Flu season

Good batteries make good neighbors

We all know how smoke detectors start beeping when the battery needs to be changed, right?

A couple of weeks ago Susan and I were awakened about 3:45 AM by one of those faint but persistent beeps that we recognized as a call for a new battery.  I got up to see which smoke detector it was.

Not the one in our bedroom – it would have been louder.  Not the one in the skylight hall, nor in the downstairs hall.  Lauren and a friend were sleeping downstairs, and the problem definitely wasn’t in her room.  I didn’t want to go into Zack’s room and risk waking him, so I checked the other ones again.

It’s not a quick process.  The interval between beeps is at least one minute, and it seems much longer when just roused from that all-important deep sleep.  Beep.  Nope.  Sounds like it’s upstairs.  Pause.  Hold on.  Wait for it.  A little longer.  Beep.  Not that one.  I’m sure it’s not our bedroom, but it’s coming from that direction.  Wait.  Wait some more.  More.  Beep.

I’d already pressed my ear against Zack’s door and it didn’t seem to be coming from in there.  I opened the door very quietly and went in – just to be sure.  “It sounds like it’s outside, Dad.”  We waited and listened again.  Beep.  Not in here.  “Sorry, Bud.  We’ll find it.”

Of course no one’s going to have a smoke detector outside; that’s ridiculous.  But Susan and I had checked and rechecked all of our detectors for the last 20 minutes and found nothing. I opened the front door and listened.  It was pouring rain.

Beep.  A little louder this time.  I walked around the side of the house outside of Zack’s room, and what to my wandering eyes should appear but a smoke detector on a rail of the neighbor’s porch.  His lights were on – apparently another victim of Midnight Battery Failure (MBF).  Oh, I get it.  He took care of his problem by putting it outside.

I picked up the unit and tried to open it to remove the battery.  No can do.  BEEP - much louder now.  Man, it’s wet out here.  Not gonna bring that thing into the house to solve the problem right now.  I stuck the detector in the back seat of my car under some cloth grocery bags.  That’s enough of that.

Went back to bed and dreamed of kicking my neighbor’s butt the next time I’d see him.

Sometimes change sucks

In May Zack started delivering the West Seattle Herald to about 30 customers around our neighborhood on Wednesday afternoons.  His first time doing the route by himself was in the pouring rain, pulling papers out of his backpack, checking addresses off his list, trying to keep everything dry – what a miserable way to start a job.  Susan got a tearful call from our newly-minted carrier, and was able to help him get the papers delivered and figure out some easier ways to do it next time.

Zack settled right into the routine.  His buddies helped him deliver papers.  He struck up friendly conversations with neighbors.  He acquired new customers, earned tips, and wrote thank you notes.  He deposited checks in his new bank account and had his own money to spend on the school band trip to Idaho.  Zack enjoyed a responsibility that belonged just to him.

Now big newspapers are fighting for survival.  Our own well-loved Seattle Post-Intelligencer lost the fight a few months ago, leaving the city with one daily paper that has no soul.  Smaller papers are feeling the squeeze, too.  The West Seattle Herald is consolidating its operations and switching to distribution by mail, and this past Wednesday was the last time neighborhood carriers delivered the paper.

Like millions of boys, having a paper route was Zack’s first regular job.  Like millions of Americans, he recently lost his job.  He’s already had at least one of his customers ask if he’s available for other work, so it’s good that he can see how ‘referrals’ and ‘networking’ and ‘good customer service’ come into play.  It just bugs me a little bit that he had his first taste of ‘unemployment’ at the age of 13.

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all of you other manly men:

Caring for your introvert

For those of us who are married to or otherwise closely associated with an introvert, here’s a good article from the March 2003 issue of The Atlantic.  I laughed out loud.

Dell doesn’t get it

Susan and her siblings purchased a new computer for her parents and I volunteered to assemble it for them.  No problem.  In an hour or two I’d be back outside on a spectacularly beautiful Seattle spring Saturday…

About 90 minutes later the new computer was in place, desk dusted, and the hairball of cords and plug strips under the desk untangled and labeled.  Fired it up.

