Signal Wave
Keeping Calm
I spent the morning giving moral support to my mom while she threw away the medical records of her husband, who died last year. Not an easy bit of housekeeping, at all, at all, though it made me feel oddly closer to him than I had felt in a long time--perhaps because the documents included a lot of personal notes he wrote describing his condition to the doctors. We were often reading his words.
Then I came home and went through the process of getting rid of the dead car in my garage, which was more complicated than I expected, perhaps because it involved filling out digital forms on websites, which often ends up being more complicated than I expect.
For instance, you'd think that if you wanted to get rid of a junk car, you could just find a company that buys them, surf to their website, and then input your contact information, the VIN number of the car, and a brief paragraph as to the car's current state. Nope. You have to put that in, and a lot more, and then, at the end...but I'm getting ahead of myself. What kind of trim your car has is superlatively important (apparently). Once you realize how superlatively important a car's trim is, you can spend time doing the web research to find out what kind of trim your 2011 Mazda 3 red four-door sedan actually has, which you never knew before because you weren't the original owner of the car, and you're the type of person who buys or inherits used cars so that you can have something that will get you to the doctor or the store, or to your mom's house, for as long as possible as cheaply as possible. In short, you don't give a shit what the "trim" is. Neither has anybody else, probably since about 2012.
But you do your web research and you discover what the "trim" of your car is, having done a Google search of its VIN number. The car's trim is Touring/GS, which means something to somebody. Presumably, it means something to Peddle.com. So you go back to Peddle.com to enter the data. You can't enter any data without starting from the beginning; each filled field activates the next. So you go through the entire process of entering the data a second time, and get to the "trim" field. You're ready to choose "Touring/GS" from the list of arcana in the "trim" pop-up menu. You feel that sense of mild closure that comes from having successfully accomplished an annoying chore online. You have successfully navigated one of the most boring parts of the internet. You pull up the pop-up menu.
"Touring G/S" is not one of the options.
The options are "i" and "s."
At this point, you ask your life partner's advice. She's good with these things. It takes some time to explain the situation in its fullness, but when she's sure she understands, she suggests you choose "s," probably because at least the letter "s" is part of the phrase "Touring G/S." That logic appeals to you, even though your rebellious brain argues that the letter "i" is also part of the phrase "Touring G/S."
So you enter "s" and get to the very end of the form. Peddle.com has one last question. What is your VIN number?
Hey, that's one you actually know! You enter the VIN number.
Peddle.com tells you that the car associated with that VIN number does not have "s" trim. It has "i" trim. This both means that you will have to go through the entire process again, and that the last question should have been first, since Peddle.com apparently has the ability to check VIN numbers and find out what the trim of the associated car is. If you ran the world, the last would have been first. You have often thought that on other occasions.
On the third go, you finally manage to fill out the form and discover that Peddle.com is willing to give you $540 dollars for your car. Yay!
In order to make the trade of your 2011 Mazda 3 red four-door sedan for $540, you have to set up an appointment. That means you have to call a real live human being and talk to them on the phone. A nice lady answers. The nice lady asks you every single question that the form did. This is now the fourth time you have answered those same questions (though, in all fairness, once you answered them wrong--"s" rather than "i").
You pick a day for the car to be hauled away. The nice lady says you will get $450 for the car. You note that that is $90 less than what you were offered by the Peddle.com software, but by this point you would probably accept $4.50 for the car, as long as you didn't have to answer those questions again--always assuming they actually removed the car from your garage. In fact, if they could ensure that a)the car would be removed from your garage, and b)that you would never in your life have to answer those questions again, *you'd* probably pay *them*.
By this time, you no longer feel the sense of mild closure that comes from successfully accomplishing an annoying chore on the internet. Instead, you view the future with a mild but above-average suspicion. You imagine the morning of their arrival. You imagine that on that day, one or more tires on the Mazda will suddenly, inexplicably be flat, rendering it impossible to put the car in neutral and roll it out of the garage into the driveway (the nice lady did not like the car being in the garage.) You imagine that there will be some logistical detail that fell into the cracks of this business deal that will rear its ugly, Kraken-like head and make it impossible for you to accomplish your task.
It's at this point that you realize you have smoked no weed at all today.
Comments
The joys of the corporate for-profit world abound...
