Enter pretty *****: stage-right

—“Whoooo, whoooo, whoo-whoooo!” the ringtone on my iPhone, the whistle of restored steam-locomotive Nickel Plate 765 approaching a grade-crossing: two longs, a short, and a long. (I'm a railfan.)
I’d just gotten up, and was getting dressed. My iPhone said it was “Honeoye Falls Pharmacy.”
Pretty ***** is head honcho of that pharmacy (my pharmacy).
“Holy mackerel!” I exclaimed.
That could be *****, one of my all-time favorite pretty lady-friends.
“DON’T MUCK UP! Don’t cut her off!” I’ve done it before; you can’t just answer a SmartPhone.
Everything has to be done just so = ten seconds just to answer a phone-call.
Plus, you can’t get near a SmartPhone without it performing some unwanted magic.
“Quick!” the facial-recognition says; “that Hughes guy — FaceTime some unintended contact!”
It indeed WAS pretty *****. She announced herself, but I knew it was her just hearing her pretty voice.
Pretty *****, the lady-friend I most enjoy, and also the one I least expected to befriend.
She seems kind of dour, but not with me. It seems we enjoy each other immensely, and just the other day we really struck sparks.
“No pretty ***** will call you up!”
What a thrill! Pretty *****, the lady-friend I least expected to befriend.
She’s not gorgeous, but she’s pretty enough to intimidate me years ago.
Her pharmacy got an allotment of the COVID-19 vaccine. She wanted to know if I’d been vaccinated yet.
“Aw-man!” I moaned. “March 24th at Thompson Hospital. And I wish it had been you.”
For some unfathomable reason, pretty ***** and I became friends. I do my best to make a big fuss over her — she deserves it. And I like her!
For a long time I stayed away from pretty *****; it seemed she didn’t want me to get friendly.
Then “I can’t leave this store without saying hello to *****.” (In-store pharmacy in my supermarket.)
For whatever reason she liked that = she responded favorably.
“Yes *****, that Hughes guy likes you. And he’s not some lonely hot-to-trot widower; he can get along without you if need be, and try someone else. But maybe we could be friends; just talk. Romance is for kids!”
“You know what would happen if you were the vaccinator?” I’d say to her.
“We would talk and talk and talk and talk and talk some more. I’d hate leaving, and you’d hate going back to work.”
It’s great fun to talking to *****, and she seems to like talking with me.
I hope I’m as much fun as she is; I guess I am. Often she starts talking with me first, and yesterday she even called me up.
I look in the mirror and wonder how in the world she can get any pleasure out of talking with me. I’m way older than her, and I’m way over the hill, although I don’t remember a hill.
70 years late I learn “no pretty lady will talk to you!” was BALONEY!
I have this debatable thought, probably mistaken, she may have called me up just so we could talk.

It’s doing it again

—“Be-be-be-be-beep!”
I had just put down my iPhone, and again it was making a pocket-call; this time to a person I recently Facebook “friended” in the middle of the country.
This time it was Facebook Messenger’s “video chat,” Facebook’s iteration of Apple’s “FaceTime.”
This person and I had been messaging regarding how technology seems to have distanced everyone.
Not the first time. A few weeks ago I mistakenly pocket-called the same person. Suddenly a voice was emanating from my rear pocket: “Hello hello?”
This may have only been Messenger’s “audio-chat.” My iPhone screen was blank (black), but this person was talking to me.
I’ve voided many FaceTimes to my aquacise instructor. We both have iPhones, and happen to be Facebook “friends” after SuckerBird and his cronies secretly trolled my iPhone contacts. I had her in my iPhone from her business-card.
Apparently my pocket-calls to her were just Apple’s FaceTime, not Facebook Messenger’s “video-chat.” My iPhone “recents” indicated that.
La-dee-DAH!
Ever-advancing technology has inundated us with many wonders.
“Call ****,” I voice-command into my iPhone. It calls my brother in far away northern DE.
“Call ****,” I say into the iPhone Bluetooth in my car, and it calls my other brother somewhere in Altoona PA, where I haven’t even arrived yet.
Similarly, I speak “Call ****” into my iPhone at our motor-lodge near Altoona. That brother and I are in separate rooms, and I need to ring him up. I can do that without a two-way radio?
I also keep my grocery-lists in my iPhone. That’s a lot less time-consuming then having to update a written grocery-list, since —a) that iPhone is always in my pocket, and —b) I’m adding by voice instead of keying in.
Again: “La-dee-DAH!”
Wondrous technology, but every day something.
Time-saving technology seems offset by time-gobbling hairballs. This morning I had to reboot my in-house Wi-Fi.
And that of course was after “Why is this not working?”
Guile-and-cunning had me rebooting my in-house Wi-Fi. Another friend my age would be calling his grandchildren, or pulling the plug.
And now our TV is often by wire, instead of over-the-air as it used to be.
Now I unlock my car over-the-air, plus it won’t even run without that radio-fob in my pocket.
Does my mid-country friend know what rabbit-ears are?
I bet she does. (Like me she was probably born in the wrong century.)
“You can remove that mask,” my Altoona motor-lodge attendant said.
“Do you know what an iron-lung is?” I asked him.

