Tales From the 'Burgh

In my few years in Pittsburgh, I have had some rather unfortunate experiences with deliveries to my house.  Though I have yet to have anything directly stolen from my postbox, getting things delivered to my front door has proven in the past to be an arduous task.  I've waited for a whole fruitless day for the bell to ring, only to find out later that the driver says that they attempted delivery (DHL).  I've taken time off of work to be at my door when they said expected delivery was around noon, only to have them drop it off around six (UPS), and I've had others wait until I take twenty minutes out of the day to get some lunch from around the corner before they decide to deliver it (Federal Express).  I know where every service depot is around the area, because I've had to go there to collect items the inept delivery men have failed to get into my hands.

The setting is Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009.  The cell phone that my sister and brother-in-law were helping me to update is due to arrive, and I have to be home to sign for it.  Now, to most people this isn't that big of a deal, but those that know me well know that I don't often update my cell phone.  In truth this will be the third and most likely last time this decade, and only now because my last cell phone is dying and I can't find a replacement lithium ion battery for it.

Don't read too much into this.  It's not that I was extremely excited about getting the new phone, it's just that I don't have anything else going on in my life at the moment.

This is the story of that saga:

(From the journal of Michael Adams)

Wednesday, 9/23/09

Today is the day that I finally replace my old and worn-out cell phone.  I am determined to not let the FedEx delivery man cheat me today.  I set my alarm for 8:00 AM, but it didn't go off, so I have been up since 9:00, on the balcony waiting for the delivery.

9:00 - 10:00= Random people walking by, the USPS carrier came around 9:30, leaving my post to collect.  Went downstairs to get it.  Just stuff for Isaac.

10:02= A man that I am fairly certain does not live in the neighborhood parked in front of the building.  As he is driving a Cadillac, I think that he'll be able to pay the parking fine if he is there for more than two hours.  I'm counting it off.

10:19= I just saw a FedEx truck pull into the buildings over by the church.  I hope this is their next stop (yeah, right).

10:20= It's pulling out now.  It's coming this way... and it just passed me.  What the f***?

10:22= Went inside to check tracking to make sure the driver didn't mark the package as "attempted to deliver," but maybe the system hasn't updated yet.  Logged the time when I came back outside.

10:25= OBSERVATION: There are a lot of helicopters flying around today... for G20 summit?  I'm curious to see downtown, but I'm not leaving my post here.

10:27= HOLY SH**, the FedEx guy just passed the house going the opposite way.

10:28= Something smells like barbecue.

10:32= I'm going back in to check delivery status.

10:34= Still "on truck for delivery."

10:35= Starting to look like rain.

10:41= Here he comes again... and he just turned down East Ohio Street.

10:43= Military choppers over the Allegheny.

10:51= The guy with the Cadillac works at (or owns) Rita's, so I'll let it slide.

10:57= Status is still "on truck for delivery."

10:59= Weird looking guy in hoodie just tried to open building's doors.

11:02= Ambulance on E. Ohio moving toward Allegheny Center.

11:12= Weird-looking guy in hoodie apparently has keys to the building.

11:15= Still "on truck for delivery."

11:23= Fred (on a bike) and Nick came to the door.

11:24= People walking around with neon green stickers on their lapels.

11:30= Went inside (briefly) to check status and bank account.  Status was still "on truck for delivery."

11:34= Saw the UPS van for the third time today. Can FedEx be far behind?

11:37= Saw a truck towing a city bus.  It's starting to rain.  Man, I wish I could leave to go get some food.  It's raining pretty hard.

11:38= Had to abandon my post for fear of getting the journal wet.

11:41= I moved operations to the steps of the building's lobby, at least until it stops raining.  It feels good to sit down.  Not much of a view, but I can see if someone comes to the door.

11:44= Wish I was out hiking in this.

11:48= The rain has all but ceased.  What a ripoff!

11:56= The sun is out.

12:00= Hour four begins.

12:01= Another USPS truck goes by.

12:09= Went back to the balcony.  Chico seems peturbed.  He probably wonders what the hell is going on.

12:11= Brought a chair out onto the balcony.  My view is more obstructed, but I'm getting tired of standing in one spot.

12:13= There goes DHL's truck.  S.O.B.s!

12:17= Rita's Cadillac man is tying more balloons on the rail outside of the building.

12:24= There goes yet another USPS truck.

12:25= Lots of cop cars heading toward Allegheny Center.

12:30= Nick just left the building.

12:35= Kind of early for kids to get out of school, but there's a bus dropping them off.

12:38= Here comes another FedEx truck... is he stopping? No... Yes!

12:41= Success!

The old watch is dead.

A moment of mourning...