The outcome seems good...a days hassle for $450, not too bad.
I sold my old '70 ford truck several years ago to a local garage owner. The body was quite rusty and he had to haul it off. Got $200. I drove it for 20+ years and bought it for $800 originally, so I was happy to not only get a little money but also being able to drop the insurance payment. I've only owned four vehicles my whole life. I drive 'em till the wheels fall off. I friend called this weekend to let me know a local dealer had a load of Chevy Volt electric cars that are being sold for $14,000 each. No doubt a good deal, but I just don't have the need. If I go electric I'll convert my little '92 Geo tracker and save all those materials plus avoiding all the self driving stuff which I don't want.
The reality is that I'm not going anywhere these days. A trip to town twice a week and an occasional visit with a friend (outdoors on pretty days).
Looks like the storm Eta is headed your way, CStMS. Looks like mainly a rain event. I was hoping it would come up our way since we've been dry the last 3 weeks or so. Finally got about a half inch last night and a little more may fall today.
Well have a good one everybody. Congrats on the big sale.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
My two blind friends don’t have to deal with cars, but
— although Apple has done its part by making a screen-reading feature called “VoiceOver” a standard part of all of their gadgets’ operating systems — every time a form needs to be filled out, it’s a tossup whether the website’s code is properly set up for them to be able to complete the process.
For them, doing anything online always equals a sighted person’s frustration, squared.
Good god.
What a hellatious nightmare! My sympathies to your friends.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
When they get stuck they often video-call me via Apple FaceTime,
move the phone around until I tell them I can see the relevant part of their computer screen, and we try to figure the problem out together.
There are web services where blind people can enlist the help of anonymous gig workers, but as soon as information is involved that is the least bit personal and/or confidential, the security problems with that approach are obvious.
This was a problem even before the Internet. Years ago, a social-work agency paired one of them up with a volunteer who gained her trust and became the “friend” who helped her read her mail, file her taxes, etc. Later it developed he had taken out a passel of credit cards in her name.
Good morning, cstms ~
We no longer live in simple times! When I had an old car on the place, a fellow asked if he could have it. "Haul it off and it's yours!" was the reply. Luckily, I live in the country and didn't need the money. It was my son's old car that we needed to get off the place. The follow hauled it off.
Hope all are well. Relief on the way, Friday, as Mars in Aires moves direct - finally!
Enjoy the day!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
So *that's* what's going on!
My Mars is *in* Aries, so having Mars retro in Aries is not fun.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Happy Armistice Day
To celebrate the end of another needless war. Wonder why US doesn't celebrate peace?
Thanks for the info on the online car buyer. Have two decent Honda Insight hybrids sitting out front. The damn state won't let me renew registration because of some idiot light in the dash -- therefore won't pass inspection. Safety and emissions are good. Don't want to go the craigslist route -- too many horror stories. The good thing MA is less restrictive with inspection and is only 3 miles from here. It's a conspiracy to force us old beater drivers off the road.
Anyway -- good luck!
??? The end of war IS peace
Sometimes I think this site just hates America and finds any excuse to bash America.
There are real problems, but so do other countries. The Middle east had wars and jihads long before the USA existed. The Turkish Empire kept them under control and the Brits and French post WWI. After independence at the end of WWII, Katy bar the door!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
The end of war is peace?
Sounds nice. Maybe we should try it, sometime.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
No offense, but this strikes me
as the nosy neighbor who is all concerned with what everyone in the neighborhood is doing, without understanding what's happening in their own house. I'm just saying...
I know other country's have serious problems, but there is less I can do about them, than try to solve the problems in our own country.
And if you think about it, most of those other country's problems, at the root, is either the US or the colonial powers of Europe vying for control of their natural resources, at the expense of those country's populations, and ours.
So the most proactive thing I can do, is to try and fix the problems here, so hopefully we don't create more problems for those other countries.
We can't solve those problems in other countries before we fix the problems here at home, first. If you don't fix the root issue, the problem never goes away. Voting doesn't solve problems, it just makes it worse, because voting never gets to the root of the issue.
It's not America that I hate, but it's ruling elite and those that keep them in power, and the polices they implement, that deserve my disdain and polemic ire, as well as the overwhelming desire to tar and feather their asses and run them out of our country!
