Born in the wrong century

—“My Internet is via my iPhone,” I kept saying.
Every morning the first thing I do after getting up is fire up this laptop.
FireFox, my Internet browser, is still on. As is Apple’s Safari. Although I use FireFox, much to Apple’s angry chagrin. They keep exhorting me to default to Safari: no way José!
(I only use Safari for Facebook, since Facebook doesn’t seem to like FireFox.)
I fire up three websites, two of which are streamers.
First I fire up https://www.yourclassical.org/, my source for background music.
They have 13 audio streams, and the one I usually fire up first is “favorites” since it’s an alarm clock.
Bach, Beethoven, Mendelsohn, Brahms, Stravinsky, Saint-Saëns, Copeland, et al; all warhorses.
Later I switch to “chamber music;” it’s more placid = background music.
I no longer listen to WXXI-FM, the public-radio classical music station out of Rochester.
I got sick of opera and begathons. Plus there are other programs on WXXI I can’t stand.
Then I fire up my blog-edit link, to see if anyone hit my most recent post overnight.
I don’t actually Facebook or e-mail my blog-links until the next day, to see if anyone hit direct.
Usually there’s one direct hit; it’s probably my friend in California. Her reader.
I never know who my hitters are, just that my blog was hit.
There’s one other person I know savvy enough to hit direct, so I’m hoping for two hits. (She’s a one of my favorite “friends who happen to be female:” “GASP!”)
My third FireFox fire-up is my RailStream video-streamer from Cresson, PA. I can watch Norfolk Southern trains passing through Cresson.
That’s the railroad my brother and I always photograph. RailStream has many other railfan video-streams, but the one I watch is Cresson.
I glanced at this laptop later, and its display had gone dark.
Nothing new. The only thing that keeps my display awake is streaming video.
I probably left it on BlogSpot or “classical.org" by mistake. I hafta leave it on RailStream.
I switched to RailStream and dead. I did a RailStream refresh.
Minutes passed. “Have I lost my Internet again?” Time to reboot my router.
I pulled my router-plug, and a message appeared saying “an Internet hotspot is available:” my iPhone.
At incredible risk, I decided to “join.”
Clueless as usual; no idea what is going on.
I could use explanation, but “your trouble is you think too much!”
My brother in Massachusetts will badmouth Apple — that I should switch to Windoze.
He also will badmouth me as stupid and rebellious. An aging, outta-touch geezer unwilling to kowtow to his incredible all-knowing wisdom.
The tiny Wi-Fi icon on this laptop also changed: no longer was it the fan thingy. Now it was some chain-link thing.
Suddenly everything was back: RailStream, classical.org, and BlogSpot.
I refreshed all to see if I had Internet. Without Internet they won’t refresh.
All did, and my router was still unplugged.
My Internet was coming from that iPhone hotspot.
Born in the wrong century! (And using a MAC “GASP!”)

• “Windoze” is Microsoft “Windows.” It used to be slower than MAC, but seems to have caught up.

Gotcha!

—The other day, Sunday, February 28th, while quietly keying in my monthly train-calendar blog……
…….This new laptop went into a mysterious hissy-fIt — nothing but a black screen with the spinning multicolored soccer-ball.
My mouse still determined the location of that soccer-ball, but beyond that nothing.
My old MacBook Pro, an ancient dual-core, occasionally did that.
Reboot time! Kill the machine by holding down the power-button maybe ten seconds: making it reboot.
This new MacBook Pro doesn’t have a power-button.
Just flipping it open —1) makes it reboot if it had previously been shut down, or —2) wakes it back up if it had previously been put asleep.
After that I hafta log-in to get this new rig running.
Later my desktop-picture reappeared, along with my login thingy, but I couldn’t log in — nothing but the spinning soccer-ball.
I couldn’t shut off normally. I use the Apple menu, to which I couldn’t get. I hafta log-in to get to that menu.
So how do I kill a rig without a power-button, and not logged-in?
So began a surfeit of frenzied hair-pulling.
It was the weekend of course. All ‘pyooter, dog, and health emergencies occur on weekends.
At least it was Sunday; that’s only a one-day wait.
My guess was there was some magical trick for killing a no power-button laptop.
Google-time! I still had a working rig: my ancient MacBook Pro.
“How does one deactivate a MacBook Pro without a power-button?”
I got the usual Google gobble-de-gook: “use the power-button to force-quit your MacBook Pro.”
AHEM, weed through Google’s deluge of insanity; Apple’s help-desk was suggested. I used it before.
More madness and frustration: “please enter your Apple ID.”
I did that, or so I thought, but of course it bombed = “invalid this” or “invalid that,” followed by “too many failed login attempts = try again later.”
“Steve, you’re acting like Gates = unfriendly to aging stroke-survivors.”
I gotta change to a new Apple ID? 15 minutes is turning into three hours!
And how am I supposed to change my Apple ID when I can’t even see what I’m doing?
As a stroke-survivor I have sloppy keyboarding, and if my passcode type-ins are invisible, or are quickly made invisible, no wonder they don’t match. I can’t review what I mistyped.
After at least two hours of frenzied madness, I finally decided to just give up and go to bed. I would call my ‘pyooter-guru Monday, the next day.
I would allow this laptop to sleep all night, but on its battery — in hopes it would run out of volts and die.
6-8 hours of sleep allows my frenzy to die down.
When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I did was flip open this laptop to see if it was still hung; it was.
While still in bed I conjured a new question to hurl at Google: “how does one force-quit a MacBook Pro that lacks a power-button?”
I fired up my old rig, and hurled the question at Google.
VIOLA! Apparently I worded my question correctly.
“Hold down the Command, Control, and Touch-ID buttons all at the same time at least 10 seconds.”
BAM! The screen went totally black, and the spinning soccer-ball disappeared.
Suddenly there it was: the beloved Apple icon; this thing was re-booting!
HOORAY-HOORAY; I wouldn’t hafta drive 20 miles to wrastle my computer-guru. —Or try to explain things with stroke-addled speech.
So, back in business. This blog is being done into Apple’s “Pages” with voice-recognition.

• The “Touch-ID button” is a new laptop thingy, for logging in via yer fingerprint.
• “Steve” is Steve Jobs, cofounder and one time CEO of Apple Computer. He died not too long ago. “Gates” is Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft. I don’t use Microsoft Word®, because it punishes stroke-survivors.

