the chat, and hoped for the best.

In a few minutes, the Amazon customer service person had confirmed the problem, contacted the carrier, and said it should arrive at my house on Tuesday.

I was impressed and thanked them.  Can’t imagine how it would have gone if I’d had to contact the USPS myself.

And I’m curious how it went so completely wrong. The wrong house I could see- but the wrong region of the US?   Maybe a partially obscured barcode?  Anyway, I’ll see what happens on Tuesday.

—————–

Jim and I were out to eat the other night at a restaurant we’d only been to once before.  It was noisy and crowded, but they served sandwiches and I can usually find something that fits my admittedly bland palate.  A quick scan of the menu and I found a ground turkey burger.  I ordered that – lettuce only – and figured I’d be good to go.  

When the sandwich arrived it was little charred on one side, but I started in anyway.  

And it tasted funny.  Just…off.

I took a look at the bit edge and saw that it had chunks of red and green pepper in the meat.  Sigh.

Curious, I asked our server if this was a veggie burger or something – but she confirmed it was a turkey burger.  That was just how they made them.

I ate about half of it before biting into a particularly large chunk of pepper and then decided I’d had enough.

I finished my fries and waited while Jim finished his sandwich.

The server asked a couple times if I was okay and I was.  Vaguely disappointed that someone made the decision to put peppers in their ground turkey, but okay.  

She also asked if she could bring me anything else and I declined.  I didn’t need anything and didn’t want to take the extra time tp get something else.  The sandwich wasn’t technically “wrong”  it just wasn’t what I expected.  I mean, I thought adding peppers to ground turkey – and then not saying so on the menu – is a questionable decision to make, but some people must like it and that’s… well, whatever.

In my head I was already halfway to our next destination and trying to remember if I had left clothes in the dryer when the server came back over and said she was taking care of the check.

Jim and I looked at each other in puzzlement.  I replied with some combination of “why” and “you don’t need to do that,” but she just said that she could tell that I didn’t enjoy my dinner and that made her sad.

I said that it was nice of her, but I was really okay.  She wouldn’t hear of it, complimented me on my origami, and was on her way.

Jim and I kind of looked at each other for a moment.   And I felt terrible.    I mean, I’m adult – I’m allowed to decide what I do and do not eat – and if I stop eating, for whatever reason, that’s on me.  I might be hungry later or I might not, but still, that’s just me.

Now, though, it had impacted the server.  She was trying to do a nice thing, but I still felt bad that I…hadn’t..cleaned my plate.

Shit.  I really am a toddler.

We really weren’t sure what to do.  Kinda felt like a dine-and-dash – which I would never do – but we got up and left.  Though not before Jim had left a nice tip on the table compared to what I guess would have been our bill.

It was nice of her, but really odd.  If we go back, I’m clearly going to have to finish everything on my plate – even it means choking down a hidden onion.  Shudder.

———————–

We had a nice day yesterday here in Akron and I decided to get a little sunshine in my backyard.  I had been able to get out last weekend and thought this one might be my last chance.  I grabbed some sunscreen, a chair, and a towel and headed back  – and realized that the ground was covered in pine branches and twigs.

Upon inspection, I saw that the giant pine tree in the back corner had been trimmed away from the powerlines.  I remembered then the notice I had gotten over a month ago saying that the power company would be in the neighborhood to trim trees – but the notice had made it sound like it was imminent.

I grabbed a rake and cleaned up the area, then spent an hour or so in the sun.  The neighborhood can be noisy so I had ear-plugs in and wore dark glasses to block out the light.  It was peaceful in the warm sun, but I had to look around every so often.  

My backyard isn’t a fortress and I assume that occasionally people  – and critters – will come and go through there.  And I was just a little uneasy to know that a crew of people had been there – sometime last week while I was at work – and I was none the wiser.

Odd.  Random and odd.

(Hang on to the end for a plot twist…)

Yesterday morning I had a new operator on the switchboard and I was listening in on his calls as part of his training.  His first call of the day was from a woman who wanted to speak to the former (2 years ago) manager for EJ Thomas Hall.  Since he couldn’t find that person by name, he asked if there was a department he could transfer her to. (Standard procedure.)  In a huff, she asked to be transferred to the Board for EJ.