I finally got the back panel off of my old watch.  I tested that battery with my multimeter, and it seemed fine (2.9 volts), so I continued taking it apart.  There didn't seem to be any corrosion on the inside of the watch (as I had feared), but when I tried unscrewing the analog adjustment arm it broke right off.  To make matters worse, I think I found out why it hadn't been working - the hands fell of when I loosened the case, so I think the reason it wasn't keeping time was because the hands were off of the spindle.  I tried putting them back on, but my less-than-ample jewelery tools bent the hands, ensuring that they would catch on each other even if it was fixed.  The only thing to come out of this was the CR2016 battery, which I put back into my Casio Data Bank watch.  The SRAM still had the phone numbers of all the people from the last time it had a working battery (a little over a year ago).  I updated the phone numbers and I think that I'll put it back into my rotation, making this my longest lived watch (I gave my original Data Bank to my friend Brian who replaced the guts).

Curses!

I recently read this article on MSN about the decline of cursive writing in our schools, and I have to say, I don't see what the big deal is.  If you're too young to remember when cursive writing was synonymous with penmanship, then consider yourself lucky.

I understand that there is a certain romanticism associated with cursive writing, but it's not like learning to write cursive is like learning a whole new language, just a different font.  If done correctly, one's result is a thing of beauty that brings to mind poetry, love letters, and an eighteenth century aesthetic.  If done incorrectly, as by 99.999% of the English speaking world, you get a completely unreadable mess of scribbles that brings to mind memories of forged truancy notes and accidentally amputated limbs (because surgeons couldn't read the doctor's writing, see?  Forget it.).

Cursive writing's sweeping design is meant to be swifter and more flowing than standard printed text, but one also needs to realize that this was developed in a time when people of all creeds used quills and inkwells instead of pencils and pens - let alone computers and cell phones - to write their notes because it was easier to drag an ink-sodden feather or nib across a page than letting the ink splatter and drip all over it.  I am more amazed that this romantic fallacy has endured beyond the age of the typewriter let alone into the computer age.

Parents concerned about their child not being forced to use cursive writing for everything need to realize that they are being stupid; the only reason you want your kids to learn it is because you were forced to learn it all those years ago.  I'm sure that there's more than a few of us out there that remember the pointless drills, the countless hours of criticism about the shape and form of our cursive letters simply because we don't possess the natural coordination to do it properly.  Also, try getting the proper instruction when you're left-handed in a class where everyone but you and maybe one other student is right-handed.  That's enough to give me nightmares.  Just because you were made to suffer an outdated practice does not entitle you to force it upon your child.  Grow a brain and come to your senses.

I'm not even sure that cursive works as a time saver as opposed to print anyway.  A few of my friends and I are every bit as capable of writing standard as fast and messy as cursive.  It really makes no difference which one we use, though I know a few younger people who didn't waste their youth on this pointless exercise and who are now far more capable typists than my high-school educated butt (guess who is more marketable in today's dwindling job bank).

In conclusion, if you want to expose children to this pointless "skill," then do so only briefly at an early age, and maybe set up calligraphy clubs for the kids that want to continue with it, but don't force it on the rest of them just because you're bitter that you had to learn it.

New watch

Here I go, spending money needlessly again.  Well, sort of needlessly.

Over the past two weeks I have had no less than three strangers comment on how nice my watch is.  Those individuals really have no idea just how wrong they are.

It's not that it's a bad watch; this has been the best non-calculator watch I've ever had.  I didn't pay much money for it, as I recall it was only about $17 when I purchased it from Sears a few years ago, and it was more than worth it at the time, with both analog and digital functions, a stop watch, timer, back-light and movable bezel.  In fact, this watch might still be in use this very moment if I hadn't insisted on wearing it to my job at Home Depot and subsequent sh** jobs of the past few years.  This unreasonable wear and tear has caused some functional and visible blemishes.

The first real problem I had with the device was when the back-light button fell off.  Oddly enough, this was only a marginal annoyance, as the glow-in-the-dark hands made reading it in intermittently lighted conditions easy.

Ever since the mid-nineties, I prefer my watches to have metal bands, as the rubber plastic of every watch I've ever owned cracks and falls apart after a few months of wear, and replacing the things wasn't always easy.  With a metal band, usually the case will crack before the band wears out... unless you start losing the pins that hold the band together.  Most pricier watches have removable links in a metal band, but as I established early on I didn't pay much for this one, so it might come as little surprise that I lost a critical pin for the band's clasp earlier this year.  Being the resourceful chap I am, I simply substituted a small paper clip for the wayward pin.

While the paper clip does a fine job of holding the band together, it does a pretty bad job of not chafing my wrist with its rusty painfulness.

So late last week, my watch's analog hands began slowing down disproportionately to the time on the digital face.  I had to wonder whether it was because that the battery was dying or if the case's extreme corrosion had finally crept into the watch's innards.

I decided to open up the watch and see about replacing the battery.  I got my jeweler's screwdrivers out only to find that the case had no screws - this isn't unusual, as this isn't a diver's watch and therefore it is just a friction back.  Unfortunately, the corrosion has gotten so bad that I can't get the back panel off.  I've been trying for days to no avail.  My only option then was to take it to one of the battery replacement places at the mall.  My last experience with these establishments was when my friend Seth took the watch that I gave him there and they charged him a king's ransom for a simple battery replacement ($11+).  So my options were to take it there to see if they could replace the battery (if that was the problem) and if not I would still have to pay them and learn to live without a functioning watch, and/or just use my cell phone to tell time (it's more accurate anyway).