Last night’s iPhone adventure

—Anyone reading this blog knows Yrs Trly purchased a new iPhone a few months ago, an i11-Pro.
It has three camera lenses; an i11 (non-Pro) has only two.
That third lens is telephoto, and cost me $400 more. The total cost of my i11-Pro was 1,000 smackaroos, thus reprising the joke about charging $1,000 for an iPhone.
I don’t know if the lenses are zoomable optically or digitally, but I’ve used all three.
Like all smartphones it has a touchscreen. Caress the telephoto icon, and I can zoom the telephoto. Caress the other lens icons, and I can zoom those lenses.
Great! Check the viewing window, and see what you get.
The i11-Pro replaced my i6, which produced fabulous photos, but its battery was acting wonky.
The techie at my Apple-store noted my battery was swollen, victim of an overly heating closed case. I could repair my i6, but an i11 didn’t cost that much more.
It was about time to retire my i6 anyway.
What really sold me was login by facial recognition. No more failed attempts at textual login ruined by sloppy keyboarding — a stroke-affect.
I set up fingerprint login on my i6, but it fails after maybe six months. It needed to be renewed.
Facial recognition would circumvent the failed logins.

Last night my i11-Pro locked up. It happened before; my brother showed me how to reboot my iPhone trackside in Altoona — out in the middle of nowhere.
Lotsa noisy blustering about how a reboot reorganizes your smartphone’s hard-drive, making it more efficient.
LA-DEE-DAH! So I rebooted my iPhone (I forget why), activated by a touchscreen icon.
Except now my iPhone touchscreen was dead = “frozen” as they say.
So NOW WHAT? How do I reboot my phone without its touchscreen?
Years ago, well before my wife died, and I was still using an ancient Motorola G4 Apple tower, instead of this laptop……
A girl who worked at the Mighty Mezz as a photographer when I was there (she no longer was at the Mighty Mezz) came to visit and advise regarding my ‘pyootering.
We came upon a technical logjam, so the girl fired up YouTube to query it.
VIOLA! Great idea! I’ve done that ever since — hundreds of times.
YouTube has hundreds of little video-clips about how to solve various technical problems: e.g. how to finagle Facebook insanities, retrieve logins, etc.
So I wrote up a YouTube question regarding how to reboot an iPhone with a frozen screen. Thankfully I can use dictation with my Apple “Pages” software, which gets around my erratic post-stroke keyboarding.
(Thousands of times I’ve asked when Gates and his cronies are gonna make their Microsoft software friendly to us stroke-survivors? Apple does.)
I got my iPhone to reboot by engaging Siri; that still worked = my screen was dead except for Siri. “Reboot my phone!” I screamed.
YouTube came later, and none of my hits mentioned Siri.
But now, thanks to YouTube — and that girl — I can reboot my i11-Pro, even with a frozen screen.
Thank you AM!

• My brother and I photograph trains down near Altoona PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. Every year I take 13 of our 89 bazilyun photographs to assemble into a calendar — I do it with Shutterfly. I give those calendars as Christmas presents.
• My brother, whose company I enjoy, is an all-knowing, know-it-all, knower-of-all-things. He lives near Boston.
• 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.)
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.
• “AM” is ****** ******, my Messenger photographer friend.

“Yer not letting me do this.....”

I allow Killian on the furniture. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—I took an iPhone picture (above) yesterday morning of my dog on my Castro Convertible, which I just made so he could use it. I use a dog-sham.
I’d text that picture to Killian’s previous owner, plus my aquatic balance-training instructor at the Canandaigua YMCA, also a dog-person.
I found my photo in my iPhone pictures, and selected it. I then hit the “share” icon, and selected “text.”
I then voiced *** *****, which gives me *** plus ****** **** ******, as well as just ***. (Two “send” options.)
“What?” I say. “‘Cancel’ my foot! Where’s the ‘send?”
Apparently everything has to be just so; rules of ‘pyooter-engagement understood only by millennials.
Into the ozone!
“Yer not letting me do this.....”
Engage guile-and-cunning = a workaround to defeat the iPhone techies.
Fire up “text;” voice *** *****, to get the *** and ****** **** option again. I now can text both. Hit the “add picture” icon, and I select the picture I just took.
Off it goes! Mind over iPhone.
Why do I hafta do everything just so? This took at least 15 minutes of figgerin’.
I know, I was born in the wrong century, when things were freer than they are now.

• My current dog, “Killian,” is a “rescue Irish-setter.” He’s ten, and is my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. I’ve had him over a year. A “rescue Irish setter” is usually an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. Or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He’s my fifth rescue.
• Both *** and ****** **** have iPhones.