“Who’s hitting these things” continued

—“A cellphone hit is a BlogSpot hit!” I exclaimed.
—1) Write blog and publish on BlogSpot.
—2) Crank blog-link into Facebook, usually the same day I publish.
—3) The following day I e-mail blog-links to my constant-readers out there in cyberspace. There used to be about 30, but I cut back to maybe 15.
The idea was to see if anyone was reading these blogs from Facebook. Only Facebook “friends” can do that — and I don’t have many.
Many of my Facebook “friends” are not among my constant-readers.
Plus that Facebook “friend” has to be notified I Facebooked that blog link. I’ve heard hoary stories about the dreaded Facebook algorithm.
Often one or two Facebook hits (visits) per blog, and I don’t know who they are.
The other day I noticed a single hit before I Facebooked my blog. Someone (I thought) was hitting direct to BlogSpot.
Who could that be?
My friend in Californy has a reader that probably grabs direct.
Another possible is my pretty lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool. Long ago she suggested she could Google “BobbaLew-BlogSpot.” Her hit would be direct.
Then I realized I could “proof” a published blog on my iPhone, saving me having to disconnect and move this laptop.
I started doing that, but I gotta publish to be able to do it.
That puts an “unproofed” blog out there for grabbing by all and sundry.
Not a problem if the blog-link wasn’t Facebooked or e-mailed yet.
Or so I thought!
I noticed I was getting blog hits before I even Facebooked or e-mailed.
My lifeguard friend mayhap?
If so, good for her. Many of my recent blogs say she is pretty.
The first thing I do every morning is fire up this machine, then look at my blog-monitor to see if anyone hit the blog overnight before I Facebooked or e-mailed it.
The other morning no hits at first.
I then “proofed” it on my iPhone, then “refreshed” my laptop blog-monitor, and suddenly it had one hit.
Perhaps my lifeguard friend just got up and grabbed it? Or perhaps my Californy friend’s reader grabbed it while she was asleep?
I again “proofed” it on my iPhone, then again “refreshed” my laptop blog-monitor, and suddenly it had two hits.
HMMMMNNNNN.
Time for a test, even though science (GASP!) is a conspiracy.
Try again: fire up blog on iPhone, then “refresh” laptop blog-monitor. Suddenly three hits.
Engage scientific method: try it again, and keep trying; all the way up to eight hits.
Scientifical conclusion time = HELLO! A cellphone hit is a DIRECT BlogSpot hit!
This puts the kibosh to my hope my lifeguard-friend was the one hitting my blog before anyone else.
This also puts the kibosh to my hope anyone else was hitting my blog before I e-mailed — like various Facebook “friends.”
So I was being led astray = proof yet again that my all-knowing critics are correct as always to say I think too much.
“No pretty lady will have anything to do with you!” (E.g. My lifeguard-friend, et al.)

Who’s hitting these things?

—“Who, pray tell, is hitting these things?” I’d ask. “When I haven’t even Facebooked ‘em yet.”
The way I do these blogs is: —1) I write ‘em into Apple’s “Pages” word-processor as voice-recognition, since my keyboarding is so sloppy.
Then —2) I publish ‘em into “BlogSpot BobbaLew,” so I can proof ‘em on my iPhone. I could “preview” ‘em on “BlogSpot BobbaLew,” but I haven’t yet seen a way of “previewing” on my iPhone.
—3) After proofing, as finished, I “Facebook” ‘em, which means my blog is okay enough for Facebook “friends” to read. I usually Facebook ‘em the day they’re published.
—4) The next day I e-mail “BlogSpot BobbaLew” links to others not Facebook “friends.” (My vaunted “Ne’er-do-Wells.”)
That way I get to see if there are any Facebook hits. First there was one, then there were two, now I get four or five.
But the other day I published a blog and got four “BlogSpot BobbaLew” hits before I even “Facebooked” it. So someone or something was hitting it directly from “BlogSpot.”
Four hits, but I can only think of two possibilities.
—One would be my lifeguard friend at Canandaigua’s YMCA swimming-pool.
She’s probably computer-savvy enough to be able to Google “BlogSpot BobbaLew.” She’s probably more computer-savvy than me — I used to think my wife was more intelligent than I am.
I know I’m fairly smart, but I think my wife was smarter.
—The other possibility is the reader my friend in Californy uses to access my blogs. She was the one who started me blogging in the first place.
Perhaps her reader is grabbing my blog direct from “BlogSpot.”
Direct from “BlogSpot” might not be my finished blog = not “proofed” yet. (I’m trying to not publish until the blog has been proofed.)
Two hits outta four, and I have no idea who they are.
—If one is my lifeguard friend, why she’d wanna read anything I wrote is beyond comprehension. Mostly what I write about, at least recently, is my incredible and mind-blowing successes with women. Celebration of the end of my sordid childhood, whereby “NO FEMALE WILL HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU!”
—My friend in Californy apparently likes reading my blogs: that I still write pretty much the same way I did years ago = my jaundiced eye. My twisted view and reportage of madness around me.
But those four pre-Facebook hits may not be getting the finished product.

• “Marcy” is my friend in Californy. Years ago she wondered where I got so much madness to report.

