Tag: Fail

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Rain & Thunder on a Saturday evening.

The thunder & lightening in the sky mirrors my mood at the moment, But I love it so much I’m calming down rapidly enjoying the sound of rain on the roof, and rumbling in the sky.

It’s so calming for me. Even Jesse seems to be enjoying it. He’s curled up in the chair, head on the arm snoozing. He’s completely unbothered by the noise and that bodes well if we move someplace in the future that has weather.

What had me raging was I love the modern age!

NOT!

I’ve finally gotten to the point that I’m ready to donate Jerry’s car to a charity organization. It’s got over 300K miles on it, still runs, (although at the moment the battery is dead.) Nothing though that a little time on the battery charger wouldn’t fix.

So, I called the same veterans donation organization I called last year to get rid of the dead trucks. 

Last year, getting rid of two trucks took one phone call to these folks. They collected the information, and they scheduled the pickup date in one phone call. They showed up on time, we filled out some paperwork and that was that. Military precision and efficiency.

96 hours later they sent me an email telling me what the trucks had sold for at auction and appropriate tax information.

It was a good experience. So I called them again on Thursday.

This time I was talking to a heavily accented Indian woman. Sigh…Last year it was an American dude, possibly a veteran. This year there was question after question and the woman was having a hard time understanding the answers. Last year, the guy answering the phone answered with the name of the organization I was donating to. The questions were few and straight forward.

This year the woman answered the phone as some weird donation firm and when I asked if she was part of the actual organization I was trying to donate to, she hemmed and hawed about it then said she was part of some donation clearing house that would direct my donation to the proper organization. Uhh, Okaaaay.

She didn’t schedule anything, she said someone would be calling me later. They didn’t call, they sent 4 text messages, and 3 emails. From a completely different organization. Okaaaay. One of the emails had a link to schedule the pickup. I clicked  the link and scheduled a pickup for Monday. I got 2 more text messages and an email confirming the pickup date.

I heard nothing on Friday from any of the (now three) organizations.

This morning I was out walking the dog, then came home dropped him off at home and went out to run some errands. At some point my phone must’ve rung, but I didn’t hear it and didn’t look at my phone until I got home.

There was a voicemail, again heavily accented that said, “I’m calling you regarding your vehicle to be picked up.” That was it, nothing else.

AND????

About the time I’m thinking what the hell, and fuming about the complete lack of telephone etiquette, I get another text message and an email from the third organization saying that the pickup had been cancelled.

The email was asking if I still wanted to donate.

What the actual FUCK? Now I’ve got four different organizations involved in this chain of Clusterfuckery™ and apparently the vehicle is not going to be picked up.

Well yes, I do still want to donate the vehicle, but not to you!

What the hell is wrong with people? Do they not think that perhaps someone might have other things to do than exist to answer their phone calls?

I’ll find someone else, preferably someone that does not involve any of the last three organizations.

I mean, why is everything so damn complex?

Oh well, back to listening to the thunder and rain on the roof.

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Don’t worry my dogs are friendly…

“Don’t worry my dogs are friendly…” Said the guy opening his car door, letting his 2 dogs run off leash at the trail head a week or so ago.

Both dogs ran barking and snapping, directly at me & Jesse (who I had on his leash). One caught my pups jaw with a tooth then went for his throat and legs. The other came at me snarling & trying to bite me. I dropped the leash so Jesse had free motion and I had both hands to defend myself.

Jesse is amazingly fast and agile. He got a piece of his attacker and had blood all over his mouth and face while their owner was yelling & threatening me as though somehow I or my dog were at fault.

Fortunately, there were plenty of witnesses and a sign that clearly said “NO DOGS OFF LEASH”. When the authorities arrived, the witnesses all pointed at the dudes dogs as aggressors giving statements. Jesse & I were sitting on a tall rock. He was still on guard but was a good boy while I rinsed his wounds with water from our hydration pack. I was able to clean, assess, and dress his wounds on the spot. (Put together a dog first aid kit. It pays to be prepared!)

A Ranger brought Jesse his bandanna lost in the fracas, approaching very gently and quietly. He climbed up on the rock with us & Jesse nuzzled him to put the bandanna back on.

“That guy is trying to claim your dog is aggressive and mean,” he said as he retied the bandanna.

“I’m just not seeing it, his dog is pretty chewed up though. He’s demanding you pay the vet bill. Don’t worry, he’s not got a leg to stand on, he’s getting a hefty ticket right now. How’s this fella?” He gave Jesse some ear scritches.

“He’s okay, it think. There’s a cut from a tooth on his jaw, a couple of small punctures on his leg and another puncture near his shoulder towards his neck. They’re minor. I’ve cleaned ’em & hit ’em with antibiotic ointment. I’ll watch him for the next few days. He’ll be at the vet if he’s not healing or I find anything worse when we get home.” 