The disappearing iPhone grocery-list

“Milk, grape-juice, bread, potato, bananas, pear, peach, juice, butter, Pedigree, hotdogs, strawberries, Jet Dry, flaxseed meal, yogurt, corn.”
Yrs Trly keeps his grocery-lists in iPhone “notes.” A capital idea, since I always have my iPhone in my pocket. I can update as I run out.
Gotta be careful. My grocery-list can be totally deleted by breathing on the screen.
I keep five lists. Most groceries are Mighty Weggers, my Wegmans in Canandaigua. I also have a list for “Mighty Tops,” another Canandaigua supermarket, plus “Funky Food Market”= Lori’s Natural Foods in Henrietta.
I also have a list for Canandaigua’s Petco, since I often need dog supplies. My fifth list is a supermarket in nearby Honeoye Falls, which I typically avoid since it has “consistent high prices.” $3.49 for a Ghirardelli baking-bar? $1.79 at Weggers. Lori’s is “Whole Paycheck Foods.”
The other night I set about adding to my Weggers list. What happened? No Weggers list. Another errant screen brush; at least 25 items were on that list.
No way am I gonna remember all the items on that list, and some were important.
Wondrous technology = Apple triumphs again!
I went to my “Notes” screen; it had a “Notes on my iPhone,” and “Notes in iCloud.” iCloud had “recently deleted,” so I tried that. Viola! There was my Weggers list. I erroneously delete a list, and it gets clouded?
Maybe I gotta shop from my iCloud list and start anew on my iPhone.
Okay, how do I copy/paste my iCloud list back into “Notes on my iPhone?” Engage “try it and see what happens.” I tried various icons. One fired up a colored pencil I’ll never use. But one apparently moved my iCloud Weggers list back into “Notes on my iPhone;” this wasn’t the computer copy/paste I’m used to.
I’m supposed to be thrilled? My 25-item list is back in my iPhone, but I have no idea how it got there.
I used to get this from ‘Pyooter-Guru at the Mighty Mezz. “Got it back, didn-cha.” Hooray-hooray! I doubt I could repeat.

• “Canandaigua” 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.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 12 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.)

High-School Science-Project

Within the past year my deceased wife’s older brother, who’s still alive, and I’m good friends with, suggested I try online bank-deposit with my iPhone.
“Capital idea,” I thought. Save having to hit the bank just to deposit a check — which I don’t get often, maybe four or five times per year. Most deposits are electronic.
NY state mailed a property-tax rebate as a check. Endorse, then try online deposit.
Everything has to be done with my iPhone so the check can be photographed. That requires my bank’s app for iPhone. I installed it months ago.
I fired up the bank app; it wanted my log-in. CRASH! Insanity began: “invalid password.”
“NOT! I got it right here on a sticky.”
Oh well, nothing new. Maybe it timed out.
“Forgot password” — done it so many times it no longer drives me up the wall.
The bank wanted to send an “access-code,” so I could reset my password.
“Call this iPhone,” I instructed.
Ring-ring; “This call is auto-generated. Yer access-code is **-**-**-**.” (That’s secure?)
With that I could reset my password. I did, but then CRASH! “You can’t use an earlier password.”
I tried a variation, but that too was an earlier password. CRASH yet again.
“This is turning into a high-school science-project,” I yelled. “All I wanna do is deposit this check. Five minutes becomes a half-hour.”
“Not enough characters, no capital letters, no numbers. NAUGHTY-NAUGHTY!”
Manual set-up might take 10 minutes. 10 more minutes to go through the bank’s auto-window, which I pass anyway on my way to Canandaigua; plus my dog (now gone) loved it because the teller always gave her a MilkBone.
“Time-saving technology” is taking more time. (20 minutes manually versus 30 minutes online.)
Finally I was logged in. Now the actual transaction. I don’t do this often enough to remember procedure, but knew I had to photograph the front and back of the check with my iPhone.
Mysterious unknowable buttons: engage “try it and see what happens.”
I tried a button which snapped a picture. “Well, we got the front.”
Flop check then shoot again. The magic button was trigger-happy — my first attempt was way off-center. I tried a second time: off-center again, but not as bad.
Third attempt: centered enough to be acceptable. NOW WHAT? How do I get it to process? “Menu,” “submit,” nothing that indicates “process.” Again engage “try it and see what happens.”
Flying blind as usual; but I guess it processed.
“Time-saving technology” apparently means added minutes.
Okay, fire up laptop and bring in my bank.
“Invalid password.” (My laptop browser memorizes passwords.)
Why yes, I just changed my bank password with my iPhone; so I tried that. BOOM-ZOOM; IN!
“Update memorized password?” my browser asked. “I guess so.”
I know others my age who would throw up their hands.

• RE: “Manual set-up might take 10 minutes.......” —That’s to print. Just handwriting a deposit-ticket might take a minute. Whatever I do, I still gotta hit the bank.