Garbage in garbage out

—“SuckerBird, you’re forcing me to ‘share’ something, I don’t wanna ‘share’!”
Engage old waazoo = “Who programs this stuff?”
“Garbage in garbage out!”
My wife fell into programming computers while I was still driving bus. A fellow bus-driver’s son was also a computer-programmer, which is from where I got garbage in garbage out!
Anyone reading this blog knows how exasperated I get with Facebook. Every time I fire it up I get mired in the “Slough-of-Despond.”
Twenty minutes become three hours.
Secretive unannounced interface changes, and on and on.
Hairballs galore! And I don’t have all day.
How I got to that “share” option I have no idea. I was trying to fiddle a video that wouldn't play.
I tried this and I tried that, but didn’t see a “cancel.”
The fact I even have a Facebook at all is due to a fast-one by SuckerBird and his cronies.
And then of course there’s SuckerBird etc. secretly trolling my iPhone contacts to suggest “friends.”
I only have 55 Facebook “friends,” and I could “unfriend” perhaps half. I don’t feel 89 bazilyun Facebook “friends” mean I’m worth something.
Every time I fire it up, I gotta figger it out.
And it seems like what comments or “likes” you get are no more than 3 to 5 words, like “CONGRATS,” or “you go girl!”
WRONG CENTURY, I presume: born in 1944 = well before “try it and see what happens.”
Every time I fire it up, I gotta engage guile-and-cunning.
Plus I have a SmartPhone eager to make pocket-calls if I dare breathe on it the wrong way. —How many times have I corrected some unintended video call?
Wondrous time-saving technology = twenty minutes become three hours.
Lawn awaits, mail goes unopened, or laundry waits too, until I finish wrastling with time-saving technology.
Every night, I’m lucky to get to bed by midnight, because I had to fiddle time-saving technology.
I managed to find an out on Facebook, so I didn’t hafta “share” what I didn’t wanna “share.”
Wrastle this, and wrastle that = “try it and see what happens!”
SuckerBird and his cronies are always steering me into some time-consuming hairball.

• The “Slough-of-Despond” is from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). Think “swamp-of-despair.”

Thank goodness I know a little HTML

—“Why, pray tell, would it do that?” I asked myself.
I was assembling my giant Train-chase from Hell blog comprised of 14-15 files = a file for each photo, and there were 14 photos.
The first file went on correct, everything aligned flush-left.
But then all the text under the second photo was align-center — centered in the column, with widows and orphans standing out.
Widows/orphans are one or two words at the end of a paragraph that hang below the paragraph.
I don’t worry about widows/orphans as long as they’re flush-left. At the Mighty Mezz a page-editor would go back through the paragraph to take out a word or two, and thereby kick the widow/orphan up into the paragraph.
But if that widow/orphan is centered instead of flush-left it stands out like a sore thumb.
My knowledge of HTML is tiny. I go by how the HTML displays my blog.
I know <br> prompts a one-line paragraph drop, and <p> is two lines.
<i> and </i> begin and end italic text, and <b> and </b> begin and end bold text.
<u> and </u> begin and end underlining.
I also know other HTML tags, like for photographs and links. (“Train-chase from Hell” is a link.)
I also have one for blog-rules, e.g.:

---

All were copy/pasted (stolen) from an HTML book.
I also made my own HTML tag to defeat Internet-Explorer’s mucking up my blog.
That was years ago. Hopefully Gates and his cronies have made IE better. (My browser is not Internet-Explorer.)
I studied BlogSpot’s picture-tag. It had “text-align = center”.
WHAT? Engage “try it and see what happens.”
I took out “align = center,” then published.
VIOLA! All the text below that second photo was flush-left.
AMAZING = just an experiment.
Guess I gotta take “align = center” out of 12 more HTML picture tags.
“Try it and see what happens” is the way I learned computering and my iPhone.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost 15 years ago. BEST job I ever had. I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That defect was repaired.)

HTML wars

—“Thank goodness I know a little HTML,” I said to myself.
This blog-site made changes to its interface only partially announced.
I fired it up the other day to test segments of a giant blog I’m writing about my brother and I chasing and photographing trains in Altoona (PA).
I clicked “compose,” then pasted in my word-processor document (my blog), then I hit “publish.”
It showed me their new interface.
“You can still use our ‘legacy interface’ (their prior interface), but that ends August 24th.”
I found the new interface’s “View,” but no longer were my paragraph-returns being read. Everything was meshed into one gigantic blob of text.
Try “Legacy interface.”
Same blob.
Blogger didn't say it was no longer reading my paragraph returns. Text I intended to bold or italicize wasn't being bolded or italicized.
Engage guile-and-cunning!
I have HTML tags in my word-processor documents that Blogger previously read. I guess my published blogs are HTML documents.
I need those paragraph-drops. I changed all my paragraph-returns to the “<br>” HTML-tag.
That got my paragraph-drops. (“<br>” gets a one-line paragraph drop.“<p>” gets a two-line drop.)
Previously I used “<span style=“font-weight:bold>” and “</span>” to embolden and to end-bold text.
Previously I used “<span style=“font-weight:italic >” to begin-italicize, and </span> to end-italicize.
So what if I try “<b>” to begin bolded, and “</b>” to end it. And “<i>” to begin italic.; plus “</b>” or “</i>” to end either.
“Try it and see what happens!”
It worked! (“Toy not with the master!”)
Hours of horsing around! (Blew almost the entire day!)
Would anyone else my age do this? (Age-76.)
Not rocket-science!
I can imagine another widower friend of mine throwing up his hands in despair.
I also noticed another hairball when I made a mistake and deleted my “Beast” blog.
I have yet to see a way of adding a picture with his new interface.
The legacy interface would do it; so now I guess I can add a picture up until August 24.
Thank you blogger! No doubt yer calling this an improvement — NOT!
What sense does it make to blog “The Beast,” when I can’t picture “The Beast” after August 24th?
And after August 24th I no longer can post all the train-pictures my brother and I took down in Altoona.
Like what’s the point? (All to continue doing 200 mph in your Lamborghinis!)
All the more reason to set up my own website.
I’ve always wanted to.

• “HTML” is Hyper-Text Markup Language, a background instruction system made invisible by surrounding carets (“<” and “>”). I use it to embolden, underline and italicize text, although it can do other things.
• My wife died eight years ago, which makes me a widower.

