. . . Lil Bit of Methane.

First Monday in August, I have to go back to working at the office after more than five years of working from home -- the best gift the Covid Summer of 2020 offered me.

I will go from making phone calls and sending and receiving emails in my basement with only two weenie dogs for immediate company to making phone calls and sending and receiving emails in a cubicle with 25 random interruptions a day and a commute to a parking lot that may or may not have enough room for me to park.

I just know I hope they like pajama pants, because that's how I'm dressing the first week back.

We've GOT to Get ORGANIZED

Problem: Swimming through years of files, blog posts, Facebook posts, sweating about that external hard drive that died and you couldn't get the files off it, looking for a "great" bit of writing you did years ago, thinking to pull it out of mothballs and start working on it again.

Bigger problem: Not being able to find it.

Bonus: Finding other bits of writing that, through the mists of time, also still hold potential and interest, so you gather them in a new file just as likely to be lost as the one you're looking for, but at least you feel better for the looking.

Found what I was looking for. Emergency is over. Just had to remember the right search terms to use.

Oh My Gosh My Waffle! Oh the Humanity!

So I got a text from someone likely involved in smishing or pig butchering, but as I was in a weird mood, I thought I'd interact with them.

The best part: THEY REMEMBERED THE SECRET GOVERNMENT EGGO PROJECT.

I'm sure they did an image search when I posted my "photo" and realized I was in it for the lulz. They haven't contacted me again.

Yes, I should have ignored it. They know the phone number is active since I responded. But maybe they'll see I'm on to their game and not likely to fall for . . . whatever it was they wanted. I feel bad I never even got to the scam. I was going to bring my boss, Dr. Jemima, into the mix.

The Secret Government Eggo Project, for the uninitiated:

PLEASE! BUY MY HOUSE!

Remember, it's *fun* helping someone look for a house.

Or not. Last time we did this, back in the far-off time of 2011, I don't remember the social media/texting aspect of it all. We looked at the MLS, toured a lot of crappy houses, then eventually bought one.

But nowadays, it's all this online nonsense. You have to divulge your contact info before you can even look at the descriptions, resulting in folderol like this:

I really want to reply that our daughter and son-in-law are hoping for a 2008-style maker crash before buying, but that feels impolitic.

Sure, it's a convenient way for agents to keep tabs on potential customers. That doesn't make it not annoying.

Another Nest

All that time the robins nest in the hanging planter on the front porch was getting all the attention, another robin built an even bigger nest in our backyard apricot tree 

It's up high enough we can't see what's gonna ng on, but we do appear to have a broody robin there. Definitely a robin, as I saw it leave the nest yesterday.

And considering what they used to build it, I'm glad I haven't cleaned up the weeds by the shed.

Boom

Our little show is over but the neighborhood will be exploding into the night.

That's My Little Joke

So my wife ordered a new wedding band because the one she currently has is a bit big for her fingers now and likes to rotate and snag on things. Where she's the director of a scout camp climbing tower, that's not what she needs in any kind of ring.

So she shopped for a new ring and it came today. She wanted me to verify that it had indeed come, so I sent her this:

I got no reaction. And I mean no reaction for a few minutes. So I texted her the real picture:

Still nothing.

So I called her to see if the joke landed so flat she didn't want to talk with me again. Apparently I was texting during their last meeting, and with it being overcast at camp and with them inside a building, reception, which is never all that good up there, was almost nil. She did get the photos. And is speaking to me. And is coming home tonight. So all is well.

"They Never Taught This In School"

 

I try not to be the typical grumpy Gen Xer, but y'all make it so easy.

Topic at hand: Whining about "they never taught us this in school."

My generation probably thought this a lot about many topics. Probably said it about many topics too. But the older I get, the more reality keeps slapping me in the face just like good ol' Buck Russell gets slapped trying to break the bad news to his sometimes-girlfriend Chanice:

They can't teach us everything in school.

What they *can* teach us in school is how to learn, how to seek out the experts, how to realize we're beyond our depth and have to pay for help, and how we can learn ourselves without blaming someone else for not putting the material in front of us when we were callow youth and probably would have rolled our eyes at having to learn it anyway.