[video:https://youtu.be/5fbvquHSPJU]
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
we are responsible for our empire
like it or not
bashing the American dream is not my MO
trying to explain peace as a solution
not war
pretty simple, if you think about it
I think most people on here love America so much it hurts.
And those who don't are mostly engaged in pointing out the fault-line sins that have plagued us since our beginnings. There isn't, in my opinion, any credible doubt that those fault-line sins--slavery, and genocide of the people who were here before us--are truly part of us, and matter a great deal to what America now is. However, there is a difference of opinion on whether to define "America" exclusively by those sins or to consider the dreams of millions of nameless people who came here hoping for a better life or even for a more just world, people who often didn't do a damned thing wrong, but just wanted to be part of something better, part of "America" as well. I guess it's obvious where I come down, but I'm open to listening to justice-driven rationalists on the other side.
Now, if you're talking about the people who've been running America, or about our so-called "political system," which has been distorted to the point that there's little to recommend it (and it was hardly perfect to begin with)--that's another matter.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thanks for remembering that we once had a holiday
devoted to Peace, or at least to a Peace Accord. That, of course, cold not stand. Since we make our living off of war we need to glorify war and those who fight or fought them at every opportunity, hence the name and purpose were changed.
Thanks also too for Ms. Safka
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
similar to Labor Day
the narrative and date were changed to ignore workers rights
like celebrating X-mas in the name of the lord (pagan holiday)
and celebrating, yet forgetting, MLK
plus re-interpretation of Independence Day
my god
lean upon us gently
religion and politics sheesh
Wonderful music.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Armistice Day should never have become Veterans' Day.
Not that I have anything against veterans.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The US didn't need it - we already had Memorial Day
Most people don't realize that Memorial Day, under the name of "Decoration Day", dates back to just after the Civil War. The "decoration" referred to means placing flowers etc on the graves of fallen soldiers.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Back when we lived in California
we once owned a car that we converted into a race car - a track toy that was no longer even close to street legal. We took the plates off of it and registered it as "inoperative" during the conversion.
We had a lot of fun with it (this was back when we had money to waste on such things). Then, it came time to leave California, we sold it to an acquaintance who had admired and wanted it for years, who I believe continues to use it as a track-day toy. We duly notified the California DMV that we had sold the inoperative car for scrap, and were moving out of state, thank you very much.
Here's where it gets amusing. The California DMV still sends me a notice once a year (here in CO) that I can take the car that I no longer have out of inoperative status, and reregister it for the street *any time I want*, if I just pay them fees and back fees and other fees and some fees, and get it inspected and smogged, and then a couple other fees and some taxes for good measure.
24 years in a row now, they've mailed me that notice. They won't stop, even though I have notified them in writing multiple times that we no longer own the car, live in the state, or give a hoot in hell about it. To coin a phrase, "Nah gahnna happen". But hey, it is their taxpayer's coin they're wasting for the postage...
They're every bit as bad as NGP VAN, I swear.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
I lived in California for about 2 years
and my parents never registered their vehicles. The $1,800 a month for a 3rd floor apartment in 1988 with no refrigerator was bad enough. I lived on the border of Corona and Riverside where the fricking dairy farms are located, and the smell all day was horrendous.
We finally moved down to Temecula into a nice 3 bed room house, for about the same money, but had a wonderful view of the mountains in the distance out the breakfast room window. I moved back to Dallas in early 1990 and my parents followed a couple years later.
It's a cool place to visit but I did not like living there.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Uh....
Here's where it gets amusing. The California DMV still sends me a notice once a year (here in CO) that I can take the car that I no longer have out of inoperative status, and reregister it for the street *any time I want*, if I just pay them fees and back fees and other fees and some fees, and get it inspected and smogged, and then a couple other fees and some taxes for good measure.
Wow.
24 years in a row now, they've mailed me that notice. They won't stop, even though I have notified them in writing multiple times that we no longer own the car, live in the state, or give a hoot in hell about it.
24 *years*?!?
Double wow.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I have a long history of
making people send me stuff long after they should have stopped. When I got out of college, I had huge student loan debt (all loans through my school). Paid it all off in the prescribed 10 year period. Got to the last payment, and wrote the check for the final amount due, less one cent.