Ya don’t tell a Hughes they can’t do something

(Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

—“Got it!” I exclaimed. “It’s on there.” (Above.)
On July 4th, Yr Fthfl Srvnt posted the first stanza of “America-the-Beautiful” on his Facebook, plus the FB of my anti-Trump group.
I put the first paragraphs of the Declaration-of-Independence on this blog years ago.
But I felt “America-the-Beautiful” was more pertinent to our troubled times.
“America-the-Beautiful” began as a poem by Katherine Lee Bates atop Pikes Peak in 1893.
I been there myself; 1987 with my wife now gone. “Purple-mountain majesties” to the west, “amber waves of grain” to the east, 14,115 feet above sea level.
I sang the song at the top of my lungs in the mountain-top parking lot. 8.5 MPG, up and down in “lo” range. 460 cubic inches, the biggest car-V8 Ford offered at that time.
Drive that road and you don’t make mistakes. No guard rails, and it was dirt back then. Thousand-foot drop-offs awaited.
Someone I don’t know commented; he/she (?) on the anti-Trump FB group to which we both belong.
So I added a response that “America-the-Beautiful” should be our national anthem.
Plus the fact my flag is only three-by-five feet doesn’t make me less patriotic than those with flags the size of a football field.
So: add picture of my flag.
Easier said than done.
My new laptop doesn’t see my image-files yet, and calling Apple is “please hold.”
But my old laptop could add a picture.
Okay; done it before. Any picture atop a blog was processed/added with my old laptop.
So “edit,” but with my new laptop, or else my iPhone.
But laptop edits have to be off Facebook, for which reason I copy/paste from a word-processor.
Hit that laptop “return” key by mistake to begin a new paragraph, and off your post goes, errors and all. (Garbage for all to see.)
My word processor, Apple’s “Pages,” which allows paragraph returns, also allows dictation, which circumvents the frustration of sloppy keyboarding — a stroke-effect.
My iPhone does “voice-recognition” too.
Text-edit complete, adding my flag-pic was next.
But remember my new laptop doesn’t see my pictures yet, so fire up old laptop.
I can fiddle Facebook with either.
Next is find that flag image-file, which I also use as my Facebook profile-pic.
The original is no longer in my machines; it’s probably packed away on a CD. But there is that Facebook profile-pic, the flag picture I want. It could be downloaded.
Engage guile-and-cunning.
Downloading is right-click with Windoze®, control-click with Mac OS-X.
Got it: I saved that download to my desktop, renaming it “Old-Glory” from FB’s file-name of 89 bazilyun numbers.
Okay, down-and-dirty-time.
That Facebook profile-picture is small, and probably only 72 ppi. But it looked okay to me.
Next was “editing” my flag-pic to my textual post.
Facebook is a world apart; I can fiddle my Facebook with both computers, and also my iPhone. It doesn’t know which, just that I’m fiddling it.
“Add-picture” from my old laptop, where my flag pic was downloaded.
I hit the return button, and there it is! (Above.)
“Toy not with a master!” I shouted.
No Apple instruction, everything learned by “try-it-and-see-what-happens.” And 26 years ago I had a stroke that partially destroyed my brain.
My speech is messy, my balance is gone, and my keyboarding’s erratic.
But apparently enough marbles remain to figger this stuff out on my own.
Plus, nobody tells a Hughes they can’t do something.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• “Windoze®” = Windows. (Mac users claim Windows-for-PC is inferior.)
• “Ppi” is pixels-per-inch. Computer screen-resolution is 72 ppi. Printer-resolution is 300 ppi. Enlarge a 72 ppi image-file, and it pixelates = jaggies. I would not be enlarging my downloaded flag-pic.

“Try it and see what happens”

—26&1/2 years ago, Yr Fthfl Srvnt had a stroke. It was caused by a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint four-AY-min oh-VAL-eee”), long ago repaired = open-heart surgery.
It didn't kill me — it could have. At first I was paralyzed on my left side, but now I have that all back. I can pass for never having had a stroke.
Minor detriments remain: I lost nine years of classical piano training; I no longer can hold a tune. My speech center was killed, so now something else is doing it. And it wasn't designed for speech, which means I have slight aphasia: difficulty getting words out.
I no longer can line-draw, and my keyboarding is spastic. It got worse as I got older.
My balance also seems to be failing.
Thankfully, I can still write. What a joy it was to find I could still do that when I was discharged from the hospital.
Apparently there is still quite a lot of gray-matter left. And it's covering for what was killed.
Some of that was luck, but as far as I'm concerned my brain re-wired almost immediately; mainly because I refused to be invalid = I inadvertently worked quickly.
My advice to other stroke victims is “get cracking.” By doing that you’re rewiring your brain to do what the killed part did. —And you gotta be quick about it.
My long ago advice to another stroke victim was “if you think you can do it, you probably can.”
I was cross country skiing within weeks of my stroke. “Miraculous,” I was told, but “I used to be able to cross-country ski.”
“I used to be able to tie my shoes; here, let me try it!”
My wife's mother, who died a few years ago at age 100, came up from FL to help me. But no help for this kid, especially not from someone who growled at me first visit.
The other day I got an e-mail from a Regional-Transit bus driver retired like me. It had a video about Thomas Edison, and I thought it really good. I wanted to put it on my Facebook, but had no idea how.
I forwarded that e-mail to someone who I thought might know how to do it. But then I decided to “try it and see what happens.”
In other words, what marbles remain decided to “think about it.” Let's see here, how about if I download the video, then crank it onto FB? “Try it and see what happens!”
Everything I know about ‘pyootering, driving my iPhone, etc, is self-taught. The only class I ever took was in Microsoft “Excel,” and I was one of only two in the class; night-school by my local school-district. The other girl was completely befuddled; she’d probably been assigned by her office-manager.
Stroke or not I wanted answers, and I drove that instructor nuts. He gave me hints so I could better drive “Excel” at home.
And now with my wife gone, I'm more inclined to “try it and see what happens.”
That is: “think about it,” and by so doing come up with an experiment = guile-and-cunning baby!
I mouse-clicked the video attachment, saving it to my download folder. Then I fired up Facebook, to try adding the video attachment.
SHA-ZAMM! It worked! That video is on my Facebook, and I'm amazed.
But it’s the old waazoo: “try it and see what happens!”
Apparently enough marbles are left.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability, but I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that almost 15 years ago.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I still miss her. BEST friend I ever had, and after my childhood I needed one. She actually liked me.
• At the Messenger newspaper I was told “thinkin’ is dangerous.”