Garbage-in, Garbage-out

“Grady,” asked my friend Marcy. (“Grady” was my nickname at the Mighty Mezz — see blurb at right.) “Marcy” worked in the cubical next to mine; she in her late 20s or early 30s, me in my early 60s.
“I wanna know how you dredge up so much insanity to blog?” she asked.
“Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I exclaimed.
Sometimes I worry about running out of blog topics. This has been especially true since -a) my beloved dog died, and -b) I cut back to blogging only my own calendar.
I tried to walk that silly dog as much as I could. And at first I was blogging all my seven calendars. (Before you question my sanity, only one calendar is used as an actual calendar. My calendars are wall-art that changes monthly.)
Blogging seven calendars gobbled a lotta time. Mowing got shoved aside, and laundry went undone. A giant stack of cardboard sits in my garage awaiting chop-up for recycling.
So I cut back to blogging only my four train-calendars. (I’m a railfan.) But even that gobbled time, and wasn’t getting many readers. I e-mail blog-links to maybe 32 people, and usually get 10-15 readers per blog. Often more. My Monthly Train-Calendar Reports were only getting 5-6 readers. Many of my readers aren’t interested in trains.
I do a calendar of pictures my brother and I took near Altoona, PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. That railroad is no longer Pennsy; it’s now Norfolk Southern. But it’s still very busy — that railroad is a main trading conduit between the east-coast megalopolis and our nation’s interior. (The other is CSX across NY.)
What I usually say is “wait 15-25 minutes and a train comes” — often more frequent than that. Trains are so frequent ya might see two or three at once. Much of Allegheny Mountain is three-track railroad; two tracks approaching, and at one location there are four tracks.
Allegheny Mountain is also a challenge. It’s a 1,016 foot rise in elevation. Helper locomotives are often needed to conquer it. Summit is at 2,194 feet.
My brother and I get fabulous photographs there. I plug ‘em into a calendar made by Shutterfly. I send ‘em as Christmas presents, and they also give me plenty to do.
I never watch TV. What I do is -a) take and process photos for my own calendar, -b) make the calendar via Shutterfly, and also -c) “sling words.” (What I call writing.)
Every morning as I sit down for breakfast, my pencil comes out, I engage my legal-pad, and I start “slingin’ words.” I never can get my muse to shaddup!
Mostly there’s some recent insanity to blog — I depend on it. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”
The other day it was my iPhone. It has a calendar thingy I update so I can schedule appointments away from my home calendar. —Like at a doctor’s office.
iPhone’s calendar-app isn’t challenging, but the other day was a hairball.
I had to crank in a doctor-appointment, and after I did, that appointment wasn’t in my iPhone calendar. Actually it was, but the calendar-month wasn’t showing me. Not that way.
Finally after three tries I gave up! All I did was write down the appointment on my wall-calendar.
What was I doing wrong? Nothing I saw. Perhaps the calendar-app was not programmed right. Not the first time.
“Garbage-in, garbage out:” words I gleaned long ago from an old RTS bus-driver whose son programmed computers.
Do I really wanna let computers drive my car? That’s what I said after this iPhone hairball. They’re gonna hafta pry my cold dead fingers off the steering-wheel. NO WAY am I gonna let my car self-drive 70 mph bumper-to-bumper.
As a retired transit bus-driver I want slop — that is, five or six times the usual braking distance to avoid slamming on the brakes. Brake hard and ya toss passengers onto the floor.
I suppose I’m no longer driving bus, but I can’t dump old habits. I still drive “professionally,” and thereby anger others.
My guess is some hoity-toity ‘pyooter engineer inadvertently blew it. On viewing another way, that doctor-appointment was there the three times I entered it. But it still wasn’t in my iPhone’s calendar-month as first viewed.
Garbage-in, garbage-out!
I hear horror-stories from fellow ‘pyooter-users about the various “fixes” and “patches” for programming hairballs. My opinion is someone mucked up programming the calendar-app for my iPhone.
I’m told Apple’s recent “High Sierra” operating-system is a disaster. It was floated way too early; it hangs and locks up.
Memories of Windoze-95. We had it on a PC at the Mighty Mezz, and had to pull the plug to shut it off.
Oh well, I’m only cranking an appointment into my iPhone — no big deal. And it’s in there but not viewable the first way I tried to find it, which is the way I try to find it at a doctor’s office.
‘Pyooter-guru at the Mighty Mezz would just laugh and say “it’s in there, ain’t it?” As if we should value insanity.
Well pardon-me for trying to avoid madness. Am I supposed to look at things a second way to avoid first-way craziness? If someone mucked up, and is thereby driving me up-the-wall, I’m supposed to just chuckle?

• “Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. A picture of her is in the following blog: Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. —That blog was written years ago, so -a) is not a good as recently, and -b) Marcy has since married and moved to Los Angeles.
• “RTS” equals Regional Transit Service, the public transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years —  worked there over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern.

More iPhone wrastling

Tuesday is trash-day for The Keed.
My neighbors are Thursday.
Out here trash is not gumint. It’s private.
My trash-disposal is a private company.
I suppose finished they dump at a local landfill.
I hafta take out my trash the previous night because they collect before dawn.
I have two items: -a) one is my “blue-box” recyclables, and -b) the other is my actual trashcan, containing garbage and non-recyclables.
My iPhone, which I always carry, uses its camera-flash as a flashlight.
It was pitch-dark, and my trash goes roadside. I turned on the iPhone flashlight to properly locate my blue-box.
Headed back toward my house, I went to turn off my iPhone flashlight.
“Now what!” It’s showing me its music-menu. Instead of the flashlight menu.
Can I get back to that flashlight menu? I stabbed around, trying everything but the magic motion needed, a simple side-swipe.
As always, what do I know? And I don’t have time to drop everything and “play with it,” what other iPhone users advise.
It’s pushing 11 p.m.; I have an exercise-class the next day.
I’m trying to “Take Out the Papers and the Trash.” (That’s the Coasters YouTube link, readers.)
What do I hafta do to get that stupid light off? It’s gobbling my battery.
Back inside, flashlight still glaring at me, engage YouTube: “Turn off iPhone flashlight.”
Midnight approaches. I’m asking the wrong question, but I can’t think of a five-word way to ask the right question, which is “flip from music-menu to flashlight menu.”
YouTube searches, reflecting its teenybopper users, can’t crunch more than a few words.
So I killed my iPhone; that killed the flashlight.
Fired up again, the flashlight was off, and back to the flashlight menu. (I wasn’t expecting such.)
The next day, back to PC and Wireless, where I bought my iPhone, to ask my “question-of-the-month.”
First was “question-of-the-day,” which some time ago became “question-of-the-week.” Now it’s “question-of-the-month.”
“Simple sir,” the dude said. A simple side-swipe: zip-zap!