And since that’s not a thing, he couldn’t find that either.  Realizing that this could go nowhere except further downhill, I walked across the hall and heard him offer to send her to the ticket office or the business office – which were the listings we had.  She didn’t want either of those – she wanted to speak to someone IN CHARGE.

I told him to transfer over to me and went back to my office to take the call.

I gave a pleasant greeting that was lost on her and she asked why she was transferred over to me – since, as the manager for the switchboard, she implied that I couldn’t possibly help.

I explained that I had been with UA for 20 years and should, in fact, be able to help.

Slightly mollified, she explained that she’d bought tickets for the show “Kinky Boots” for Thursday night for her niece – but then found out that her niece had a class project that night and couldn’t go or risk her final grade.  The woman needed the tickets switched over to Friday night and she wasn’t willing to wait until the box office opened at 10 am.  

I gave her a couple different numbers for the box office and also the name and number of the current manager for EJ.  And offered to call the manager on her behalf and see what I could find out.

She sighed, clearly not grateful for my help, and gave me her name and phone number so I could do all the legwork and follow-up for her.  ‘Cause you know I’m just sitting around…

We hung up, I updated the operators – it was too good of a story not to tell – and left a voice mail message for the EJ manager.

About an hour later – since I hadn’t called her back with an update – the woman called the switchboard again.  And asked for the Board for EJ – still amazed that we couldn’t find such a simple thing.

I heard the call and when the operator still couldn’t help he offered to transfer back over to me.  That wasn’t good enough and she wanted to talk to my boss.

Rankled, I told the operator to transfer to me anyway.

When I answered the call, I told her that my boss wouldn’t be able to help her, but I could give her the number anyway if she really wanted when we were done.  I also told her that I’d left a message for the EJ manager and was going to call the ticket office when they opened at 10.    And I told her that I could find no reference anywhere to a Board for EJ.

Feeling that she’s running out of time, she now wants the boss for the EJ manager – I told her that was the VP for Finance/CFO for the University.   That sounded important enough for her and she wanted his number.  I gave her that number, told her I’d update her if I was able to get any additional information, and ended the call.

[Incidentally, calling the CFO to get your theatre tickets swapped out is like calling the president because you got a parking ticket.  It’s dumb.]

I then emailed the EJ manager to give her and her colleagues a heads up that things were getting worse and then at 10 I tried the box office.  A recording picked up and put me on hold for a while, then it gave up and said I should just call back since they were obviously busy. And there would be no point in leaving a message because they don’t check that. Okaaay.

And then later in the day, the best thing in the world happened.

The manager for EJ called me and said that this woman had been calling everyone, but..

And here’s that twist…

She had the days wrong.  The show was Tuesday and Wednesday night  – not Thursday and Friday as she thought.  

There was no scheduling conflict and all her arguing and thermonuclear escalation was utterly and profoundly pointless.

Ahhhhhh…

I just wanted to roll around in all that sweet and delicious irony.  Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff.

Now, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that she’s going to learn anything from that. No way.  If you think the CFO is going to swap your theatre tickets because you can’t plan ahead – and spent $200 on them, incidentally – then there’s no hope for you.

But it made my day. 🙂

I got invited to a focus group at work for this afternoon on an interesting topic – a four day week at the university.

I was intrigued and pretty excited – and I felt pretty special to be chosen to participate out of all my colleagues on campus.  

When I got there, though, things started to go a little downhill.

We were last of the groups (plural) to meet – every other constituency group had already shared their opinions.  And I was apparently a sufficiently generic enough staff member to qualify to participate.  Yea! Ordinary!

But, still, fascinating topic, right?

Except… what does that actually mean?    Four ten hour days and everyone gets a three day weekend?  Or no Friday classes only?  Or a hybrid?   

And what was the goal?  Energy savings from closed buildings?  Or later office hours to help evening students?

No one knew – including the moderator for the focus group.  He said several times that he didn’t have any of the answers – including even what we were really talking about.  In fact, he started the discussion by asking us “what we’d heard”.

The rest of the hour was speculation and brainstorming on basically rumors.  