“Good,” the Ranger said, “Would you like me to hold the leash while you clean up the wound on your leg?” Jesse gave the Ranger a lick, asking for more ear scritches.

I was so worried about my pup, I hadn’t noticed I’d been injured and was bleeding pretty good. I rinsed my wound, & grabbed the human first aid kit from the pack to fix myself up.

The Ranger smiled, “Nice to see someone prepared even if 99% of the time they don’t need to be. You guys walk this trail a lot. I’ve never seen a vehicle, would you like a ride home?”

Folks, there’s a darn good reason to keep your dog on a leash. It’s as much for their safety as it is for others. You have no idea how far from home someone is, or if they, or their dog is old or has bad knees/other health conditions. Keeping control of your dog is super important so everyone can have a nice walk/hike.

That being said, drop the leash if your dog is attacked. They know what to do, and a former street dog like my pup knows how to end it pretty quick. 

Neither of us will have lasting physical damage & we got a ride in a ranger’s truck home. So that’s off our bucket list.

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I just watched Mayor Bass’s press conference

Frankly I’m confused.

On the one hand she kept stressing that if people do something illegal, they’ll be arrested. Okay…

In the same breath she’s telling ICE to stop arresting people. Which is it lady?

ICE is arresting people who supposedly are here illegally. So I really don’t understand. 

Today, there are scattered reports of Marines from 29 Palms being sent to Los Angeles. I have questions about this too.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevents the use of military personnel in domestic law enforcement unless authorized by law. I don’t know who makes that authorization, I presume Congress. So I’m concerned on two fronts:

1) Has Trump violated his boundaries as defined by Congressional oversight? 2) If the Marines are being deployed I’m concerned that Marines will be standing around with big assed targets on their backs.

Mayor Bass was trying to pull heart strings taking about how fearful the immigrants are in Los Angeles. Duh! If you’re here illegally, whether it’s a day or a decade you have broken the law.

You should be afraid, if you’re smart, you should be planning to pack up your shit, and go home. If you’re self deporting heading for Tijuana I doubt seriously ICE is going to stop you.

Mayor Bass said, “Stop the raids, they’re causing fear and chaos in our city.”

So what the fuck does she propose? Obviously the raids will be ongoing. She’s asking for the US to continue to accept illegal immigrants. They’re blaming Trump. In my opinion they should be blaming Biden.

If you think about it, had Biden not thrown the borders wide open, then everything would have continued on status quo. But Biden’s actions pissed off a rather large swath of the American populace and this is the inevitable backlash.

As my mother used to say, “All it takes is a few bad apples and everyone loses the ability to do something.”

In this case, there were too many illegal crossings, most of them barely vetted, and then they disappeared into the interior of the country with the help of federally funded relocation via buses, planes, trains, and automobiles.

Hell, the illegals were allowed to get onto planes with virtually zero documentation while American Citizens were almost being strip searched to get on a plane.

While our elders, were squeaking by on an average of $1500 a month, the illegals were having housing provided, getting stipends of 3 or 4 thousand dollars per month, getting free medical care, and getting free phone service.

Surely someone in the Biden administration, at some point had to think, “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

Granted, It had probably been going on for years, but with so many people surging the border the fact that illegals were being treated better than Americans who’d worked their whole lives paying into a system that congress has raided innumerable times and who effectively betrayed them, couldn’t be hidden anymore.

Of course there was going to be a backlash, well this is it.

As I watched Mayor Bass’s conference, I couldn’t help thinking that this was a Mayor who was clueless and flailing. Newsom is no better.

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Bank of America shows us something important.

Pexels steve pancrate Bank of America 640x480.This week Bank of America had some kind of outage that resulted in an unknown number of their customers having their bank accounts zeroed out.

“My personal and business Bank of America accounts were wiped to $0.00 in this alleged cyber attack,” Elijah Schaffer, a journalist with Gateway Pundit

Elijah Schaffer is a fairly well known conservative reporter and the host of the “Slightly Offensive with Elijah Schaffer” podcast.

Thus far I’ve not seen any numbers of how many BofA customers experienced this problem.

The number was apparently large enough that their customer service phone lines were overwhelmed and would answer, say they couldn’t talk, then hang up.

This points to the fragility of a cashless society, in general. It also points to something potentially more sinister.

In recent years there has been a push from some quarters to have specialized categorizations added to VISA, MasterCard, American Express, & other cards.

For the time being these categorizations appear to be limited specifically to firearms.

So while Federal and State governments say they’re not in favor of a nationwide firearms database.

