Writing Wrongs

At the mfg office for my 10 am appointment, I said maybe give me 15 minutes slack. I was there on time, she was 20 minutes late. I guess that's fair enough.

Dozens of pieces of paper to initial and sign,

some to do with state regulations about what needs to be inspected, which were already covered in the initial purchase document, most about the requirements of the mobile home park. The second one is they wanted me top bring my actual Social Security Card. A copy of my driver's license was fine, but they also needed my SS card, not a copy. Absurd, because the SS card says on it clearly it is not to be used for ID. No worries, I knew exactly where it was. I have a file folder toward the back of the top file drawer with all kinds of cards, and I had put it there the last time I traveled, along with my SCUBA card, since there was not reason for me to be carrying those around.

Instead of going straight home, I drove through the mobile home park, checked out the outside of the clubhouse and then went home.

Took all the cards out of the folder - there are about 200 of them, most of them bundled in a sort of category order with rubber bands. For example, all ID cards (old drivers licenses, AAA cards, high school ID, CNN and Direct TV contractor badges, etc.) which is where I expected to find it. Nope. Next most likely was one of the loose ones, because those are mostly still active, like library cards, a BART ticket, Starbucks card, CHM membership card. Nope. Checked all the bundles. Checked everything again. Did I shred it? I know I thought about doing that.

So, in a semi-panic because I need this in hand before I can make an appointment for an interview at the park, I look up SS online, fill out the form for a replacement card, find the address off the nearest office, and make plans to go there Tuesday (Monday is a Federal Mistake Holiday), and wait a week for the card to be mailed to me. I need my passport or birth certificate for that.

Those are in the top of the 4 small fireproof boxes in the bedroom closet. I open it up, pull out the current passport (it's on top of all the others dating back to 1975) find the envelope with two certified copies of my birth certificate, and as I am putting the envelope back, there is my SS card. Whew.

Next on the list is a letter from my apartment manager saying I pay the rent and don't throw heavy metal band parties in the room, or set fire to things. Walk to the apt. office, the nice lady says I can print that online. But no, what I can print out online is a for to fax to Corporate requesting they send the info. And the link is broken. I call the office, get voicemail, leave a message.

Also need an employment verification letter. I'll have to ask how to get one Monday, because I don't think I actually got one, what we got was email confirming we were now employees of the new company at the same job title, manager and salary as we had before the acquisition. I fired up VPN to the corpnet, but didn't see a way to ask for that letter on the HR pages. Kind of ridiculous, since they also want my last paystub. To me that's all the proof of employment they need.

So, things will be delayed a bit. I wanted to have the interview this Thursday, because I'm planning to work from home and avoid the bogus earthquake drill. Been through two of the largest ones in US history, don't need to fake it. And with the A's out of the World Series race, we're not due for another one.

Watched the UW-Oregon game until it was clear my home team was going to lose. Heated up some honey glazed wings and baked beans (the former to help reduce the clutter in the freezer).

So, out on the patio for some gardening. All the plants I had planted in the planters are dead and dried up. They were dead first, I just didn't pretend they would resurrect with the overnight temps dropping as they have been. So, three planters' worth of dirt & dead plants into a big black trash bag. I was hoping to save 1/4 of the 4th, the catmints plant, but it was also dried up. I did pull it out, dried branch by dried branch, took it into the kitchen and stripped off the leaves & seeds, and put that all in a ziplock bag. Spilled a little on the floor. Kaan did some excavating - the stuff turns him on. Later Domino also sniffed around.

Put the big bag by the door, washed my hands, and went back out on the patio to read the two very heavy texts from the park. The lease itself was pretty straightforward, much didn't apply to me because it talked to people moving a home in or out of the park. You would think they would have split out those pieces. The rules of the park, an "attachment" almost as thick as the lease, was also pretty clear. And there's a showstopper. It says there is a limit of one cat per household. WTF? It requires the cat to be indoors at all times, no cat doors. Every apartment which allows cats allows two. Part of the reason to buy my own home was so I could have more than two if I want. But just one? Insane. I'll see if they can come around to my POV at the interview. Unfortunately, part of my argument is Domino is about 18 years old, and probably won't be around much longer. I am disappointed that when I showed the rep videos of the cats this morning she didn't mention this possibility.

Reading took till it was time to scoot. Met Janice and a long time friend of hers from CO Springs at the newest Starbucks. Nice chat, mostly about techie stuff. Friend asked me if she could import from a USB drive to a smartphone. I was not sure, it sounded feasible with the right cable.

Home, dinner was some assorted dim sum, also a freezer item but it didn't free up any space because I only used half the items in the tray.

Watched some of the Cal-UCLA and WSU-OSU games.

Tried to rig up a USB drive to my phone using a USB hub and a standard phone cable, but the phone only saw the charging part, not the data connection. Online research says I need a USB On The Go (OTG) cable, which is basically the connections I did with the hub but in a single small cable. Other comments sounds like most phones have to be "rooted", that is, hacked to give root access, which is something I won't suggest anyone to do. As techie as I am, it's not something I'm very interested in doing myself. I'll look into that more just for curiosity's sake.

Mail had only 2 items, a letter from the company with the PIN number to use to enroll in the employee stock purchase plan, which they were supposed to have gotten to me 2 weeks ago. The window closes on the 27th. And a coupon from Toyota reminding me my next scheduled checkup is coming up. 5k miles or 6 months. They are 1800 miles and 1.5 months early.

Plans for tomorrow:
11:45 am showing of Gravity 3D. Theoretically IMAX is a higher resolution experience, but the local IMAX theaters give me vertigo, without a movie showing.
Football
Catch up on Tivo.

Saturday I did as planned, went to the apartment office, showed The Letter to the rep, and had her relay the message to the asstmanager who wrote it that one does not send a collection notice to someone to whom you have not previously sent a bill. And one does not set a deadline of less than 48 hours for payment. And one does not send it using boilerplate which suggests opening an auto-pay account to someone who has had an auto-pay account since last October. And one does not post said notice outside the apartment door, as it is tacky, not a legally binding notice (no proof of delivery), and shouts "nobody's home!".

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Next stop, a place called Click Away to see what they would charge to fix the camera lens on the Samsung. $150 or so. Have to think about that.

Most of the afternoon was spent building the Brigadoon backup web site. HTML by hand was tedious, but the diversity of material and naming required it. Maybe. I got about 70% done before it was time to go to MV and meet Janice for coffee and then to see a play down the block from there.

Janice finally told me all about her trip to NJ to be a Red Cross volunteer. Lots of drama, FEMA has cut so many people loose who still don't have places to live, and rents have skyrocketed. Also lots of drama among the volunteers, some of whom had no idea how much work they were expected to do.

Got to the theater in plenty of time, especially since the house opened only 10 minutes before curtain. Staged reading of a new musical called In The Hands of the Raven, by SF composer Peter Alexander. How I got to this show goes like this: I was in a Palo Alto Players production of Jekyll & Hyde - The Musical which starred Melissa O'Keefe and Cliff McCormick. Both were great to work with and very talented singing & acting. Peter brought them in to sing some tunes he had written, did a few cabaret shows with them (I went to one) and some of those songs plus a few others were fitted into a story Peter had in his head. He had gone to Alaska, was astounded by the number of ravens there, did some research on native American folklore and then wrote something which ignores all that and goes off in his own direction.

Basically, he changes the natives' belief that the raven is a joker and thief and turns them into the beings in the afterlife which Christians would call angels, watching over us. With the Hindu twist that the ravens in the afterlife are the souls of people who have died, and who will be reincarnated Real Soon Now.

This was a staged reading, everyone had scripts which they used more or less, the stage was mostly bare, with the occasional table, some folding chairs and a podium. Music was provided by a grand piano in the corner which should not have had its top open even a little in this voice-smothering space. The pianist also played an device which looked like a small accordion without keys, a shaker and a rain stick. She and a couple of the cast played a hand-held round drum now and then.

I can't give a real review, because the cast mostly could not be heard in the side seat I was in, and almost all the lyrics were lost to the too-open piano. People in the reserved center section obviously heard more than I did. But I got the gist, and have some conclusions. One is the title is wrong, as there are several ravens, and the actors playing living people are definitely not in their hands. The theme is dealing with grief (or more accurately, not dealing with it). I liked many of the tunes, will check out the lyrics sometime soon.

After the show the stage turned into a reception (neat trick, because the final scene is a reception) and Melissa found me to ask what I thought, in detail. And I got some hugs. I am blown away that someone as talented and famous and beautiful is thrilled to see me. But I'm not going to fight it. The director also buttonholed me, he asked me if I would sit down with him sometime 1-on-1 and give feedback. He has seen me in a lot of shows, and wants some experienced honest opinions. I said yes, of course.  I also got a chance to chat with some of the cast. Everyone did great, but I wish they had found someone to play Melissa's mother who could sing. Not required for that part, but helpful. They built very clever pleated raven wings which I really liked. The only other costumes were some dresses for Melissa and a red one for "Candi Apple".

While I was not blown away by the show, I'm looking forward to the next step. Hopefully a fully staged production in a small theater. They have their sights set for off-Broadway, but I think LA is a better choice for this material.

Am looking for a better smartphone and maybe a better service provider. Motorola Bionic on Verizon has done the following:
1. Turned itself off
2. Locked up. Needed to remove/re-install the battery to recover
3. Powered itself back on as soon as it was powered off
4. Put calls through to voicemail with no record that a call was received, usually when there was a good signal
5. Lost 4G signal and needed a reboot to find it again. This goes hand in hand with:
6. Not stepping down to 3G on loss of 4G

It also takes > 2 minutes to boot up. And I need the extended battery for 8 hours of service.

#3 has been a problem with Verizon and AT&T regardless of the phone (both HTC and Motorola Android & iPhone 3G)

I mostly use the device as a pocket PC, and rarely get texts or phone calls - but when I do they are important and time-sensitive.

Your thoughts, please?