Susan’s folks did not want to learn a new operating system, and the new computer was ordered with Windows XP instead of Vista.  Good choice.  While it booted up I looked over the packing slip from Dell.  Yep, “Microsoft Windows XP SP3 English.”

What an unpleasant surprise to see that POS Vista loading instead of XP.

Where’s the backup media with the downgrade software?  Check the packing slip – there it is.  Check the box – there it isn’t.  Turned out Dell had shipped us four separate FedEx envelopes, and each one contained this letter:

Dear Valued Customer,

You recently placed an order for a Dell system and we inadvertently shipped that system to you without the Windows XP SP3 Backup software media.

Your Windows XP SP3 Backup software media is enclosed in this package.

Your new computer was delivered to you with Microsoft Windows XP operating system already installed, so you do not need to install this software on your new system at this time.  However, please keep this media in a safe place in case you need to reinstall the operating system on your computer in the future.

For any technical questions with your new order, you can visit our support center by going to SupportDell.com.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and sincerely hope you enjoy your purchase.

Best regards,

Dell

Thank you, Dell.  A couple of questions:  If this computer was shipped with XP already installed, why did it load Vista?  And “in case I need to reinstall the operating system,” I’d need backup media with the software, the drivers, service packs, and utilities (four different CDs), and not four identical CDs like Dell shipped.  With no instructions.  Hmmm.  I don’t think I can overwrite Vista just by running this one XP CD, can I?  [Several attempts.]  No, I cannot.

Called Dell Technical Support and eventually reached Abhai in New Delhi, where it was 45 degrees centigrade (113 Farenheit).  He was extremely helpful and courteous, and we spent more than two hours on the phone uninstalling Vista and installing a downloaded version of XP.  Also downloaded a bunch of needed drivers onto a CD on the new machine, but I’d already been at this for six hours, and had to leave for a wedding before installing them.  That should be easy to do later.

It wasn’t.  The new computer wouldn’t read the CD with the drivers.  Thankfully Abhai had ordered a complete set of the backup media sent to me, so got the drivers installed a couple days later.  Seemed like I was making some progress until I tried to move files over from the old computer, and the file transfer utility in Windows crashed repeatedly.

My inexhaustible supply of patience exhausted, I put the new computer in a cantaloupe box and schlepped it back to Costco for a refund.  When I politely mentioned that I already had more than ten aggravating hours into this failed installation, they didn’t ask any questions.

I went back to my in-laws’ place and set up their old computer.  With the exception of a larger monitor they’d purchased (and the dusted desk and untangled cords), we’re back where we started more than two weeks ago with nothing to show for it.  *Sigh*

Since the Costco refund went back on my card, I ordered the identical system again.  I know – that’s the definition of insanity.  I hoped (and tried and tried and tried) to find someone at Dell who could get my order expedited.  So far so bad.  A couple more long phone calls, multiple transfers, disconnects, and the words customers love to hear, “We can’t do that.” After arguing with me on the phone (another thing customers love), a ‘customer care’ representative told me he was transferring my call to his supervisor.  He left me on hold for 20 minutes (I was fixing dinner) before I hung up.  What a lousy way to run a business.

A note for the folks at Dell:  Just because you’re a big company doesn’t mean that you can get away with building and shipping inferior merchandise, delivering crappy service, and ignoring your customers.  Ask General Motors.  We have one Dell computer at home, but it’s very, very unlikely that we’ll ever buy another one.  If you’re thinking about buying equipment from Dell, please let me know.

Learning

This evening Lauren (15) was preparing for a Biology test while the rest of us watched “Marley and Me.”  She took a break and came downstairs to give us a preview of what she was studying.

Lauren understands that she is a visual learner and uses flash cards to very good effect.  Somewhere along the way she determined that she doesn’t respond as well to blue or black writing as she does to other colors, so she made her current set of flash cards with purple and yellow pens.  Don’t ask me.