• RE: “Out here......” — I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.

Incredible journey of iPhone discovery

SCHLURP! (Photo by Jill Scarborough.)

“Do I dare bless ***** with another steaming-pile of turgid prose?
I’d rather not, I told her I’d give her a break.
But ***** recently got an iPhone, and like me seems to be discovering its joys.
And I’m on this incredible journey of iPhone discovery to south FL, where it seems a smartphone is needed to exist.
***** and her husband *** ******* were majordomos in my high-school class — I graduated in 1962. *** was star end on our school’s football team, and probably excelled academically — I don’t remember.
***** may have been “Humanities Scholar,” equivalent to a valedictorian, our school’s feeble attempt to be unique.
Whatever; she did extremely well.
I was just a bottom-feeder — no idea what I was doing — destined for ‘Nam.
Except I had other priorities.
I encountered ***** at our 50-year high-school reunion, and learned she’d been a computer-programmer.
Well of course; she reminded me of my wife, who died over four years ago. ***** was smart enough and savvy enough, and above-all self-driven enough to figger out some deeply-buried programming misstep throwing things awry.
My wife was in law-book publishing; I don’t know about *****.
I probably coulda done that myself — I like playing with ‘pyooters — but I’m also a railfan.
I been chasing trains all my life, but I also vastly enjoy this here MacBook Pro, also my iPhone.
Especially figgering ‘em out.
Our plane, an Allegiant Airlines A320, drifted toward Fort Lauderdale over the Atlantic.
Our descent began over 89 bazilyun tightly packed bungalows, many with red stucco roofs, many with postage stamp-sized swimming pools.
I come from a rural setting — my neighbors aren’t right next door. I hardly ever see ‘em; they’re 500 feet away.
I’m from Wilmington’s (DE) suburbs, but my wife was country. I came to prefer country living.
South FL is the most densely packed agglomeration I’ve ever seen.
Skyscrapers in Fort Lauderdale were also visible.
I (we) fenced at least half of our 4.7 acres — at least half of that is wooded.
I can let my dog out without fear of her getting hit in the highway. Loud Harleys blast past at 80+, throttles to-the-moon! (A crotch-rocket will crank 100+, wheelieing.)
My next step was car-rental, my biggest leap since my wife’s mother’s 100th birthday in De Land, FL last year.
For that my wife’s brother carted me around.
It ain’t easy; I miss my wife immensely. My wife’s mother’s 100th was my first trip. Over three years had passed.
I had a stroke 23 years ago due to an undiagnosed heart-defect. My wife thereafter covered for me.
I’m left with slight aphasia, difficulty getting words out for speech.
People tell me I talk fine, but I’m aware of it; especially my stoney silences.
I arranged car-rental in advance through the airline with National.
Or so I thought!
After a long hike through the airport, National sent me packing!
What to do? After a few minutes, and calling my niece, I ambled over to Alamo. They rented me a car.
So long National! In words of our newest prez: “You’re fired!”
Next was getting to my niece in north Fort Lauderdale, not far from Cypress Creek.
The intent of my trip was to visit my niece.
She’s my sister’s only child, and now has two children of her own. My sister, younger than me, is now gone.
I thereafter set up my iPhone’s GPS, airport to my niece.
Around-and-around the airport I drove, at least twice. Multiple views of the “Departure Area;” look-out for the fish-festooned county bus (HONK)!
“Turn right in 300 feet.” I’m approaching many right-turn options; I’m supposed to get out and measure 300 feet?
Finally onto I-95 north per the GPS-lady: “Exit to Commercial Boulevard.”
I called my niece. “Not there,” she cried. “Cypress Creek Road.”
“I’m already on Commercial, per the GPS-lady.”
“You can do it from there, but we always use Cypress Creek Road.”
Next was 31st Street. My niece was suggesting I use 31st Street to get over to Cyprus Creek Road.
“I’m driving into the sun, so I can’t see the signs.”
So much for 31st Street; GPS started “recalculating.”
Back-and-forth! This way and that! Loop around; around-the-block.
“South FL is a grid, north-and-south or east-and-west,” I was told.
“Then how come the street I’m on is diagonal?”
Finally, using GoogleMaps GPS, I was on her street, but passed her abode at least three times.
When I pulled in their dog roared at me, then gave me a hearty welcome (above). “Oh, a dog-person, eh? SCHLURP-SCHLURP-SCHLURP-SCHLURP!”
Then “SLUP-SLUP-SLUP!”
“Any other visitors allow this?” I asked. “Ya ‘bout knocked me over.”
The next morning we carted their daughter to a softball practice. She’s only seven, I think, and only a beginner.
Six or seven young girls, and a couple coaches.


My niece’s daughter Katie. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Daughter’s flowing hair was getting in the way. “She needs a pony-tail,” my niece said to a coach.
“He can do it; he has daughters of his own.”
Next was the “dog-lake.”
South FL is so crowded dogs are not allowed in parks. Instead there are “dog-parks.” To run yer dog, ya take it to a “dog-park.”
Except this place was a small lake, what up north we’d call a “pond.” It was privately owned, and charged admission.
My niece’s dog, Lily, a smallish female German Shepherd, knew where she was, and started whining as we approached.


