Newfangled gizmo

—Last week I patronized a new MAC store called “Mac-Avenue.”
It’s nearby in Victor (NY), and much closer than my previous independent MAC emporium (Mac Shack); about seven miles instead of 20.
I never used Mac-Avenue before, since I always used Mac Shack, and Mac-Avenue seemed rudimentary.
Mac Shack also had Andrew, my wondrous all-knowing tech-guru.
Me and Mac Shack go back a long way — at least 15-20 years. First was my G3 beige desktop, then came my gigantic G4 tower, which I still have.
Then came my heavy 17-inch dual-core “MacBook Pro” laptop, “Leopard” at first, but later updated to “El Capitan.” That was via a friend, used from the online Apple Store. It wasn’t Mac Shack; but Mac Shack serviced it.
Mac Shack did the operating-system upgrade.
Mac Shack also got me into a standalone back-up hard-drive for Apple’s “Time-Machine;” and that standalone had failed.
I am now on a new MacBook Pro laptop, eight core, 64 bit, also purchased used from the online Apple Store; but by Yrs Trly.
Its operating system is “Catalina,” but it wasn’t Time-Machining because my standalone had failed.
Around-and-around I went with Mac Shack trying to get my Time-Machine working. The owner (not Andrew) suggested my standalone had failed, and it failed out of warranty, so I’d hafta get a new one.
Back-and-forth we went, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. Weeks passed.
Finally I decided to give up on Mac Shack. Beside Mac Shack I had two other options: one being Mac-Avenue, and the other being the nearby dreaded Apple store, where one takes a number and joins the crowd.
With COVID-19, I had to make a service appointment for all three locations, so I decided on Mac-Avenue.
So, up to Mac-Avenue for a new standalone. Nice lady, with pretty eyes, but not Andrew.
She was very helpful, and I even told her she had pretty eyes. But then came how to pay for it.
I took out my credit-card, and gave it to her. She then brushed it over some magic plastical thingy.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. “I was expecting one of them Apple-‘Square’ things.” (My dog-groomer uses one.)
“See this Wi-Fi icon on your credit-card?” she said. “I brush that over my reader, and it grabs all your information. I don’t hafta use my chip-reader.”
“Kewel!” I said.
Last night (Wednesday, November 11th) I had to buy gas after our weekly bereavers eat-out.
I pulled into a Speedway gas-station north of Canandaigua, then took out my credit-card, planning to put it in their chip-reader.
Suddenly I noticed the pump had one of them Wi-Fi reader thingies on it.
“Try it and see what happens!”
I wafted my card over the reader thingy, and suddenly the pump lit: all fired up and ready to roll.
LA-DEE-DAH!
Wondrous technology! When I graduated high-school back in 1962 even pumping your own gas was beyond comprehension = a pump-jockie did it for you. “Check the oil sir?”

• Every week, usually once per week, I eat out at a restaurant with others who also lost their spouses. We been doing that for years — my wife died over eight years ago.

Technology run rampant!

—“Oh will you shaddup!”
“Not you,” I said to the pretty girl delivering my outdoor takeout at Applebee’s restaurant in Canandaigua.
“I’m talking to Siri in this car. I asked Siri on my iPhone to call Applebee’s, and got an Act-of-Congress.”
No longer can I have Siri just make a phone call. It’s gotta blow at least five minutes analyzing and reviewing Applebee’s before it makes the call.
Thankfully, pretty girl was bringing my takeout as Siri began yammering.
I just bought this newer car. My iPhone was “paired” to it.
“Call Applebee’s in Canandaigua,” I said into my iPhone.
My car took over. Siri’s response wasn’t the Siri I usually hear.
So began an arduous litany of recommendation, star-evaluation, and explanation preceding the actual call.
Yada-yada-yada-yada, followed by “oh will you shaddup!”
“Last time I try that!” I said to pretty girl.
“Next time I disconnect Bluetooth before I enter this car, and hope Siri hasn’t been re-programmed to increase verbiage.”
If that happens, I call Applebee’s without Siri — I use my iPhone contacts, hoping it doesn’t deluge me with new Siri verbosity.
Technology run rampant! Every day I delete a slew of spam e-mails, and scammers demanding my Social Security number, credit-card, checking-account, wallet, etc. under threat of jail.
Siri was a nice idea, but now I can't just call a restaurant. I hafta endure a torrent of verbiage.

• Just yesterday I blogged pretty girl. I told her she was pretty, and the fact I did that after my childhood is amazing. It was her eyes: they were gorgeous. I think she liked it.

“It’s a miracle, Bobby”

I don’t know this guy from the Moon! (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—“What I’d like to do now is take your picture,” I said to the gentleman pictured above.
I was at my hairdresser for a trim. I had taken along my dog Killian per usual request. Killian repaired into a side-room to hide and nap.
Suddenly the stranger appeared. He walked in to be my hairdresser’s next appointment. He was completely unknown to me or Killian.
As soon as he sat Killian got up, came out of the side-room, jumped on the sofa, and plopped next to the stranger.
I’m supposed to keep Killian from doing this? As if I had any choice!
I wouldn’t know this stranger in a million years, nor would Killian. Yet PLOP!
Stranger was not the least put off. He started petting Killian.
Trim finished I unholstered my iPhone to take the picture,”
“This isn’t the first time,” I said.
“What I’ll do,” I said; “is post this picture on Facebook.”
“In which case the guy pictured will also get the photo,” my hairdresser interjected. “He has a Facebook, and Facebook does facial recognition. It will appear in his ‘feed’.”
“I didn’t know Facebook was doing facial recognition,” I said.
“You mean the reason all those GIs gave their lives on Normandy’s beaches was so we could do such wonders of technology?”

• “It’s a miracle, Bobby” is something my God-fearing mother used to exclaim regarding anything not having simple explanation. (Bobby is of course me.)

Audio-text

“Wait one cotton-pickin’ minute,” I said. “That snap-icon was red, which tells me this iPhone might be recording.”
Fiddle-faddle = “Toy not with the master.” I’m falling apart physically, but the old brain still works fine.
I had mistakenly caressed the text voice-recognition button. It gave me a red record icon.
When I record video with my iPhone, the snap-icon is also red.
I was doing a voice-recognition text to my aquacise therapist, who also has an iPhone.
Play-time! I should be walking my dog up-the-street, but it’s thundering. My weather-radar says a downpour is coming.
Something was on the keypad about holding down the microphone icon to record. Try it and see what happens, the way I figgered out most techno devices.
No classes, no manual: “Put that thing away. Real men don’t use manuals.”
If I touch and retract, it stops recording. Gotta hold down that red button.
When I graduated high-school in 1962, stuff like this was beyond imagining. My wife died six years ago. Back then this was probably nascent. My wife is missing out.
I sent the voice-text to my aquacise therapist after playing it back.
No response. I recorded another and sent that. I attempted a multiple voice-text, but one was to my hairdresser, a Google-guy. Has to be iPhone I guess.
Aquacise therapist responded, thinking I made a mistake. No one ever sent her a voice-text.
Yes, I had made a mistake, but I ran with it.
I then tried a multiple iPhone voice-text, and that sent. I also voice-texted a lady who I know has an iPhone. But she was in a public place. They woulda called security.
I have to tell others I’m talking to my phone, lest they call 9-1-1.
Land-o’-goshen! What will they dream up next? Them Apple programmers make life interesting.