Allow me one little example of her approach to learning:  knowing that “ventre” is the French word for stomach helps her to remember that “ventral” refers to the front surfaces of any structure.  Same thing with “dos” (French word for back) and “dorsal.”  Lauren thought French and Biology were completely unrelated subjects, then she started discovering connections like these.

* * * * * * * * * *

Our thinking about education has always been that we want the kids to love learning, as that’s something they’ll enjoy all their lives.  Lauren showed us this evening an awesome example of how she’s drinking in facts and information and finding new ways in which to connect pieces of her world.  It’s a great encouragement and delight to see her education actually blossoming – like she is – right before our eyes.

Close to home

Our friend Andrea sent this along…

from The New Yorker, Feb 23, 2009

Renaming our house

I’ll never forget visiting the home of a lifelong friend of my grandparents when I was a kid.  It was an estate, actually.  And like any estate worth its salt, it had a name:  Broadfields.

Three details about the house stick in my mind:  1) There were buttons in nearly every room that rang a buzzer in the kitchen and indicated the room from which the signal came.  2)  In addition to buttons mounted on the walls, a mound in the carpet under the dining room table concealed a switch that the hostess could press with her foot.  For a kid who loved lights and switches and buzzers and buttons, this was the stuff of dreams.  I did not then – nor can I now – comprehend that these wonderful devices would actually summon a member of the household staff.  So much for being able to press buttons whenever I wanted.

The third detail was a Bentley with a driver named Thomas.  It was a family car, though it’s hard to imagine doing anything practical like grocery shopping, giving rides to sweaty kids after a soccer game, or bringing home a few bags of compost.  Can’t picture pumping my own gas at Costco in a Bentley.  But I digress…

Broadfields always inspired me to give names to my homes, be they ever so humble.  Another inspiration came from “Stately Wayne Manor,” home of Batman’s alter-ego Bruce Wayne.

But we drive two almost 20 year-old cars, neither of which would ever be mistaken for a Bentley.  We do have a buzzer with a button at the kitchen sink.  No servants are summoned; we use it instead of standing at the top of the stairs and shouting, “Time for dinner!” Though we love our home, it’s not really the sort of place that says “manor.”

Center for Casual Living is much more descriptive.  The vacuum hose sometimes doesn’t get put away for days or weeks at a time. We’re hesitant to replace carpeting because it contains so much of our family history.  Our bedroom also serves as an intermediate stop for things on their way to Goodwill or for sale on Craigslist.  Current inventory in the loading dock/bedroom includes an electronic keyboard, a telescope, a small TV and old VCR, and some shelving.

Center for Casual Living.  I should make a sign – there’s probably a nice scrap of lumber somewhere in our bedroom, and some paint, too…

…and to The Republic

“The Republic” is a Seattle indie rock band.  Following are excerpts from my note to one of the band members.

I can’t tell you how much we enjoyed seeing The Republic’s performance last Saturday evening.  Here’s a little background:

• Susan and I are both 57.
• She is not as much of a rocker as I am.  In 23+ years of marriage I have never come home to find her with the stereo cranked up.
• She told me during the day on Saturday that she’d probably want to leave the show early.
• Lauren (15) and Zack (13) are pretty sure that most things we like would be real snoozers for them.

Well – we all stayed for the whole show and:

• Susan loved every minute of it.
• The kids enjoyed hearing and seeing the band.
• Zack has loaded Kingdom of Noise onto his iPod.
• He’s more interested than ever in playing drums, and will have the youth group’s drum set at our house this summer.
• Lauren came home from school the other day, thought the house was too quiet, and put on Kingdom of Noise.

I’m sure you guys get lots of positive feedback about your shows.  I think you’re in a class of your own.  As an old-timer, I lack the language to describe your genre and style, but there are tangible qualities of love, joy, and conviction – so much heart – coming through your music and stage presence.  I’d even say that I felt loved just seeing and listening to The Republic.  Quite different from a DEVO concert I attended years ago in which the members of the band actually got off the stage and walked on people in the audience!  I suppose their actions matched their beliefs.

. . . . . . . . . .

I’m a true blue fan and would be happy to do whatever I could to advance the cause of The Republic.