There are too many bloviators who claim that government stands in the way of corporations, corporations who can nothing wrong.
There are too many alarmists who think that corporations are taking over the world and the 99% will be the worse for it.
As with all human endeavors, the truth lies in the squishy middle. Or is that the muddled middle?
My dozen regular readers are probably tired of these rants, but then there are all the drop-ins who stumble on this blog because I managed to put in keywords that gives an entry a high search ranking. Try "duluth minnesota billionaire".
This blog entry is a result of some frustrations that I've had recently.
Because I've been doing so much snow shoveling and snow blowing, my Christmas planning keeps getting pushed back.
I keep getting emails from the Pretty Good Goods catalog because I contribute to Minnesota Public Radio. OK, our family's tradition has been to give T-shirts or books. What interesting T-shirts can I find for some on my list?
But when I try using the Pretty Good Goods catalog, I'm told I don't have an account. What, my MPR ID and password aren't the same. So, I create an account and place an order. I received most of the items rather quickly, but one item has been "drop sent" whatever that means. My credit card has already been charged for that item. Pretty Good Goods has not responded to my query about this, but then I should give them slack because they are overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, I keep getting emails from Pretty Good Goods at the email address I want to drop. If I try to use the unsubscribe, I'm told that I don't have an account. How can I not have an account when I just ordered stuff? Please excuse me if I'm inaccurate on the details. Lots of this is becoming a blur.
Geek Squad, owned by Best Buy, sent me a notice that the warranty was running out on my wife's iPad. The notice offered an extension. Given all the hazards that were covered, I thought it was a good deal. I went to the Geek Squad page and requested the extension.
While I was at it, I changed my email address to that which we plan to use over an older one. That went through without problem.
And then I received one of the many-times-per-week emails from Best Buy at the old email address. I went to the site and tried to login and change my email address. I don't have an account at Best Buy! What? What about the Geek Squad account? What about the rewards program account?
After searching some old messages, I found that I had to go, not to bestbuy.com but to my.bestbuy.com!?!? The email address and password I had in my head worked. Hey, folks, you work for the same company, and customers use all of your websites. According to some, corporations are efficient, more efficient than government. Sorry, I have had government communications that have gone far better than this.
My iPhone was getting low on power and I tried to sync it on my Mac. "Sync could not complete" or some such. What the heck! This has never happened before. Well, not to me, but certainly many others. I found an answer in the Apple Community rather quickly. The first answers were rather complicated and didn't seem to fit my OS level. But then I found one about shutting off the iPhone, quitting iTunes, and then restarting both. Voila! It worked.
I have over fifty years of computer problem solving and can often find the right keywords to get a solution proposed by somebody else (or as in "Helpless help desks revisited" doing it myself).
And of course there are the dozens and dozens of problems that I just give up on.
It's sort of like my last straw of the day. Some bolts on my snow blower gave way on the speed setting mechanism. Rather than go to the equipment store to get the exact bolts, I went to a hardware store and got off-the-shelf bolts for 44 cents (and $20 for a ceramic knife for someone on my Christmas list). When I returned home, I tried replacing the bolts. Let's just say the positioning is awkward. Using my bare hands and wrenches (not a good idea when it's well before freezing), I was able to get two bolts in and secured. But the third was in a very awkward position such as I could not easily get the lock nut started on the bolt.
There is a time that discretion is the better part of valor. I gave up and went back to the house with a bent back after being bent over so long. Finishing the fix will have to wait until another day. I just hope I can get it done before the next snow dump!
