Category: Modern problems

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My Day…

Ahhh just vented my spleen on a manufacturers web site. I took some solace knowing I’m not the only person having problems with their product. 

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I feel sorry for the original poster on the product forum. They have 8 blinds, I only have 7.

I posted this bit of bitching in hopes that someone considering purchase of the product might be forewarned and not have to deal with the craziness I have.

Re: Worst product I have encountered
on March 8th, 2013, 3:26 pm

I wholeheartedly agree with the original poster.

I have 7 blinds equipped with the somfy motors I hate the product! I’m sick and tired of the blinds breaking and crashing to the bottom of the windows sill or the floor. After the blinds are restrung I get the “JOY” of fighting to reprogram them.

Who had the bright idea to put the reset plug on the end of the blind motor enclosure? This means that when a blind blows its programming, you have to fight to get the blind up.

Then you have to take the blind OFF the mounting brackets, put the blind on a table or the floor. Then you plug in the little button attachment, press and hold the little button until the light tells you the blind is cleared. Then you have to put the blind back up in the window and try to reprogram it again.

You get to repeat this process at least twice perhaps three times, if you’ve been very good and your Karma is clean you only have to reprogram the blind that had the problem.

More often than not, you get to reprogram ALL the blinds on a particular control because the reprogramming of the one blind screws up the programming of all the others.

Which means that you get to spend at least an hour, usually 2 to 4 hours taking blinds down, resetting them, putting blinds back up, attempting to reprogram them, then taking them down again, resetting them, reprogramming them and all the while you’re praying that the three blinds you’ve been successful in reprogramming aren’t screwed up when you’re trying to reprogram the last blind.

Inevitably, though you end up reprogramming all of the blinds on a four blind controller at least twice.

I suppose this has “Enhanced my lifestyle” in that I don’t have to go to the Gym on days when I get to play “Reprogram the blinds“

As often as the blinds need to be reprogrammed, they should have a reset button right on the front of the enclosure. Make it a big red button so that you can’t miss it.

Why was it decided not to give the reset button and cord to the customer with each and every purchase? I was quoted $25 for a wire with a tiny plug at one end and a button with a light at the other.

I didn’t actually have to pay for the device because I pitched a fit and pointed out that the blinds were still under warranty.

The vendor could either send me the button thing, OR they could drive 50 miles to my house every time one of these blinds needed reprogramming…

I got the button next day Federal Express. I should have taken that as a clue.

You absolutely MUST have this device in order to regain control over a blind once it’s decided to flush it’s programming, which happens too often to keep track of.

In addition to the programming issues with the product. These blinds eat the nice expensive lithium batteries like candy. The motors “sing” to themselves all the time. By this I mean sitting idle doing nothing, you can hear the motors making high pitched whining noises.

That kind of sound is really irritating, and sure doesn’t “Enhance my lifestyle“. Having to listen to these blinds “Sing” while you’re trying to go to sleep has forced me to wear earplugs in my bedroom. (Pulling the batteries over night flushes the programming)

These are without doubt the worst products EVER, with the possible exception of perhaps a Ford Pinto. At least the Pintos had the decency to burst into flames and self destruct.

I’ve gotten so tired of dealing with these blinds I’ve decided that the next time they break down they’re going in the recycle bin. Enhanced my lifestyle???? Are you kidding?

I’m ready to just mount a roll-up shade in place of these horrible things. Heck, tacking a bedsheet across the windows would almost be preferable

I’d actually be happy if I could put them in “STUPID” mode and make them go up and down for as long as I held the button on the control. Especially if that would silence the motor noises.

The blinds are a pain in the behind because they’re “Smart”. The major issue with programming the dang things is that the motor has a concept of Top and Bottom. If I could… I’d lobotomize the darn things.

NEVER again!

I won’t ever purchase another motorized blind.

Simple is best. Save yourself the expense and aggravation stick with a good old fashioned pull cord to operate your window coverings. Better yet go with tab curtains and avoid all that mucking about with pulleys, gears, and strings.

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Free I’m free at last!

Today marks the first day of freedom from Express Scripts.

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Can I get a hallelujah!

No longer will I be forced into using generic drugs if I don’t want to. It’s once again my choice to manage MY own prescription world.

I once again can go to the LOCAL pharmacy. Where I can ask a pharmacist questions and know that I’ll actually be talking to someone that knows what the fuck they’re talking about.

No more talking to a moron on a telephone who obviously couldn’t give a shit about what they’ve sent, where they sent it, or that what they sent isn’t the right shit in the first place.