Try it and see what happens

“Text Cleaning-Lady,” I said to Siri, the voice-recognition personal assistant on my iPhone.
A text-window quickly appeared.
“What do you want to say?” Siri asked.
“Lollypop took all my needles,” I said.
“Lollypop” is Lollypop Farm, the Rochester area’s humane society. I had a huge box of syringes to inject insulin into my diabetic dog. That dog is now gone, leaving me with 89 bazilyun sealed and unused syringes.
Siri cranked gibberish into her text window — it even included an F-bomb.
“Is this what you want?” she asked.
“Nope!” Gotta be slow and deliberate with Siri.
I tried again: “Lollypop took all my needles.”
This time she got it, but wouldn’t send without me first logging in by thumbprint.
I did that thumbprint thingy a while ago, but no longer use it. It wasn’t reliable; perhaps it is now — I think my iPhone’s operating-system has been upgraded three or four times since.
Back to Ground Zero: login first, then “Text Cleaning-Lady.” “Cleaning-Lady” is what’s in my contacts, although I think I also have her in there by name.
Don’t push Siri too hard. She’d probably get it, but “Cleaning-Lady” I’m more sure she’d get.
Again she got it. Speak slowly and deliberately and she usually does. She even got my text!
BAM! Off it went. My cleaning-lady responded almost immediately. She probably didn’t know I used voice-recognition with Siri.
It was my first Siri text-try. Previously I did texts voice-recognition with followup editing on my iPhone’s virtual keyboard. All I ever did previously with Siri was call people. Siri’s reliable. Microsoft’s “Sync” in my car isn’t. Some calls it successfully makes, e.g. “call Jack,” my brother. Anything else is a wrong number, especially if it’s more than one syllable.
I’m doing what got me as tech-savvy as I am: namely “try it and see what happens;” never any manuals = real men don’t use manuals!
Cleaning-lady’s immediate response started me crying. That’s poor emotional control, a stroke-effect. It’s called “lability;” Google it.
56 long years ago in 1962 when I graduated high-school, stuff like this was utterly unimaginable. Science-fiction, Dick Tracy, I’m interacting with machine intelligence. And I’m still here to experience it.
Sadly my wife isn’t. Too late for her; I’m sure she’d be as interested as me. She died six years ago — another cancer victim.
Can artificial intelligence “try it and see what happens?” Maybe so, but I’m leery. They’re gonna hafta uncurl my cold, dead fingers from the steering-wheel before I allow some self-driving car I’m in do 80 mph bumper-to-bumper. Nor do I want my self-driving car to kill a pedestrian.
Garbage-in, garbage out!
But it’s coming: silicon-based life to replace carbon-based life. I give us perhaps 30-50 years. We’re making our air unbreathable, and will soon flood our lowlands. South FL is doomed, or else will be surrounded by seawalls; at least Mar-a-Lago.
Perhaps the only carbon-based life remaining will be insects.
Silicon-based life will worship Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as its creators, its dual God-head. Along with Elvis to make a Trinity.
Will the universe notice? I doubt it. We still keep rolling along, killing perceived enemies. Our planet keep spinning, the Moon keeps circling, and the Sun keeps shinning, as it has billions and billions of years.
So carbon-based life gets replaced by silicon-based life. There’s lots of sand to mine in south Jersey.

• 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’s a miracle, Bobby!”

“Holy mackerel!” I exclaimed.
For once my text was readable. It was black, not puke-gray.
For months my printer wasn’t printing “photo-black.” That nozzle was apparently clogged. I forsaw printer repair. 89 bazilyun dollars, and probably gouts of time.
My printer is a gigantic Epson Stylus “Photo R3000.” I prefer a large printer in case I gotta print big documents — maps for example.
Months ago I asked a guru at nearby PC & Wireless if they repaired printers, or if they knew anyone who did.
“Trash it!”  they said. “If it’s only a peanuts printer, get another.”
I guessed my “Photo R3000” was fairly substantial — it takes an entire shelf. 10 inches high by well over a foot deep by over two feet wide. Cost almost 2,000 smackaroos. My TV is what’s peanuts — my computer technology is astounding.
I never watch TV. I’d rather drive this computer. TV’s a waste. I only watch the local and national TV-news; Heaven-forbid I miss The Donald’s latest 3 a.m. tweet, or his latest firing.
My scanner, also Epson, is another entire shelf. Almost a yard wide; the largest scanner I could buy. No more merging multiple scans with Photoshop. I have a calendar slightly bigger than that scanner-platen.
I fly these blogs almost immediately, but only so I can proof. Flown I print the blog, but no notification until I proof.
Previous printouts were thin — puke-gray. Often I include a photo or two. Lacking photo-black they looked putrid.
It’s been that way for months. On a ‘pyooter-screen they look fine, but printouts looked awful. Only one person refuses my e-mail links; they freeze his e-mail. We never know why — probably some mysterious setting. He’s a train-guy in faraway Altoona, PA; he’s the only reader for whom I print. Only train-guys get train blogs; most others get everything. I figured that train-guy could accept a goofy photo print.
My R3000 has three black nozzles. Only the full black wasn’t working; the others are “light-black” and “ultra light-black.” I printed a blog last night to proof. WHOA! It’s black; it looked normal.
For whatever reason the photo-black nozzle unclogged itself. I ran a nozzle-test. All eight nozzles were printing.
No printer repair = wonders never cease!

• “It’s a miracle, Bobby!” is something my God-fearing mother used to say about anything lacking simple and immediate explanation.

Utter madness

“Welcome to my life — utter madness,” texted my niece from Fort Lauderdale.
I planned to fly there to visit my niece. An annual surgical-strike, four days, down tomorrow, March 22nd, then back home Monday, March 26th.
Last year was my first try, after flying to my deceased wife’s mother’s 100th birthday in Deland, FL two years ago. Everything had to be rigorously planned to avoid unpredictables. My confidence is marginal. —A) No more cheering-section (my wife), and —B) my stroke 25 years ago.
Loss of my wife was more influential. My younger sister’s oldest son married shortly after my wife died. I lacked gumption to attend; doing so woulda meant numerous phonecalls, plus plane-changes along the way. Plus a tiny cigar-wrapper TurboProp to Lynchburg, VA. Driving there was beyond-the-pale.
Primary was the fact my wife died = I was a wreck. Phonecalls are challenging: I have slight aphasia, a stroke-effect. Mainly stuttering and difficulty getting words out. My wife made phonecalls.
A nephew, my northern DE brother’s only child, also got married, but immediately after my wife died. I could attend that, and did. It was just a day-long drive.
Last year’s trip to Fort Lauderdale became an immediate hairball: a tire went flat the day before my flight. I had to drive to the airport on the mini-spare, the donut. 50 mph max.
And once down there my trip became Smartphone-city. I used GPS to get from the airport to my niece, amidst a torrent of texts and phonecalls.
“Giving other drivers a break may be okay where you come from, but not in south FL. Don’t let anyone cut in front of you — PUT THE HAMMER DOWN!”
And “Why Commercial Boulevard instead of Cyprus Creek? Yer GPS is WRONG. We never go that way.”
Then “Turn right on 12th!”
“Too late! I’m in the middle lane and already half-way through the intersection.”
“Cut-cut-cut! Engage Connor-Jeans (‘genes’). Everyone does that here in south FL. Be assertive!”
I portray this to be worse than it actually was. It became a wild rocket-ride in a creme-white rental Cherokee, GPS lady quietly nattering on my iPhone: “turn-right; straight on Commercial,” etc, etc. Try to -a) not get lost, and -b) avoid crashing mightily in flames.
My mother’s maiden-name was “Connor.” She could be very Irish. My niece’s mother, also my sister, was very much a “Connor” = take action! I’m more like my paternal grandfather, also a “Robert.” Anyone named “Robert” in my father’s family was automatically despicable. This included my “Uncle Rob,” my grandfather, and of course me. But I was despicable to my parents, not my grandparents. My “Uncle Rob” was in deepest doo-doo with my grandmother, perhaps because he sold Fords instead of Chevrolets. (I’m not making this up!)
I got there; I successfully located my niece in deepest, darkest south FL. Tiny bungalows cramped will-nilly with bathtub swimming-pools, all awaiting the next hurricane or rising sea-levels.
The trip became multiple misplaced driving-glasses, all recovered. Plus a weekend trip to a Googled Urgent-Care to treat a swollen fingernail. 145 smackaroos.
Now to try again. Allegiant no longer flew to Fort Lauderdale, only Orlando-Sanford. Check out flights to Fort Lauderdale, Delta/American/United all involved cigar-wrapper TurboProps out of Rochester, plus Jet-Blue wanted a fortune. Then wait hours in JFK/Philly/Atlanta for a connecting flight.
Southwest had actual airliners out of Rochester. They could get me to Fort Lauderdale with a connection at Baltimore-Washington, except departure was at the crack-of-dawn. Southwest is also cattle-car seats.
I haven’t done a change-planes since my wife died. But it seemed do-able. The wait was only an hour or two.
Then the madness began. I happened to reconcile my credit-card statement, and wondered what two transactions were. I thought they might be legit, but my bank declared them fraudulent, and froze my account.
Great; I planned to use that credit-card in Fort Lauderdale. Despite my difficulty making phonecalls, I called my hotel in Fort Lauderdale wondering what I should do.
“Can’t they overnight you a replacement card?”
“I already tried that. I gotta be here to sign for it, and I got other appointments. I know I have a HUGE IRS tax-refund in my checking, so how about a blank check?”
“No personal checks.”
“Yer getting my Irish up,” I commented.
“Sorry Mr. Hughes.” Click!
Before this trip I was feeling scared. Now I was mad. Connors never get angry; instead they get mad. I’m not much a Connor, but something is in there.
I called my credit-card bank: they promised a new card overnight.
The insanity got worse. My motorized garage-door began acting wonky. No water was in a toilet-tank; it wouldn’t flush. And now this morning it sounds like a nor’easter is cancelling my connecting flight to Baltimore-Washington.
I’m told it’s my politics and religion, topics I avoid. If I would just become REPUBLICAN, and start going to church, all would be sweetness-and-light.
It’s gonna take a full frontal lobotomy for me to do that, at which point a friend regals me with “a bottle in front of me is better than a frontal lobotomy.”
I have too many tub-thumping CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN friends, and I don’t wanna lose ‘em. I also have many zealots trying to convert me. I don’t wanna lose them either.
The nor’easter is making things impossible. It’s not like I hafta be in Fort Lauderdale. So an entire morning got blown shutting things down. Car reservation, flight reservation, mail-hold, hotel reservation: all phonecalls, often into ridiculous time-consuming surveys. Never again do I call Southwest’s 800-number.
Plus texts and online chats. And madness on this laptop.
I glanced out my garage people-door, and there was my replacement credit-card. Those clowns had to UPS-express that replacement for a trip I had to cancel.
And of course “activate credit-card” online took me to Never-Never Land. I had to phone the bank.