They sent me monthly bills for 1 cent for almost 2-1/2 years, until it finally occurred to somebody there that they were spending more than that on the postage every month. The bills then just stopped.
That was a long time ago. You couldn't do anything like that now: they'd garnish your wages, and the wages of everybody in your family and everyone you'd ever met, and generally grind you into dust just to get their last penny. But it certainly was fun at the time...
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
LMAO!
They sent me monthly bills for 1 cent for almost 2-1/2 years,
There's something almost anarchistic or Discordian about that. How fun!
Reminds me a little of the Monkey Wrench Gang.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
When my daughter was born I paid cash
The bill after insurance was $11, for the non-covered "baby kit", a bottle and a few diapers.
They started sending me bills for $0.00, finally threatening legal action if I did not IMMEDIATELY pay my outstanding balance of $0.00 I took a day off work to straighten it out. "Oh, you paid CASH! Never pay with cash and always wait for the first bill before paying anything." Today BCBS tells me "never pay anything until you get our Explanation Of Benefits".
Hospitals! Had a colonoscopy in August. Thought I had corrected them in the online check-in that listed BCBS as primary and Medicare as secondary. That is wrong, I've been retired five years. Medicare is primary and BCBS is secondary. The day of the procedure, the anesthesiologist said, "Let's see, you have Blue Cross as primary and Medicare as secondary." "NO! I'm RETIRED. MEDICARE IS PRIMARY!" Got a bill for overdue payment last week. $1600 "Your primary insurer, BCBS has rejected your claim." Of, course they rejected it. They didn't submit it to Medicare first. And I doubt if Medicare will pay $1600 for anesthesia for a simple colonscopy.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Back asswards
Ha! Sympathy here. We can't seem to convince Quest Diagnostics that my wife's primary insurance is Medicare and the secondary is Humana. Don't even understand how that switch-up can happen. Are there actually cases where Medicare is the secondary insurance? I'm not aware of any - even though I guess it's possible.
Anyway, all her lab expenses get denied right off the bat. Then she's on the phone with Quest for hours trying to get to a human.
Once this kind of mistake gets into computer systems, it's damn hard to get it out.
Yes, when I was over 65 and still working
Medicare was secondary. That's the way the system is. IIRC, if you don't sign up when you are 65, it will cost more later. Took SS at 66 also. You will see lots of stuff on the web advising you to wait until you are 70 to collect more. I ran lots of spreadsheet scenarios. If you life to your actuarial lifespan, you will receive EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF DOLLARS! And that's fair if you think about it. If you live longer you will receive more bu waiting but if you die earlier you will receive less. Think about it. An obvious example, if you die at 68 or 69, and you were waiting for 70, you will receive nothing at all! Why not file at 62? If you are sill working but not at your full retirement age, your payment will be reduced because of your wages. I filed at 66 because they are not reduced if you are at or over your full retirement age. So take the bird in your hand. Or gamble on a long life if you feel lucky. I've had lots of luck in my life, 90% of it bad. Dodged a bullet in the Vietnam draft lottery. That was good. Met a beautiful blonde who thought I was handsome and exciting. Either delusional or an expert liar. She still thinks it. Delusional but I don't care. Good luck again. Worked for company after company that was shot down. Lot's of bad luck there. always sold my house in a down market and bought in an up market. Bad luck there. Worked a volunteer for Bill Clinton in 1992, bad luck there. Or Marie will probably say, just stupidity. LOTS of political bad luck. Haven't we all?
However that may be, when laying out your financial plans you go with the odds, with a hedge for disaster. A working man's life is always a gamble. Can't understand why the upper classes always want nannies and boarding schools. Teaching and sharing experiences with your children and grandchildren is much more fun than tooling down the autobahn in a Ferrari, not that I've ever done. can't be much different than running a souped up Chevrolet on I-80. Precious moments with the little ones, nothing like it. To see their minds discover science and literature, nothing can compare. "oh my daughter, oh my ducats!" no sweat on that choice. I can always get more ducats.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Luck and olden days
I took SS and MC at the same as you. Further, I continued working as you did. So, I guess I never considered that, yes, even for me, Medicare was indeed secondary. I stayed on the company-provided health insurance (BCBS) because my retired wife was on my plan. She's a half year younger than me, but retired at a younger age.