The end of keyboarding

—“Wow,“ I kept saying to myself.
“Yes, yes, yes; this is fabulous!”
I was using “dictation” in “Pages,” Apple’s word-processor on my laptop.
And it was getting every word. I'm doing it now.
I use “dictation” on my iPhone; except there it’s called “voice-recognition.”
It's pretty good. I have to edit what it generates. It’ll misinterpret what I said. It even slipped in the occasional F-bomb.
Not long ago I got a new MacBook Pro laptop. It had an integral camera, now I needed a microphone — so I thought.
Actually it had one already.
I discovered that doing a TeleMed the other day.
“No microphone,” I said to the nurse.
“Just click the ‘accept’ button,” the nurse exclaimed.
“VIOLA!” Face-to-face with my doctor.
And also voice-to-voice.
A writer friend noted she used dictation. “Nice idea,” I thought to myself. “Dictation would save me time.”
I had a stroke 26 years ago, and as I get older my keyboarding gets spastic. Mistypes galore, often every word.
“Pages” has a dictation function, but I never tried it. I thought I needed a microphone. I have one, but it's put away.
My keyboarding got more and more spastic. The muse works fine, but my fingers don’t.
I write these blogs cursive on a legal pad, then key in later. Reading it into “dictation” would stop the spasticity.
I did that with my iPhone occasionally. Cursive to voice recognition, especially if I said a lot.
Voice recognition could muck up, but it was pretty good. Which means edit, i.e. take out the F-bombs.
So now I'm voice-recognitioning this laptop.
I graduated high school in 1962, college in 1966. Back then such things were beyond imagining.
Often I see Apple watches, Google, whatever. Can you say “Dick-Tracy wrist-radio?”
This blog was entirely entered with dictation.

• RE: This first attempt at “dictation……” —It takes almost the same amount of time, but takes out the frustration of mistyping every single word.

Turf-wars

—Apple Computer, in a fit of incredible savvy, finagled an app that displays SMS text-strings onto my MacBook Pros.
Even my antique does it, not just my new rig. (OS-X El Capitan versus OS-X Catalina.)
How this happened I have no idea; it wasn’t a purchased app, not even a free app. In other words, it just appeared; I didn’t get it.
But it only displays “iMessages” = texts from an iPhone. Many of my friends are iPhone, but many aren’t.
The fact a text displays on my computer means I can respond on a real computer-keyboard; not the tiny “virtual keyboard” of a Smartphone.
Although with my iPhone I use voice-recognition, which is pretty good. But I hafta after-the-fact edit the flubs.
VR might slip in an F-bomb. (It’s happened.)
LA-DEE-DAH! I can review and respond to a text on this ‘pyooter.
But only an iMessage. It has to be an iPhone text.
Turf-war alert!
Apple refuses to display non-Apple texts.
If Steve Jobs were still alive I think he’d require non-Apple texts.
Displaying them would be so groovy its might sell more computers.
My iPhone has many wondrous tricks — as do all Smartphones.
To refuse to computer-display non-Apple texts is petty.
That would turn off the non-techies. “I wouldn’t touch a computer with a 10-foot pole! No Smartphones either!” (I have such friends.)
The fact a computer can display texts is only a minor fillip. The fact it cuts out non-iPhone texts is irksome.

• Apple Computer is essentially Steve Jobs. Together with Steve Wozniak, Jobs started Apple in 1976. Apple became a premiere computer company, with Jobs as CEO until he died of cancer in 2011. He also led Apple into other tech endeavors, like the iPhone and iPad. I’m driving an Apple MacBook Pro, and have an iPhone 11.

My new MacBook-Pro

My new MacBook-Pro

—Yr Fthfl Srvnt decided to re-assert “I ain’t dead yet” by ordering what may well be my last computer, a 2019 MacBook-Pro laptop, refurbished by Apple. A laptop because they’re portable.
This current MacBook-Pro laptop, also refurbished by Apple, is over 10 years old. It’s the 17-inch wide-screen. 17’s are no longer made.
It’s slow = about five minutes boot-up. I schedule my morning around it — give it time.
Sometimes it hangs; it can’t get its operating system.
It came with OS-X Snow-Leopard. Now it’s El-Cappy (El Capitan), and it’s on hard-drive #2. The original hard-drive, 500 gigs, gave up. Hard-drive #2 is one terabyte (1,000 gigs) — big enough to swallow the entire known universe.
Fortunately I had it backing up to an external hard-drive: Apple’s “Time-Machine.” We could “migrate” my old hard-drive contents to my #2 hard-drive.
$2,209 + $165.68 taxes = $2,374.68. Probably overkill, but I can afford it. In fact, it looks like I can do it outta current income: Social Security plus pension plus what I get from retirement savings.
My wife and I never spent anything. No Corvette, no speedboat, no motorhome, no kids to put through college. So Apple benefits from my largesse.
Someone told me “priorities man” = it’s what I want. I live in a dustbin full of junk and megabuck computer equipment. My TV is putrid because I never watch TV.
Others have gigantic wall-mounted flat-screens, all to better watch the Super-Bowl — which I didn’t watch.
It’s just another football-game, unless the Buffalo Bills were in it. I’ll be dead-and-gone before that happens.
An eight-core (“2.3GHz 8-core Intel Core i9”) is over-the-top for what I do, which I’m currently doing on this ancient dual-core. Mainly slinging words (writing) and processing photographs for my annual train calendar.
I felt like this antique was on borrowed time. El-Cappy is also a bit much for a dual-core.
My Photoshop-Elements can usually extract a useable photo if the photographer composed well enough — and didn’t muck up royally. My brother’s camera sets everything automatically, so his shutter-speed may be too slow to stop a train. (We photograph trains.)
An old computer is like an old car. What’s gonna fail next?
As for the user, that too is what’s gonna fail next? Physically I’m falling apart, but the gray-matter still works pretty good. (Age-76 February 5th.)
This rig never let me down, but it’s time.

• RE: “We photograph trains.....” —My brother-and-I are railfans.

“Try it and see what happens!”

