Mom 94.1 and the new computer
I'm installing a new computer for Mom this week. Here's an abbreviated data dump if you also need to do this soon.
First off, I ordered a Lenovo all-in-one because it had solid specs for $700 (i5 CPU, 16GB, 256SSD+1TB HD, 23.8" monitor). The monitor maxes out at 1920x1080, but that's okay, because text is a little larger for Mom and the image is sharp. Oh, and it's quiet. I've never even heard it, and I have freakish hearing (which is usually a curse).
It's much faster than I expected, and exponentially faster than the seven-year-old HP system it replaces.
It comes with Windows 11 Pro, which is fortunate, because it has zero crapware installed. Lenovo didn't load it up with garbage, either, so I didn't have to uninstall a ton of programs.
I decided this time to turn the system on and finish the Win 11 installation on the first day, resolve as many known issues as I could, then watch Mom use it every day. She has a very specific routine, and just observing helped me understand very quickly where she was having difficulty. I've done this for the last two days, and I'm fairly confident now that everything works the way she expects. I'll watch her tomorrow and resolve any remaining issues before I go home on Thursday.
Thumbs up to Lenovo and Windows 11 Pro.
Slalom
I was thinking today about the little house where I grew up. Then I remembered the slalom.
I watched the 1968 Olympics, and the skiing in particular. It was incredibly exciting, because I'd never seen snow in person. Grenoble, France seemed like magic. Skiing looked amazing, but I wasn't going to be doing it anytime soon.
Not the Olympic version, anyway.
However 6.10 Me did get our sizable stack of National Geographic magazines out of the bookcase and arrange them in the living room as gates, then put on my jeans. For the starting gate I used the doorway into the kitchen, because I could slingshot from it just like Olympic skiers. Then I "slalomed" around the gates on my knees, using my hands as ski poles.
Mom had just waxed the floors, so it was slippery, which made it even better. I timed the runs, and kept track of the best ones.
You may be surprised to find out I medaled.
Allegedly, the worst movie ever made
"Allegedly" because it wasn't released, but it's legend has only grown since 1972.
The lead actor? Jerry Lewis, who had grown annoyed at his "snubbing" by the Academy and decided to make a film so dramatic, so powerful, that he could no longer be ignored.
The plot, incredibly, is this: "a circus clown imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp." At the end of the film, the clown leads children to the gas chamber, distracting them on the way by entertaining them. The clown is so distraught that he follows the children into the gas chamber.
Well.
In the Wikipedia entry, actor Harry Shearer (who saw a rough cut in 1979, said this: [It would be as] if you flew down to Tijuana and suddenly saw a painting on black velvet of Auschwitz. You'd just think, 'My god, wait a minute!'
The original script, written by Joan O'Brien and Charles Denton, was changed substantially by Lewis, gutting the film of much of its meaning.
Lewis said the film would never be released, given the amount of ridicule, but he did donate footage of unedited scenes and sound reels to the Library of Congress with the stipulation they not be publicly available until June 2024.
It Certainly Could Have Been Worse
As it turns out, I caught a break from Honda dealer service. It's the first good experience I've had with them in three years.
They found me a new oil cap, cleaned the engine, and filled the crankcase back up with oil. $108. I didn't even have to pay the "evaluation fee."
Now there are no fumes inside my car and I don't feel like Ace Ventura when I'm driving.
I'm going to go back to "Fire" and
1. Get a refund on the oil change they fouled up.
2. Ask for a free oil change at a later date, instead of trying for cash reimbursement for the service costs. It's about a $20 delta, and I'm okay with losing that much if I can be done with it.
I'll make sure the cap is screwed on before I drive off this time, just in case.
Irony
I stopped taking my car to the local Honda service center because it was taking 3+ weeks to get an appointment.
There was another place closer to my house (it has "Fire" in the title). I started using them for tires, oil changes, etc., and they were great. Nice guys, 2 days for an appointment.
I had my oil changed there two weeks ago.
As I was driving off, I thought I smelled gas fumes, but dismissed it as coming from another vehicle at a stop light. Or something.
The fumes didn't go away, though, so I went back to "Fire" last Sunday. I described the problem, and the person behind the counter said it would probably be better to go to the dealer, because they didn't do emission/exhaust work.
Fine.