These categorizations allow Federal and State governments to have a backdoor into being able to identify someone who either has guns, (registered or not, because grandaddies rifle or six shooter is probably not registered, and doesn’t NEED to be,) who may have purchased  bullets, accessories, or even hats displaying firearms logos… or who may just have an interest in guns.

Categorizations are way better than a firearms database. With a firearms database, someone has to have purchased a firearm, or specifically chosen to register a weapon.

Ever changing laws regarding which firearms need to be registered, what doesn’t, what is legal in this state or that state and what isn’t, and that a gun or a magazine purchased last year was legal then but now isn’t legal, have gone a long way toward criminalizing average citizens.

It’s really all about creating enough legislation such that anyone, at anytime, at the convenience of whatever government or state official, can be charged for illegally possessing something that some other asshole who’s never seen or fired a gun in real life decided was too dangerous to exist.

All of which brings me to my point. 

Select, apparently random Bank of America customers have suddenly, inexplicably, had their bank accounts zeroed out. Since many banking customers have their credit cards through the same bank their checking & savings accounts are with, categorizations could literally be used to punish individuals that government entities find offensive.

Think about it. You expect your direct deposit paycheck to be accessible. You expect your debit card to work. You expect your credit card to work. What happens when you offend a government official and they order your accounts frozen?

The IRS, for years has used this power to screw citizens. The IRS was granted the power to freeze accounts in an effort to curtail drug and human trafficking. But they, more often than not, use it to make sure a mom & pop business owner and their family goes hungry.

Obama used the IRS to punish organizations which opposed him. Folks in these organizations  spent years and thousands of dollars defending themselves against Obama’s IRS. Some of them are only recently cleared of wrongdoing. But the IRS is under no obligation to pay these people back for their legal expenses.

How much easier would it have been for Obama DOJ to punish everyone who donated to organizations he didn’t like with a conference call to VISA, MasterCard, & American Express?

Creating categorizations allows for very specific targeting of large groups who have one or two charges in common. 

For example, everyone who’s ever purchased a firearm or bullet. How about anyone who’s purchased a ticket to a Trump rally?

We know that Biden’s DOJ used charge records to identify January 6th attendees. Some of those people were later classified as January 6th rioters and arrested. Many of whom are still incarcerated awaiting trial almost 4 years later.

Over time, computers could narrow it down to categorizations of individual products. Don’t like cigarettes? Cancel people’s accounts who buy them. Don’t like a particular corporation, destroy them through their clients. No one will buy a corporation’s products if doing so results in being unable to buy food.

It’s far more efficient than the IRS having to target individuals or organizations. Subpoenas and all the constitutional protections that the IRS has to step over, through, or around, become a thing of the past.

Simply looking at commonalities between members of a group would allow correlation and targeting. Eventually, I could see the focus narrowed to individual SKU numbers. I’d bet it could be done today with the right databases and a bit of creativity.

I know this sounds like a dystopian fantasy, but believe me when I say it’s possible. This is what people mean when they talk about social credit scores, if you believe this kind of control can’t or won’t be implemented here in the United States you’ve got a shock coming. There are a number of congressional folks from both parties who approve of elements of this but don’t see the bigger picture.

Which leads me to wonder, was the Bank of America “Glitch” really a cyber attack, or was it a proof of concept demonstration?

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I never would’ve thought…

The resin bed in the water softener could break down. But it can and then god only knows what you’re drinking if you drink the tap water.

The reverse osmosis unit had been off-line for about four or five days. I didn’t think about it too much because I thought the water softener itself was still working properly. Uh huh… Sometimes if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all.

As it turns out I was wrong. The resin bed in the water softening system had deteriorated which actually explains why I felt like absolute shit for two or three days.

I was drinking the tapwater, thinking it might just have a little more salt than usual. It turns out it may have had something else too.

This probably explains why Jesse was a little loose in the rear end. I suspect both of us were trying real hard to throw off whatever else was included in the tapwater that we were drinking.

Saturday or Sunday I switched over to bottled water, not because I had any great insight, but because the tapwater came out looking murky at one point, then it was brown, later it was just cloudy. Let’s put it this way it looked like Detroit.

I thought the problem was the water company itself, and was all prepared to give them a piece of my mind on Tuesday after the Labor Day Holiday. Because the only time things seem to break anymore is over a holiday weekend!

Then I noticed that the hose water was clear. Meaning the problem had to be inside the house. I tried to bypass the water softener and found that the bypass valves were seized. So bottled water it was, I just hope Jesse didn’t acquire a taste for arrowhead.

The repair guy showed up as promised, when promised. He was prepared and went right to work.

He got the RO unit working again, then went down to the Water Softener itself. The bad news was the resin bed was shot to hell and was polluting the water more than helping. The good news was the system has a lifetime warranty so there was no additional charge to clean out the old resin and replace it.

An hour or two later and the system is once again operating.