• 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.

$541.95

“Yada-yada-yada, ‘accumulator,’ yada-yada, ‘corroded,’ yada-yada, ‘AC,’ yada-yada, ‘drain installed.’”
I was at my Ford dealer where I bought my car five years ago.
The electric radiator-fan, which comes on if the motor gets hot, like in idling traffic, was on all-the-time.
Explanation was arcane: “Corrosion in the AC accumulator made it not drain well. So pressure increased, making it think it was working hard, so the radiator-fan switched onto ‘high.’”
“What are the damages?” I asked.
“$541.95; AC fully recharged, we installed a supplementary cowl-drain, so yer all set.”
“Except my bank-account is $541.95 lighter.”
I didn’t actually say that, but I couldn’t help thinking it.
Repair something on a car, and yer out 500 smackaroos.
And ya can’t repair it yerself.
My thinking was a heat-sensor went bonkers. If I replaced it, after tortured looking and disassembly, I’d still have an electric radiator-fan constantly running.
Cars are so complex any more the average shade-tree mechanic can’t fix ‘em.
Repair technicians hafta go to school.
Visit yer veterinarian = fork over $200.
Years ago I had a ’72 Chevrolet Vega GT. It came with a self-repair manual. I got so I could tune it myself. I even got so I could set the ignition-points by feel.
Them days are gone. I don’t even change oil any more. Farming that out avoids skinned knuckles. Beyond that I hafta make sense of all the obscure technology in current cars.
My house has a pit in the garage. I haven’t been in it in years. Why bother? Car-repair is well beyond my comprehension.
But ya better be loaded, enough that $541.95 doesn’t break the bank. I better not publish that, lest Donald and his cohorts drain me dry.
It’s every man for himself. No longer do we work together for the common good. No longer is it “make ‘em laugh.” Now it’s “make ‘em cry.”

Mind-over-matter

“I think I actually deleted recording the 5 o’clock and 5:30 local TV-news,” I said to myself.
Little-by-little The Keed is learning how to drive that fantabulous remote pictured at left.
If you live in the Rochester area you know Spectrum, alias Spectrum/Time-Warner, previously Time-Warner Cable, changed its cable-TV signal to all-digital. This meant my DVD player could no longer record the local and national news.
I never watch TV anyway — I have too much fun on this laptop. The only TV I watch is the local and national news, recorded for viewing while I eat supper, which may not be until 7:30.
I set up a package a while ago, to -a) reduce cost, and -b) double Internet speed. TV had gotten much better, but I couldn’t record. The package made TV digital.
Internet-speed was doubled (so my speedtest says, but not when the kids up-the-street are playin’ their ‘pyooter-games). We plugged the TV-cable back into my old DVD so I could still record the news. Spectrum was still sending a signal my DVD could crunch. But last Wednesday they switched to “all-digital,” whatever that means, a signal my DVD could no longer crunch.
I needed Spectrum’s DVR to be able to record the news. Spectrum came out last Saturday to install their DVR, which swapped out their non-recording TV player.
“Don’t forget, yer talkin’ to someone born in the previous century,” I told the techie. “I gotta be able to drive this thing without pestering you guys.”
I still don’t know exactly what is happening: whether the actual recording takes place on their DVR here in my house. Or it’s at Spectrum’s palatial offices in Rochester.
“Go to Spectrum.com and follow their tutorial on how to use yer remote,” techie said.
“Yeah sure!’ I said. “I had a stroke; tutorials are mental overload. I have too many questions.”
So here I was to figger out this monster alone, no longer a wife to make suggestions and cheer me on.
In fact, I’m glad my wife is no longer around to endure my frustration. I usually figgered out things myself, but there was always the pre-solution blame-game.
Engage “try it and see what happens,” what got me able to work this ‘pyooter, then my iPhone. At nearly age-74 millennials are all-too-happy to tell me I’m over-the-hill. “Hill? What hill? I don’t remember any hill!”
56 buttons, fer cryin’ out loud!
Fiddling began that night. Ergo, how do I even know it’s on? Spectrum’s techie showed me a little, and also programmed four recordings: local news at 5, 5:30, and 6, plus the national news at 6:30.
My ancient DVD was still connected, and I could use it if my TV was reading it instead of my new DVR. The news probably recorded, but I couldn’t find it.
My DVD was still set up to record news pre-digital, but if so it wouldn’t play.
Or so it seemed. Who knew if it was doing things correctly.
I was able to get my old DVD-player to play a train-video I had (I’m a railfan). I watched that instead of The Donald’s latest 3 a.m. tweet from his Great White Throne.
I tried again the next night and got the national TV-news to play. This wasn’t just fiddling the remote. It was also figgerin’ their contorted interface.
My mower-man provided the following: “How do I know it’s on or off?”
“I need a clicking on-off switch so I know it’s on,” I responded. “What I get instead is some ‘pyooter-move flashing ‘on’ at me.”
“It better not talk,” my mower-man said. “If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s my car talking to me.”
Engage guile-and-cunning (the heavy hitter).
I got it to play both local and national the next night, plus the next couple nights. Except 6 p.m. local was programmed for 6 p.m. sharp. Often the 6 p.m. local starts at 5:59, so I need to change the start time.
Also it was still recording 5 and 5:30, and I watch neither. How do I delete? Sounds like another techie visit. Every night I poked around after supper, and last night I inadvertently discovered deletion of those two programming setups. I doubt I could do it again. I probably could, but wouldn’t know what I was doing.
So now it’s programmed to record only 6 p.m. local and 6:30 national. —As always, we’ll see what it does tonight. Out of 56 buttons I use only 23. I try others, and nothing happens.
Mind-over-matter.
“I’m just a mechanic,” my mower-man says.
“That silly remote looks like the Starship Enterprise,” I comment.

• 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.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.

56 buttons

“Don’t forget,” I said to the Spectrum techie; “yer talkin’ to someone born in the previous century.”
Spectrum/Time-Warner is my cable-TV provider, also my Internet.
Spectrum will switch to all digital next Wednesday. I can imagine the torrent of phonecalls from angry Grannies: “Where’s Dr. Phil?”
“What’s on the telly, Dora?”
“A penguin.”
The techie came out to switch me to a DVR (theirs) which would crunch their new digital signal.
Yet another remote, this with 56 buttons. I already have two other remotes: my TV remote has 38 buttons, and my DVD remote has 52.
“You got so many buttons it’s intimidating. When I was a kid we only had three channels. Now yer channel-lineup looks like a thousand; both sides of an 8&1/2 by 17 sheet of paper with print so tiny I gotta use cheaters.
And back then TV was over-the-air. We had an aluminum antenna on the roof that howled in the wind.
It’s much better now. Too bad Howdy-Doody and Camel-News-Caravan weren’t what we have now.
Mention rabbit-ears and Millennials think yer talkin’ about rabbits.
Wait a minute! Yer toggling back-and-forth between this button and that? I gotta be able to drive this sucker!”
And contrary to what I was told, the new remote doesn’t turn on my DVD. TV yes, but not my DVD. Only my old DVD remote does that.
Nothing new: my old DVD remote had a button for turning on my TV, but it didn’t work either.
Techie gone, I’m left alone. “Try it and see what happens,” what got me able to drive this ‘pyooter.
“Got Internet?” the techie asked before he left. “Go to Spectrum.com, and they got tutorials that walk you through drivin’ our remote.”
“Yeah sure,” I said. “I had a stroke. It’s called ‘information overload.’ I can’t compute all that.” (I already told him I was a stroke-survivor.)