Lily in the dog-lake. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

At lake’s edge other dogs were running freely, mainly retrieving balls, etc tossed into the lake by their masters.
Zoombita-Boombita! Occasional growling and humping.
Dogs careening this-way-and-that, merrily cavorting.
My right thumb started infecting as I left Rochester. I hoped it would hang on until I got back.
But it was swelling, and began to hurt.
I wanted to lance it, but my niece’s husband suggested “urgent-care;” better-yet.
Off we zoomed, but the first place we tried was closed on weekends.
Um, HELLO; I thought the whole idea of urgent-care was to cover weekends. (It was Saturday.)
Here it is, dear readers, we’re in south FL: unholster smartphone.
GOOGLE-TIME!
“I need the nearest urgent-care open on Saturday,” hubby said to my niece.
He had already Googled his own smartphone. Now my niece was helping.
Urgent-care didn’t lance; just a prescription for antibiotic.
Next was a surgical-strike to my wife’s brother and his wife about a half-hour north. That brother is now 75; I’m 73.
We’d eat out at some fancy restaurant in Boca Raton.
Brother-in-law texted me the restaurant address, and it was underlined in his text.
“Click that!” my niece exclaimed. WONDER-OF-WONDERS, it fired up the same GPS-lady my GoogleMaps uses, but was Apple’s “Maps” app, on my iPhone when I got it. (GoogleMaps was from the App Store; suggested by my ‘pyooter store.)
No matter, took me right right to it, in some deepest, darkest funky place awaiting the next hurricane.
The only drama was finding a place to park — brother-in-law had to use valet parking.
The area appeared to be from the ‘50s.
“Seems like the onliest way to exist is south FL is to operate a smartphone,” I noted.
“That’s only the youngsters,” brother-in-law observed. “No smartphones for oldsters.”
The next day, a Sunday, we visited one of the sightseeing piers out into the Atlantic from Fort Lauderdale beach. It was my niece and her son Ty. He’s 13.
A grizzled fee-collector warned to not feed the pelicans.


Ty at pier entrance. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


“Aye-aye, matey.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Surf and sand and flesh. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“EEEEEUUUUUW!” my niece wailed. “That’s chopped-up shrimp on the railing; fishermen are chopping bait out here.”
We then ate gelato and bought a souvenir tee-shirt.
“We gotta come here more often,” my niece said. “It’s a neat place, and northerners come to visit. —We live here.”


Ty and his mother next to the gelato emporium. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

On our way home we passed both a Maserati dealer and Ferrari dealer. Ty, like me, is a car-guy.
Or I was. ” What sense does that make? Stuck in traffic fiddling the radio in yer 200-mph car. Can’t chase trains in a Ferrari or Maser. Where’s the road-clearance? No farm-tracks for them things!”

HOME TO THE FROZEN TUNDRA
iPhone alarm at 4 A.M. Over 600 smackaroos to Courtyard Marriott. (I think the reason I’m loaded is because I don’t like spending money.)
Three times around airport before finding rental-car return, plus one off-route.
Amazingly I didn’t lose anything, although I tried awful hard. Glasses, pens, lumbar support, keys, etc. Over-and-over: “Where are my glasses/keys/whatever?”
Also I never fell, and my balance is dreadful! —I think that was more paying attention to where my feet fell; like careful at curbs, escalators, etc.
At the car-rental return I suggested I might need a motorized Skycap to get me to the security check. “Skycaps have to be reserved in advance at your destination.” Hmmmmnnnnnn....
“Why thank you ma’am; sounds like yer a gumint employee.” —I hiked it.
I managed to parry all this madness without my usual cheering-section: “Thank you, National,” missing this-or-that, “reserve Skycap at destination,” etc, etc.
Every move we made was chronicled by text. Even though miles apart, we knew where we all were — utterly beyond the pale 50 years ago.
What I noticed most was how everyone in south FL was using a smartphone. Even the geezers — they were probably playing ‘pyooter-games, or hitting porn sites.
People awaiting their plane in the airport toying their smartphones.
Restaurants, gas-stations, groceries, church.
Anything untoward or unexpected happens; drag out smartphone.
My brother-in-law, his wife, and me, all awaiting din-din at the funky restaurant, fiddling our smartphones.
“Forget Lambos Ty, the future is yer smartphone.”
(Although what will it be next year?)

• “Jill Scarborough” is my FL niece I was visiting.
• 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.
• 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. It slightly compromised my speech.
• A “Lambo” is a Lamborghini (“lam-bore-GEE-nee;” as in “get”), a mega-priced Italian sports-exotic, competition for Ferrari and Maserati.

Click here

Strange things are happening to my iPhone.
I get showered with ads, all spam.
The other day I was poking around for a better weather app. I went to the NOAA weather app I already had, and it took over my phone.
They had done something, always a bad sign. An improvement, they told me.
So much for “try this and see what happens,” the way I figured out my ‘pyooter and iPhone.
It installed another “account” in my e-mail, a “weather” account.
Now I get bombarded with junk to my weather account, and it all looks the same. It ain’t weather.
Compare Chevy’s Cruze to Ford’s Focus. Click here. European river cruises and burial insurance. View scantily-clad hussies at Christian Mingle.
Is this what it’s coming to, all so Trump and his lackeys can pay for their jets?
I gotta blow ten precious minutes cleaning out spam?
My iPhone doesn’t segregate spam — my laptop does. I suppose I could get an iPhone e-mail app that automatically junks spam. I may hafta.
But who’s to say Trump and his lackeys don’t figure out some way to defeat it?

