OUCHIES

I'm the kind of person who is always mildly injured.  It's not that I'm clumsy (I'm not), but also not because I plays rough sports.  I just push myself or engage in risky actions.  And even then, I don't mean that I go rock-climbing or parachuting.

It's the small daily events that get me.  I got annoyed at a squirrel once and tossed a rock at it and messed up my rotator cuff for 6 months.  I ordered some large stones (small boulders?) and hurt my back moving them around a small pond I built.  Once I was cutting a branch off of an apple tree and didn't realize the branch was torqued.  When cut through, it sprang up against my hand pushing against the saw blade.  I cut the the finger to the bone.  These things happen.  I'm active and live alone. so I always have to do things that should really take 2 people.  There is always some strained muscle or sore joint...

So today I am am humorously writing about a fingertip.  "A fingertip"?  Yes.

On New Year's Eve, I set a small fire in the basement fireplace.  Nothing big.  I don't have any good fireplace wood.  I used some clean wood scraps and some newspaper.  I just felt a fire was traditional.  Well, in the course of feeding newspaper to the fire, I brushed the hot grate with a finger.  OUCH!

But that sort of thing is common.  I work in the garden, sometimes I get a blister.  I work in the yard, sometimes I strain a muscle.  BFD.  I pretty much ignored it.  2 days later, I noticed the tip on a finger was numb and hard.  I remembered the grate incident.  But it didn't swell up like burns usually do.

It just sat there.

Today, 17 days later, it suddenly fell apart!  17 days???

It went apart like sunburned skin.  All of a sudden and nothing first, the skin was flaking off.  I've had burns before.  I managed to drop a pot of spaghetti water once and burned both legs badly.  And having a fireplace, I've had my share of minor burns.  But not delayed like this!

It isn't painful yesterday.  I was able to rub the old skin off and the new skin isn't sensitive.  But it sure was weird!

If a blister had formed the day after and it hurt and swelled like such things usually do, I wouldn't have bothered to mention it.  But the delay and lack of the normal irritations of a burn made this very strange.

Cable TV Annoyances

It started with the remote control slowing down as I tried to change channels.  Then, the TV Guide part started working slower too.  Finally, I couldn't enter the 3-number channel numbers.  It would transmit 1 number (sometimes 2) never the last.

I changed the batteries (rechargeable) and then changed them again.  No good.  I cleaned the window on the remote control, on the TV, and on the cable box.  No good.

So, I took the remote control (which needed to be replaced because the battery cover has to be taped on and you can't read the buttons anymore) to the local cable site.  The place is more fortified than my bank!  2" plexiglass (or whatever they use these days),  a double-covered opening to speak through (have they never heard of microphones?), and a double-locked box through which can pass equipment.  You open your side and put the equipment in and close it.  The cable person locks your door amd opens his to retrieve it.


I'm not kidding.  My bank doesn't have that kind of security.  It has no barriers and they have real money behind them!

But be that as it may...  I told them my remote control seemed to be failing.  The guy said "put it in the box".  I started to do so and he shouted "No, in the BOX, man, I don't want it".  Huh?  He meant in the trash can on my side of the Embassy-quality security barrier.  I pointed out that the logical "box" was the one for returning or receiving equipment.

Strangely, he seemed pissed at my incomprehension.  OK...  not one to fight the system, I dropped it in there.  Then he said he was passing me a new remote control through the "box".  Silly me, I looked at the trash can.  No, it can through the FT Knox quality plexiglass-survive-an-atomic-bomb box. 

No, I did not even point out the silliness of the terms.  I wanted to get the hell out of there!  I just took the new remote and went home.

Never mind the huge sign that said that NO EQUIPMENT WILL BE PROVIDED WITHOUT PROOF OF IDENTITY, and I hadn't.

So I got home and the new remote control had no effect.  I tried newly charged rechargeable batteries in case the provided ones were dead.  No change.

*GLOOM*

It had to be the cable box itself (only months old).  So I pulled the TV stand out from the wall and detached the cables, leaving them in place to make it easier to reattach them.  I CAN figure out cabling (and did it succesfully when I added a DVD player/recorder to the system last month), but it wasn't easy.  So I am very careful.