• 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.

“Oh SHADDUP!”

“Sorry Robert, I didn’t get that!”
”Oh SHADDUP!” I said.
I was at Boike Counseling the other day in nearby Canandaigua.
I go there to discuss the death of my wife.
I was at the window reporting, taking my iPhone out of my pocket.
Siri (“sear-eee”) came on, the iPhone thingy that follows your voice commands.
I had inadvertently activated a button.
“Sorry Robert, I didn’t get that,” she said.
“Oh SHADDUP!” I shouted.
The entire waiting-room started laughing.
“What are you all laughing at?” I asked,
“Done the same thing!” they said.
“You should see me with the GPS-lady,” I said.
Exiting a plaza “turn right on Gibson St.”
“What you been smokin’ girl? Gibson is one-way, and that’s the wrong way.”
I’m in Williamsport, PA.
“Right lane for 15-south.”
“NO WAY JOSÉ! Ain’t doin’ it! The Keed is takin’ the expressway!”
Wondrous technology.
Actually Siri is pretty good; although I don’t do much. E.g. “Call Jack mobile” my brother-in-Boston, which she hasn’t goofed yet.
Siri will also search out stuff on the Internet when so commanded.
GPS is pretty good too. It gave me a better route to Altoona (PA) where I chase trains.
GPS is my iPhone; I use GoogleMaps.
How come Google, in its infinite wisdom, has my house 500 feet south of where it actually is?
I tell everyone to disregard GoogleMaps and look for my mailbox.
My iPhone has its own GPS app, but my cellphone store told me GoogleMaps was better, so they installed it on my phone.
No idea. In south FL, visiting my niece in Fort Lauderdale, my brother-in-law, who lives nearby, texted me a restaurant for an eat-out.
It was underlined, so my niece said “hit that.” My AppleMaps gave me the location, and GPSed a route. Lord-a-Mighty! A new iPhone trick, and it was even the same GPS-lady.
I used AppleMaps to GPS me to the restaurant = 20-25 miles, deep into Boca Raton. Into a tree-shaded parking-lot crammed with cars. Slowly circling behemoths waiting for someone to leave — maximum speed perhaps 2 mph.
My wife, having died, misses all this.
She also misses Trump as prez.
I got my first Smartphone just before she died, a Motorola Droid-X®. It wasn’t too bad, but total reboots required removing the battery = taking it apart.
My brother-in-DE had an iPhone, despite Apple being described as Satan personified. That led to my iPhone-4, an i-5, and now an i-6. All were contract renewals — my cellphone service is Verizon.
At first my iPhone was mainly a phone. It became more, but I’ve yet to master its potential.
What really blows me away is how good its camera is. It’s not my Nikon, but often my blog-pictures are my iPhone.
What impresses me most is how it can shoot available-light inside = no flash.
Also its depth-of-field; so much is in focus. It must be shooting through a pinhole, f/64 or even f/128.
I discovered Siri by surprise; didn’t know I had it.
Every once-in-a-while I activate Siri by mistake.
“Sorry Robert, I didn’t understand that!”
”DIE-DIE-DIE!” I say.

• “Robert” and “The Keed” are of course me, Bob Hughes, alias “BobbaLew.”
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.
• RE: “chase trains......” —I been a railfan since age-2; now 73.
• “Depth-of-field” (that part of an image in focus) is determined by “aperture-size” = the part of the lens that passes light (the image). The larger the aperture, less will be in focus = “depth-of-field” is decreased. Pretty good depth-of-field is rendered at openings of F/4, f/5.6, F/8, and F/11, aperture sizes typical for the past few years. Years ago you might see F/2, F/1.4 or even F/1.2 — needed to pass enough light for film used at that time; usually available-light-no-flash on Kodak’s Tri-X. At that aperture depth-of-field was minimal. The greatest depth-of-field is rendered by a pinhole, except it doesn’t pass much light.

Into the glittering future

My gigantic new suitcase modem. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“Sooner-or-later you’ll have no TV at all,” said the Spectrum techie.
“And why is that?” I asked.
“Spectrum is going digital. Soon you won’t be able to get TV without a Spectrum TV-box.”
“Spectrum” is my cable-TV; previously Time-Warner, or merged, or bought, whatever.
My Internet is also Spectrum, previously Time-Warner. I have cable Internet, not Dish, or whatever else it could be.
When my wife-and-I had this house built 28 years ago, there was no cable out front.
But I figgered there would be eventually, so I trenched a connection.
In a couple years the cable-guys were out front putting up cable.
I called the cable-company and asked them to hook us up.
Go back far enough and the first TV I ever saw was my grandparents’ giant RCA heating-unit. Its screen was an 8-inch tube that flickered. That was 1948. It was gigantic with its tiny screen — probably over 100 pounds. Inside were glowing red tubes — you dared not touch anything = harmful or fatal!
On it were Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, etc. My grandfather sang along to Bing Crosby, who he loved.
The first TV my family had was a black-and-white RCA console in 1949 with a circular picture-tube 12 inches in diameter.
Back then TV was over-the-air, and our stations were from Philadelphia — we had three — all national network (ABC, NBC, and CBS).
An antenna was on the back of our house; I remember its metal mounting tube howling in a hurricane.
My father, an employee of Texaco, had us watch “Texaco Star Theater” with Milton Berle.
Being hyper-religious and against smoking, he also turned down the sound during “Camel News Caravan” so we children didn’t hear the cigarette ads.
By the time my family moved to DE (1957), our TV was about done. When it finally failed, my father refused to replace it.
He loudly declared TV was Satan personified: degraded yooth boogying to the Devil’s music, rock-n-roll, on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” (Gasp).
I remember my 11th-grade English teacher being utterly flabbergasted when I reported I couldn’t watch “Julius Caesar.”
Before we moved, color-TV began. That was 1956 I think. It was so awful I never bought a color-TV until perhaps 35-40 years later.
I never watch TV anyway. Dreadfully boring!
I don’t think my wife-and-I bought a TV until the Watergate hearings. I remember vacationing at the south Jersey seashore, and never leaving our apartment while Senator-Sam wagged his craggy finger skyward at John Dean. (“Be ye not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap!”)
That was black-and-white from Sears.
I bought an antenna for out here in West Bloomfield to receive the three Rochester channels. I still have it, but it was never mounted. Cable-TV began in Rochester before we moved.
But no cable-TV in West Bloomfield until well after we moved.
In the ‘80s, color-TV became good enough for me to switch.
My first was a fairly large Sony Trinatron® with a 13-inch screen. I installed it on our dinner-table atop our Sony Betamax® VCR.
Soon Beta, supposedly the better format, went the way of all flesh; so I replaced it with a Sony VHS recorder. By then Sony was no longer made in Japan. (Remember when “Made in Japan” signified junk?)
I probably also went through a couple TVs, and now have the cheapest (smallest) flat-screen I could get, a “Dynex” from Best-Buy, I think their store-brand.
I now am on video-recorder number-three. 10-15 years ago things were recorded to DVR discs. Machines number-two and three are/were dubbers - dub my VHS tapes to disc.
I’ve never done it. Lack of time/motivation. Plus I can play video discs on this laptop. I’d rather, since it remembers where I stopped.
I also connected to Time-Warner’s Internet. My cable splits to feed both my TV and computer.
My monthly cable-bill was around $90. 20 MBps Internet and the cheapest most basic  TV = maybe 10 channels.
Spectrum said I qualified for 60 MBps, plus more channels — all for about $60 per month.
“Suppose I never watch TV, just the news?” I asked. “Can I increase my Internet speed yet remain basic TV?”
“Nope; has to be our package.”
Okay, increasing my Internet speed is worth the extra channels, especially for fewer bucks.
A Spectrum techie came to upgrade.
He installed their TV-box, plus a new modem (pictured).
Turns out that TV-box disabled my ancient (“ancient” at 10 years?) video-recorder. I no longer could record news.
“I wish I’d known that,” I said. “I mighta stayed put.”
What-to-do?
“I could reinstall our cable into yer old DVR machine. That would take you back to what you were doing. You could record the news.
So, I inadvertently got what I wanted: tripled Internet speed, still basic el-cheapo TV, all for $30 less.
So now I have their TV-box dormant on my table. And it produces much better TV than what I had.
Plus it advances me to “JunkyardTV,” etc.
The techie commented my ancient system would eventually vaporize. No more TV without their box.
If I wanted to record the news, I’d hafta switch to their fantabulous video-recorder; no discs, just a hard-drive.
“This here machine is about 10 years old,” I pointed. “When it fails, or if TV goes away first, I’ll upgrade to your box and fancy-dan disc-less recorder.”
So, into the glittering future.
Dr. Oz and Oprah via Spectrum = impressive, but droll and boring.
When our house was built I hard-wired a phone box into every room. Within two years, a single phone could transmit to your handset in another room, or perhaps outside.
Now I intend to dump my landline. 55 years ago, when I graduated high-school, who’da thunk?
I call my aunt in south Jersey, and it’s like right next door. That used to be long-distance, difficult to arrange, and extra cost.