GPS

Yrs Trly is looking at a long auto-trip to south Jersey this weekend, about seven hours.
South Jersey is where I’m from originally. The intent is to visit some cousins, and probably my only remaining aunt, who is their mother. She’s 84; I myself am 70.
At my age, I don’t look forward to this trip.
I never can get on-the-road until about 10:15; just taking my dog to her boarder is about an hour there-and-back.
This means I won’t get to my destination until after dark, and it’s an unknown destination.
For that reason I was interested in the GPS on my iPhone. GPS can pinpoint the exact location of my destination, and it’s a house off a rural road.
There is pipeline piping just before the driveway, but if it’s dark I probably won’t see it.
Supposedly GPS would pinpoint the exact location.
A lady-friend I eat dinner with does GPS on her iPhone. She would show me how.
“Okay,” I said; “The supposed reason for this dinner was to show me how to GPS with my iPhone.”
“Simple,” she said. She took out her iPhone and started stroking it.
“Wait a minute!” I screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
We played musical chairs so I could sit next to her.
Swipe — swipe — swipe — swipe! Punctuated by occasional “yadda-yadda.”
“How do you get to that screen?”
“You just play with it,” she said.
The old waazoo: try this and see what happens.
I poked around, and ascertained a curved arrow took me to a location-menu I had already made, including my own house, plus the house in south Jersey.
Plus the “16th Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA,” plus “8 inches in my driveway.” Why they’re in there I’ll never know, and I don’t know yet how to get them out.
I stabbed around some more. The iPhone would GPS me to my house, or the house in south Jersey, from my current location, the restaurant.
It would speak directions at me, and display maps on its screen while I proceeded.
“Okay, but what matters is it’s gotta pinpoint the exact location of that house in south Jersey,” I said.
“It does that,” she said.
“I’ve never been there before, and usually the GPS is in my head.”
Back-and-forth we went, me yelling, and my friend stroking.
But it was okay; she wasn’t useless.
What she ended up being was like my wife, deceased a while ago.
(This lady is also bereaved; her husband died.)
She, and my wife, would get me poking around; try this and see what happens.
I tried poking around a few days ago, but got fouled up. I need someone around to ask questions, or in my wife’s case hold my hand.
So now I guess I essentially have it figured out, but I needed that lady to hold my hand.
Then too, the iPhone GPS gives me a route I prefer to not use. For example, it directs me to an Interstate I don’t use because it dog-legs.
If I had it on as I started this trip, I’d drive it crazy recalculating.

• I eat dinner every Wednesday night with a group of other bereaved; although in this case it was Monday, because Wednesday-night would be Christmas-Eve, and the restaurant would be closed.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

“Revolutionary and magical”

I worry about not having madness to blog.
Last night I felt like I had run the well dry.
But just-in-the-nick-of-time Steve “Godhead” Jobs, head-honcho of Apple back in 2007 when the iPhone debuted, gave me a topic.
“Revolutionary and magical,” he called it.
My niece’s daughter’s birthday was last Saturday, November 22nd. Her family wanted to eat out to celebrate her birthday.
They didn’t call me because I was supposedly going to south Jersey for Thanksgiving.
But that tanked due to weather.
I had to return home.
So I called about celebrating her birthday.
They planned to eat out Sunday, November 30th.
They would meet at a restaurant at 4 p.m.
So I put it on my paper calendar.
Now to put it in my iPhone.
I use voice-recognition.
“Dinner with Debbie,” I said.
It got that.
Location:
“Elmwood Inn.” It got that.
Start-date and time:
Sunday, November 30th at 4 p.m.
Next step: which calendar, “work” or “home?”
Since I’m retired, I never have a work-calendar.
It does “work” by default, so I attempted to switch to “home.”
LOCK! Wouldn’t do it.
Nothing worked at all; all my phone would do is shut off, and I wasn’t expecting that.
Second attempt:
It locked after location; couldn’t even do a start-date and time.
Third attempt:
I got past the start-date and time, but after that it locked again.
I gave up. So much for “revolutionary and magical.”
My iPhone keeps telling me I could upgrade to a new operating-system, but it won’t let me do it.
It seems to lock after I agree to all the folderol.
Wondrous magic, but it won’t let me upgrade the OS.
And my Apple guru says it’s probably bug-fixes, like maybe fixing the reason it locked in my calendar-app. —He couldn’t update it either.
Time to drag into the ‘pyooter-store that sold me the iPhone, and maybe even an Apple-store.
What happens if one of the bugs needing fixing is what locks up upgrading?
Jobs died of pancreatic-cancer a while ago. My iPhone is a “5,” and its operating-system is up to version iO8.
And it keeps lobbing an iCloud log-in at me, which I don’t need.
I don’t do much with my iPhone, nowhere near what it could do.
To me it’s mainly a phone, but I also have my grocery-lists in it, my calendar when it runs, and I use it down in Altoona to access my Internet weather-site to check the local weather-radar.
I also use it as a camera.
It also gets my e-mail, and often I use it to respond.
But when it comes to my grand-niece’s birthday-gig, I guess I gotta rely on ancient technology: pencil-and-paper.