I brought the cable box to Comcast.  And standing there, I had to listen to a customer making small talk to the service guy (obviously trying to get a date).  Hey, don't do that on MY time, OK?  So, I explained the problem to the service guy (eventually).  He spoke very quietly through the barrier.  And as I tried to hear his words, another customer came to the other window and started YELLING about his bill problem.  And the other guy was OBVIOUSLY wrong.  I almost offerred to throw him out.

I did pass my cable box through "The Security Box".

But I struggled to hear my own customer service representative (with a BAD accent).  He was trying to tell me that he didn't have my type of cable box in stock and that I might have to wait for several days.

Sorry, no, that wasn't acceptable. and "could I at least have my previous box back"?  Slow channel selection is better than none...  He said he couldn't give me a damaged box back because I said it was "damaged".  He said the only ones available were for "better systems" but he could give me a lesser box until the right one was available.  I have everything they OFFER!

He said the "better one" was HDMI.   I pointed out that the box I gave him was HDMI!  He didn't believe me, but disappeared into a room for (and I measured it) 5 full minutes.  He finally came out with a cable box identical down to the last to the last outlet and input and said "I'll give you this one", as if he was reluctantly granting me a heart transplant.

And remember that sign below the counter about not giving out cable equipment?  They never did ask me for mine.  If I had stolen a discarded broken one, I would have gotten a new working one!

Strange people...

So I got home with the replacement cable box.  I hooked it up properly (I thought).  This part is my fault.   You have to call the cable company and go through a bunch of questions to get a signal sent to the new unit to activate it and wait (up to) 45 minutes.  I called and the voice-only system said it send the signal.  45 minutes later, there was still no signal.

I hadn't fully seated the power cord properly.  My fault all the way.  I had to talk to the VOICE again and get a new signal sent.  At least it worked this time.  The cable system is working again.

I shouldn't even mention that coding the new Universal Remote meant I had to go through a bunch of nonsense.  But the cable TV instructions were in invisible print and I had to copy it from their site to PDF and from there to WORD and expand it to 20 point font just to read it.

And I will add that the "Universal Remote" isn't.  It will not control my TV except to shut it off and on.  It won't control my new DVR at all.  For me to watch a DVR, I have to use 3 separate remotes...  LOL!

But at least I can finally change channels on the cable again with A remote..

Tucson Mass Killings

I have been trying to learn and understand about the mass killing in Tucson Arizona.  I want to write about it.  I haven' decided how.  I have been thinking some poetry lines.  I have been thinking some prose.  I have been thinking of some lists of quotes about the event.  I haven't decided how to approach the posts about it over the next few days.  Probably all of them...

I don't want it to be political in main purpose, but some political thoughts will emerge.  Politics IS involved in some ways. But I have listened to extremists at both ends and I don't want to go there.

I think I will try for a poem to mention the loss and sadness first, but simple prose might be easier soonest.  This whole event both angers and saddens me; I don't know which will show up before the other.

But I do apologize for taking over my own blog for a specific purpose (temporarily).

Cavebear

Sports

I don't live and die by the ups and downs of local sports teams.  I've lived here for 42 years and I doubt many of the team players have.  I know it is a job to them and that they get moved around.

But I also know that many of them try very hard to play well at hard games.  Professional level athletics are cruel.  In any sport, a few bits of bad luck can send a career off to another city, or to a car dealership.  Those people get banged up, beat around, and criticized for failing to do perfectly the things that over 99.99% of us could not even attempt to do.  Being a pro athlete is a hard and chancy life.

So I want to do something that most people won't do.  I'm going to thank a bunch of basically out-of-town guys for doing something they are highly paid to do.  I'm thanking the Washington Redskins football team for losing to Dallas today.

Not because they lost, but because so many of them tried so hard to win.  They came so close to winning that game on a team that has so many problems.  I respect that. 

I won't mention any particular problems.  Football plays are so interconnected that it is very difficut to single out any one problem.  If the offensive line is better, the quarterback has more time to throw a good pass.  If the receivers are better, they can catch imperfect passes.  If the quarterback is better, the recievers have a better chance to catch passes, etc.  No one player makes or breaks a team.  Its called a team for a reason...