The down side is that I’ll be paying through the nose but that’s better than having to fight the fucking insurance company every time I need something.

Even if I was paying for a prescription out of pocket… I ended up wasting time (mine and the pharmacy staff) because I’d call in a prescription and the insurance assholes would override my request.

Then I’d go to the pharmacy and have to have the pharmacist take back the generic shit that doesn’t work on my body to replace it with the shit I wanted in the first place and was willing to pay cash for.

Generic drugs, with a different chemical make up aren’t the same as the real deal. Generics may work in a similar fashion but maybe not as well, that’s often why the generic was superseded in the first place.

Remember having to take an antibiotic 6 times a day? Now it’s not unusual to have a prescription antibiotic that you only have to take once a day and the new drug doesn’t give you the shits either.

Let me see… I have to take a handful of pills 6 times a day and I’ll need to have a diaper or I can take one pill a day and go on with my life without scoping out where the nearest toilet is.

UHH let me have option fucking B!

Now I can choose generics if they make sense and they’re effective otherwise I can pay for non generic and know the shit will work.

Yaaaahhhhooooo!

I’m fully aware that I may not be so thrilled the first month I get the bill. But at least I have freedom of choice instead of being told cheerfully that since a generic version of the drug I’d been taking for years was now available I would be forced to accept the generic. Oh and you’ll have to have your doctor jump through hoops to get that prescription filled.

With Express Scripts in my rear view mirror perhaps at least one portion of my life will get a little simpler.

If your HR department happens to mention Express Scripts as an option during your next open enrollment… Tell them in no uncertain terms you refuse.

Believe me if a conference room full of people say something like “We’re quitting if you force us to deal with that prescription coverage company” your HR people will probably listen.

In my case, I asked questions but the majority of the folks in the room just wanted to get through the presentation. After 3 years dealing with Express Scripts those same folks welcomed being laid off. We’d all had similar stories of horrific dealings with Express Scripts.

The classic was the guy whose meds had to be kept cold. Express Scripts sent his stuff in an uninsulated paper envelope in February to Los Angeles. At the time it was in the 80s and the drugs were ruined.

When he called Express Scripts asking for a replacement and explaining what happened the Express Script people told him its Winter, “We don’t ship in insulated packaging in Winter.” After Express Scripts had screwed up 3 consecutive shipments they finally sent him to his local pharmacy.

Good riddance to a fucked up company with a shitty customer service philosophy. Hello to freedom…

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Simple Things

I hate alarms.

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Chirps, and beeps from Alarm clocks to alarm systems will put me in a really nasty mood. I can’t count how many alarm clocks I’ve destroyed half awake because they freaked me out.Car alarms, beeps from UPS devices saying that they’re running when that should be obvious since you’re sitting in a lab that has suddenly gone pitch black.

My irritation level rises if I’m in a room full of people with smart phones chirping, whining, dinging, booping, or whatever. All of these noises represent something that needs attention.

FYI an incessantly ringing telephone won’t be answered… It will be ripped out of the wall! If it’s a cell phone, or a cordless phone, it’s battery will be ripped out. In those cases it’s pure dumb luck if the unit ever works again.

The ONE and ONLY time a fire alarm went off because of a real emergency, it went off as I and my family were already evacuating our burning home.

In point of fact it went off, further terrifying a dog who then panicked slipped her collar and ran into a bedroom where she died because we couldn’t get to her without losing our lives too.

The alarms in question over the years had gone off from the slightest whiff of smoke from the stove but for some reason waited until the flames were roaring across the ceiling before they went off, when they were really needed.

For me fire Alarms are a particular nemesis. I hate the things!

I hated being in corporate America when the company tested fire alarms. I’ve never understood the need for fire alarms to be so loud, with a frequency so piercing that they cause physical pain. 

I’ve actually experienced temporary partial deafness from having to move down a long narrow hallway with hard floors and walls where the fire alarms were positioned every 30 or 40 feet.

The echo was deafening, painful and pushed me from pissed off to ready to rip someones throat out. I can remember screaming “MOVE YOU DUMB FUCKS!” at the top of my lungs because I wanted nothing more than to get out of the gauntlet of pain as quickly as possible. That comment landed me in the HR department because I’d been mean calling my co-workers dumb fucks. 

By the way that incident happened while my fingers were firmly in both ears and I was still in excruciating pain. It felt like ice picks being driven through my head. I was partially deaf for days after. The HR bitch didn’t believe that I’d been physically hurt by the noise. I’m sure that I could have made a case today under OSHA rules. But back then… it was the cost of having a job.

