Technology May Be Our Friends, but Engineers Are Not

So, I'm too fat and only like the water aerobics class as offered twice a week. That is not enough exercise, so I have to do something else to increase the amount of time I'm burning calories rather than eating.

I have an old-fashioned, one-speed, old lady seat, fat tires bike. It's not an old bike, but I didn't want to have 10,15, or 30 speeds to contend with because then I would have to figure out how and when to use them. I just want to ride my bike. And burn some calories.

I know that I spend so many minutes on the bike and that's a nice thing. I can see what time it is when I pedal out of the driveway and then see what time it is again when I return. What I would like to know is how far I'm riding in the time that I am gone.

On my last bike I had a little odometer that just scrolled along the edge of the tire and would slowly click to the next number after so many revolutions. It worked as long as the wheel from the odometer was resting against the edge of the tire. They don't make these anymore. At least not where I can find them.

Today they have odometers that work in both metric and stand miles. They will keep track of your time for you. And tell you how fast you are going as you pedal here and there. They will also keep track of these things across time, telling you what your total time, distance, and average speed for the week were. They will tell you all of this if you can get them to work.

I don't know what happened to the dumb thing over the winter. It worked last year. I can get it to turn on and off and if I hold buttons in certain configurations, I can maybe get it to show me something else. It shows me 3.4 a lot. I have no idea what that is or why it shows it to me as it has no bearing on anything that I can see. I have been able to switch it to kilometers rather than miles, but it won't track kilometers for me after that, it just shows me 3.4 again.

I got the thing to work one day this week and so I carefully turned it off and hoped it would start at the same screen next time I started it up. Nope. 3.4 was there.

This has features that probably would tell me that I'm too slow, need to take a drink, and have a heart rate that is outside the normal limits. What it won't tell me is how far I've gone. The only thing I want to know is how far I've gone.

Thanks to all the engineers who made this possible. You have successfully created an expensive and useless gadget. I applaud your efforts and wish you continued success.

Perhaps I should just get in my car and drive the car where I've pedaled the bike and figure out how far I've gone for the day. Seems a rather pointless exercise, though.

Real life

I used to be a nurse working in OR. A very scary place, surgery. Mistakes are not tolerated because they can kill people which is always a bad way to spend a day. The stress level was high, but the work was different than the five years I spent in ICU. Altogether, it was easier.

But many of the women I worked with would get consumed by the trials and tribulations of the workplace. I was the person who would pontificate from the middle of the break room, "This is not our life, this is how we pay for our real life, on the outside." It was true. My real life was not inside a hospital. Although I was good at my job and loved it at times, it was not my life. It was my paycheck. My life was outside the walls of antiseptic smells.

I don't know if men see their jobs in the same way as women do. I think that men are more identified with their jobs and especially their job titles. Perhaps this is changing, but the men of my generation and older seem extremely aware of job status.

I didn't used to think that I was that concerned with my life on the inside. I knew that the most important part of my life was not spent earning money.

Now that I'm not earning any money, I feel like less of a person. I'm not the same value to myself, let alone the world at large.

Every Thursday, I volunteer at the local hospital. I give them four hours of my time. I was hoping for a desk job where I could monitor the visitors or something like that. Instead I'm working in the pre-op holding area. It may be too close to home. I spent most of my nursing career in surgery. I know what is happening around me, but I'm in a low status position and have little ability to do anything about any of it.

I work with dedicated women who know their jobs and they know that I used to work in OR. I keep thinking how much more of a contribution I made then and how nice it might be to contribute again. And then I think of the years of migraines and medication that have simply disappeared since I stopped being a nurse.

Perhaps more of my life was tied up inside the walls than I thought. Or perhaps I'm looking through the lens of remembrance rather the lens of reality. I know that I could renew my license and be back to being a nurse in a relatively short time. But I don't want to be a nurse again. I think. But I sure liked making a difference.

I know that I'm simply going to have to find a way to feel like a contributing person again. That probably means getting a job. A meaningful job would be even better. The volunteering I've always done, from working in the grade school library and being a lunch room mom, to running for Board of Directors at a community theater, add a bit of luster. But what I really want is to feel needed again.