Speaking of luck, when I was 66 my employer offered me a deal I couldn't refuse - If I'd agree to retire they had a nice package for me. But, if I accepted the retirement offer from my employer, it would leave my wife in the lurch with no medical coverage. In the end, the timing of the whole thing turned out to be exactly perfect. My wife's birthday is April 1, and she would turn 65 that year. I retired and took the retirement offer on March 1. A part of the package deal was that the company agreed to continue medical coverage for one month after my final day. So, my wife had coverage until 11:59 PM, March 31, and her Medicare coverage started 12:00 AM, April 1, when she turned 65. We should've been at the casino! Additionally, my (now former) employer filed for bankruptcy a month after that! Got out by the skin of my teeth!
I suspect I had the same situation as you regarding the VN war. I had a very low draft number. I was pretty torn about what to do about it. Luckily for me, the stopped the damn draft before they got to me! I still had to do a bunch of draft-type things, but they never sent me that letter.
Don't feel bad about working for the Clinton campaign. As a preteen, I actually worked for the Goldwater campaign and/or the local John Birch Society (they were pretty much one and the same in our county). Too young and dumb to know better. I'm pretty sure I still have my copy of None Dare Call It Treason that they gave me. But I really did. Like Kristofferson said about his VN years, "Got the check; cashed it."
Many of the ex-Navy guys I worked with in the Postal Service
Told me they enlisted in the US Navy when they got their notice to report for a physical. You probably remember that we all knew what that meant. One guy, Chuck, spent his whole time on one aircraft carrier. He must have gone to the physical as well because he got a notice to report for induction. He took it to his Navy recruiter who said, "Uh Uh, they can't have you. you belong to us now. I'll take care of this." Recruiting is a cushy job but you have to keep your quota up. That recruiter wasn't about to lose one. So Chuck went to basic training right here at Great Lakes (Chuck was born here too) then went to advanced training at Great Lakes, then went to the carrier USS America when his training was up. He spent the rest of his six years there. They told him he would be promoted to chief if he re-upped, but he didn't. Mustered out, applied to the Postal Service and worked there until met him, a few years before he retired, BTW, the six Navy years counted for Civil Service pension calculation, but I think he had to "buy them back". Chuck was an excellent mechanic and a great guy. Everyone missed him when he retired. Mild mannered and prompt to answer service calls. He told me all this when we saw a news item about the America being broken up. Really glad he didn't die needlessly in Vietnam.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I think every computer programmer
Should have to fill out the forms he designs to get a grasp of how badly he has done his job. I say this because I knew a computer programmer who was good at his job because he always thought of the process from the users perspective. Just because someone knows how to code doesn’t necessarily mean he knows how to build a robust program that is accessible to the consumer.
I can think of fewer things as frustrating as hitting your head up against computer screen begging for mercy. But I’ll try. My pet peeve? Getting a live person on the telephone by having to listen to a computer voice ask you the same question 3 times throughout a multiple level process before they connect you to customer service. By then you are so frustrated you could tear the siding off of your house with no problem. Even better is when they want you to rate their service afterwards.
Keep calm, indeed.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
It's an extreme pet peeve
of mine for programmers who do not consider their user's experience. No matter what job I have ever held, I've always considered the "user" experience to be the guiding principle.
When I was an electrical designer, I would re-design the Architects markups, because you don't put a fucking light switch, behind the front door in an apartment. Little things that can make life better seem to never make it into some people's minds.
I did a consulting project for GM staring in 95 that last almost 2 years. 10 years later they called me back and the project team they assembled and wanted me to lead, was a bunch of "computer science" majors, with zero understand or experience in the maintenance management "process", not to mention they had zero experience with software system GM had implemented 10 years earlier.
No one on the project team, except me, was an actual American citizen. I was to be the "American" face of an Indian outfit, Tata Consulting. None of them had ever been on a plant floor, much less walked the plant with the tradesmen to understand their issues and process.
The success I had achieved in the original project for GM was simply based on the principle, put the user 1st. When you understand their problems, you can then begin the process to solve those problems, and solving those problems are not always by some programmatic solution. Sometimes a simple change to the "process" make a world of difference. No programming required.
