You know: the free stuff that you didn’t have to cough up a gouge for so you could watch content with just as much advertising as the unpaid programming? The free service that you didn’t have to pay for a cable connection to view? That television.
Like…all I want to do is watch the evening news. Come into the office (no, you can’t watch this fine content from your easy chair: you get to sit in your wooden desk chair to watch video programming) and find the iMac has shut itself down. Or maybe I shut it down completely last night when it would NOT go into “sleep” mode. So I have to fire the whole damn thing up. Naturally it puts up a fight.
Try to load FireFox: the iMac decides I should load Word instead. No. I do not want Word! But now I have to wait for it to load , which it does not: it hangs. But FireFox does, so I get to wait a for it to tell it can’t find my “pages,” which presumably would be the pages that I didn’t have open at all when the damn thing went down. Now it’s clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety to get the PBS NewsHour to come up, then sit through an ad for a freight train line and for Consumer Cellular and for a long series of nonprofits.
And finally…news. Wow! It’s looking worse and worse for the Orange Buffoon. The (fired by the crooked buffoon and his henchmen) ambassador to Ukraine had to be subpoenaed to make it possible for her voluntarily to testify to Congress. He’s fighting back by riling up his stunningly ignorant, hate-filled, and scared sheep.
It’s like having Caligula in the White House. I mean the real Caligula: the demented Roman Emperor. The scary thing about it is that Caligula was symptomatic of the decline of the Roman Empire. Truly: there’s nothing new under the sun.
Rachel Maddow is talking as fast as she can talk. Even that breathless pace, we can barely keep up with the fast-and-furious breaking events. One criminal act after another…and not only that, but patently mind-boggling stupidity.
And you just keep returning to the fundamental question here — or at least one of them: what was wrong with the Republican leadership that they allowed the nomination of this moronic demagogue? Is Mitch McConnell really that stupid? Mike Pence: is he that dumb, or did he figure if Trump went into the White House it wouldn’t be long before he himself — Pence — would be occupying the Oval Office? If he’s not that dumb, is he really that craven? And is there any reasonable term for this corrupt behavior other than treason?
Sitting here watching the PBS NewsHour, having perused rather too many news sites in GoogleNews before this. I sweartogod, I can barely stand to watch or read this stuff. How many friends have you heard say that? How many times have you said it yourself?
Lookit this: they just nailed two of Giuliani’s flunkies as the crooks were climbing on an airplane bearing one-way tickets out of the country.
The saga gets wilder, crazier, and more alarming with every hour that passes. What on earth do you suppose the Republicans had in their collective mind when they nominated a lunatic like Trump for the presidency? Surely they must have been able to see, from the git-go, that their candidate was incompetent to lead the country. The peccadillos, the welching on debts to architects and contractors, the businesses run into the ground, the draft-dodging, the inadequate education, the utter vacancy in the ethics department…really: what could they have been thinking?
Apparently they figured if they engineered and gerrymandered in a clown, they could entertain the masses with a circus while they took away our bread. They must have thought they could control him, at least to some degree. They probably recognized how feeble he is in the brains department and figured they could steer him as they pleased. Instead we’ve gone from crude to stupid to vicious to downright lunacy as more and more tumult emanates from the White House.
How. Exceptionally. Stupid of them. Or…should we say, how exceptionally evil? Is cynicism evil? Or are we merely seeing an unfortunate outcome of the Republican leadership’s ill-considered cynicism?
If you’re going to play at being Niccolò Machiavelli, you’d better be as smart as Niccolò Machiavelli. Apparently the Republican right and their billionaire handlers didn’t have enough IQ points among them to aspire to that standard.
The growth of the Internet of Things (IOT) has seen a rapid adoption of smart technologies within the home. Over the past 40 years, not much changed in basic functions of the home, such as lighting, temperature control, and security, until the developed of connected devices, which have suddenly opened up the market and given the average homeowner access to technologies that once were reserved for the rich and famous.
A MoneySupermarket.com survey reports that 77% of the British public know what connected devices are, and a massive 79% have a smartphone with which to control their Smart Home should they so wish.
The benefits of a connected home often form the butt of jokes, with the punchline being someone asking Alexa or Siri to carry out some menial task on their behalf, saving them a task that would have required them only to reach out their arm. But there are much wider benefits to their smart devices than just changing the radio channel, turning on the lights, or changing your fridge temperature by one degree. The main benefit is in home security. This is how it affects your home insurance.