(I just checked. Apparently sustained 85db is sufficient to cause hearing damage over an 8 hour day, which just so happens to be the db level of all three of the smoke alarms in my house.

It appears that in a commercial situation the db level can be higher. 100dbA can cause permanent damage after just 15 minutes per day, and 120db or higher can cause immediate damage.

I’m guessing that my reaction is a completely defensive reaction. I’ve always assumed that if something hurt it was probably damaging, Apparently, I’m somewhat correct. )

I have on more than one occasion leapt straight up and ripped an errant fire alarm off a ceiling of my home. By errant I mean one that has decided to go off because there was a spill on the stove or grease spatter in the oven. Even after being ripped off the ceiling the damn thing wouldn’t shut up. So in those cases I disemboweled the device to make it shut the hell up. There is something satisfying about hearing the death wheeze of a machine that’s pissed me off.

With all this in mind, can you imagine how fraught with peril running the self cleaning cycle of my oven is?

I mean you’re going to have smoke! Even with all the doors and windows open your’e still going to have smoke accumulating along the ceiling for at least a short time.

The house I live in now, has 3 smoke detectors in a nice straight line, they’re spread out over about 12 feet. One in the master bedroom, one in the hall and one in the guest room. Oddly there’s not one in the living room, however this means that these detectors are all less than 20 feet from the kitchen.

It’s a safe bet that when one of these smoke detectors goes off, they all go off, usually with a lovely 1/2 second delay so that the full painful, piercing,reflected sound is present. This will put me from zero to crazy pissed off in just about the half second they all decide to go off.

I’ve actually left the kitchen with something potentially dangerous smoldering on a burner to shut these damn machines up.

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Why? Because with the sound causing the kind of pain they do I can’t think of anything except making the hateful noise stop.

Well today, I’m cleaning the oven. 

I tried scrubbing it so that I didn’t have to run the self cleaning cycle.

But at some point, someone must have cooked something in the oven that fucking exploded. That same person didn’t bother to clean up their mess or tell anyone that they’d made a mess in the first place. I’m not naming names or anything…

What this all leads to is that in order to run the self cleaning cycle, I had to take certain precautions. 

1) open all doors and windows (it’s 45F… I can put on a jacket for 3 hours)

2) Remove all smoke detectors and put them in a safe place.

3) Deal with the monitored house alarm smoke detector.

Number 3 is a bit of a sticky wicket. You can’t just pull it off the ceiling, that will cause it to go off and then the Alarm panel will be bitching for the next 3 hours “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! FIRE FIRE FIRE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

Long before you figure out that the panel can’t be shut up… the Fire Department has driven onto your lawn.

This is bad.

So I called the alarm people and asked them how to put the panel into maintenance mode so that the smoke alarm wouldn’t go off, summon the fire department, and most of all wouldn’t scream for 3 solid hours.

Guess what? 

You can’t!

Oh, you can tell the alarm people not to call the fire department. But you can’t tell the alarm something simple like 

“I’m the Human, I know whats going on and you don’t so shut the hell up and let me finish what I’ve got to do here.”

I told the alarm people that I considered this a serious design flaw.

“Yeah, I’m really big on the human having control because as the human in the equation I have the ability to reason and evaluate the situation.“

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Until a machine can think, I will aways believe that a human should have the ultimate control. And yes… that includes even the control computers in a nuclear power plant.

I also believe that any human over-rides should require some challenges, The human, no matter how smart or well intentioned should be forced to think through their decision to over-ride automation.

That being said… this human over-rode the automation in a remarkably simple fashion.

It always makes me laugh when Star Treks Mr. Scotts words are true.

“The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.“

If I can’t take the device off the ceiling… I can at least prevent the smoke from getting to the device.

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Only after I’d taped the bag in place did it occur to me I could have used a CD cover.

I’ll do that next time.

I’d have used one of those spray on foam oven cleaners but the instructions to the oven said not to.

Now the question is will I have to repaint the ceiling where the scotch tape was holding the plastic bag in place?

Well, we shall see in another hour.

I guess the thing that makes me crazy is that you can’t do the simplest of things anymore without it turning into a furball.

I miss the good old days when mom would burn something in the kitchen and we just had to open the windows.

I’m going to put on a heavier jacket. the sun is dropping behind the mountain and with it the temperature.

And by the way… I will be putting the hated fire alarms back up. Yeah, they’re a pain in the ass but one that I’m willing to put up with for the sake of having a little warning (hopefully) in case of a real fire.