(I’ve seen as high as 75.). (Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

What will TV be in a decade? is Spectrum doomed? My connection to the world outside is their cable. Satellites zoom around the planet — I could get my Internet via Dish®.
And Judge-Judy could be on this laptop; although no Judge-Judy for this kid.
Whatever, 60 MBps download speed, and TV as it was for the time being.
“The moving finger having writ, moves on,” I said to the techie as he left. It fell flat, of course.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.
• I lived in south Jersey until I was 13, a suburb of Philadelphia.
• “Senator-Sam” is U.S. Senator Sam Ervin of NC. “Be ye not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” was Ervin’s rendering of Galations 6:7 in the King James Version, which reads “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
• “MBps” is megabytes-per-second. Computer information is stored in “bytes.”
• “The moving finger having writ, moves on,” is the BobbaLew rendering of  “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on,” from Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the poem “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam,” 1859.

Chip-Reader

Probably a Wegmans chip-reader.

“I have wonderful news,” I said to my doggy daycare friends.
“Danny finally got chip-readers.”

Danny Wegman.

“Danny” is Danny Wegman, current head-honcho of Wegmans supermarkets, which dominates Rochester’s grocery-biz, and is now expanding into the east-coast megalopolis.
“He finally sold that Ferrari and joined the 21st century,” I said to my checkout clerk at the Canandaigua (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”) Wegmans.
She got it. Danny is a car-guy; he street-raced a 454 Chevelle growing up.
He’s five years younger than me, which makes him a Big-Block dude.
Danny lives in a grand estate on Canandaigua Lake just south of Canandaigua.


Probably Danny’s Ferrari. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

If a red Ferrari is parked in the Canandaigua Wegmans parking-lot, it’s probably Danny.
Wegmans is a family business, privately owned.
Danny inherited from his father, who inherited from John and Walter Wegman who founded Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company in 1916.
My doggy daycare friends are **** and **** ******** of ******** ***** Pet-Grooming in Canandaigua.
Both are ex of the Mighty Mezz, the Canandaigua Daily Messenger newspaper. where I worked after my stroke.
**** was a reporter/editor in News; **** was an ad executive.
Both eventually left the Mighty Mezz, **** first after they gave her a raw deal; then ****.
For whatever reason **** did not get along that well with the paper’s Executive-Editor, whereas I did.
I sometimes think the Executive-Editor liked me because -a) I wasn’t costing him much, yet -b) I was extremely enthusiastic. It was the best job I ever had; compared to driving bus it was fantastic.
My pay was a pittance; usually the case with stroke-survivors.  But compared to Transit it was fun.
My job-title was “typist,” but I never typed anything. What I did was develop computer-tricks that saved time — plus make the newspaper more accurate.
I also generated reams of page-blowing copy. Despite my stroke I got so I could OCR scan (“Optical-Character-Recognition” on a computer).
I always say the reason I recovered so well from a stroke is because of that newspaper.
Wegmans has been dominant as long as I’ve been in Rochester — almost 60 years.
When I came there were Star Markets, but they tanked.
Only one competitor remains, “Tops Friendly Markets,” from near Buffalo. But I don’t perceive them as “friendly.”
There are other supermarkets, but they’re not part of gigantic chains like Wegmans or Tops.
I actually patronize three supermarkets, Tops and Wegmans in Canandaigua, plus a local supermarket in nearby Honeoye Falls (“hone-eee-OYE;” as in “boy”).
Wegmans seems cheapest, although they have the reputation of being expensive.
They use “consistent-low-pricing,” where the others use special sales on things I don’t often buy. (I don’t need a year’s supply of dishwasher detergent!)
The store in Honeoye Falls seems far more expensive — Wegmans or Tops haven’t invaded yet.
I shop those three supermarkets because I know where things are — or were.
But mainly Wegmans. Their employees seem friendlier = helpful when I ask where something is.
They’re not likely to excoriate me for interrupting their day-long donut break. I had that happen at WalMart* once.
Wegmans seems to be a happy ship; they treat their employees as valuable.
I think that’s mainly Danny — he’s not Simon Legree.
Yet for the past couple months no chip-reader at Mighty Weggers.
I thought they were required as of the first of the year. Before chip-readers the card-issuing bank ate fraud; but would not continue to do so unless the store used a chip-reader.
I.e. Still a stripe-reader, the store swallows the fraud, no longer the bank.
Scuttlebutt had that chip-readers take too long: BEEP! “You can now remove your card.” —At which point the clerk tells you to pull out your card = add 30 seconds to the transaction.
I hardly ever purchase groceries with cash. I use my credit-card, then pay in full. —That way my grocery expenses float up to a month. (Plus the banks pay points for me to use my card.)
“Danny, ya gotta quit tearing up the lake with yer gigantic Cigarette speedboat. The one with four unmuffled Big-Block Chevys.”

A Cigarette speedboat.

“He finally sold that Ferrari,” I said to the checkout-girl.
She knew about Danny’s Ferrari.




• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke.
• 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.

“Creepy!”

.....said my friend **** ********, president and head-honcho of ******** ***** Pet Grooming in nearby Canandaigua. They groom and daycare my dog.
The other day was ****’s birthday. She fired up Google for some reason, and hovered her mouse over “Google.”
It flashed “Happy Birthday” at her.
At this point my friend in Syracuse would say “kewel.”
I side with ****. SNOOP ALERT!
Her husband ****, who helps her out, and helps this aging geezer stay in his house.....
.....reported he ordered parts for his lawnmower from Sears.
Almost immediately Facebook was entreating he buy tools from Sears.
We glanced at the sprinklers in the ceiling of  their shop.
“They may look like sprinklers,” I observed; “but actually they’re NSA microphones.”
A couple weeks ago I online ordered a Bearcat radio-scanner from Home-Depot.
After ordering I switched to Facebook. There, on the right side, was a Home-Depot ad exhorting me to buy a scanner.
As I enter the nearby supermarket I can watch myself on video, hobbling behind my wussy-kart.
They’re watching us everywhere.
My niece’s daughter visited the White House in Washington DC. While there she uttered the word “assassinate.”
“Don’t say that!” she was told. Secret Service appear, Uzis drawn.
Years ago Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, PA put in a webcam at Horseshoe Curve. Video streamed live from the Mighty Curve.
My wife and I visited, and looked for that webcam.
After finding it, I called my brother-in-Boston.
“Fire up the Curve webcam!” I shouted.
We thereafter waved.
“Chop-chop!” my brother exclaimed. “Lazy, no-good, layabouts!”
A lady wondered what we were doing.
“That’s the webcam up there,” I pointed. “Yer all over the Internet.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Let me comb my hair.”

• RE: “wussy-kart.......” —Most supermarkets now have small shopping-carts that don’t hold anywhere near as much as the big carts. My siblings call ‘em “wussy-karts.
• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely.