The more custom programming one does, means more support requirements, especially during upgrades, but simple changes to "process" can eliminates all that un-necessary programming in the first place.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Wow, bless you.
I wish there were more of you around.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's really bad with doctors.
You have to fill out the forms on the laptop or tablet they hand you, then sit. Then you get ushered to a room with a nurse, who asks you some questions, which include some that you just answered on a tablet. Then you sit. Then an intern comes in, and asks you the same questions that were on the tablet, some of which you have now answered 3 times. Then you sit. Then the doctor comes in....
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
And after that, the live person
often asks you the same question the computerized phone tree just asked three times.
Getting a live person on the telephone by having to listen to a computer voice ask you the same question 3 times throughout a multiple level process before they connect you to customer service. By then you are so frustrated you could tear the siding off of your house with no problem.
Yeah, no kidding!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Selling your old car
When DO died, I had two 2000 vehicles, one a Honda CCRV that the a/c worked and fairly low mileage. Brother in law that helping with sale said ask $1400 and was going to do that but decided I needed to learn another lesson...another brother in law had son that desperately needed car. So kindhearted soul I was sold it to him, took care of inspectio and title transfer. Year passes and now car is dead and wants to sell as junk but has never transferred the title so need m help. Got it done but valuable lesson about trust.
Now the other vehicle, when you mentioned trim my story came to mind. Brother in law calls dealer to find what I can get for vehicle. Hangs up stunned, you can get $10,000 - $15000 for that truck
Why, in the truck world you say "2000 7.3 powerstroke diesel standard shift and eye light up. This engine is a classic that runs forever. Sold it to one happy guy and it is still running.
Selling and getting g rid of things is not a easy business!
Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.
This ain't no dress rehearsal!
Oh, man.
Year passes and now car is dead and wants to sell as junk but has never transferred the title so need m help. Got it done but valuable lesson about trust.
but this is pretty awesome:
Brother in law calls dealer to find what I can get for vehicle. Hangs up stunned, you can get $10,000 - $15000 for that truck
Why, in the truck world you say "2000 7.3 powerstroke diesel standard shift and eye light up. This engine is a classic that runs forever. Sold it to one happy guy and it is still running.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Working in the garden this morning..
...missing my little Zoebear following me around and wondering what secret spot Pierre found to watch the butterflies.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I was missing Luci today too.
In kind of a funny way--Kate suggested we do a YumYum tree for our table for Christmas, and I thought: "If Luci were alive, we never would have done that."
She was very mobile, right up to the end, and quite inquisitive. We even had to be careful not to leave games out on the table, because small pieces would travel to parts unknown.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yeah, I had the same thought
With both Pierre and Zoe gone none of the plants in the house have their signature bite marks.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
It was 07/08 I think
that I sold my 97 Toyota, 4x4 extended cab P/U. I sold it to a guy for 3K, who was going to ship it to Africa. I'm pretty sure it probably wound up in an ISIS strong hold somewhere. But hey, I could pay rent for the next 3 months, and besides, I had a killer mountain bike ($700 worth of killer), that within a month or so, was stolen. (Fuckers...)
I wasn't able to afford another vehicle till about 2013, and I had to borrow the down payment at that, and lost it by repossession less than a year later. It totally sucked. It (the repossession) finally fell off my credit in 2018, along with my home foreclosure.
The vehicle I have now is a 2002 Toyota 4 runner SR5, automatic. My very 1st vehicle that was not a stick shift. Thanks to some people here I can now drive it again! (along as I don't get stopped because the inspection is out by almost 3 yrs.
Fucking stupid ass check engine light. I spent about $600 trying to fix all the things the repair shop said I needed to fix the check engine light, new filter here, new thingies there, and fucking nothing worked. Repair shops now days seem like crime syndicates.
I used to have a guy who was a mobile mechanic who could fix darn near anything with any vehicle, but sadly he passed away from cancer and I've been in the auto repair wilderness ever since.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Hmmm....
Repair shops now days seem like crime syndicates.
So many things these days do!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
rule of law is passe
we are in the new era of blackened transactions
just ask treasury. Or any biggie bank.
Transparency is so last century.
People who can turn the word "Truth" into an
epithet, effectively making truth itself an insult, can do anything.
"Truthers?" seriously, wtf. No matter what you believe about 9/11, wtf is up with making the word "truth" into an insult.