• “Debbie” is my niece.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.

iPhone follies-2

Yrs Trly doesn’t know what to think.
I allowed my iPhone to update its operating-system the other night — to iO8.
My iPhone gets my e-mail, allowing me to preview it.
The other day I started to get my e-mail, and got a hairball.
It wouldn’t do it.
E-mail seemed locked up.
Just to open an e-mail I had to click it first, then click some other app, then click back to my e-mail again.
Um, this wasn’t how it was with iO7, which seemed pretty stable.
E-mail on my iPhone had become a struggle, a wrestling-match of try this and then that.
For cryin’ out loud, Apple. You’ve become Microsoft; get the stuff out, then fix it later.
Madness like this is “blog-material.”
But now my iPhone e-mail is acting like iO7: normal.
No hair-pulling madness.
It wants me to log-in to iCloud all-the-time, but that’s just a “cancel.”
A friend has an iPhone, and she’s never changed anything since she bought it. She doesn’t have the log-in required to operate her iPhone that started with iO7.
iO8 also seems to have the screen-darkening feature my Apple laptop has. The screen darkens if the lights are off. —Which makes my iPhone impossible to read unless I turn on the lights.
iO7 didn’t require I turn on the lights to read a text.
This sounds like the Microsoft-Jones, the bit where Word® would vaporize your file if you happened to breathe on the wrong key.
Which is why I don’t use Word. I had a stroke long ago, so am left with sloppy keyboarding.
“Not my fault!” Bill exclaims. “If you have sloppy keyboarding, you ain’t normal. You shouldn’t be driving Word.”
So I don’t. I use Apple’s “Pages;” it doesn’t punish me like Word does.
So now Apple seems to be becoming Microsoft.
That is, Jobs is gone.
A friend who drives Windows PCs complains about never-ending updates and patches.
My wife drove a Windows PC. She’d get an update that took over her machine. We couldn’t even shut it off.
About all we could do was pull-the-plug, and plugging back in Microsoft took over again.
And as I recall, she couldn’t do anything while Microsoft was updating. — And I swear they were starting from scratch. An update might take all night.
At least Apple gives you a “later” option, and if you allow it it might take 10 minutes.
But I worry about my iPhone.
It’s stable now, but what’s it gonna do next?
Where’s Jobs when we need him?
Maybe I should have done like my friend and refuse updates.
My iPhone worked pretty good with iO7 — in fact, it worked fine before iO7.
Maybe I should have left well-enough alone.
So now Apple is trying to get me to configure iCloud.
I think I will pass.
My computer backs up here in my house, plus configuring iCloud requires a new operating-system.
A new operating system might lunch some of my apps. I’ve had it happen.

• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• “Bill” is Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft. His equivalent at Apple Computer, was Steve Jobs, who died two years ago.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

iPhone follies

I let my iPhone update its operating-system.
Others I know don’t.
My allowing this is what I do with my laptop. Apple® is always sending me “software-updates,” usually security-upgrades and patches.
Used to be I didn’t allow them, but then a friend did it for me.
I decided I shouldn’t be so suspicious, despite a long-ago update that lunched apps I was using.
A while ago iPhone upgraded its operating-system, I think to iO7.
It installed a completely new user-interface, which included a security log-in to make your iPhone inoperable without your password.
A friend was incensed.
She couldn’t text without logging-in first.
It was okay for me. I don’t text that much anyway, and logging-in is maybe two seconds, more if you mistype, which I do occasionally.
So I plugged my iPhone in last night to charge, and it awoke saying a “software update,” iO8, was available.
Oh, dread!
I’m trying to go to bed.
Apple is requiring me to leave my phone on all night, so it can download and install a new operating-system.
What if some Granny misdials her rotary dialer, and calls me in the middle of the night? I’ve had wrong-numbers galore on that iPhone.
I like shutting that iPhone off; I don’t want it waking me at 3 a.m.
Okay, let the upgrade download, and I’ll let it install when I let my dog out around midnight.
So I clicked “install” when I let my dog out.
When I awoke my iPhone this morning, it was saying “hello” at me.
More set-up required. I couldn’t just check my e-mail.
Something about configuring iCloud.
WHAT?!
I guess I could use iCloud as an e-mail server as well as RoadRunner (which is here on the planet).
Leave me alone! All I wanna do is check my RoadRunner e-mail. I haven’t time for all these shenanigans.
Finally I got my RoadRunner e-mail, but not before canceling iCloud log-in.
One of my e-mails needed response, so I used my iPhone’s voice-recognition.
I spoke my response, and it immediately typed in each word as I spoke it.
That is, each word as it deduced it. I usually hafta do a tiny bit of editing.
Nice! Nice idea, Apple. A worthwhile software update.
There were other tricks iO8 did that were nice.
But every time I wanna check my RoadRunner e-mail, I gotta cancel iCloud log-in.
What a pain!
Another software update both good and bad.
Can’t they just leave well-enough alone?
My iPhone worked pretty-good before iO8.

• “RoadRunner” is Time-Warner’s e-mail.