Month: September 2010

I hope you’ve noticed, if you’re a regular reader (if there are those), that I’ve tried to stay off the negativity for the most part since I started this blog. It’s supposed to be about business, and personal angst doesn’t belong there.

They say.

Sometimes I’m able to translate my own angst with some policy-bound bunch of idiots into a better procedure for my own use, but I’ve still tried to avoid talking about it here.

But today was just one of those days. I’ve been having 22 of those days in a row, primarily due to a little Problem with my former hi-speed ISP and my subsequent use of this dial-up account that’ll only stay connected with the long distance point from midnight forward. There must be another dial-up user somewhere between here and Sioux City.

Anyway, it’s been hell, but I’ve used my offline time to sort stock, straighten the shipping area a little, hone some culinary skills and review a lot of videotape I made in the early 90’s until the relatively new VCR ceased to cooperate on that project two days ago.

Today I was at odds with the world. I had to do something. I trundled up to the local cable place I visited last week and told them to sign me up, please, which they proceeded to do until we hit a little question like: who-the-hell-are-you?

Well, I’m a driver’s license and a credit card. Who is anybody? No, I actually DON’T have a Social Security card with me because when I had to have that replaced so I could get turned down for Food Assistance last year or so it said right in the letter that came with it: don’t carry this thing around.

Well, hmmm, maybe they could use the Driver’s License number to run the credit check. Well, hmmmm, what’s-her-name isn’t at her desk to ask. A delay………

I have actually allocated an hour to this project, so I watch television for a while but remember I need to go to Ace Hardware to get an orange plastic tip and some glue to prepare a toy gun for sale at eBay and batteries for the TV remote, which now doesn’t work in addition to the VCR. The receptionist thinks that’ll work, so I go get a PACKAGE of orange plastic things, they don’t have the right glue, I damn near forget the batteries, and I go get the glue from the stationery store.

Good news, says the receptionist upon my return, you’re good to go, no deposit required, no prepayment required, the guy’ll be there Thursday. I begin to explain there should have been at least one Bad Thing in my credit report because it was there a couple of years ago and pertained to the folks at Capital One getting all bitchy about having to settle with me for the amount of money that I originally owed them instead of the double amount they eventually came up with (I only mention this to the receptionist because this is what the Other Cable Company is in the process of doing to us right now). That was too much information.

Well, anyway, all I need to do now is wait until Thursday afternoon and actually know where I want my computer set up. My little room upstairs is ideal, but it’s bad when I isolate up there for over twelve hours in a row (apparently).

I put the new batteries in the TV remote. No dice. I don’t happen to USE the TV remote, but it’s an issue nontheless, especially for someone who can’t physically get up to change things, and here I am describing the TV’s primary user. Well, I can surely get a remote. I can probably get one for me, especially if I could, oh, stay logged onto the Internet long enough to do it. I’ll bet I can sell myself ten different kinds.

At this juncture, I elect to take a nap. I have ingested a couple of Super Burritos and a smaller-than-usual dosage of Potato Oles but the Potato Oles have made me tired anyway.

I glue the orange tip on the gun. There is a ridiculous Federal law that pertains to toy guns made after 1989 which dictates that they must have orange tips so that law enforcement officers know which are the real guns (as if painting them is going to make a difference to criminals), and eBay expands that rule to include virtually any toy gun. I know all that. It should be enough to drive me away, but anticipating my Thursday reconnection, I decide to rework the oldest thing in my file of stuff that has previously flopped, which is the ten dollar cap gun I have now raised to to fifteen to cover the cost of the package of orange things and the glue.

After the nap, I fight my way onto the Internet, slash away a couple of little issues and reconstruct the listing for the toy gun, which is instantly taken down by the eBay Trust And Safety bot BEFORE it runs and my Policy Compliance Level is returned to Low, which it has basically been ever since June because of this little cap gun.

I call eBay. We talk. Appeal it, the guy says, you’ll probably win.

None of this is about that (bet you’re glad to learn that after 800+ words). Throughout the past three weeks, having found it necessary to juggle my daily routine a lot, I’ve been returning a great deal to that question: what’s really important?

I’ve done nothing but wrestle with ethereal gibble-de-gook ever since the June Hacking and can claim a great deal of success. I pulled over 500 items from eBay and relocated them but maintained my sales volume anyway and developed two new channels, including my own.

But a box of store-brand brownie mix is about a buck and a quarter and if you even come close to following the instructions you get something good to eat inside of an hour.

At the end of the eBay phone call I think: well, it’s about midnight, that’s another good twelve hours of wrangling things around without really accomplishing much, think I’ll forward some of this adventure to my friend who actually OWNS the toy gun and go to bed.

My mail has some news: my ex-father-in-law has died.

This is mostly for the potential reader who knew the guy I guess, since I won’t be even trying to tell his story here, but I need to say that he always treated me straight. In the time we knew each other, either of us had our ups and downs and none of that made any difference. I don’t remember ever having any disagreements with him about anything. That’s rare.

He was the penultimate host. When I think about it, I couldn’t have been much of a son-in-law, unless I can somehow take credit for my kids’ relationship with him (which I can’t), but he was glad to see me any time I did turn up.

The last conversation we had was a long time ago. That’s mostly an accident of geography rather than attitude, and I didn’t mean it personally on my part, it was just a relationship that baffled me when “the divorce” happened. A LOT of stuff happened right in there and I didn’t see a lot of people again. I remember the conversation very well though.

I was trying to give him a message I knew he wasn’t going to accept and that I was in no condition psychically to deliver.

That was, oh, maybe fourteen years ago, maybe a little less.

Since that time I have learned that it isn’t so much psychic preparation that’s good for anything as spiritual preparation, and even THAT isn’t going to really alter anything that’s inevitable (remember-we’re generally supposed to look forward to the Next Life), but if it comes as any assurance to anyone, those who go before us are often remembered by those of us who are still trying to get that message right.

It’s strange……..throughout a DIFFERENT battle which accidentally culminated at the same time as all this other stuff, I accidentally sold a copy of my late mother’s high school yearbook with her senior picture in it, and prior to packing it to the winning bidder, I’ve been trying to get photos of that senior picture. My mother detested having her picture taken and I’ve got damned few of them. I kind of like the Honor Society photo as well, and because I’m so critically distracted by all of this important stuff, here I am, mailing it all way……..

duh