Films of the past decades have made us aware of the high technology solutions for security adopted to secure priceless pieces of art or diamonds. Such systems used by art galleries and museums are now readily available and affordable for the average home, greatly increasing security measures for many who once relied on just locks and bolts to secure their home.
Which smart devices have brought the home security market so far in such a short period of time?
Video Doorbells
Look down your road and you will probably find one or two neighbors who’ve already adopted a smart doorbell such as a Ring system. The bell doesn’t look much different from a standard doorbell or small intercom system but look closely and you will notice that it has an integrated camera. What is really different is the technology behind the doorbell device ,which connects it to your home WIFI and your other smart devices, including your smart phone, even when you’re outside the home, even abroad.
The smart doorbell notifies your phone when motion or sound, depending on your settings, indicate that someone has either pressed your doorbell, or has even just walked up your driveway. A live video stream can then be viewed from your phone or tablet, allowing you to communicate directly with the person at your doorstep through the device, asking them to place your parcel in your porch or call back when more convenient.
The advantages of this to security are obvious: you have eyes and ears on your front door 24 hours a day even when you’re not home. And the recorded footage can be used to deter or identify uninvited intruders. But what about the rest of your home?
Smart Sensors and Cameras
Other smart sensors and cameras, often as inexpensive as £30 ($37) per device, can be placed around your home and property to notify you of movement at windows, doors, or inside the building. Again, notifications can be sent to your phone so that you can respond to a would-be burglar, call the police, or trigger another smart device that turns on lights or plays noises. Automatic responses to triggered sensors can also be set up such as security lights turning on.
Will this Reduce Your Home Insurance?
Insurance companies like are starting to provide a reduction in home insurance premium for homeowners who have installed security devices, particularly those of well-known manufacturers, so check with your insurer before choosing your devices. The advantages to you and the insurer are obvious, with damage to property and contents likely reduced in a home where connected technologies are deployed.
What Is the Future of Connected Devices?
Interestingly, a spokesperson for Insure4Retirement, a UK insurance broker, pointed out that 30% of home insurance claims result from water damage from internal leaks, not flooding, according to the Association of British Insurers. Technologies that sense and notify of water leakage are already on the market that sense and notify of water leakage; some can shut off the water supply to the leaking system. Although many homeowners are unaware of these technologies and insurers have yet to lower premiums for homes where they are installed, once some insurers innovate in this area it is likely that the devices will be adopted by homeowners.
Okay, so my beloved kitchen wrench, the one that resides in a drawer, where it stands by to perform the crucial job of unscrewing the caps on bottles of cheap wine, has been hiding for the past several weeks. Didn’t pay much attention to this, because I’ve been on the wagon for quite some time and so had rare occasions to pine for the wine wrench. {heh!}
Well, the other day after I escaped the Mayo’s test lab, whence I was ordered to present myself for an annual health review, the first thing I did was tear down to the fancy-Dan Fry’s at Tatum & Shea and grab a bottle of my favorite California hootch. I’d been abstaining for the past month, by way of gaming the Mayo’s system: I’ve grown mightily tired of hearing my unempathetic doc whinge about my liver enzyme levels. And of having to prevaricate about how much spirits I actually consume, so as a) to avoid getting that written down anywhere and b) to avoid having to listen to a long lecture containing advice that I already know, thankyouverymuch. At any rate, I was reminded that the beloved kitchen wrench had gone AWOL when I tried to open this fine bottle of wine. Searched all over for the thing, but couldn’t find it.
Alas. Managed to get the fine bottle open anyway.
This morning another raft of test results went online at the Mayo’s “portal.” And lo!
Liver enzyme levels: right smack in the middle of the “normal” range
Glucose level: about 5 points high…we’ll be told, once again (as over the past 8 or 10 years) that we’re “pre-diabetic.” Okay, just hand me the damn candybar…)
Everything else: dead on normal.
Hm. I suspect those liver enzymes have come down specifically because I decided to knock off my daily dose of wine. Or beer. Or whiskey.
Have I felt better? Not really. About the same, I’d say. I felt fine before climbing on the wagon and I feel fine now. But that notwithstanding…I do think it’s time to revert to Great-Grandmother’s staunch policy of tee-totaling. Clearly the booze has been affecting the liver, and not imbibing has also affected it: for the better.
Hence….the decision: Stay on the wagon? Or sink beneath the waves of a sea of iniquity?
Contemplating said collection of medico-facts this morning, it occurred to me that I still hadn’t found the wine wrench, despite having launched a special search for it after I arrived home with the recent purchase in hand. So got up off my duff and wandered into the garage for another lookaround…
And lo! There were the familiar yellow handles! Yes. Right there in the toolbox. Uh huh. The toolbox I’d searched three times without finding them.