Sigh.

It was a huge waste of time.

Not a complete waste because we came up with some valid concerns from a variety of possible outcomes – but it’s hard to get excited about problem solving when everything is a guess.

Including the problem.

Sigh. Again.

For the record, we thought that the students would generally like – where feasible – to not have classes on Friday.  They try to avoid them anyway.  And while most of the folks were okay with a 4 day week, we generally thought it would be impractical to close the university and the departments on Fridays since so many students would still need services and have the time to make use of them on a classless Friday.  

We also thought more late classes through the week to accommodate the programs without classes on Friday could present a safety issue – it gets rather dark in the winter in Ohio.  And more students would be likely to leave campus for the long weekend – impacting student engagement on campus.

I’m hoping that this is just the first of many discussions and the beginning of a lot of planning, but it just kinda felt like a waste.  Or maybe it was just the wrong time to meet before we had anything approaching an official plan.

And… the absolute worst part of the experience?   No. SNACKS.  None.  The moderator didn’t even offer us a bottle of the room-temperature water on the side table.

Oooh, I wish we’d gotten comment cards.  I would have commented the heck out of that.  

Jim and I were at Chipotle recently and we ended up sitting at a table near the cash register.  It was out of the way, but a good spot for people watching.  

As we ate, I noticed a number of people walk past us and go down the hall to the restrooms – then come back to the cash register to ask for the code.  The doors to the restroom rooms were locked, it was would seem.  One poor soul went from restroom to cashier to restroom and back to the cashier – then the restroom again.  I guess they transposed the number of the 4 digit code and couldn’t get in.

I came up with two theories:

1. The door was locked to minimize the number of people that went in there and used the restroom – thus reducing the amount of cleaning that would need to be done in a given shift. The inconvenience would be the deterrent.    And having worked at a gas station/convenience store for a summer and a winter break – I can tell you that people will do unspeakable things to a public bathroom that they wouldn’t do in their own home.  Or perhaps they would – which is maybe worse.
2. Or, they would force people to come to the register – and thus be on camera – before heading to the restroom.  This would deter illicit activity or at least provide some degree of evidence if needed.

Neither of these are really solid answers since it’s easy enough to bypass the code by just waiting for someone else to go first and the catching the door as they exit.  Whatever behavior they are trying to control, well, it misses.

On the flip side, it wasted the time of the cashier and added a degree of difficulty to using the restroom.   Which I find amazing and deplorable.  When I have guests over I make sure that both of my bathrooms are clean and well stocked with easy to reach toilet paper – and that the sinks have soap and towels.  I even have a step stool near the sink for kids if they can’t reach.

Making it difficult to use the bathroom – for any reason – is pretty terrible.  And brings to mind the transgender bathroom bills.  Seriously, when you gotta go, you gotta go.  Everyone else should just get out of the way  – because we’ve all been there.  

And making it difficult to use the bathroom at Chipotle?  Really?

———————

I was reading through my news feed at lunch and saw a news story about one of the most prominent “flat earthers”.  These are folks – and they count a few celebrities among them – that are convinced that the earth is really flat and any… globalists?… are part of a vast conspiracy to hide the truth.

I watched about a minute of this before I had to close the video in disgust and horror.  The part I saw was where one guy talked about how he thought the flat-earth theory was a hoax and then spent months of sleepless nights researching before he “realized” it was the Truth.  The earth – according to all the evidence he could find – was flat.  

Here’s what I’ve learned from that:

• You can find evidence to support anything on the internet, no matter how utterly wrong and contrary to reason, logic, common sense, or common decency.  
• Some people will believe anything.
• Some people really are that f****** stupid.
• I’m going to add that to the questions I ask whenever I meet someone new.  “Do you think the Earth is flat?”  If they say yes, I’m done with them. Forever.  

Why do people gravitate to the least reasonable answer?  My guess is that it gives them a sense of community and of superiority – of knowing the secret that the “sheeple” can’t understand.

Seems like a huge waste of time to me, though.  

Everyone knows the earth is a cube.