I opted instead to invest $17 in a new watch at Sears (they were on sale).  Even though they had the same model as the one I was replacing, I decided to go with a different one... and the buyer's remorse has kicked in.  I didn't really need the watch (as mentioned before, I could just use my cell phone), but I'm so used to having that metal band on my wrist I was actually getting anxious without it being there.  Maybe I have a touch of OCD, but I needed to replace it and all of my old watches are either childish or broken.

The replacement is slightly larger, a much darker chrome finish, a black movable bezel (with better numeration around) and a fully LCD panel behind the analog hands.  The back light button is much sturdier than my old watch's and the luminous display is much cooler looking.  It isn't without its flaws, though.  There is no countdown timer, which was an often-used feature on the old one, and if I had realized that it was missing it in the store it would probably still be there, though the bezel makes it superfluous.  It also doesn't have the luminescent hands (though oddly enough it does have luminescent hour marks), which makes it difficult to read in low light, but if the back light continues to function it isn't that big of a deal.  It's certainly a better looking watch than the old one, and if I can stay away from exposing it to the kind of abuse that a decent watch shouldn't be exposed to (grout, girders, et al) it will probably last longer.

I'll still try to get the other one open.  Anyone know of any good corrosion cures that don't involve spraying liquid on or submerging the very-not-waterproof watch?

Hellth-care

What the hell is wrong with people that are against health-care reform?

For a moment, let's ignore the fact that like me, millions of Americans don't have health insurance because they are either unemployed or cannot afford it.  Let's ignore the fact that when these people are struck with a condition that would have been cheap to treat in early stages they are forced to clog our emergency rooms because their condition's gotten so bad they can't ignore it any longer.

I am talking about the people who are saying that people should still have a choice in their health-care and that the government should stay out of it.

First: nobody's saying that you need to give up your HMO.  That is not what the plan is for.  The plan is to ease the burden on the lower and middle class that health-care has become to the millions of people who can't afford it.  If you want to keep your current plan, go ahead.

Second: You don't have a choice in your coverage - your insurance company does! They tell you who they're willing to reimburse, how much they're willing to pay, and if they feel it's better to take your money for years and then drop you when you finally need that coverage, they will.

Third: In caps, for emphasis, THE GOVERNMENT ALREADY RUNS MEDICARE!  Quit trying to scare old people into thinking that the government (who already gives them insurance) that they're going to take it away when the reality is that it isn't going to change their coverage outside of making it available to more people.

What the hell is with this country's priorities?  I didn't see protests of this scale when former president George Dumbass Bush invaded a sovereign country under the flimsy (at best) premise that the dictator that our government helped to install was working with fundamentally different philosophical religious fanatics who there had been no prior relational evidence to hurt our country and not because Dick Cheney had blue-balls from Operation Desert Storm.

If you're going to protest, at least do some research beforehand.  Don't just do it because you live in a red state.

Okay, okay, okay.

Yes, my sister had a baby last week.

Yes, he's really cute.

Yes, I'm really happy for Dan and Rita.

His name is Drake Liam Benson.

I didn't feel it was my place to tell everyone, so if you want to see pictures you'll have to seek out Rita for them.

Ignorance, mine.

As I was walking back to my apartment from downtown with the roll of quarters that I needed to start my ever-mounting pile of laundry, I noticed that there was a lot of police blockage throughout the city.  Intersections in the vicinity of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center were closed off for no apparent reason, and there were National Guard and Pittsburgh Police boats in the Allegheny River.  I had to wonder what was going on, as the G20 summit doesn't start until September 24th, and the city's current "Spit-shine Pittsburgh" campaign (wherein downtown areas that homeless and low-income people usually gather are closed and torn up supposedly for improvements but more probably so that the G20 chairs don't see the seedier side of our economically depressed town) seems focused on our already recently renovated parks and historic districts. 

It turns out that the police were there because the president of these United States was speaking at the convention center for the AFL-CIO convention.  I watch the news when I can and was understandably quite surprised that this missed my notice.  I think that it is noteworthy though, that during the MLB All-Stars game the Coast Guard boats had rather large chain-fed machine guns on their decks, but a visit from the POTUS didn't seem to warrant as much intimidation.

Watching parts of Obama's speech on the news later, I do agree with him to some degree:  the middle class is better off with unions in place.  Let us not forget though, that the reasons that unions worked originally is because they took a bat and fists approach to abuses of the workers (they actually physically threatened management).  As soon as unions became "legitimate" businesses, the people at the top refocused their legally questionable methods from management to the workers they claimed to protect, often taking much and giving back very little.  Unions don't work when the purpose of their existence switches from protecting workers rights to keeping the union going.  These should not be mutually exclusive ideals.

I think that one point everyone can agree with the president is in saying that Kanye West is indeed a jackass.