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Here we go again

It’s that wonderful time of year… The time when the Gas prices shoot through the roof.

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This year they’re starting earlier than usual. I guess the Oil executives have to pay for their Christmas yachts somehow…

Of course the local California media is asking Why? They’re also promising a full investigation.

Investigate? How about just looking at the facts.

The problem is as simple as this. California only sells gas that is refined in California.

So if there’s the slightest glitch at any of the refineries, the oil companies get to put a hot poker up all our asses.

This isn’t a smart way to do things. Anyone in manufacturing knows that sole sourcing isn’t smart.

California isn’t the only state that has regulations forcing fuel being sold in the state to have been refined in the state.

I pick on California because it’s the state that I know the most about being one of the people raped at least twice a year by the oil companies. Although in recent years it’s looking more and more like 3 times a year.

As I’ve said before, it’s stuff like the refinery is being maintained, or the refinery needs a bit of paint. Opps, one of executives passed nasty farts. In short, any little excuse to simulate an emergency and thereby jack the prices up.

I’m not driving un-necessarily. I suspect that no-one else is either. Here in my household we’re planning all our trips very carefully and we don’t go anywhere we don’t have to.

This means, no movies, no dining out, no shopping, no bar hopping, in short no luxuries.

If a lot of people in California are adopting similar strategies then pretty soon the California economy will dip.

This means that any layoffs in retail, or food services can be laid squarely at the feet of the oil companies. And they should be!

Crude Oil prices are lower than last year. Brent Crude is about the same. So why the run up?

Can you say Greed???

Good! I knew you could…

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Ok, I’ve got nothing!

Nothing to say.

Still looking for insurance that I can afford.

THuhhe search isn’t going well.

On the one hand I’d like to be covered, on the other hand I have a fundamental problem paying another mortgage payment to have medical coverage.

The primary problem I have is this, with a mortgage I have something that’s tangible. With health insurance I’m pissing money away to provide for coverage that I may or may not use.

At the rate I’m paying right now for COBRA, if I paid that same rate for 10 years it would come to $72,000 not including interest.

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When the  men in my family break at end of life we don’t typically last very long.

I’m actually fortunate in that as long as we stay active we live a long fairly trouble free life. Our sinuses are for shit but nothing is perfect.

When our time comes we tend to go out like Don Corleone in The Godfather. We’re playing with the grandkids or great grandkids in the garden then we drop dead.

If I’m going to pay the equivalent of another mortgage, I might as well take advantage of the lower mortgage rates and buy another piece of property. At least I could rent it out and have an income, with a potentially higher rate of return.

I was thinking about it and realized that were I to go to a bank to apply for a mortgage for another piece of property they’d tell me I can’t afford to make the payment. Yet our government says that not only must I afford the payment but that they will enforce it under the law.

It’s a lose, lose proposition. If I were still in my 20s I’d be applying for citizenship in other countries. Not because I hate America, I love this country, but because I wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of American citizenship as I got older.

Today if I could communicate with my younger self… I’d say go find a decent country with good people and a system that works. Move there, become a citizen and plan for a decent retirement.

I look at my parents and their retirement isn’t at all what they’d planned for because they trusted in a system that didn’t really protect them. Remember Enron? There were a lot of 401K investments that got wiped out due to them. Then just a few years later you have the housing implosion and the devaluation of their retirement savings has really cut into what they can do. I know they’re on Medicare and Social Security I know they’re paying for health care supplementary insurance I just don’t know how long they’re going to be able to afford it.

I’ve spoken to younger insurance agents who don’t have health insurance because they don’t have an extra 600 – 800 dollars a month in their budgets.

NewImageYet in 2014 we’re all supposed to be carrying insurance and we’ll be penalized for not having a policy in force.

I’m still OK,  yeah I’m using my savings to pay the bills but I can go for a while longer with careful spending. I keep wondering how the hell can people less fortunate than myself come close to affording health insurance?

It really messes with your head. You want to do the right thing, but you can’t afford to do the right thing.

Obviously if you didn’t bother to pay for your housing, and didn’t eat you could afford to pay for health insurance. Then you’d only have to worry about paying for health insurance for a few weeks.

This is seriously wrong. And yet the government is in a position to make us all face this choice.

I’ve said it before. Contrary to what President Obama would have us believe. The problem isn’t that American Citizens are irresponsible about medical coverage. The problem is that health insurance companies and to some extent the medical providers are raping the American People.

If our government was truly interested in taking action on health care they’d address the source of the problem not penalize the victims.

Humm, I guess I did have something to say after all.