I call the Honda service center and they have an appointment in two days. Oh, and it's a $130 to bring the car in for diagnosis. I guess that's how they solved their service level issues--by extorting people until they stopped bringing their cars in for service.
I needed the dealer, though, so I sucked it up and took the car in.
They called me a while ago. The service place hadn't replaced the oil cap after the oil change. Oil's everywhere, of course. There's a bit of gasoline in oil, and that's where the fumes came from.
I'm going to try to get reimbursed from "Fire," and I'm sure it will be fruitless, even though I took the car there first and they sent me away.
It makes me just want to drive the car to a used car lot and sell it. If you add the cost of service (oil changes are $90 now--for an Accord!) and insurance (50% more expensive than last year), my junky 2014 has suddenly become very expensive to have.
Boys
At their finest:
It's going to be a very busy week (house is showing April 30-May 30), so posts will be brief, but still occurring.
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, an incredible story: ‘The money is not real – it’s a feckless level of wealth’: the inside story of the biggest art fraud in American history.
This is stunning: The urban-rural death divide is getting alarmingly wider for working-age Americans.
From DQ Creative Advisor John Harwood, a terrific read: My formal 2024 solar eclipse apology.
From Wally, and no one should ever steal these: Police arrested four people over $300,000 of stolen Lego kits. This is so depressing: Incels and the Gaming-Radicalization Nexus. Sherlock Holmes nerds, your day has come: Sherlock Holmes Manuscripts: A Census Summary. This looks intriguing: An Indie Studio Just Dropped the Best Sci-Fi Anthology You Haven’t Seen For Free. An analysis: Somalia April 2024. McSweeney's! MY NEW TUPPERWARE HAS DEADASS RIZZ, BRUHew-tupperware-has-deadass-rizz-bruh.
From C. Lee, and is anyone really surprised? MONEYWATCH Lunchables have concerning levels of lead and sodium, Consumer Reports finds. An excellent read: Why Jesus Never Ate a Banana. An obscure bit of history: The Ancient Female Alchemist Whose Name Is in Your Kitchen. Unnecessary and also fantastic: This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years. A terrific read: ‘With a Strat you can rule the world!’ Nile Rodgers, Bonnie Raitt and John Squire on the electric guitar that changed everything. This seems promising: New Window Film Blocks Heat-Producing UV Light Without Compromising the View. The first line of this interview applies to everything, really: The big Larian interview: Swen Vincke on industry woes, optimism, and life after Baldur's Gate 3. Not a bad idea: Don’t stay mad: Write your anger down and toss it away in the trash.
Baby Reindeer
I started watching
Baby Reindeer on Netflix this week.
Most series I watch either make me laugh or raise my pulse. Very few ever move me. Even fewer unsettle me. Baby Reindeer does both, and also includes what might be the single greatest monologue I've ever heard in a series.
It's much better if you go in cold. I'll just say that the two leads in the show are magnificent, and the show is deeply unsettling. It's nominally about a stalker, but underneath the surface are insecurity and identity and selfishness, and it has a brutal impact emotionally.
It's also very funny, at times, and even lighthearted. What it's about, though is darkness.
Mulch Wars 2024
I have a contentious history with mulch. See here: The Ides of Mulch.
Mulch has a math formula:
mulch you need=mulch you buy * 1.75
This was the formula in 2023. It was also the formula today.
It doesn't matter how much you buy. You could have a dump truck pull up and dump as many truckloads as you want, and you'd still need *1.75. The trick is that "mulch you need" is not determined until you define "mulch you buy."
Sure, smarty pants. I know what you're thinking. What if I just buy one bag? Nice try. You can't cheat the system. It's just math.
I bought 125 pounds, then had to go back and buy 100 pounds more. I spread it all. Theoretically, I never have to spread mulch again. My back is in favor of this plan.
For dinner I had chocolate cake and Celebrex.
Udio
I fiddled around with Udio last week because of this Ars Technica article:
New AI music generator Udio synthesizes realistic music on demand.
I'm particularly interested in AI-generated music because so much of music is artificial already. Algorithms, sampled beats, editing software, etc. There are entre genres of music now that have DJs instead of musicians. No one plays an instrument. It seems logical that AI is the next step, even for professional musicians.