—“Time-Machine® was unable to back up to Seagate-Backup-Plus.”
Seagate-Backup-Plus is my external hard-drive (one-terabyte), USB’d to this laptop to backup.
“Time-Machine” is Apple’s backup gizmo. It backs up everything I do on this laptop. If I create a document or picture my Seagate gets it too.
It’s saved me occasionally. Sometimes I mistakenly vaporize a complete file. Like I erroneously hit ⌘-Q (quit) instead of ⌘-S (save). Stroke-survivors do that = sloppy keyboarding.
My Seagate has it from a few minutes ago = before my error. So Time-Machine can restore my file.
Never-Never Land skonked.
But “Time-Machine was unable to back up to Seagate-Backup-Plus.”
It’s happened before.
My Seagate external replaced an earlier external that had an independent power-supply. Occasionally it needed reboot. What I did was pull out the power-cord (“pull the plug”).
My Seagate doesn’t have a power-supply. I can’t disconnect.
What to do? Call my MAC guru, or engage what marbles remain after my stroke?
Seems someone told me USB plugs come powered and unpowered. Those to my printer and scanner are powered, but my keyboard and mouse are unpowered. —Still last-century = hard-wired.
The one to my Seagate was powered, as far as I knew. So pull that USB and see what happens.
It’s the way I learned everything about techno-gadgets. My hairdresser was on his phone rendering ‘pyooter-advice to a friend. “Try it and see what happens!” he said.
Last night after reconnecting everything I fired up Time-Machine. It was backing up as far as I could see. It had a blog I started a half-hour earlier.
Every time I do such a thing I remember I’m 75 years old, and run on what gray-matter remains after my stroke — seven cylinders, I always say.
“Get outta here with them computers and Smartphones,” a friend bellows.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• The splat-key (⌘) is Apple’s command-key.
• RE: “Seven cylinders......” —A typical Detroit V8 automobile engine has eight cylinders. Thanks to my stroke I lost one.

Should I make Safari® my default browser?

—New York state, in a fit of incredible largess, no doubt meant to keep Andrew Cuomo in office, sent a check for about 500 smackaroos, a rebate of school taxes. It has something to do with the fact my school-district kept its annual budget-increase below some gumint-mandated percentage.
The check came over a week ago, and I was holding it for online deposit via my iPhone.
I did it before. Photograph the check, which saves a trip to the bank.
Online deposit supposedly takes 3-5 minutes, but I often don’t have that. I also don’t often do online deposit.
The other night five minutes opened up, so I logged into my bank — or tried.
I got my iPhone logged in, but then the bank wanted a “Secure Access-Code;” an extra security step I’m not familiar with.
Since when is a “Secure Access-Code” gonna keep some ne’re-do-well from cleaning out my account if they already stole my phone?
That access-code could come via e-mail or phone. I didn’t notice it said “SMS” (text).
-So far 10 minutes.
I checked my e-mail: there it was, so I cranked it in. No idea if I did it right — it’s not displayed = security concerns.
Stroke-survivors suffer mistypes. I can’t see if I mistyped if it’s not visible.
“Naughty-naughty! Try again, LOSER!” (GPS-lady or The Donald?)
By now their system was inundating me with e-mailed access-codes, but they weren’t in my e-mail yet.
So I tried the first access-code again; good for 30 minutes. NYET! (Probably replaced by a new access-code.)
-15 minutes.
I tried again, and it locked my account. “Change password!”
HUH? What does my password have to do with an access-code?
Changing my password blows two devices: my computer and my iPhone.
-20 minutes.
I gave up exasperated. Born in the wrong century, and had a stroke. What’s invalid is ME. Every time I attempt fiddling computer-logic I get utter madness.
Try again the next morning. Go to bed!
Next morning “Change password” means call the bank.
“Please hold during the silence:” BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA!
-30 minutes so far.
Finally me and the bank’s service-rep tried to “change password.” She ended up doing it herself. Their system was lobbing hairballs.
(I know, wrong century, etc.)
“Are you using Firefox?” she asked. “We’re having ‘issues’ with Firefox.”
“Don’t you mean ‘problems?’” I asked.
“Have another browser?” the girl asked. I fired up my Safari®, and attempted to copy/paste my bank’s web-address from Firefox.
NYET! “Type it manually, not copy/paste,” she said.
Finally I was logged into my bank via Safari with my new password.
-45 minutes.
“Ya know I coulda just driven to the bank to deposit this check.” (I finally said it.) “I’m going that way anyway = a five-minute diversion.
Except I also need to log in on my computer, since I do all my banking online, and your system locked me out.”
So how many passwords so far? At least five over the past two years.
“You and your vaunted security got me to bed past midnight last night, then blew walking my dog this morning.”
Don’t know if she heard that. My iPhone died and cut her off.
But I can log into my bank with both my computer and iPhone. And was able to online deposit that check, despite various hairballs.
I guess five minutes is an hour in techno-logic.
Site-by-site my Firefox falls to Safari. Must I join the Dark Side = Google Chrome?

• “Andrew Cuomo,” son of Mario Cuomo, is the current governor of New York.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.

Who was the third hit?

I Facebook these blogs.
But I wrote one the other day of which I was leery. There are “friends”on my Facebook not in my Ne’er-do-well list.
My “Ne’er-do-well” list is people to whom I e-mail blog-links. Those not in my my Ne’er-do-well list get my blogs from a Facebook link.
I usually get one or two Facebook hits.
BlogSpot tells me how many hits I get — but not who. Facebooking a blog-link takes 15-20 seconds. E-mail links take 2-3 minutes.
What I do is put out the FB link the same time I publish the blog.
I e-mail Ne’er-do-well links the next day. This also tells me if anyone hit the FB link overnight. My Ne’er-do-well links increase the number of hits. FB might get 0-2 hits; e-mail gets 8-20 additional — sometimes more.
Every time someone clicks a blog-link, a “hit” is recorded.
I was leery of putting a blog on my Facebook. I was afraid some FB “friend” might read it, and take it wrong. (The written word does that — even the spoken word.)
THREE hits the next day.
I put the blog-link on two individual “friend’s” Facebooks. That’s two hits. So who was the third hit?
It can’t be someone I’m Facebook “friends” with, since I didn’t Facebook the blog.
And I hadn’t e-mailed the link yet.
Someone must be following me on BlogSpot. Or perhaps Facebook notified my “friends” I posted to a “friend’s” Facebook.
I have no idea how Facebook works, especially since it likes to change unannounced.
I could recite chapter-and-verse. Like “thank you Mark!”
So who was the third hit? Will I get surprised? Is it someone I wanted to avoid?
I have a few actual friends savvy enough to follow me outside Facebook.
Then too that third hit may be someone wanting to sell me something. All I hafta do is supply my credit-card number, etc.
It’s happened.

• RE: “Hit......” —Every time my blog is accessed on BlogSpot a “hit” is recorded. (That doesn’t mean my blog was read.)
• RE: Misreads....... —People get what they want from written word, spoken word too. Often anger results, or “I never said that.”
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

Browser wars

Bookmark by bookmark, Apple’s Safari® skonks mighty Firefox®, the Internet browser I used for years.
Now I run two Safari bookmarks.
It started when SuckerBird and his cronies, in infinite wisdom, decided to make Facebook no longer work with Firefox. I couldn’t post anything, and “notifications” hung.
“Maybe it’s Firefox,” said my brother in northern DE. I called him — he’s my Facebook maven.
“They like to do that,” he added. Unannounced of course.
“Try something else,” he noted. I happen to have Safari on this laptop. It came with my OSX.
So I copy/pasted my Facebook address from Firefox into Safari’s address-window.
Viola! That worked.
La-dee-dah! Firefox is my default browser, and I have 89 bazilyun bookmarks.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default browser?”
“Absolutely not! Not as long as it quits when I try to enter my Google-account password.”
I run one other website as background all day. It’s a streamer from a webcam in Cresson, PA. It looks out on the old Pennsylvania Railroad through Cresson. That railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
It’s been kinda flaky recently; like maybe I need to empty my Firefox cache. I have to research how to do that, usually YouTube.
So I decided to copy/paste my streamer link into Safari. The streamer works there too. I bookmarked it. Now that’s two Safari bookmarks.
I still prefer Firefox. It’s easy to use, and not allied to a major ‘pyootering firm.
“Why not Google Chrome®?” my brother asks.
“Google is trying to take over the the entire known universe,” I say.
Two bookmarks so far. But that’s two more than this Firefox fan had two months ago.

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

“Ka-bloo-ey!”

“There it goes again,” I yelled.
Every time I tried to crank my Google-account password into Safari it quit.
Three times in a row, and as I recall, the same thing happened a few weeks ago.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default Internet browser?”
“No way José! Not when you keep bombing all the time,” I exclaimed.
Apple’s Safari is one of two Internet browsers I have on this machine. My other is Firefox 68.0.1. It’s default.
I been using Firefox for years, ever since a friend suggested it. His was Windoze PC, mine is MAC.
He no longer is a friend. He become angry when I had the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity (cue Sharpton) to suggest I no longer was the wuss I was in college. (He was a classmate.)
And now Facebook, in its infinite wisdom, apparently walked away from Firefox. Unannounced of course. Firefox isn’t Internet-Explorer or Safari, the two computer-company heavies. It’s independent. (Gasp!)
Facebook stopped working under Firefox. I couldn’t post anything, etc.
So I fired up Safari, which I previously never used. I copy/pasted my Facebook address from Firefox to Safari. Facebook worked under that.
“Thank you Mark!” My brother in DE suggested this, not Facebook; they never announce anything.
I was attempting a BlogSpot search on their edit-page. (This blog is BlogSpot.) Firefox of course, and something was wrong. I couldn’t scroll back to 2012. Usually I can.
So I fired up Safari to try my BlogSpot search there.
ZOINK! My Safari isn’t Google-savvy. Google-account password wanted.
I happen to have all my passwords in a small notebook. Every time I started to enter it: Ka-bloo-ey! Safari quit.
Fat lotta help Safari is. I use it for Facebook, or when Firefox fails — which is hardly ever.
So, what do I do?
I tried force-quitting Firefox, then fired it up again. I can force-quit an app with MAC OS-X.
Back in business; the scroll-function now worked.
“Do you wanna make Safari your default Internet browser?”
“NOT YET! Gotta not bomb, and be as pleasant to use as Firefox.”

• “Windoze” is Microsoft Windows®. The scuttlebutt among Apple-geeks is that Microsoft is inferior. My siblings all use Microsoft Windows computers, but since I use an Apple Macintosh, I’m stupid and disgusting. (Jesus uses a Windows PC.)
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.

Order more-or-less restored

At age-75 I occasionally get stinking computer hairballs.
My cheering-section (my wife) died over seven years ago. I hafta solve these problems myself.
Facebook, which I rarely look at, would no longer post anything. My browser was Firefox 67.0.4, the most recent update.
I post these blogs on Facebook — as a link. I also had a photograph to post.
I called my brother in northern DE, a Facebook maven.
“Maybe it’s your browser,” he suggested. “Facebook may have switched to only Internet-Explorer and Apple’s “Safari.” (And perhaps Google Chrome, which he uses.)
So I fired up Safari. “As I understand it,” I said to my brother; “my Facebook is stand-alone, and any browser can access it.”
Facebook under Safari wanted a login. I provided a FB password I had on my desktop. “That password is old. Three months ago your password was changed.”
-Hairball number-one.
Next was trying to fly a blog on BlogSpot, my blog-service.
My usual BlogSpot interface wanted my Google-account.
“WHAT?” -Hairball number-two.
I couldn’t do anything for lack of a Google-account.
I had no idea what a Google-account was. What I perceived was a mysterious firewall that prevented me from doing anything.
Things were adding up; I was climbing the walls. I began to question my existence.
I tried resetting my Google-account password, and entered that into my BlogSpot entreaty. Nyet! And of course passwords are mere dots. I can’t see if I mistyped, and stroke-survivors often do.
I shut down and went to bed, It was almost midnight already, and I’d have to drive up to Mac-Shack, 25 miles, in hopes ****** would appear to repair the mess I made.
And Mac-Shack is computer repair, not fixing messes.
Plus I don’t think ****** could get me back on Facebook.
The other night I fired up both Firefox and Safari. Firefox had my Facebook address. I copy/pasted that into Safari.
Facebook wanted a password, so I clicked “forgot password” to reset my FB password. I came up with something that wouldn’t prompt “used before” and “old password.” I also wrote down my new password in a small notebook.
I also noticed an icon that made my typing visible.
Viola! I could see what I was typing, and suddenly there was my Facebook.
“We’ll try this,” I said, and I posted a blog-link.
Then “we’ll try this.” I posted the picture that prompted my earlier madness.
I e-mailed my DE brother: “I guess I’m now Facebooking via Safari instead of Firefox.”
If Facebook did indeed walk away from Firefox, “Thanks for telling me, Mark!” (Another Facebook secret.)
It was becoming apparent I could “change password” fairly easily. It helped I could see what I was typing.
I Googled “What is a Google-account?” Seemed it was little more than my e-mail-address and a password.
So change Google-account password. The usual techno-leaps: a secret code was texted to my iPhone. This was similar to “change FB password.” It helped I could see things. Typing blind invites mistypes: (“Naughty-naughty; passwords don’t match!”)
Suddenly my BlogSpot interface reappeared.
Order restored, more-or-less. I could skip Mac-Shack; leave poor ****** alone.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• “Mark” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.

Dancing cats

I went all the way to Fort Lauderdale to get this. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—The other morning when I unplugged my iPhone from my charger it displayed a “memory” I might wanna “share:” pictures from my recent trip to Fort Lauderdale to visit my niece.
I just got back.
No idea specifically who trolled my iPhone photographs, but my guess was SuckerBird and his cronies. Since I just installed Facebook “Messenger” on my iPhone.
But it may be something else, since I had an earlier Fort Lauderdale “memory” which I don’t think was Facebook. Some background program sorted my iPhone photos by location and date, and created a 2017 “memory.”
But I’m more inclined to think this was Facebook. (It wasn’t; read on.....)
Do I really wanna “share” this stuff? La-dee-dah! One picture (above) is of my niece displaying a new wheeled suitcase I bought to replace my cumbersome Ferrari duffel.
I used that duffel to make the trip, angering all-and-sundry. I traded it to my niece’s teenaged son, a lover of exotic cars. I always said that duffel was the closest I’d get to owning an actual Ferrari.
Also suggested were pictures I took of Sammy the Samoyed dog. I took those pictures in a dog-park because my aquacise-instructor, who I text too much, also has a Samoyed.
But I think Sammy was more impressive, mainly because he was so big: a giant white puffball.
Also suggested was a picture of my niece’s German Shepherd that wasn’t one of my photos. My niece took it awhile ago, and “air-dropped” it to my iPhone. Take that, goofballs! I just defeated yer fancy logic!
A friend suggests Facebook is for those lacking a life. I admit I follow my aquacise-instructor’s Facebook most every day — we are “friends.” Mainly because she often posts something worth reading, as opposed to dancing cats.
Another friend says Facebook is for arguing politics. One-up The Donald, or maybe even Limberger (Limbaugh), if that’s possible. Strident bellowing to boost a lie.
That guy says he no longer Facebooks, bringing sweetness and light to his life.

---

Now that I’ve actually “shared” the photos, I don’t think it’s Facebook. Something, probably Apple, trolled my iPhone photos, setting aside those from my trip. GPS sorted ‘em into “albums.”
A text was sent from iCloud of all those photos, including one I reshot four ways.
That started a text-string of all those to whom I “shared.” There were only three. I’ve since realized I had other Smartphone users, at least three more.
Of the original three, my baby-sister — don’t call her that, even though we’re 17 years apart, and I drove her and my mother home from the hospital — texted back.
So did my aquacise-instructor. Some of the pictures were I and my niece’s children sticking our tongues out, a Hughes tradition.
With my iPhone I can access all human knowledge. Yet I get tongues out and dancing cats.

• “SuckerBird” is Mark Zuckerberg, founder and head-honcho of Facebook.
• RE: “the tongues out Hughes tradition......” —Years ago we called my mother “Motor-Drive.” She’d flutter ponderously about with her Instamatic photographing all-and-sundry. At a family picnic I hoisted my niece, about age-10 at that time, atop my shoulders, and my mother attacked: “I gotta get a picture.” “Hey Jill,” I said (her name is Jill); “stick yer tongue out.” In that picture both our tongues are out. That quickly became a tradition = all attempts at family photography by my mother were met with tongues out.

http:ultimaterewards.com

“Why is it,” I shouted; “every time I start ‘time-saving technology’ for a five-minute procedure it turns into a hairball that exceeds an hour?”
My credit-card has a points program. Every dollar purchased over time equals a point — or something like that; I may have that wrong.
I had 19,613 points, which equals $196.13 cash, or BJ memberships, vacation-trips to exotica, whatever — who knows? I always do cash-back: $196.13 to my credit-card, which already delays actual payment until credit-card billing.
So set up a $196.13 payback. I crank http:ultimaterewards.com into my browser: easier-said-than-done for a stroke-survivor with spastic keyboarding.
After perhaps five tries, I finally got it right. I shoulda bookmarked it. Bookmarking skonks spastic keyboarding.
BAM! Log-in required (“Welcome back, Robert”). I have the log-in on a sticky, but it faded, so I typed incomplete.
Other possible flubs await: caps or no-caps — often that matters. Secondly what if my sticky isn’t up-to-date? Log-ins seem required, even to non-bank sites.
Waah-foh I have no idea, although for a bank it’s good. 15 additional minutes of horsing. It’s also possible I’ll mistype, the bane of a stroke-survivor.
My browser memorizes log-ins. “Wanna update?” Not if it didn’t work when it hurled that message at me. If my log-in bombed, I ain’t memorizin’.
And why, pray tell, does my printer-ink site need an account? Suckerbird and his cronies pay for account-info. “A geezer, eh? Buxom hotties for ads on his Facebook!”
And just because I bought a belt at Zappos, why does my printer-ink site suggest I buy another? Why, pray tell, do I need an identical second belt, when only one works fine?
All so them Zappos dudes can pay installments on their Porsches?
My log-in attempts kept bombing, and so was my attempt to “change password.” I was set to call the bank. “Please hold during the silence. An Indonesian associate will speak to you in fractured English in three hours. BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA!”
Then they gave me a user-name for my Social Security number, plus I noticed I was incompletely entering my password.
BOINK! 30 minutes so far, but I’m logged in and can set up my payback. http:ultimaterewards.com didn’t get me the actual payback site. It got the bank’s “home” website. Glitzy offerings galore, but I did notice an “Ultimate Rewards” icon. I clicked it and set up my payback.
Balloons erupted all over my screen, rife with exploding fireworks. Do those techies have any idea? Or is this the 21st century paradigm? If I type “congrats” in a Facebook comment, it changes the font-color to red. Balloons cascade my screen. I’m supposed to think this is “neat?”
Uhm, “time-saving technology” consumed 10-12 times what was predicted. Those balloons didn’t make me happy.

• 25 years ago I had a stroke caused by an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• “Suckerbird” is Mark Zuckerberg, head-honcho of Facebook.