——————————–

Jim and I went out to dinner with our friend George over the weekend.  We went to pizza hut and got a large pan pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

Now, there are a lot of places to eat in the area and a lot of options for food at pizza hut.   Jim and George are both very polite people and I could see we were headed towards a three way “I’m fine with whatever you want” situation – since I’m pretty polite too.

However, I’m not as patient as they are.  And when faced with decisions where there this is no wrong answer, I can usually be trusted to make some kind of decision.  Especially if I’m hungry.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this – there was a trip to a garden center that ran into the lunch hour and when a decision took a little too long for me, I decided that we were going to Bob Evans.  Everyone likes Bob Evans – and I was driving.

This time, though, I think I could have been a little more patient.  George and Jim were both smirking a bit about my very predictable choices and engaged in a little, well, “bland shaming”.    Yeah, I own it.  Pop-tarts and all. 

The way I see it, the more predictable my choices, the more it frees up the rest of my head.  Kind of like Einstein with ten of the exact same suits – set aside the trivial thoughts and the more interesting your brain can be.

I did mix it up by ordering the Hut Favorite as a crust topping – which surprised them both – and the pizza was as delicious as the table was sticky.

—————

I ran some errands this past Saturday and spent the rest of the day out in the sun in my backyard.  Just me, my music, and the sky.  May not get another day like that, but I’m hoping it will last me.  And I’m kicking around the idea of a beach trip for my birthday in January.  I’ll be 45 and that seems like enough of a milestone to warrant something special.

For now, the windows are open as the last of the Summer heat begins to fade into Fall.  And I’ll sleep well tonight.

When I’m around other people with strong emotions, I find myself heading towards an opposite extreme to try and balance things out. Around the loud and manic, I’m quiet and calm.  Around the depressed, I try to find a little joy.  Angry, I’m kind.  Sickly sweet -> angry.  Laggards get impatience.

I’m usually well into it before I realize what I’m doing, but I sometimes do this intentionally.  I try to be respectful – no jokes at a funeral or “debbie downer” at a celebration – but finding that balance is pretty important to me.

So, I was sorely tested at dinner tonight with Louise.  The “Younger” of the Ladies from New York Who Have Returned to New York But are Not Happy There, Louise is in town to sort out some things that didn’t get settled before she left and try and make some plans to perhaps move back to Ohio.

She’s miserable.

Never really a bundle of delight or a barrel of laughs, she was down – even for her.  Part of her family wants her to stay in New York and part want her to move back to Ohio. Her Mom doesn’t want to move, but the lack of a car and the small apartment – along with the noise, crowds, traffic, and crime – have got Louise feeling trapped.

She’s started smoking again – and got bronchitis that she delayed getting treated.  She’s lost weight, gotten more gray, and is less sturdy than she was.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I still wouldn’t cross her.  I would be amazed if she wasn’t “riding dirty”  tonight as we went out to eat.

But, she’s conflicted and stressed.

I provided a sympathetic ear and tried to point out the occasional positive.  Struggling with that, I shared a couple of fun stories of my own family and tried to lighten things a bit – though I was only a little successful.

We did have a few laughs.  I asked her where she wanted to eat and she vetoed one of my suggestions in favor of another – but I got distracted and drove to the vetoed eatery anyway.  I was even proud of myself for the good parking space before she asked, “why are we here?”

I provided a little tech support for her phone and shared a positive story about her daughter-in-law – of whom she is not a fan – that might have lit a spark of acceptance and understanding.

Well, I can dream.

At one point she asked if I would call her every so often if she moved back on her own – just to check on her.  I guess someone in her family had planted the seed that if she lived on her own she might pass away and it would be days before anyone found her.    That of course reminded me of Jeff and my heart broke a little even as I said I would.  

I drove her back to her son’s apartment where she’s staying and wished her a good evening and a good day tomorrow with her family.

And then I headed home to hang out with my cat and worry about her.  I hope I eased her burdens a bit tonight and for all the struggles of being her friend, I’m glad for it.

Our second-to-last stop on the towpath Bike Aboard trail was at an information center at one of the locks on the canal.  We arrived there just as a volunteer was getting ready to tell some of the history and provide a demonstration of the canal lock.  We parked our bikes and stood there in the sun as he started talking –  and while I wasn’t super excited about the history lesson, I was eager to see how the locks worked.  I’m a builder at heart and like to see engineering in action.  