I wrote lyrics for a short parody song for C and used Udio to see what it would sound like. In less than five minutes, I had four different versions, one of which I liked very much, and it was done. I'm not including the recording (for Cs privacy), but it sounded far better than I expected, and generating samples in different genres (I tried used the Beatles, Paul Simon, and Neil Young as keywords for styles) is fascinating. In the end, the recording I chose wasn't any of the above styles--it was Udio's own choice--but it sounded far better than the others.
There are ways to enhance what the AI generates, but I didn't need any of them. It's a powerful tool, and if you're curious, here's a link:
Udio.
Photography Day
The photographer came today to take pictures of the house for the listing.
It took hours of work to get every room looking exactly right, and I can't say I enjoyed it, but I was happy to see the result. It's another step in leaving this house, and every step is in the right direction. It'll be a great day when I lock the door for the last time.
Sorting through what to keep is generally tedious now, but Eli 22.8 kept his hospital pass from the last time he saw his mom, and it always puts a lump in my throat. There were bits of joy, though, like Eli's team picture from one of his Bantam years in hockey. Every kid on the team has the tough guy scowl in the picture--except Eli. He has the biggest grin you've ever seen.
I hope it's always there, for his kids to see one day.
O.J. Simpson (no longer breathing)
I was six the first time I saw O.J. Simpson.
I huddled in front of a little color TV and watched USC-UCLA in 1967. It was the game of the season, and I rooted for UCLA, even though they were the underdogs, because I was already the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.
What I learned that day was you couldn't catch O.J. Simpson, and if you ever did, you couldn't tackle him. He moved like water, in a kind of upright, quirky style that no one else ever had.
He broke UCLA's heart, and mine, and then he went to the pros, and he gained yards like no one before him. I watched him break 2,000 yards in a 14-game season (against the Jets). It was preposterous. He was larger than life.
He was superhuman for a long time. Like any legend in that era, though, he had to stay until there was absolutely nothing left of his greatness, until the spotlight was gone. The long decline into the shadows was always painful to watch (as it was painful for Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath as well), and seeing him broken and plodding for the 49ers was nothing but sadness.
There was evil to come, and murders. What happened after his career ended is so well-documented that there's no need to recount it here. As a boy, though, the pure joy of seeing O.J. Simpson run was wonderous, a miracle on a tiny screen.
Almost 80 Days (part two)
Well, he made it.
Eli 22.8 called from Oxford, and he sounded as relieved as I've ever heard him coming back from a trip. Not from the trip itself, which was great, but the traveling home part. I got some more details.
Sunday: in Mongu, the hotel has no electricity when he arrives. In itself, this is not surprisingly, because off-loading happens all the time, and the power comes back on a few hours later. In this case, though, it didn't come back on until 5 a.m., and he was leaving in two hours. One night of burning hot sleep (no fans).
Monday: I was wrong about the overturned vehicle being a truck. It was a bus, and it overturned while swerving to avoid an elephant in the road. The eight hour bus trip to Lusaka took fourteen hours. He arrives at the hotel. No power. The power never comes back on. Two nights of burning hot sleep.
Tuesday: He goes to a movie in the morning (power is back on), and then heads for the airport, where he's told he's flying stand-by from Nairobi to Paris. He talked to every person in the Kenya Airways office, and finally they called Nairobi and put everyone on speaker. The issue gets discussed for over an hour, at which point an office employee prints out a boarding pass and hands it to him.
Wednesday: He needs to take a train from Paris to Lille (something about getting to the Chunnel), and it's announced that the train will be two hours late, which means he'll miss the train to London entirely. Fifteen minutes later, a train pulls up and they suddenly announce it's leaving. He literally jumps on board as the train is leaving and the door are closing.
Eli's never bothered by anything that happens while he's traveling--always even-keeled, never really annoyed. When I was in Mexico with C, I called to tell him of our multiple disasters and he said, "Dad, congratulations. You're really traveling now!" with his customary good cheer.
Everyone, though, has an exception.
He did say everything except the return trip was fantastic, and sounded very happy that he went.
Almost 80 Days
World traveler 22.8 is having an interesting experience returning from Zambia.
First was an eight-hour bus trip to Lusaka that took over twelve hours because of several unexpected issues, including this one:
That's a derailed truck smack in the middle of the road.