I guess I will have to start looking at the help wanted pages.

Who's On First?

Linde Gas has been tinkering with helium allocations for six weeks and it is an abomination before God and man and it needs to stop. I've been hearing about it for weeks now and it's not getting any better. In fact, it might be worse. It is worse. Because it is longer since it worked and there is no solution in sight.

I have had no electricity outside the house for six months. I was not aware of this. But as an aside this morning, I was informed that when the workers come to install a wall, they cannot use the outside electrical boxes because they don't work and they haven't since there was some snafu with the Christmas lights.

The person who is bitterly complaining about the first item is the same person who knew about the electric problem and successfully ignored it for more than six months.

I will never come first.

Right now I think I'm third. First is work, second is golf, and then me. So after retirement, I will move into second place.

Every night I patiently listen to what went wrong at the "nut factory" today. Every day lots of things go wrong at the nut factory. He hates his job. He has hated this job for most of the 27 years he has worked at it. And I've heard about quite of bit of the trials and tribulations involved in supporting a family.

When I loved my job and he hated his job it was horrible. It was a glaring difference. So we moved so I would have to give up that job. When we both hated our jobs I was not being supportive in his loathing being too busy loathing myself. I managed to escape to another job.

I opted to return to school and get a second degree and then amazingly enough managed to capture another job I loved. We moved again. The job is gone. I've tried a couple jobs since I've been here and they were both horrid AND low paying. I am now unemployed. But I should get a job because it will help us save money for retirement and make sure we have enough money to be able to play a lot of golf. I don't golf, but I should. If I tried really hard, I might learn to at least tolerate it.

I don't know what I have done or failed to do that puts me so low on the list of priorities. I do get asked every night how my day went. I could speak in tongues or tell of being captured by aliens and get no response. All the question means is "talk fast so I can tell you about my horrible day."

Even if I was treated as a valued business asset it would be preferable. I'm not even that. My house can be falling apart around my ears and nothing is done. Later. We will get to that later. The lawn is mowed and the house is clean. All the cosmetic stuff is done. But the stuff that makes a house livable? Don't worry my pretty little head.

It's been a week since the air conditioner died. But since I am the one who noticed it, I am the one taking care of it and it is being attended to as quickly as possible. The part is on order and will definitely be here by Monday but hopefully we can get it fixed today.

I have no idea when the electrical outlets will be fixed. I guess now that I know about it, it will be up to me to take care of. He is busy with work and can't be expected to deal with home maintenance. How do we have two sons who learned to fix things? Men who know how to take care of their homes? It wasn't by example.

My dad the drunk could manage to care for the house. He made absolutely sure before he became ill that the house was fixed up as much as humanly possible. But perhaps he felt that his wife was worth the effort.

Apparently, I'm not.

One Bad Day

Preamble to the bad day.
C. A few nights ago the dog just kept waking us up and jumping up on the bed and shaking and panting and going crazy. Our son text messaged a friend about some tickets or something. Except that he has a new phone and has apparently programmed it differently from his old phone. Instead of texting the friend, his dad got the message. Our phones make a cute little beep noise when we have missed a call. The dog was crazy nuts all night long because SHE could hear the beep and it scared her. We could NOT hear any beep as the phone is on the other side of the house. Dogs have very acute hearing.

B. There was a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico that made landfall in Florida and the resulting storms worked their way up the continent. There were thunderstorms and much needed rain. The dog is terrified by thunder. She doesn't care so much about the lightening. It stormed all night. The dog was scared and jumping up on the bed and was shaking and panting.

A. Some trailing storms passed through with the resultant thunder and behavior from the dog. It has been eons since I've slept. But life must go on.

The day
Water aerobics: The class was very full with lots of people who were in great need of any exercise class and hadn't been in one for at least ten years. There were five regulars there. And eight highly irregulars. I was third in the pool and claimed my usual place. Somehow, in order to not be pissy, I moved so that Barb could have a spot where she just needed to be and it happened to be under my feet. I moved to deeper water so that Barb wouldn't be standing on top of me. But it irritated me some. Not too much, but some.

Wal-Mart: I stopped at Wal-Mart on the way home hoping to find a few things I needed and/or wanted. Pickings were sparse. I'm not sure what they are doing to their produce section but there was almost nothing in it. I did get some milk. Why is milk so expensive this week? The price of that liquid fluctuates almost as much as the price of gas. It is nice to live in a place where I know almost no one. I went to the store after water aerobics and before showering. I looked like crap, but I saw no one who would remember me later.

Home again: I immediately jumped into the shower. By now my skin was itching from all the chemicals in the water. It felt really good to wash that icky stuff off. But I now remembered that my hair conditioner was running low and I had just come from Wal-Mart and didn't remember to pick any up. Not a horribly big deal. I walked into the kitchen and remembered that I also needed dog food.

Calling the HOA: We have opted to replace to the warping wood and screen enclosure to the lanai with a vinyl structure with huge sliding windows and true door. We own the house – not even a bank has a piece of this. However, we moved into the land of nosiness and the Homeowners ASSociation must give us permission to do anything. We got a quote for the new wall, sent in the appropriate paperwork begging for strangers to allow us to improve our house, and waited. And waited. While we were on vacation, the contractor called to see if we had gotten approval yet. The wall was ready and shipment dates were set. It took longer to get permission than it did to custom build the components of the wall. Friday afternoon was my first call to the Management Company that helps Wescott to run smoothly. Karen is our representative. She was out of the office but would return my call when she got in around three.

No call.

Monday at 10.45 I valiantly tried again. I explained that I was told that the file with our stuff in it was lost. (The company moved for my convenience and without my permission on May 18.) Karen was again out of the office but would be back in less than an hour and return my call. Since I had laundry to do, that was okay because I would be home to answer the phone.

I did three loads of laundry. Nothing bad happened there other than the fact that I had to do three loads of laundry. I never forgot it and let my clothes get crushed wrinkled. I remembered to remove all the stuff that really shouldn't go into the dryer before anything bad happened. The part that I had control over worked.

Shopping: By the time 3 PM rolled around, I was livid. I had stewed and fretted and fumed. Now I opted to give the problem over. Some give their problems to God and let go. Me, not so much. I called Dick and told him that I was finished. I didn't care if the over-priced wall ever went up. We could pay to NOT have a wall. But I was done. He could call, but I was leaving the house now. And I did.

I went to the real grocery store and got produce and dog food. They had a huge bag of the dog food that LC likes and it was very cheap. Great. They also still had cherries which I wrote about last year. And frozen yogurt. And nice cuts of meat. I got my purchases home.

As I was bringing in the melting frozen yogurt, my cell phone was ringing. I had conveniently left it at home. I picked it up. Dick wanted to know if I had left a phone off the hook. There was only a message that said that my phone was in use when he tried to call the house. No busy signal, just this stupid message. I tried all seven phones that are on the main floor. Nothing. No dial tone. I had used it to call out in the morning and have no idea when it broke. Too bad Karen wasn't in her office when I called.

Phone company: I got the groceries put away and then called the phone company. The phone book likes to hide the repair number. There is a whole page about when to call them and it has no phone number there. There IS a phone number to call if you don't like the service the phone company provided, but no actual number to call if your phone is broke.

That number is six pages further into the small print. After all sorts of useless information. I called and got into auto responder voice recognition hell. As long as I said YES to questions all was well. When I said NO, which is very difficult to mispronounce, it "did not understand" and repeated the questions. In that computer generated voice. Finally, it was discovered that there was something wrong with my phone. A technician would have it fixed by Tuesday, June 5, 2007 – stated in it's entirety with each syllable discreet.

Doorbell: The house was getting warmer as the day wore on and so I opened windows. I have not yet turned on the air. I have many windows and ceiling fans and it keeps the house cool enough for my liking. I had all the windows open and the fans on. Nice breeze and cool enough.

The doorbell rang and LC went nuts barking. There was the wall guy wanting something. I explained that we were not ignoring him. That we had been trying for days to get the paperwork from the management people and were having difficulties. LC ran out when I opened the door. The guy needed a plat, I assume for the building permit, and I told him I could get a layout of the house from offline. I asked him in and the dog was following. As he got in the house, the door blew shut with a slam and the dog took off.

No dog: It was now 5.30 and I was in the middle of making pizza. The oven was preheated, the dough was mixed and had risen. The dog never really goes anywhere. She wouldn't come when I called. I put the pizza together with interrupted screaming out the doors for the dog. After plopping the pizza in the oven and circumnavigating the house, I took the timer and got in the car looking for the dog.

Search: I went in the direction we usually go for our walks. There were two 10-ish year old kids playing on the next street. I had my car in the driving lane, not pulled close to the curb. I lowered the window and yelled out while both hands were on the steering wheel, asking if they had seen my dog. One girl was listening to my whole question while the other kid screamed "What are you doing?" about three times and then grabbed her and ran screaming. I yelled back, "You can't even say if you saw my dog or not?" and the mother came out of the garage.

She wanted to know what was wrong. I asked if SHE had seen my dog or could find out if the kids could tell me. She explained, like I was Blackbeard, that her children were not allowed to talk to strangers. (I don't think that both of these children were hers. One was of European descent like the mother, and the other of African descent.) I described LC and everyone finally decided that they hadn't seen her. And the mother again reiterated that her children were not allowed to talk to strangers. I will make sure that when I'm walking my dog and that fat little girl asks to pet her, that I will tell that she is not permitted to talk to strangers and run screaming in fright down the street.

I continued on my way around the block and there was another little girl, this time a teenager, who was petting a dog and had a bowl of water for her. I stopped the car and LC perked right up. She got in the car and I said thank you about ten times. I was so grateful. LC was a mess, shaking and ears back and tail down. She is so easily frightened.

Return call: Karen really did return Dick's calls and the paperwork was finally found, mostly. There was a piece missing in action and they had no idea why it wasn't mailed to us sooner. I would guess that it was connected with that May 18 move. But they would be emailing me with the appropriate documents so that we could put up the wall.

I am so glad that most days go better than this.

Trip of a Lifetime

I've had several trips of a lifetime. My son is famous for his once-in-a-lifetime trips which began when he was in college. Apparently even visiting the same place a second time is a once in a lifetime event if you have passed a huge milestone in the meantime. Like now being actually old enough to drink because we know that in college and especially on spring break, there is NO underage drinking ever.

But I believe that this is a once in a lifetime trip because I'm sure I'm not doing it again, or at least in the same manner because it was expensive!!!

I've recently returned from a two week cruise/tour. We went early and spent two days in Vancouver, BC, Canada and then set sail for a week aboard the ms Volendam from the Holland America Cruise Line. After a week onboard the ship, we embarked on a week of land tours going to the inside of the state of Alaska.

Everything in Alaska is big. Cities are the size of states in the lower 48. Sitka, the largest city is four times the size of Rhode Island. And with a population of under 10,000. Denali park is larger than the state of Massachusetts. Tongass National Forest is over 17 million acres. That's larger than the ten smallest lower 48 states. Larger than West Virginia, but smaller than South Carolina.

Distances are vast, places are huge, and the population is sparse. However, tourism is thriving. Juneau alone brings in about a million people a year via cruise ships, and considering how short their tourist season is, that is a tremendous amount of people. Although they do have wonderful winter vacations, too – according to the AK tourism people.

We had many adventures and mostly perfect weather. We rode the world's longest zip line on the very day that it opened. We went kayaking during an amazing break in the weather, drizzle before and pouring rain after, but sunshine while we were paddling along. I fed a reindeer. And we were in the lucky 20% of visitors who get to see Denali free of cloud cover.

The trip was wonderful. I met many interesting people – both Alaskans and fellow travelers. I learned so much. I walked through rainforests and boated to within a half mile of a glacier face while the guide told of large waves developing from calved bergs.

I met people who are absolutely enchanted with their home state or adopted state. It seemed that every person from AK was thrilled with the beauty and natural splendor of the region. And they shared that enthusiasm with us, gracefully and gratefully.

And yes, I saw an Eskimo or Athabascan Indian. And trees. And mountains. And oceans. And fjords. And glaciers. And wildlife. And bald eagles. And thankfully for me, no bears.

It was a once in a lifetime trip and I loved it.