To my surprise, he asked for volunteers to help Volunteer Sarah and Ranger Lisa operate the lock gates.  I immediately headed across the small bridge to help Ranger Lisa and my dad and niece came along too.  When we got to the right part of the demo the four of us pulled on the beam and opened our side of the gate.  No one stepped up to help Volunteer Sarah, but she must have been much stronger than she looked.  

We worked on both gates in the right sequence and it was interesting to see the mechanics of the process.  From there it was onto the train station and lunch.

I’m not generally a big fan of studying history. The memorization and recitation of dates seems pointless to me and the study of history itself makes me cranky since we – as a species – are so aggressively terrible at learning anything from it.

But to participate in a little bit of engineering history  – well, that was pretty cool.

———————

I’m in the process of hiring a new student assistant for the Campus Switchboard.  The job posting, the resumes, the interviewing, the paperwork, and the dreaded scheduling are pretty far away from fun – but I do get to meet some interesting people.

One such guy was a law student from Nigeria.  I always ask that the students call me to schedule the interview since it gives me a chance to hear them on the phone and unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble understanding him on the voice-mail.  I replied by email indicating my concerns, but gave him the option – and the benefit – of coming in anyway in case the voice-mail was not a good reflection of his speaking voice.

If anything, it was worse in person because he was excited.  With concentration and an “english to english” translation running in my head, I got about 80% of what he was saying.  Which is not enough for our operators and the callers with whom they interact.  It was unfortunate that I had to pass on him, he seemed really smart and a good problem solver.

It got me thinking again about how human language tends to diverge instead of converge.  It doesn’t take much for an accent to shift to a dialect and then to a whole other language.  And even the same language can turn into something else depending on the speaker.

I think I notice this because, being from Illinois, I don’t really have much of an accent.  Other than a determination to call carbonated beverages “soda” and being the only ones to correctly pronounce the name of our state, we really don’t have much to speak of in terms of a distinguishing accent.

I do have an odd ability to add a twang when I’m singing – most amusingly to classic Britney Spears songs – but that’s about it.

Might be interesting to learn a dialect  – the odder the better – and bring that out at the least appropriate of times.   Maybe Cajun?

—————————-

I’ve started following people on twitter again – mostly the cast of Star Trek the Next Generation – and also decided that, since I’m writing more, I should start tweeting again.

When I first signed up for twitter I decided that I would only tweet in Haiku – the 5|7|5 syllable poetry – since it fit well with the 140 character limit.  

I had stopped at one point because I realized, well, it’s not easy.  I do like the structure and that you don’t have to rhyme – though you can if you have the time, it’s not considered a crime and could be sublime.

Ahem.

So, I’m writing a little – literally a little at a time – poetry and we’ll see how long that lasts.

And even if it isn’t great – it’s better than a lot of tweets out there right now.

I’m talking to you, 45.

My folks, my sister, and her family came into town on Friday evening and were going to stay at a hotel in the area.  I had planned on getting there early and hanging out at a bookstore, but I was a little behind schedule and was still on the road when they texted that they had arrived. When I got to the hotel, I could see Mom and Dad in the lobby and by the time I got to the doors they had gone down a hallway.  When I got inside I’d lost them, but saw the nearby elevator doors just start to close.  I quickly hit the button, the doors opened back up, and I stepped into the elevator to see my family waiting.  

I got immediate hugs from my nieces and we rode the elevator up to their floor.  They all got settled in, then we changed into swimsuits to swim in the hotel pool.  

I spent most of the time underwater – as I tend to do – and tried to do some flips to show off for my niece.

Except, I got some intense vertigo each time I tried.  After a couple attempts I had to get out of the water and sit quietly for a bit.   It was weird – I used to do flip turns all the time and now one rotation was enough to make me ill.

After swimming we hung out in the hotel room for a bit before I needed to head home and the girls needed to get to sleep.

—

The next morning I was up bright and early to load up my bike and head to one of the Bike Aboard trail-heads.  My family pulled in right next to me moments later and while we were both early it continued the trend of remarkable timing.