Law, truth, reason, and transparency all gotta go, because if you have any of them, you can't justify what the powerful are doing.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
good gravy
Law, truth, reason, and transparency all gotta go
disconnect zone
Get in the Zone,
The Disconnect Zone... lol
Reminded me of my 1st art directing job for a TV commercial, for AutoZone...
[video:https://youtu.be/-XTOAaKPPY0]
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
auto zone was ok
the never ending other commercials are sick
hope those weren't yours too
(autoplay)
Well,
I wasn't in charge of the "creative", i.e. the story, but everything you see in the screen that doesn't breath or have a pulse, belongs to the "Art Department".
That NIKE spot won 5 Clio's. I landed that job by sending a picture of my boss sitting on a toilet and shooting the finger at me.
How many can put House Bubble Wrapper on their resume? My wife did the cars.
There is a crazy ass story for each of those spots. And that's one of the things I truly love about film production. It's never just another day at the office.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Well, I'm not saying *I* want it that way!
But basically neoconservatism could never have sold itself to anybody except perhaps the far reaches of the religious right if it didn't destroy rationalism first. The same is true of neoliberalism, except that it takes longer for people to see beneath its mask and figure out it's crazypants politics.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ah, The Form. Somewhere there is a form, no doubt
in an archive, it was used back in the fifties for inventory, or inventory control, or reporting to the DMV or some taxing or regulatory authority. Your firm used or adopted and then adapted it with additional data penciled in on the top or bottom margin, or both. As they began to computerize they found the one employee who knew and used dBase and had them design a database and an input screen and they did and more or less followed the old paper form, as modified, for the ease and convenience of all. Said in-house dBase maven maybe also patched and updated it a few times and then moved on and then the firm upgraded their system and everything but "the form" and database and input screen which they then "converted" to MS Access. Pure User Hell(tm), built in, guaranteed, licensed, paid for, and certified inescapable.
Oh yes, Good Morning CSTMS! Don't look at me, I was the dBase guy.
Thanks for the music, excellent choices to begin one's day with.
Not to blame the victim, but your trouble may have started where it ended:
May I suggest that what we have here is fundamental process fail
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
May I suggest that what we have here is
.
.
fundamental process fail.
Yes. On many levels and in many ways. heh.
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
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The history you're attributing to the version of The Form
that I just encountered sounds horribly credible.
Not to blame the victim, but your trouble may have started where it ended:
It's at this point that you realize you have smoked no weed at all today.
You're probably right!
I'm very fond of that song. It's on some of Nick's playlists.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That's because it is an essentially true history. I cannot
say how many times I was called upon to Do The Form. A buddy and I were once taken to a restricted admission meeting with the boys from national to go over the all new, "all purpose"(tm) committee designed database (in Oracle iirc) and associated Forms. When our presence was queried our immediate boss said "These are my hackers. Your database and Forms do not meet our needs and don't work with our Forms or database. They will take your stuff and use it with data from our database to create our Forms and load our database and then use our information with some added inputs to generate your Forms, and they stay, and that's that." This is why, especially in the early days, so many input screens looked like paper forms, they were, converted to some one or more languages and then to rudimentary html.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
That website sounds like a nightmare
It's funny ... as I began reading your story I started thinking to myself "why is it making her enter things like the trim package, when all of that data is encoded into the VIN and should fill in automatically?"
(I know this mainly because my spouse works in a collision repair shop and he has to find out the value of various random vehicles all the time. Some people start to list the details of what their car has/had and he says to them, "All I need is the VIN." It knows all. (Except for anything added aftermarket, of course. For those, they need receipts and/or photos.)
So there is absolutely no reason on earth to design a form that way. It has to be either a weird type of sadism, hatred of their customers, or stunning incompetence. I am sorry you had to deal with that, but glad it all worked out ok in the end.
Well...
It's funny ... as I began reading your story I started thinking to myself "why is it making her enter things like the trim package, when all of that data is encoded into the VIN and should fill in automatically?"
One might ask that, yes.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Hey, guys.
My mom was actually NOT done with the project, and asked if she could bring it over for moral support. That's where I've been all day--well, that, and storm prep. Not that I'm too worried about Eta--not on our own account, anyway.
How are y'all today?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver