Back from vacation with some random musings

With apologies to Peggy Hill for borrowing the word 'musings', and also with apologies for not getting this posted a little sooner, since technically I got back from the beach much earlier in the week (and then unfortunately seemed to have caught JU having a tough time accepting new articles via IE or Firefox {though it was possible to get new articles posted by using Windows Live Writer}), well, anyway it's not too late to put up a few thoughts.

First, I think I may have written an article on the subject before, but I really do have to salute former Maryland Governor and Baltimore Mayor for life, William Donald Schaefer for the efforts he put into getting the trip to Maryland's Eastern shore down to a much more reasonable experience.  What used to take many hours is now done very smoothly (unless there are problems from accidents on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and even then it's pretty quickly resolved) and the entire trip which used to be near torture is much more easily made now.  I know that Schaefer had help in getting those improvements made, with an infusion of federal funds that were added into the budgets (ear-marks) by U.S. Senator Mikulski and U.S. Senator Sarbanes (before he retired from the office). All deserve credit for the work they did, though that work was paid for on the backs of many tax-payers and not just the hundreds of thousands of visitors that make the trip to the beaches each summer.

Rambling on a bit... I'm sitting here cursing the big auction site known as e and Bay.  Bleh.  They've made so many changes over time, many of which I admit were needed and are useful, but some that are just such a pain-in-the-nether regions.  Seriously, I spent the better part of 80 minutes putting up a listing.  It used to be fairly easy, I had templates that I used, pre-built text, boiler plate, HTML coded and ready to go.  What used to be so easy is now dumbed-down and actually is more difficult than it used to be.  They force me to choose shipping options and try to direct me to a calculator but that didn't work right and instead of letting me select the options that I provided info for I instead got to start my listing over again and had to do just that about 4 or 5 times.  Ugh.  I finally plugged in some numbers obtained manually, and even then e, uh, Bay, complains to me that my shipping costs are out of range with others.  Oh, really?!?!  Abso-friggin'-lutely amazing.  I selected $2.00 mandatory shipping and handling to cover the hassles of boxing stuff up, putting in bubble wrap or other padding, tape, and other incidentals that I've lost money on buying and paying for in the past.  I also included insurance (mandatory for this item as it's somewhat rare and would be hard to replace if lost or damaged in shipping) which jacks the cost up by about $5.00.  Estimated shipping weight of 3 to 4 pounds.  So, my total shipping for priority mail is estimated to be $13 (including insurance and shipping and handling) and yet that auction site is scolding me.  What a crock.

Seriously, I used to see jacked up shipping costs there all the time.  I haven't bought or sold much there recently, so I don't know for sure how the shipping costs have been, but I used to complain about jacked up shipping costs because I knew the sellers that were using jacked up shipping costs were skirting the fees that were owed to the site and I didn't like to see that since I was getting ripped off for more in fees myself.  I'm glad to see that the big site is doing something about the rip-off fees, but giving me a hard time over the costs I used seems stupid.  At least they still accepted my listing, and I really don't expect any problems, but still, funny they tweak me on my prices.

New topic... JU.  Been some weirdness here at JU lately that had kept me from being able to post new articles.  Normally I post via IE7 (my currently preferred browser).  Apparently there were some network issues that I happened to hit that kept that from working.  Weirdly enough others were able to post new articles, but I couldn't.  I thought it must be a problem with my ISP which sent me looking for solutions.  As it turns out, I got a side benefit from that, which I'll talk about shortly.  Meanwhile, I'm glad it seems that things are getting fixed, and more glad that Windows Live Writer worked.  Thanks to the nice folks at JU/Stardock for supporting that tool and writing up an article that tells people like me how to use it here at JU

On the side benefit issue, well, I called up the folks I get FiOS from and was discussing the issue with them of not getting completely through to content here at JU.  While researching the problem for potential solutions I had seen a note that most FiOS customers could get upgraded from their 5/2 service up to the 10/2 speed FOR FREE!!!  Whoa!  Free?!  Schweet.  Anyway, I did ask for, and get, the speed bump though admittedly it's hard to see the difference.  The speed wasn't bad before, but it's pretty nice to double the speed at no additional cost, so at least I got some benefit out of my trouble shooting and research.

On the topic of F-i-O and S, I've been continuing to check out their TV service.  Since they bribed me with their free 19" LCD HDTV offer back at the end of last year, I've had the DVR sitting here.  Once that small TV arrived for my den/ (w)rec(k) room/ computer user space, I put it all together and started using it.  I'm glad it's here as it's a nice backup to my DirecTV service.  Don't get me wrong, I still love DirecTV and will stay with them long term, but the FiOS TV offering isn't bad.  Unfortunately though, it's not without warts.

I've had the DVR lock up on me for no reason at times.  I've had it spit out garbage that convinces the TV that the signal is not compatible with the TV.  (HDCP is not such a great thing darn-it!)  And for now FiOS is behind in the HD offering race by a long shot, but they claim to be catching up fast.

Speaking of which.... darn it, I'm about to get smacked with a big re-numbering/re-alignment of the channel numbers on the FiOS system.  You know that saying that speaks of old dogs and new tricks?  Yeah, I'm getting to be old and learning a new group of channel numbers is gonna set me back.  Bleh.  I'll get over it, but I was just starting to get familiar with the numbers of the channels that I've been watching.  Some time next week the numbers all change and I'll be thrown for a big loop.  Back to using the search function to find programs I want or channels I want.  Oh well, I'll get over it.

I could do some ranting about work, but uh, you know, I think I'll keep that stuff off-line and not provide materials to employers, potential employers, co-workers, supervisors, etc.  Some folks may have seen news articles that talk about how blog writings may not do job-seekers or job-holders any favors, so for now I think I'll avoid the problem as best I can.

One last thought/topic I guess... automotive issues for myself and a friend.  Apparently a friend I know in the great white north (north of the border, up in Oh, Canada! land) had to one-up me for car accidents.  She sent me an e-mail telling me that she totaled her automobile in a wreck because she fell asleep at the wheel.  Ouch.  Thankfully I think there was minimal physical damage, though lots of emotional tussling as her husband and she got into a nasty argument and he and she weren't speaking to each other for a while because of it all.  I told her that was likely a big sign of his love and concern for her, even if the lack of verbal communication was hard to take and not really the right approach.  He was just (obviously) so upset at what happened and what could have happened he somewhat lashed out and used the silent treatment to express his emotions.

I was much more lucky.  About three weeks back a young lady smacked the side of my vehicle.  I swear that vehicle must be painted invisible Blue as it seems to never been seen by other drivers on the road.  Ironically enough, the driver that hit me seemed to have been distracted and/or may have been falling asleep herself.  Next week I'm supposed to take the car into the shop and hopefully it'll be repaired and back to me in about 7 - 9 business days.  We'll see how that works out, but the sooner, the better.  I'm no fan of that rental car agency that 'will pick you up' as they are really a pain to deal with on potential damage to their vehicles.  Even the smallest scratches, tree sap damage, or other issues will set them off and have them trying to charge you for repairs.  As I get the rental vehicle to use while mine is in the shop, I'll be taking photos of the rental and inspecting it with a fine tooth comb.  The slightest mark will be noted just to make sure they aren't going to rip me off later.

I'm tempted to get the insurance on the rental, even if it's out of pocket, just so I can really, really, really enjoy my time in the rental.  Think Seinfeld from his show when he gets the rental, takes the insurance and then brings back nothing more than a license plate at the end of the rental period

Enough for now.  I hope life is treating everyone fairly well.  Hopefully I'll be back with another new article soon.