We got the bikes unloaded and headed out on the towpath trail at a brisk pace. We stopped a few times but mostly kept moving down the trail.  My folks each had bikes and probably fared better than the rest of us.  My sister and brother-in-law both had a ½ bike extension attached to the back of their bikes that had one wheel and pedals my nieces could use as they rode.  It helped on some of the hills, but… not a lot.

I’ve had my bike for a while, but haven’t ridden it a lot.  And certainly not any long trips.  Saturday’s trip was 19 miles.  Which is not much if you are used to riding a bike – but all kinds of a lot if you aren’t used to it at all.

So when we finally reached the train station to eat lunch and wait for the train, I was more than ready.  I tore into the sandwich and chugged Gatorade until I felt a little closer to human and was eager to get on the train back to the cars.

Except, turns out I get motion sick on trains.  It was a little better when I was facing forward, but I could have done with a little less “scenic” and a little more “expedient”.

Back to the cars and loaded up, then over to dairy queen for ice cream  – and then back to my house to hang out, gently pester the cat (he was pretty tolerant), and pizza for dinner.

Hugs all around and they were on their way.  I wasn’t feeling great – not enough water on the ride, I think – and I’m not 100% today.

But it was a good trip and great to see my family.  I finally got my bike dirty and kept the pace even though I was clearly not ready for a trip like that.

Tomorrow, back to work so I can rest up.

I follow a few coworkers on Facebook and while I’m friends with them at work and would be super excited if I ran into them in the “real world”, I’m not likely to interact with them socially outside of work.  We’ve all got different lives, friends, and interests.

When I saw that one of my co-workers – Samantha – lost her mother-in-law, I felt sad for her and her husband.  But, I don’t really know Samantha that well or her family and didn’t say anything on the post.  I didn’t know how to say anything meaningful and personal.

A later post gave her mother-in-law’s name and that really hit me.  Her name was Linda and I used to work with her at the Computer Center ages ago in this very small world.

I was a student assistant at the time and working for the Telecommunications department when it came time for our university to host a statewide computer conference.    A committee was formed and I somehow ended up representing my department.  And no one wanted to be on that committee – it was going to be a lot of work with little recognition for success and far too much scrutiny if things went wrong.

And not only did no one want to be on the committee, no one certainly wanted to lead it.   So, in one of our early meetings, it was somehow decided that I would lead the committee.  I went along with that since I didn’t understand what I was getting myself into and if memory serves it was at the urging of one of the more mean-spirited staff members.

I was in over my head with tons of responsibility and no authority.  And as a student assistant, I couldn’t order/assign any tasks to the full time folks with any reasonable chance of seeing them actually get done.

And I would have been doomed, except for Linda.  She was the budget coordinator for the division at the time and she had my back in the best way possible.

She let me make decisions and guided me if I went too far off the rails.  She kept helped keep the meetings on track without taking over – and helped me push back if the other staff didn’t pull their weight.  

Nobody wanted to get on the Budget Coordinator’s bad side. 🙂

So, I ran the committee, made plans and decisions, and with a little luck and Linda’s help the conference was a rousing success.

Afterwards, it turned out we’d done a little better than expected with our expenses and had a little money left over.  Linda suggested we use that to buy some picnic tables for the computer center.  She didn’t just buy them, she consulted with me as the head of the committee  – and as much as anything that helped me feel like I was respected and part of the team.

Linda was smart, had a great sense of humor, and her thoughtful guidance – when she could have easily just taken over – helped that student assistant learn a little about leadership.

The calling hours are this afternoon.  I’m going to put on a tie and get dressed up a bit and go pay my respects.  It’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable – but I think it’s the right thing to do.

So, this morning as I sit here with a cup of tea and my laptop, my heart is heavy as I remember Linda.

Me: “Hey, printer.  I’ve got a 2 page text document – can you give me a black and white hard copy?

XP 430: “Sure thing, boss! I’ll get right on it!”

Minutes pass.

XP 430: “Wait, what was I doing?  LOL!  Right, you wanted a hard copy.”

More time passes.

XP 430: “Errrrmmmmm… errr… okay, here you go!  Yea, I’m done!”

Me: “These pages are completely blank.  Please try again.”

XP 430: “You got it!  Here you go – here’s your printout, hot off the presses!  LOL!”

Me: “These pages are also blank. Can you print a test page, please?”

XP 430: “Totally!  I love printing test pages.  Just give me a minute…”

Time passes.

XP 430: “Here you go!  Here’s that test page you wanted.  Hope you like it!  I did it in color so you can see how awesome it is in color!”

Me: “Well, looks like you understand how to print a blue logo, but the rest of the page is still blank.  Can I see your ink status?”

XP 430: “Absolutely!  I’d love to show you that… ummm… do you know where that button is?  I just had it here…  LOL”

Me: “Sigh”, then several minutes of looking through menus.  “Hmmm… it says you have plenty of black ink and the colors are almost full.  So, why won’t you print in black?”

XP 430: “Gosh, I don’t know.”

Me: “Okay, we’re going to pull the cartridge and give it a shake.”

XP 430: “You mean… you’re going to open me up and put your fingers inside me?”

Me: “Don’t make this weird.  Just move the cartridges over so I can reach them,”

XP 430: “Okay, okay.  Geez.  Can you reach them now?”

Me: “No.”

XP 430: “Okay… ummm… how about now?”

Me: “Still no.  Just open the damn pod bay doors, HAL”

XP 430: “Okay, here you go.  HA!  Gotta be quicker than that!”

Me: “Sigh.”

XP 430: “I’m just messing with you – you know I love you.  Here’s the cartridges – you give that one a good shake for me,”

I extract the black ink cartridge and shake it, then reinsert.

XP 430: “Thanks, bro!  I’m going to need 20-30 minutes to make sure you didn’t screw that up.  You know how you are.  🙂  ”

Time passes.

XP 430: “Okay, you didn’t screw that up.  Good job!  Try printing now – I’m sure we’ll be fine,”

XP 430: “WHOA!  Hold on there, partner.  You don’t have nearly enough ink to print that. Are you high?”

Me: “What are you talking about? Your status showed we had plenty before.  Show me the ink status again,”

XP 430: “Fine.  Look, you have almost no black ink.”

Me: “What happened to all the ink that was there before?  I didn’t shake it out.”

XP 430: “Look nobody’s blaming you.  You don’t need to be so defensive.”

Me: “I’m NOT being defensive.  Just print the damn document!”

XP 430: “Take it easy, buddy.  We’re all on the same side here.  I want to print this as much as you do.  Listen, why don’t I use the colored inks and mix them together to make a composite black?”

Me: “Won’t that just use up the colored inks faster?  And isn’t it more expensive to replace all three of those than just one black ink cartridge?”

XP 430: “Yeah, I guess.  But, it depends on how bad do you want this printed right now.  I mean, I can give you two more blank pages, if you want.  Or I can do the composite.  It’s all in your hands, buddy.  You have all the power.”

Me: “Fine.  Just…whatever.  Fine.  Print using the composite black.”

XP 430: “You made the right decision.  I’m so proud of you.  Here’s your document.”

Me: “Thanks.”

XP 430:  “No problem. Glad to help.  Hey, while we’re here – do you want to order more ink online right from the printer company?  I can get you a great deal and those colored inks aren’t going to last forever… hey, what you are doing?  Don’t turn me off yet, I’ve got more to tell you! Hey, WAAAAAAAAIT!”

 

Power button for 3 seconds. I got my document, but it still feels like I lost.

One of the nicest parts of my vacation was a stop at a little restaurant in Asheville, NC called Home Grown.  There were only a few tables and it felt it might have been someone’s house at one point with little rooms and baskets labeled “Silverware, Y’all”

There were in fact, quite a few Y’all’s that evening, mostly from the friendly woman that took our order.  She was excited about the dishes as she explained them to us and complimented us on our ice cream selection to go with the blueberry dessert.

I got the buttermilk fried chicken sandwich – they are famous for it, apparently – and Jim got some soup.  

The food was good and the restaurant was clean and bright, but what really set it apart was the joy from the people that worked there.  They liked the food, they liked cooking it, and they liked serving it to people.  And they liked people in general.  