And I'm tired of everyone screaming for the head of some poor kicker who is doing one of the weirdest athletic events possible - shoving an oblate ball through a narrow place, using his foot, and depending on 2 other guys to arrange the launch point...

Same on defense.

So I am thanking THE TEAM  for a great effort yesterday in a loss.  They got into a hole, and they fought their way out of it.  They came from far behind to tie the game toward the end.  They gave it their best.  They lost.  Well, someone has to lose.

They deserve applause for the effort.  Not for just showing up, for the effort.  I didn't see any person on the team who didn't try hard to win from the first second to the last.  That's what makes me follow a team.  Win, lose, or draw, if you try your best, I will follow you.  As I will support friends, family, and co-workers who try their  best...  We all owe support to anyone who does the best they can.

I played some high schools sports.  I was a 3 letter athlete.  I know what is is like to stand out on a field, exhausted, in the rain, knowing that you are losing the game in spite of the best you had to give.  And people booing from the sidelines...

I've kicked a soccer ball into midfield knowing that I was going to get smashed by someone equally desperate to prevent me from doing so.  I have had my ankle kicked apart so badly that when I landed on it on the next step, I could feel the joint pushed back in.  And couldn't walk for a week.

I've made a 20' putt that helped the team win.  And missed a 3' one that lost a match.


I've hit a tennis serve that aced a match.  And double faulted one that lost it.

For what it's worth, I have missed checkmates that would have won games and found moves that saved lost situations.  There is no fixed law of competition.  The best player doesn't ALWAYS win.  And the worst doesn't ALWAYS lose.  That's why you play the games...  Luck can be cruel.  Or wonderful.

So I think I understand the pro athletes a little bit.

So Washington 30, Dallas 33...  Its OK, because every one of you tried your best.  And I think I sense a team forming.

Casual Police Shooting of Pets

Warning:  Rant follows...

I assure you I am not against policemen in general.  They are important members of our society.  I wouldn't want there to NOT be policemen.

I generally try to understand when policemen feel they have to shoot or taser violent people  Or violent dogs that truly threaten them.  It isn't easy sometimes, but I try.

And I don't care as much about dogs as many people do.  I'm a cat person.  I had to build a high fence around my yard to keep the cats safe from large dogs that roamed free.  So I don't love dogs...

But things seems to be getting out of hand when policemen can can shoot dogs as a matter of convenience when entering a house.  When improperly invading the house of innocent people, for example. In that case, police conducted a full SWAT-quality house assault on a family who were unknowingly delivered a package of drugs as part of a drug pickup trick.  The police casually and routinely immediately shot the dogs who barked at the intruders.

What good dog wouldn't bark at intruders?  They even shot one dog who was trying to run away!  That is wrong.  And I don't even like dogs.

And now, a new example of gun-madness by police.  Washington, DC has named Keith Shephard as the officer who shot Bear-Bear on Monday night. Bear-Bear was a Siberian Husky who was playing in a community dog park when Shephard, allegedly fearing for his life, shot the husky in defense.  Dog Park, get it?  A place where dogs get to run around together and be a temporary pack.  That involves a rare chance for the dogs to see who is the Alpha Dog!

Maybe it is true that the shot dog was aggressive.  But it was a dog park.  They are supposed to run around.  If you don't like it, you leave.   I once grabbed a large neighborhood dog by the spike collar and led him home.  He was scared, I was scared. But it didn't require a gun.

This is going beyond dogs.  I'm getting REAL pissed about too many policemen using lethal force on people and animals who don't really deserve it!  Tasers are killing too many people.  Policemen are shooting people too casually.

Do people have to start carrying guns to protect themselves from POLICEMEN?

It starts with shooting dogs casually.  Then Tasering people.  Then shooting people.  I don't like the way this is progressing.

I understand that police work CAN be dangerous, and that too often, policemen become used to dealing with criminals.  

But when they start to assume that everyone and even every dog they meet is a criminal or lethal threat deserving to be killed on sight, that has to stop...