After some free time this morning in Lusaka, he went to the airport (Lusaka-Nairobi-Paris) and found out he was on standby for the flight from Nairobi to Paris for no apparent reason. This required an extended discussion with every Kenyan Airlines official in the airport. Incredibly, after over an hour, a boarding pass was printed and the problem was resolved.
If you're keeping score, he's still two planes, one train (the Chunnel), and one bus from his home base. He did send me a lovely picture of himself with his new Zambian mom, and I'll post it if he gives me the okay.
Eclipse
I admit it: I've got eclipse fatigue. It hasn't even started yet.
Grand Rapids sees a 94% eclipse, and incredibly, it's sunny today, and 94% is fine. It would be cool to be in the middle of a total eclipse, but it's a three-hour drive (one way), at least, and probably a five-hour drive today. Plus Eli is in Zambia and C is on an airplane, and it would be much more fun sharing it with someone.
Still, though. 94%. Not bad. I'll take a walk around 2:40 and get to see the peak around 3:10.
It's easy to think that events like this bring out the worst in Americans, and they do ($1,000 hotel rooms, conspiracy theories, etc.), but they also bring out the best in many people, and those moments never get enough attention.
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, a remarkable story:
Friendly family man’s deathbed confession reveals his role in massive 1969 bank robbery.
Carl H. was kind enough to provide a gift link for anyone who wants to read the Kim Mulkey profile:
The Kim Mulkey way.
A Sad Moment
My neighbors who live in the Wizard's Tower next door had a guest on Easter.
It was a family about their age, with a boy in the 3-4 range. I was coming in from the car and heard a loud voice coming from their driveway. I looked over and saw the visiting guy yelling at his child in the car. Angry, ugly yelling. I don't know what the boy had done. I'm not sure it really mattered.
It was such a sad moment. The Dad was a hyper-aggressive prick (boy, do we have enough of those already or what?), and I doubt the boy understand anything beyond that his Dad was humiliating him.
The father was in his early 30s, and I wanted to say something, but I didn't. I wanted to tell him that children are mirrors, and they reflect back what they see around them. And that humiliation doesn't make them listen, it just makes them want to humiliate someone else.
I saw a situation like that when we were in Austin. One of Eli 22.8s friends had a Dad who was ultra. He was on him in the sharpest, most cutting way. He wanted to make his son tough. It didn't make him tough, though. It just made him an angry kid. It broadened his anger so that it was his first response to everything. That almost never ends well.
Eli's the hardest kid I've ever known, and I never yelled at him. Not once. He's gentle and loving, and he's tough when it matters. He also understands, though, that it doesn't always matter.
This Day
I had multiple possible topics today, but that was before I spent 1:15 at Gamestop trading in three consoles, followed by 1:45 at Firestone to have them tell me they couldn't repair my tire.
That's where my time went today. Blech. What a waste.
Plus taxes, house preparation, bank appointments, etc. You get the idea.
I did get to be a stuntman in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Highlight.
Family News
Eli 22.8s friend has a host mom in Zambia. I believe this is somewhat standard procedure for the Peace Corps.
She made scones for them yesterday. Today, she told Eli she's adopting him as her second son.
How it's going so far: "Having an epic time!"
I have no interesting pictures to share, but I'm hoping for a rave video any day now.
A Life
The Washington Post had a long profile of Kim Mulkey yesterday: The Kim Mulkey way: The LSU coach holds grudges, battles everyone — and keeps winning. But at what cost?
There's a paywall on that article if you don't have a subscription.
Mulkey is the basketball coach of LSU's women's team. She was previously the coach at Baylor. She is famously old-school. "Passionate" (a bully, in other words). She also wears outrageous outfits on the sideline. Just imagine Bobby Knight in an aluminum pantsuit. She has the same political leanings, too.
She's been very successful, as a coach.
It's sad, though, how the only positive thing anyone says about her in the article is "she unlocked my athletic potential." Nothing about her kindness, or how she cares about her players, or how she made them better human beings.
If you cross her, even once, you're out of her life forever. It's a pattern she's repeated with friends, fellow coaches, and her family. She hasn't spoken to her father in over 30 years, her sister in over 6.
I was struck what what a sad life she's led, by how empty it must feel to win so many games and have nothing else. Coaching does this to people, or maybe it's this kind of person who's driven to coach.
It's hard to live as an army of one.