Profanity included

I shall repeat EXACTLY what I e-mailed my Boston brother:
“Damn thing finally ordered.
50 calendars; $1,880.71 — free shipping.
Shutterfly was refusing my credit-card, which they crunched many times in the past.
‘Contact-us’ on Shutterfly? Go figure!
Fevered calls to Chase in New York City; I guess they refused my charge, but accepted when I called.
(‘Connor.’)
Around-and-around we went; turned on Christmas lights, made bed, walked dog, closed gates while waiting.
At least an hour passed and it still wouldn’t crunch.
Now we’ll see if they show up: between Mon. 1/9 - Fri. 1/13.
(I was about to lump it!)”
My brother is Nazarene, I guess, which makes me try to not use profanity.
I am a sinner (gasp!), or so I’m told, mainly by those Biblically advised to “judge not.” Which makes me tend to avoid profanity.
Although I will admit to gravitating toward F-bombs as a result of my being a bus-driver.
Among other bus-drivers, use of F-bombs in ordinary conversation was the norm. I had to restrict my F-bombs at the Messenger newspaper. Those people were much more civilized than Transit.
The past couple years my Boston brother and I have traveled to Altoona, PA, to chase and photograph trains.
My brother and I are both railfans, me all my life; my brother some time ago.
Altoona is at the foot of Allegheny Mountain, long ago a barrier to trade with our nation’s interior.
Just west of Altoona is where mighty Pennsylvania Railroad conquered Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
Pennsy did it without steep grades or switchbacks.
Grading in the early 1800s wasn’t what it is now. Often to get over a mountain a railroad had to employ switchbacks. The train had to go into the first switchback, then reverse up to the next switchback.
Operation was time-consuming.
Often steep grades were required. An earlier attempt financed by the state included inclined planes. It was PA’s attempt to parry NY’s Erie Canal. It was a combination railroad and canal system, since Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be canaled.
Railroad cars had to be winched up the planes by stationary steam-engines.
The planes were as much as 8 percent. That’s eight feet up for every 100 feet forward. Adhesion railroads won’t hold rail that steep — they’ll slip.
The Pennsylvania Railroad avoided both switchbacks and steep grades. Helper locomotives had to be added to get over Allegheny Mountain, but at only 1.75 to 1.8 percent average, the grade was no longer a barrier.
4 percent woulda been a barrier. Trains can do that adhesion, but hafta be broke into sections. A 4 percent grade would probably require three or four sections.
At 1.75 to 1.8 percent, the railroad didn’t hafta break up the train. Just stop to add helpers.
I first went to Altoona in 1968, soon after marriage.
I’ve visited many times, mostly to Horseshoe Curve, the trick Pennsy used to get up the eastern front of Allegheny Mountain.
Pennsy installed a park in the Curve apex; they were very proud.
That park is my favorite railfan pilgrimage-spot.
My stroke in 1993 stopped my visits for a while. But I finally went again post-stroke.
I started photographing there my first visit, 1968, when film was the photographic medium.
Maybe 15+ years ago I switched from film to digital with a Nikon D100.
Perhaps 10 years ago I became friends with Altoona railfan Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), who was friends with another railfan who ran a bed-and-breakfast I patronized in nearby Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”) atop Allegheny Mountain.
Phil was running a business carting railfans around the area to chase and photograph trains.
So began a monstrous cache of fabulous train images taken with Phil.
I considered a calendar. Kodak Gallery had an online calendar application to make a calendar with your own images.
Usually it’s family pictures made into a calendar for Granny. I decided to use my own pictures instead.
I did at least two or three calendars with Kodak Gallery before Kodak tanked. I called the calendar “Allegheny Crossing” with “photos by Bob Hughes with Phil Faudi.”
With Kodak’s bankruptcy, Kodak Gallery sold to Shutterfly®, another computerized photography application. Could I get Shutterfly to produce as impressive a calendar as Kodak Gallery?
My artistic bent was at play. “If my name is on it, it’s gonna look good. No cheap-shots!”
“Will this font do?”
“NOPE!”
“How about this?”
“What you been smokin’, dude?”
Then....
“There it is..... That looks great! The artist has spoken.”
My brother began discovering some of the great photo-locations Phil had shown me.
Soon he was joining me on train-chases; I think our first was when Nickel Plate 765 ran excursions through Altoona a few years ago.
Nickel Plate 765 (2-8-4) is the BEST restored steam-locomotive I’ve ever seen.
What happens now is my brother and I visit Altoona four or five times per year to chase and photograph trains.
The calendar determines photo-choice, mainly the seasons. January, February and December are Winter pictures = snow. October is Fall-foliage: “I need a Fall-foliage picture.” March is melting snow, if possible.
Having done it so many times I picked up tips from Phil, and my brother has caught up. Phil no longer leads me around; his wife has Multiple Sclerosis, so he stays home.
As trains operate over the mountain, the engineers call out signals: e.g. “26T, east on Two, 252, CLEAR!”
We hear that on our railroad-radio scanners, and I know where milepost 252 is.
The railroad also has lineside defect detectors, so on our scanners we hear “Norfolk Southern defect-detector, milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects.”
253.1 is Carney’s Crossing, a grade-crossing west of the mountain. Track Three is westbound.
If I am west of 253.1, I’ll see that train.
Or....
Do I have time to beat that train even farther west so I can set up and photograph without waiting too long?
What a thrill train-chasing becomes. Ziggity-zag! Up-and-down The Mountain we race. Train-images pile up.
That railroad serves the east-coast megalopolis, so waits aren’t long.
The train engineers also broadcast their train-number as they pass a signal, so we know the train-number of the train we just photographed: e.g. “26T.”
Over a year we end up with hundreds of photographs of trains. Again my artist-bent weighs in. I look at each photograph to cull the extraordinaries.
My philosophy, and my brother agrees, is “Shaddup-and-shoot.” Some are planned, but many of those bomb. Often the “oh, what-the-heck” shaddup-and-shoots are extraordinary.
So out of hundreds of photos I select 13 for a Shutterfly calendar. Crop and process, apply Photoshop if needed, and edit my captions for spelling and syntax errors.
My brother-in-Boston is my train-number guy. I e-mail him a picture, then “I need the train-number, dude.”
After perhaps a month of dorking around, I order from Shutterfly.
I usually do this late November — no more mowing — because those calendars are Christmas presents to people.
Although I vastly enjoy doing them. I make Shutterfly give me an impressive calendar.
I ran late this year, mainly because Shutterfly dumped my format template without telling me = thank you Shutterfly.
They thereby began their own format selection, which in my humble opinion looked AWFUL. (The artist speaks.)
Their format was chopping off parts of locomotives.
Never in a million years! (Again the artist speaks.)
I started from scratch, which put me perhaps a month behind.
I also do a proof calendar — only one — to make sure things are right and look good.
At least their insanity was only one calendar.
Finally the other day I was ready to order.
So 50 calendars, belated Christmas gifts to all-and-sundry.
Shutterfly and Chase-Visa refused to crunch my order.
Yet another delay.
As I said in my e-mail, fevered calls to Chase in New York City. They had refused my charge, but then approved it per my phonecall.
“For security purposes, please state your mother’s maiden-name.”
“Connor,” I said.
Meanwhile, can I engage an actual person at Shutterfly?
Techy Alert!
Shutterfly has 89 bazilyun walls erected, solutions to possible problems they surmised.
Somebody sold all that to Shutterfly so they could hire fewer humans to man their help-desk — if it exists.
“Contact-us.” ARE YOU KIDDING? No sign of any such thing.
At least an hour passed; I thought I was gonna hafta call Chase again.
I also re-entered my credit-card information to Shutterfly, after I stumbled where I could do it.
Finally my calendar-order crunched. Maybe Chase-Visa’s approval took an hour to apply.
Now we’ll see if the calendars actually arrive. Years ago the Post-Office lost a huge Kodak Gallery order — which Kodak had to eat; no wonder they went bankrupt.
I don’t consider all that insanity and hair-pulling progress.

• 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 October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years, over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• “Bob Hughes (‘huze’),”  is me, BobbaLew.