Taxes. That's a big one. Nobody taught us this in school. So, learn. The IRS has instructions for us to follow. There are plenty of people on YouTube willing to help. There are CPAs if you feel too dumb to learn or have tax situations that are too complex. There's software. If you are willing to try things out, taxes are doable.

I've done all my taxes, first with the IRS instructions and lately with tax software. I only screwed up once when I put my income on the incorrect line -- but the state and the IRS were quick to recognize the problem and walked me through how to fix things without screaming or piling on the fines. That was years ago; maybe the IRS and such are meaner now, but I doubt it.

Science. There's a lot of griping about "why didn't we learn this in science class?" What I do remember is introduction to a lot of scientific concepts. I'm still interested in many aspects of science, and have done a lot of reading and watching to help me understand things better.

School can't teach us everything. It can teach us how to learn and how to remain curious, and if we take on the "ludicrous" concept that learning is a life-long endeavor, we'll spend our time learning rather than griping about what we weren't taught in school, which for me may as well be a billion years ago.

I know we've moved into an era of instant gratification. I feel it pulling on me, but I'm trying as hard as I can to resist it. Learning things can be tedious. It can be slow -- particularly if you're a dim bulb like me. But it can be done. We just have to keep at it.

Take our house, for example. We moved here in 2012, and since then I've learned a few things:

1. Sprinkler system installation and maintenance.

2. Siding installation.

3. Cedar fence replacement.

4. Low-voltage wiring.

I've also honed my skills working with tile, simple electrical repairs and replacements, shelving, and other tasks. I've worked hard trying to keep our camper from disintegrating. I've made mistakes and had to learn the hard way, but I'm learning. And they don't teach any of this stuff in school.

So get out of here with the whining. Go learn something.

Why Does This Book Exist?

I'm trying to figure out why this book exists.

I should say this: I'm only 90 pages into it, so a little less than half. But still I wonder: Who is this book for?

Old farts like me recognize the name of Tom Brokaw. He was a mainstay of the news in the 80s and longer, when I was growing up and going to school. And as Brokaw was a rookie television reporter assigned to Washington during the Nixon impeachment years, it's natural that Brokaw would write a book about it.

But why does this book exist?

There's been little of the story sofar, and what is there is stuff you could probably find in a Wikipedia article on the Watergate scandal. Outside of that, there's a lot of name-dropping. Lots of name-dropping. So this is more of a memoir, I suppose, with the "fall of Richard Nixon," -- one of the book's two subtitles -- playing in the background.

I'll give it a fair shake and finish it, of course. But it's thusfar the least informative Nixon book I've ever read.

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Once in a while, I feel sorry for YouTube.

Well, not necessarily YouTube. Certainly the creators; those who put a lot of time and effort into their work. They deserve remuneration, in the form of advertising.

I'd rather they had embedded advertising, if I'm allowed to have a preference. I don't mind creators dealing with sponsors directly and making deals to support their work. But not everyone can get the deals.

I don't know how advertising on YouTube works. I imagine the creators get a (tiny) cut, with the rest going to the host/Google, and I understand hosting has a cost.

What I object to is this:

1. Don't start my video with an unskippable ad.

2. Don't start my video with an unskippable ad that's comparable in length to the video I want to watch.

3. Don't start my video with an ad, period.

I reserve the right to do the following:

1. Get sick of ads to the point I use ad blockers or browsers that suppress ads.

2. Go back to YouTube without any ad blocking when Google does things to break the ad blockers or ad-suppressing browsers.

3. Go back to ad blockers and ad-suppressing browsers when they function again.

Note I am of GenX*: I grew up with commercials, so I don't mind them as such. But commercials should be brief, and be gone, and be used to take bathroom breaks or get snacks and should include a pimply voice shouting IT'S ONNNNNNN! when the commercials are over. Commercials should not include an algorithm that says, "Hey, you didn't hit "skip ad" almost immediately; let's toss a five-minute informercial your way."

Or they could be *good* ads.

I'm looking at you, GEICO and Liberty Mutual. I know you've got a *lot* invested in your mascots. But your ad saturation levels are, uh, highly saturated. I would go to any other insurer but you, to be honest.

*Meaning I can adapt to new techology fairly quickly as any current generation, but reserve the right to grouse about it like a Boomer.