It was a little odd, but we rolled with it. I had made a little orange ball of origami sunshine and gave it to the friendliest woman there.  She was so excited about it I thought she might jump over the counter and give me a hug, but instead said, “Y’All have a safe trip!”

It was the friendliest part of a generally friendly city.  There was also a fun gift shop and an amazing bookstore.   

———————–

By contrast, the rest of the drive for our trip was less friendly.  We were fine on the highways where even the most difficult people were easy to avoid with a simple lane change.  Not so when we tried to exit in Spartanburg and get some food and fuel.   We came upon a mass of traffic, had to turn around to navigate to the Wendy’s parking lot where we had to maneuver around a fender bender where the participants refused to move. The line was horrible in the restaurant and the drive-through was worse.  We left without ordering and skipped the gas station as well – it looked impassable.    With a daring left turn we had the highway in sight and nearly got run off the road by a driver who merged without looking.  Well, she was looking – at her phone.

It was a ways down the road before we tried stopping again and in this small town we found another Wendy’s with no line and a gas station also with no line.  Food and fuel to go and we were on our way.

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No exit” is a line that is translated to Hell is the Other or more commonly Hell is Other People.

I was still in a Hell of Other People during our first trip to the beach. There was a family with wailing children to the right of us, a couple with a loud and boring conversation to the left, a family with a giant tent in front of us (blocking the view of the ocean) that played Jimmy Buffett non stop, and a kid that would NOT. STOP. BOUNCING. THAT. BALL!

I escaped to the ocean and swam until I was far enough out that I was alone.  Parallel to the beach I headed down one side of the beach and then turned to swim back.  On my second trip out I had to turn back early to avoid the surf casters.  These are folks that stand in the surf or on the beach and go fishing.    The two I encountered were out in the water a fair piece and I had to swim behind them for fear of getting tangled in their line or even worse hooked.

I was furious at them.  How dare they endanger other people like that?  I had a whole host of terrible plans in my head for what I would do if I did get hooked – and most of those culminated in punching a fisherman in the face.  I was nearly spitting with rage at these guys and then…

… I got past the second one and realized no one else could possibly give a shit.  I was the only one that far out and the only one swimming along the beach.  Everyone else was just… not near them, and with a slight detour, neither was I.

Now, I still don’t think they should have been out there, but it didn’t really matter.

And as I got back to my chair on the beach, I saw that the noisy couple had left.  And the tent had been taken down.  And the kids were quietly building a sand castle.

All the anger just seemed, well, silly.  It’s not my beach and while my enjoyment is based on sitting very quietly or swimming, that’s clearly not the norm.  

So, I got over my hell of other people, sat quietly, and just settled myself down.   

The rest of the vacation was an exercise in avoidance.  Where there was a crowd either one us or the other – or both – would start to get tense.  We went out to eat a couple times, but mostly ate in.  There was a lot of reading, sitting quietly on the beach, and watching DVD’s in the evening.

The worst was trying to fill up the car with gasoline ahead of the trip home – and ahead of the hurricane.   All the gas stations were full of cars when we went and while they didn’t run out of gas while we were there, nobody was willing to give any ground. It was a tense experience and I remember thinking… “This.  This is where civilization breaks down.  We all need to leave, this is the resource that will allow that, and it’s limited.”

Once we got gas and got out of there, the rest of trip was uneventful.  And that included the drive home.  11 boring and uneventful hours.  The only blip was when we stopped for lunch at Arby’s and the clerk made Jim mad by over complicating his order and then mumbling about it.  I got mad at the loud group behind us that refused to agree on anything.

People.

Again.

Overall, it was a good vacation.  I swam a lot in the ocean, read 6 books, did some writing, and slept in a lot. The island had deer that we got to interact with one evening and there were no jellyfish to speak of.   By the end of the week, the beach was all but deserted and the waves were wild and fun.

And parts of the trip were downright peaceful.

Tomorrow will be back to work and a host of emails to get through and problems to solve.  But for the rest of my vacation that is today, I’m taking it easy and spending some time alone.  

And maybe do a little research on quiet meditation.  I’m clearly in need of some.