I still can do it

“72 years old, had a stroke, but I’m still able to do this,” I said to myself through tears.
I had just completed online application for a $40 rebate on anti-flea medication for my dog.
It’s called “Bravecto,” is oral, and It’s made by Merck.
The tears are a stroke-effect. I had a stroke almost 23 years ago, but am left with slight lability: poor emotional control. It can manifest itself as excessive laughing or crying. With me it’s a tendency to cry more readily than normal.
There were the usual hairballs.
—First was indicating where you bought the stuff. A bunch of vet sites were listed, but not Honeoye Falls Veterinary (“hone-eee-OYE;” as in “boy”).
I was ready to check “not listed,” but noticed I was only on the first page of about 10.
There it was on page four.
Like everyone has time to pore through 89 bazilyun veterinarians.
—Next was “product code.”
The site displayed a product code, but it wasn’t the one on my box.
I tried to overwrite, but couldn’t. So I clicked “add product code.”
I did so, but NYET! “Erroneous product code.”
Hey man, it’s right on the box!
Time to call the 800 number.
“Welcome to Merck’s rebate-center. Yada-yada-yada-yada.”
10 minutes so far.
“You gotta use the product code Merck gives you,” I was told.
“So why was I directed to the one on your box?” I asked.
“Won’t work. The one on the site will.”
“Next.” “I hope I don’t hafta call you back.”
—Next was scan and upload my receipt from the veterinarian; or copy and mail. That’s for grannies, I surmised.
So I scanned it onto my desktop.
Now to upload.
And how, pray tell, do I do that, with no visible upload function?
Back to the 800 number; same girl.
“See that ‘Browse your device’?”
To me a “device” is my Smartphone, not my computer.
That’s the usage I’ve heard.
Why don’t they say “computer?”
“Okay, I’ll try it. Hold on.”
—Receipt uploaded: “Now what?”
“You got the ‘thank you’ page.”
“Print that and you’re finished.”
Well yes, indeed, it was the “thank you” page, but it looked like all the others.
The medication cost $100; I get rebated $40.
“Easy as pie,” the vet clerk said. “Just go online, fill out the form, and scan our receipt if ya can.”
At which point I usually say, although it doesn’t apply to me: “What if I don’t have a computer?”
In which case Merck says “TOUGH,” and adds another 40 smackaroos to its Mercedes account.
I can’t imagine my mother-in-law doing this. She still has a rotary phone.

What today?

File this in my “What fantastical new iPhone trick am I gonna learn today” box.
Similar to grocery-store visits: “Who am I gonna see today?”
The other day (Sunday, November 29th, 2015) I ate out with my niece, her young daughter, and my niece’s mother, my sister-in-law.
My sister-in-law is my wife’s brother’s first wife, and my niece is their only child.
My niece was born in 1969, which makes her 46. Her daughter just turned 21.
Her daughter and I have iPhones, and she is much more tech-savvy than me.
Back-and-forth with wisecracks, snide remarks, putdowns, verbal potshots.
I drove city bus, so parried much worse. Fortunately my potshots make her laugh.
“Okay, what do I do here?” I asked.
Not too long ago I clicked my iTunes music-icon, and it locked up my Apple music page.
I was expecting that to still happen, at which point I would have said “now what?”
But the Apple music-page displayed a previously unseen radio-button that accessed my iTunes files.
So of course young Miss Tech-Savvy clicked it in a nanosecond, implying I was stupid for not seeing it.
Well, no radio-button before.
Apple’s iPhone operating-system instituted a password feature a few years ago. The phone won’t work unless the password in entered — a feature the NSA hates; they can’t load up your phone with porn, and arrest you as a prevert.
So every time I use my iPhone I hafta get past that password lock, which only I know.
“What about your thumb?” niece’s daughter asked.
iPhone has some trick to recognize your thumbprint to unlock your phone.
“So show me,” I said.
Niece’s daughter already uses that on her iPhone. She no longer enters her password.
We fired up my settings, and went about setting up my thumbprint to unlock my phone.
After maybe three minutes, well beyond the attention-span of my niece’s daughter, I had it recognizing my thumbprint.
This takes place under the “home” button.
But all it is is a quicker way to unlock your phone; the thumbprint function doesn’t disable the password function.
Which means the NSA could still unlock my phone after 89 bazilyun tries on their super-computer.
So how does Apple do that? Read my thumbprint on top of the “home” button?
Willikers! I learn some fancy-dan iPhone trick every day.
No wonder the Windoze guys think Jobs was the Devil personified.
They copy some Apple-trick, then advertise the Hell out of it, as if they invented it.
Like Apple’s “Siri” (“sear-eee”), for example, or cloud storage. Siri was such a whiz-bang idea, Microsoft copied it, then rolled it out while still wonky, so it embarrassed the Microsoft head-honcho when it muffed a command.
(Although Apple’s Siri was merged from an outside company.)
Microsoft advertises cloud-storage like they invented it. Apple had it first, but didn’t trumpet it.
This has happened with my iPhone before.
Not long after I got it, I wanted to put my own MP3 of a steam-locomotive whistle — I’m a railfan, and have been all my life — on my phone as its ringtone.
Back in 1993 my brother-and recorded a video of a restored steam-locomotive down in WV.
I had the same ringtone on a earlier Android phone.
I did this because years ago I took a railfan trip down into PA, and all the others on the trip had a diesel-locomotive horn as their ringtone.
They all had the same ringtone. A phone would ring and “Whose phone is that?”
A “Ringtone-Maker” app made that MP3 my ringtone.
So now if someone calls I know it’s my phone.
You can also individualize ringtones for a specific caller, but I haven’t done that.
Then I discovered “Siri.” Now just about all my phonecalls are by Siri, although sometimes Siri doesn’t work.
I guess Siri is over the Internet, so doesn’t work if I’m not connected.
My car has Microsoft “Sync” with a Siri equivalent. But it’s much less reliable.
Siri works.
Not too long ago I was shown how to reboot my phone, and how to move app icons on my “home” screen.
So now it’s recognizing my thumbprint. What next?
Thumbprint function established, my niece’s daughter observed she could never teach old people.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m 71 years old and had a stroke. I ain’t supposed to be able to do this.
I do it by asking questions” (gasp).
“How did you get there?” I ask. “Fat lotta help you are. You’re not showing me anything. You’re just doing it yourself.
Well sorry, I ain’t tuning out! I’m gonna drive you nuts with questions.”
At the Messenger newspaper, where I began as an unpaid intern after my stroke, I fell into the habit of developing computer tricks to reduce our production time.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, or how he does it. All I know is producing that stockbox went from three hours to five minutes.
“Stockbox in five minutes? That’s not possible! Page 2A was always the last page filed. We were waiting for that stockbox.”
“Can too,” I said.
I showed him the trick.
“You had a stroke? You’re not supposed to be able to develop stuff like this.”
“Grady, if I have Meg doing the Post websites, I need your magic macro on her computer.”
“Beep-beep-beep-beep.” I heard her working it; it triggered her computer’s alert-sound.

• 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 October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• “NSA” is National Security Agency.
• “Jobs” is Steve Jobs, deceased, founder of Apple Computer.
• “Grady” is the nickname I was given at the Messenger; see info at right. We also had an employee named “Meg Lund.” —The Messenger was also the Post suburban newspapers beside the Canandaigua Messenger = Messenger-Post Media.