How does that happen? How can you look at something — right straight at it, presumably — three times without seeing it? When you’re sober and have been dead sober for a month or so?
Wow! The long greens have been washing out of the Funny Farm like a flash flood! I’m freakin’ going broke here…but oddly, most of this results not from impulse buying or budget-free living but from a weird confluence of bureaucratic gouges and house-related expenses. Some of them pretty hefty expenses. Most of these were either for things that had to be done or for things I figured were better attended to now than put off.
First, of course, we had the blinding $2500 property tax bill. Put that on a charge card. The statement just came floating into the mailbox…so that has to be paid forthwith. With any luck it will elicit a little kickback from American Express…more, I hope, than the gouge the County charges for the privilege of putting it on a card.
Then, the pool fiascos…holy mackerel!!!
After the $10,000 replastering job, as you’ll recall, the pool was absolutely gorgeous for a week or two…then it filled up with green London Fog. For $100+ per visit, Swimming Pool Service & Repair’s redoubtable Aaron came over and tried to beat the stuff back. Repeated visits and a $125 filter cleaning did nothing. Finally, after I remarked that I was thinking about simply filling the pool in, enough being enough, already, they came over and tried again a couple of times. Much to no avail… The green fog just came right back. (3 x $100: $300, + 125: $425)
You’ll recall that at the outset of this adventure, on the advice of WonderAccountant’s pool guy, I was pouring two gallons of chlorine into the drink: $13 a day…that would be $390 a month. This doesn’t count the soda ash and assorted other chemicals or the new test kit I had to order from Amazon.
Finally Aaron proposed that they should drain the pool, power-spray it with chlorine, and sanitize the pump, the filter, and any other equipment. Hoping against hope to save the pool I agreed to this: $350.
And indeed: they did a wonderful job! The water was sparkling clear and it stayed clear with little or no work on my part.
The job racked up not only the $350 for the work, but something over $100 charged by the city for refilling the pool after they drained it.
Then about two weeks later, along came the palm tree guys. They proposed to trim and clean up the four neglected palms — those trees hadn’t been trimmed in three or four years — and also “skin” the palm that never had the dead palm frond stumps removed: $250. This was a job that really needed doing, and the price was about what Gerardo would charge…only they’d do it now, not sometime whenever Gerardo & his guys get around to it.
I told them they absolutely must not drop the palm fronds into the damn pool! Right. “Sí señora…no palm fronds in the pool.”
Couple hours later I look out there and the damn pool is FULL OF PALM FRONDS!
I go out and say, “I asked you not to drop the palm fronds in the pool!”
“No problem, señora! We’ll pull them out!”
He didn’t understand what I was saying when I said “no palm fronds in the pool.” He thought I meant “please don’t leave dead fronds and leaves in the water,” not what I really meant, which was “throw the palm fronds over the wall into the alley and onto the street, and then from there load them into your truck.” And of course he had no clue that palm fronds harbor, among many other pests, billions and billions of mustard algae spores.
Of course, they pulled the fronds out of the water, which was exactly what they planned to do. Then, after I taught them how to do it, they cleaned the remaining debris off the bottom of the pool.
They charged $250 to trim all four palm trees (cleaning out at least 3 years’ worth of neglected debris, still clinging to the tops of the 30-foot trunks) and to skin the one inadequately maintained tree. It was miserably hot, they damn near killed themselves working like acrobatic climbing mules, and then they spent another hour shoveling out the pool. Amazingly, they engaged this last annoying chore with good cheer. I gave them a $100 bonus, given the vastness of the job I’d foisted on them.
Understand: Gerardo charges $50/tree: $200 per job, and the unshaven tree would be left unshaven. Over three years, that’s $600…so I came out ahead on that one, and got the neglected frond stubs cut off that one tree at no extra charge. (You don’t even want to know how much Gerardo proposed to charge to shave that tree!)
I poured some more chlorine into the drink. Once again, to no avail.
Within three days, the pool was a murky green swamp again!
A-a-a-n-d once again, I call Aaron in despair, pretty much determined to drain the pool and fill it in. Yea verily, I get the name of a pool demolition company, whose guy gives me an estimate of $12,000 to $14,000. Installing a deck over it with a pump in the bottom to keep mosquito puddle dry would come to about the same.
Aaron sends his colleague Don over. He dumps in some chemicals that, after about 12 hours of run time, sort of clear the water. That bill has yet to be presented. He also suggests that instead of fighting the thing myself, I should hire a pool maintenance guy to come in once a week to do battle with it.
I remark that during the Year of the Surgeries indeed I did do that, to woeful result. It was a total waste of $80 a month and and a total waste of time. He says maybe I should try someone else. So far I haven’t seen the bill for that visit.
Determined to give it one last chance, I ask the neighbors on the ‘Hood’s Facebook page if anyone can suggest a pool guy. And lo! Some woman warmly recommends the Pool Dude of the Century. Another pool dude is also recommended.
I reach the second guy first — he wants $120 a month. Right, pal. We’ll be calling the demolition guy back next.
Finally the first guy returns my call. He comes over, inspects the mess, and says he’ll do it for $85 a month. Weekly visits, chemicals included. Welll….ohhhkayyy…I figure I can always can him when (not “if”) this doesn’t work: “You’re on!”
So he, that very morning, applies three chemicals that he happens to carry on his truck. “You’re gonna have to run the system overnight,” he says. “It’ll take about 24 hours for this stuff to do the job.”
That evening I go out and look at the water: still murky. Another lost cause, I figure, and plan to call the demolition crew the following morning.
But lo! Comes the dawn, I stumble out to the poolside and by golly, the water is as clean and sparkling as it was after Swimming Pool Service and Repair worked their chlorine-washing magic!
He came back the next day, brushed everything down, and it looked incredible. Then he came back a couple days ago for the first of his regular Wednesday jobs. So far, he has yet to present me with a bill, but he did say clarifying it would be about $20. Sooo…$20 + $85: $105.
Okay, so the $2500 for the tax bill did not come out of the day-to-day living funds, that’s so: It was in the Tax Savings account. But the rest of it most certainly did come out of the grocery budget:$1,715.
Just the beginning.
Then there was the $125 for the closed-toed black shoes we’re required to wear to choir on Sunday. Of course I have perfectly fine pain-free shoes bought specifically for that purpose…but the new director demands closed-toe shoes. You understand: I buy and wear these expensive shoes specifically because my feet hurtas a direct result of wearing shoes designed to please men! Some years ago, after deciding not to have risky surgery on my feet but instead to wear Birkenstocks until my feet eventually stopped hurting at every step (took about three years). At that time I made a considered and very deliberate decision:
I will NEVER AGAIN wear shoes that hurt just to please a man’s taste.
So strongly do I feel about this that I have seriously considered quitting the choir.
But eventually I thought better of that, drove out to Tempe, and plopped down $143 for a pair of black clogs. Wore these to church and found, yea verily, they’re uncomfortable and hot! Very, very hot. I’ve never had my feet actively made hot by a pair of shoes.
A few days ago, I was back out in Tempe to meet The Kid at a restaurant next door to the store. While waiting, I perused the store’s goods again, and mentioned to the clerk that I hated the shoes I’d bought. She said well, I could bring them back if it’s been less than two months.
Truth to tell, I’d have to figure out if it’s been that long or not. This whole week has been one long, hectic whirl, and I certainly haven’t had time to make a 90-minute drive back and forth to lovely downtown Tempe. But…if they’ll still take the shoes back, maybe I can trade them in on something less…clunky.
Yes. Believe it or not, they had a pair of black closed-toe CFMs! 😀
Such a temptation… {cackle!}
God lord, no wonder I’m broke…there’s more. Endlessly more:
Chuck’s Auto Service: $96, car maintenance
State of Arizona: $17, auto emissions rip-off
State of Arizona: $280, car registration rip-off
Maricopa County: $53 rip-off for paying $2500 in property taxes by credit card
Mayo Clinic: $80 not covered by Medicare or Medigap
So when I moved into the Funny Farm, lo! these many years ago, the flowerbed under the front window hosted four strange and rather dowdy plants. These things, a variety of bamboo (we’re told), were planted by Satan and Proserpine (the previous owners) as supposedly highly xeric. The path of least resistance has long been to ignore them. They need to be hacked back every couple of years — a task honored more in the breach than in the act. By and large, they’re forgotten until it occurs to me that I can’t see out the front window.
But fall being Arizona’s answer to spring — and fall finally having arrived in the past week — I decided I would spend the day cleaning up the gardens out here. And one of the things I’d like to do, thought I, is get rid of those damn bamboo-oid things and replace them with something prettier. Such as three or four dwarf bougainvillea.
The full-size boug over by the gate has thrived for years. It’s pretty well sheltered, so even a hard frost doesn’t faze it much. And it does appear that hard frosts are, once and for all, no longer in the cards. And a bougainvillea is truly a beautiful plant. Look up dwarf bougs online and indeed do find them…to the tune of around $30 to $35 apiece. Holy mackerel.
But I remain determined: these are the perfect plants for that spot. If I’m going to get them, I’ll just have to spay some stupid amount of money.
Amazingly, just as I’m about to finish my breakfast and get down to gardening, along comes Gerardo and his crew. I ask them to pull out the bamboo-oids, which they do…with enormous difficulty. The ground is dry and hard there, and the plants are firmly anchored into the concrete-like ground. They have to take a pick-axe to the things to get them out. But get them out, the eventually do.
Exit Gerardo and friends. And over to Whitfill’s.
The place is a madhouse, fall having sprung…you never saw so many pushy rich people in your LIFE! And all of the nursery’s numerous blue-shirted staff were collared. Open your mouth to ask a question and somebody barges in and collars the buy.
I finally manage to push my way up to the cashier to ask if the have any such critter, and she says all the bougainvillea that are staked are regular size; all the ones that are not staked are dwarf size.
Ohhh-kayyyyyy… Back onto the lot to explore two or three cluttered acres again. Just about to give up when I spot a cluster of small bougs in pots, but I can’t tell what they are, except to see they have wonderful classic maroon blossoms. And along comes a blue-shirted fellow, clearly fresh from the men’s room, who is unattached. Ask: “Are these dwarf bougs?”
“They are,” says he.
Since I haven’t been able to snag a cart, either, he helps me carry them to the cashier.
“Are those $10?” she asks.
“Uhhmmmm…” Say what? “Well, they have a number marked on the pot.”
“That’s ten bucks, then.”
Seriously? They’re upwards of $30 at the other merchants that stock them. I don’t argue. Outta there with four healthy little plants, only $43 lighter.
***
Back to the house. Loaf around for awhile. Admire the sparkling clean pool, visited this morning by the brand-new pool guy. He has fixed it, and apparently it is going to stay fixed, at least for awhile. He came by at 7, chatted, cleaned the walls and steps, fooled with the chemicals, chatted some more. Played with Ruby, who thinks (like all guests) he’s some sort of god.
Get up and clean the front window, which, for the first time in several years, I can reach.
Drag an old hose long enough to reach the excavated flowerbed out to the front; unkink it, and miraculously to get to work. Pour water on the flowerbed (we might note that an hour later said water has not soaked in: a sterling bad sign).
Ruby is coming and going (mostly going) during all this.
A little later, for reasons I do not recall I happen to look out the back door…and the back gate is standing open.
WTF?????
Remember, that gate has another barrier behind it, in the form of a padlocked steel gate. And that gate? Ruby can easily slip under it. Once escaped, she’ll run off to Timbuktu.
In a moment of real panic, I call and search for the dog.
Mercifully, she’s fallen asleep in her favorite nest under the back bathroom toilet.
This would mean, you understand, that she hasn’t noticed the gate hanging open. An hour or three ago, she was soaking up the sun out by the orange tree that happens to stand right next to that gate. If it was open then she would have noticed.
You understand: Ruby can slide under that gate. I can crawl under it. And a fairly slender man could no doubt squeeze under it. Not only that, but this morning the cop helicopters were buzzing back and forth for a good hour, obviously looking for someone.
All of which that suggests strongly that somebody came into the alcove, over or under that locked steel gate, and unlocked the wooden gate into the yard. OR…more rationally, one of the lawn guys could have opened the gate, found he couldn’t get out to the trash can, and just turned around and hauled his leaves and junk out to the truck’s trailer…forgetting to close the gate.
Holy crap! The back door has been standing open most of the afternoon — the day is gorgeous and Ruby has been wandering in and out. If anyone actually got into the yard and he did it while the kitchen security door was hanging open he could’ve just walked right into the house.
Find another padlock and attach that to the latch on the wooden gate. So now we have to negotiate two goddamn locks just to take the trash out. Make that four: the deadbolt on the kitchen door and the deadbolt on the heavy-duty kitchen security door.
Well, thank God that Ruby slept through whatever happened there, or just didn’t happen to wander into the backyard while that gate was open. If she had, she’d have been long gone. Her collar has her name and phone number on it, but she doesn’t wear that thing in the house. And she is chipped. But either way, she’s quite a stealable little cherry. Chances are about 50/50 that whoever found her would never bring her back.