Burger Bar

Wanna feel very old and behind-the-times?
Patronize the Burger Bar at Mighty Weggers in Canandaigua.
Mighty Weggers is Wegmans supermarkets, the chain that dominates the Rochester grocery-market, and is now expanding all over the east coast.
Wegmans is based near Rochester.
Locals take tourists to Wegmans, they’re that attractive.
Wegmans is what a supermarket is wished to be. Glitzy and loaded with product. Plus you don’t have to wait at Wegmans. It’s staffed to avoid waiting at checkouts.
And now Wegmans has become a dispensary for prepared food.
Bakeries are usually installed, plus a delicatessen. There’s even a food-court. Customers can scoop prepared food from counter-dishes, then sit down and eat at a table.
This was despite complaints of earlier Wegmans head-honcho: Robert Wegman, now gone.
His son Danny wanted to install a food-court.
“We’re a grocery, not a restaurant,” Robert protested.
When Robert died, food-courts blossomed.
And it was probably a good move.
Recently the TV-news reported no one cooks any more. (I still cook.) They buy prepared meals instead.
So Danny drives a megabuck Ferrari. (He’s also a car-guy. He street-raced a 454 Chevelle when younger.)
And the Canandaigua store, although it isn’t the jewel-in-the-crown, is the store near where Danny lives.
He lives on Canandaigua Lake.
His Ferrari is often in the parking-lot.
Taking the food-court idea upmarket, the Canandaigua Weggers decided to install a Burger Bar.
Instead of a waitress (excuse me, “server”) giving you a menu, then taking your order......
It’s serve yourself.
A guy at an order-counter takes your order and hands you a radio-thingy.
“And what, pray tell, do I do with this thing?” I asked.
“When your food is ready,” he bubbled; “it will beep you, after which you go to the out-counter and pick up your food.”
I ordered a cheeseburger, seven smackaroos.
“I’d like something to drink too.”
“Here’s your cup; $1.79. Just fill it at the drink-machine across the way.”
So far, so good. I successfully ascertained the order-line. Madness was all around, and most of those present were younger than me.
Little kids rocketed about, bouncing off kiosks and patrons.
Next was the dreaded Coke machine. It’s like a gas-pump; one spigot dispenses all.
I watched the guy in front of me, trying to figger the thing out.
Now it was my turn.
A touch-menu displayed at least seven kinds of Coke: regular, no-caffeine, diet, Zero, cherry, etc.
I fingered “regular,” then pushed a button.
89 bazilyun ice-cubes disgorged all over the floor, but no Coke.
I tried again. More ice-cubes, but still no Coke.
“Obviously I’m doing something wrong,” I cried.
“Here, what kind do you want?” asked the young dude behind me.
Again, we pushed the “regular” button.
No ice-cubes, but Coke this time.
I don’t get it! We did the same things I did.
(Well actually, we didn’t. I hadn’t pushed the button, which noteless is apparently ice-cubes.)
I waited off to the side drinking my Coke, then decided I should go ask the out-counter if I was supposed to wait there.
But suddenly my radio-thingy was beeping.
I got in line at the out-counter, but then decided an old geezer in front of me in a wheelchair cart was waiting in line with a non-beeping thingy.
“Perhaps we should jump ahead,” I said to another.
“Yes, you should. Yours is beeping, but mine isn’t.”
I got my cheeseburger, but it looked awful.
Rather than set up counters for ketchup, mustard and relish the cooks just slather everything on in advance.
Great! It looks like garbage on my cheeseburger — mustard and ketchup stirred, with relish heaped on top.
It looked like the recently polluted Animas river in CO, mustard yellow but with blood mixed in and garbage heaped on top.
And never in a million years would I put mustard and relish on a cheeseburger.
I managed to find an empty table, so I quietly ate my cheeseburger alone.
“Is this what food-service is coming to?” I thought. The racket was deafening and madness reigned.
Finally I had to ditch my trash and plate and tray.
I asked some guy in a Wegmans tee-shirt “My guess is you don’t want me to trash this plate and tray.”
“Of course not! The bus-boy station is right over there, and your trash goes in the can underneath.”
I walked outside. Wegmans was holding a “Cruze-Night” car show, which is why I came.
That’s car-guy Danny.
My friend Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”) was showing his Camaro.
“So Bobby,” he asked; “howd-ja do?”
“Well, I dumped ice-cubes all over the floor. It sure ain’t the restaurant where we regularly eat.
And my cheeseburger looked like garbage. I suppose what joy there might be in patronizing ‘Burger Bar’ would be figuring it out.”
Food subservient to technology. Facebook food.

• Canandaigua Lake is one the Finger Lakes, a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. They were formed by the receding glacier. Canandaigua Lake is one of the smaller Finger Lakes.
• “Bobby” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.

Around-and-around we go

Another case of time-saving technology tossing a time-gobbling monkey-wrench in the works.
I pay my bills online, not the individual payees charging my accounts, but me authorizing my bank-account to pay my bills. This avoids the possibility of a payee going hog-wild and charging my account into oblivion, multiple charges to pay one bill.
I’ve seen it happen. A friend had her checking-account overdrawn by multiple charges for a single bill. Try to get this straightened out by some service-rep in India whose command of English is “I’m deeply, deeply sorry.”
My bank works okay. If anyone makes a mistake it’s me. My bills are paid electronically.
So the other day I set up to make bill-payments.
But my bank suddenly decided my computer was not authorized, same computer I’ve used for years.
So much for setting up bill-payments. I have to “authorize” my computer, a process that will probably take a half-hour.
I didn’t have a half-hour then, and wouldn’t have it the next day either. I couldn’t authorize my computer until the following day (today), which means bill-pay set-ups wouldn’t occur for two+ days.
Thank you, wondrous technology. What was supposed to take five minutes will now take two+ days.
I’ve had this happen before. My bank will suddenly declare my computer not authorized. Why I’ll never know.
Suddenly I have to jump through hoops.
It seems madness like is endemic to our wonderful technological breakthroughs.
I try to order things online, and some glitch in their website makes it impossible, or I have to log in or register.
For what? So they can ply me with 89 bazilyun purchase suggestions, or know my whereabouts?
I don’t have to register to shop at a store — at least not yet.
Computerization promised we’d use less paper. But we’re using more paper now than ever before.
And a tiny appointment-card becomes an 8&1/2-by-11 sheet of printer-paper.
So goes another tree in the forest!
And suddenly my five-minute session of setting up bill-payments becomes a two-day ordeal.
And I predict a frustrated phonecall.

• To be fair, amazingly I was able the “authorize” my computer online in five minutes; that is, without a phonecall. A day saved — what about next time? If anything can go wrong, it will.
• And my bank’s service-reps are local.

Is carbon-based life doomed?

The other day (Tuesday, June 16th, 2015) I had occasion to interface with our marvelous technological world.
I had to make two phonecalls: one to Time-Warner because my cable-TV wasn’t working, and the other to E-ZPass, because my replenishment credit-card would no longer work.
I had to update my credit-card.
I called Time-Warner first, and was answered by a voice-recognition machine.
This is not dependable, so I immediately fired up my virtual telephone keypad. I was calling from my Smartphone, and they usually want keypad strokes as answers.
The tortured litany began.
“English or Español? Press one for English, two for Español.”
So far, so good.
And so began a series of questions, at least 10 or 15. Again the answers were “one” or “two.”
I’ve encountered machines like this before, but usually no more than four questions, the last menu-option being “0,” a human.
And then of course the human asks you all the same questions you just machine-answered.
“Please state your problem (for the voice-recognition); for example, ‘no cable-TV.’”
“No cable-TV,” I said.
“Please enter your P-I-N number.”
Oh brother..... I have no idea what that is. I don’t think I even have one.
Am I gonna be able to report my outage at all?
Finally, after 89 bazilyun machine questions, I had the option to talk to a service-rep, an actual human.
I got some girl, probably in India, talking broken English. I could hardly understand her.
After heavy stumbling, and having her repeat, I reported my outage. She would arrange a technician to call.
I had to have her repeat the word “technician.”
15 minutes to do what coulda been done in five.
My next call was E-ZPass.
E-ZPass is the bit that lets you blast through toll-barriers with your car. A reader reads your transponder, and charges your E-ZPass account.
When I set up the E-ZPass I authorized replenishment of my E-ZPass account by charging my credit-card. My credit-card bank sent me one of their fancy-dan new “chip” cards. My old card would no longer work.
So I was to notify any businesses who automatically charge my credit-card account, that my old card would no longer work. They had to use my new card, which had a different expiration-date, and a different security-code.
I’ve done that, but I still had to do E-ZPass, lest they go ballistic unable to charge my old card.
State Police at my door in riot-gear. (”You in deep trouble, boy!”)
I almost immediately got a human, but he was an automaton, apparently mad at the world. Perhaps because he was fielding phonecalls despite his Masters in Computer-Engineering.
He was talking so fast I could barely understand him. I considered telling him I was a stroke-survivor, and I couldn’t follow him if he continued talking at the speed of light.
But I didn’t, for fear it would make him madder still.
Finally I got him to understand the old credit-card information wouldn’t work; that they needed to update. Same credit-card number, but different expiration-date. — All they needed was the expiration-date.
Call ended, I wondered if this is what our world is coming to: instantaneous interchange of information. Exchange of information by humans is too slow.
We’re already interfacing with computers. Why not take out the humans, and make it computer-to-computer?
At the rate we’re going, our atmosphere will eventually become unbreathable, and we’ll be awash in sea-water.
Perhaps silicon-based life has a future.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• Silicon-based life will have a religion; with an invisible dual Creator of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.