Adaptive Curmudgeon

My desk is a chaotic rat’s nest; computer cables, pens, pencils, binoculars, earplugs, hard drives, papers, books, calculators, coffee cups, spent ammunition (I don’t even have that caliber do I?), screwdrivers, a wrench (why the hell is there a wrench under the keyboard?), etc. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to clean that shit up.

A first step is to eliminate a 15-year-old speaker system that has outlasted a half dozen computers since it’s initial purchase. It sports an octopus-like network of wires that go from the laptop’s headphone jack to a powered subwoofer from there to a manual volume control dial from there to a left speaker and from there to right speaker and eventually to an AC plug… and probably elsewhere too. No speaker’s wires should form a run on sentence. It doesn’t like Skype, the cables are usually wrapped around my USB hub, and the subwoofer is perpetually underfoot.

Time for something more svelte. I don’t care about high fidelity so why am I allowing an old speaker set to monopolize valuable desk space? I bought this (image is a link):

It’s small, battery-operated, and supposedly works on Bluetooth. No more wires! Charge it every now and then and fuhgeddaboudit. All hail the marketplace for it provides our deepest desires. This is exactly what I want!

So happy Curmudgeon drops 25 bucks to fulfill part of his New Year’s resolution. It arrived yesterday and I was psyched. Fuck yeah! What’s to worry?

Here’s where the promise of modern technology turns in to a circular firing squad of overcomplicated/underflexible suck. I plugged it in, charged up, pressed the on button and…

Nothing.

Goddamnit! This is why I hate buying new stuff. I want problems solved, not problems created! I’m plenty good at creating problems all by myself. It’s supposed to turn on and announce itself the invisible Bluetooth ecosystem that surrounds us. Did that happen? No!

My laptop is supposed to detect this amazing new device that is supposed to improve my life. It’s looking. “Hello, is there anybody out there?” But the speaker’s not turning on. Thus my laptop is just listening to nothing; like a small scale SETI praying for a remote speaker to announce itself.

Here’s the part that really burns my biscuit; there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

In the old days of coal-fired computers and cars with carburetors you could do something when shit didn’t work. Open the hood and poke around there with the screwdriver, tweak settings, hit the fucker the mallet, reverse the polarity on the tricorder, you name it; there was always something you could do.

Not so with modern devices. There are five rubberized buttons. I may press the buttons. I may refrain from pressing the buttons. That’s the sum total of my influence over the situation.

Therefore my official stance is the following:

The Anker SoundCore Bluetooth Speaker with 24-Hour Playtime, 66-Foot Bluetooth Range & Built-in Mic, Dual-Driver Portable Wireless Speaker with Low Harmonic Distortion and Superior Sound – Black is a raging piece of shit that should be set on fire then buried in a swamp.

Yes, I deliberately used those search terms in hopes that someone at Anker (ideally a marketer) loses their wings and/or has to go to bed without supper.

I also called their helpline, was put on hold, and was prompted to give a callback number. I was told I’d be called when my number in the queue came up. If that happened and if the tech support solved the problem: “All you need to do is press the button while hopping on one foot and humming Greensleeves” then all would be forgiven.

They haven’t called back. I’m still pissed. I hope I’m shaving 0.0001% off their global sales.

Update: I called their tech support a second time. (They never called back like they said they would.) I got an actual human being. The diagnostic process was a bit insulting but understandable and it was quick:

“Did you charge it?”

“Yes, overnight on a powered USB hub.”

“Did you press the ‘on’ button?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s the blue light doing?”

“There is no blue light. I have never seen this device emit a blue light.”

“You got a dud. We’re sending a replacement. You’ll get it in 5 days or so.”

So that’s that. The Amazon reviews say it’s a great device. Who knows? At least the company is trying to make it right. I’m updating my review:

I purchased an Anker SoundCore Bluetooth Speaker. Straight out of the box it was missing the magic blue light of functionality. A replacement is on the way. The replacement will determine whether my customer experience is mildly peeved followed by mollification or I spend the next month ranting about the good old days when a man could fix a broken speaker with a soldering iron.

Hat tip to… I have no idea. I was entranced by the music and forgot how I got there. Maggies Farm.

I’m going to swim against the current of New Year’s flurry of faux introspective Facebook sloganeering (what a depressing stampede of sameness can be found in that populous wasteland), 2017 retrospectives, and “best of” lists. I present here one of my favorite songs:

Hat tip to Ace of Spades which inspired me to note the song. (Though I prefer the studio recording here to the live one on AoS.)

The kid was completely shocked. Obviously, he didn’t expect to find his old man, dressed in sweatpants and a Jayne hat, clutching a battering ram sized flashlight (which was off), and mumbling something about giant floating space babies. I didn’t expect to find my kid, bundled up like the Michelin man, carrying firewood.

Let me repeat that: carrying firewood.

Holy shit!

The kid decided to get up at 2:00 am and venture into the dark night of a -20 winter to haul firewood. He’d already made a zillion trips back and forth from the dark woodshed to the woodrack by the stove. All this while everyone (even the dog) slept. Hauling heavy oak, in blistering cold weather, in the dark, for his dad.

He did this because he wanted to surprise me with a full rack of wood and a toasty fire when I got up Christmas morning. It was all his idea. Entirely of his own initiative. Because he knows I like a warm fire.

There are times when you’re raising a kid and you think; “surely I’ve fucked up”. It feels like everything has gone wrong. Your precocious and delightful child is now a surly teenager and he’s listening to shitty music and dressing like a derelict and doing all the stupid shit you did when you were a teenager and it’s just as dumb now as it ever was. You’re afraid your contribution to the next generation is going to be a serial killer who’s unemployed and possibly even lazy. What a nightmare! A goddamn lazy ass unemployed serial killer and it’s all going to be your fault because you’re a shitty dad. If you’re a father you’ve had this fear. We’ve all had it. But at 2:30 am on Christmas morning, like a light shining through the clouds, I saw that my kid’s got a heart of gold and an iron will. Everything is going to be OK.

It’s goddamn hard to haul wood. I use force multipliers to make it happen, an ATV, a trailer, a big rack by the woodstove, strategic placement of the woodshed, teamwork, a hydraulic splitter, etc… In the dark, in blistering cold temperatures, working alone, it’s almost dangerously hard. Yet here he was; sweating from the work and covered in snow; clutching 40 pounds of oak.

Such a gracious and thoughtful gesture. I teared up and gave him a big snowy bearhug. Then I said something sweet and loving. I think it was “jumpin’ Moses boy, you‘re gonna’ freeze your balls off out there”. It was a real Hallmark moment!

He explained that he was planning on starting a fire in the woodstove after he’d loaded the full woodrack. He’d been at it for quite a while and had another half hour of backbreaking work planned. He expected to start the fire around 3:00 am and sit by it until Mrs. Curmudgeon and I woke up many hours later.

The kid had a noble heart and a generous spirit so I felt like the Grinch explaining that the chimney was still kaput. (He was dimly aware of me having loud and smoky issues with the woodstove. He’d assumed, like all teenagers since the beginning of time, that his dad’s blathering was some sort of adult bullshit that had nothing to do with reality.)

If he’d started a fire, the smoke would’ve bumped into the ice in the chimney, backed up, and flooded the house. We’d have wound up airing out the house in the coldest night (so far) of the year. Plus there’s the low but not impossible chance of an embarrassing call to the local VFD to put out a chimney fire. Boy wouldn’t that be memorable! I almost hated to rob him of what would surely be an awesome story to tell in the distant future. “Did I tell you about the time I almost burned down the house on Christmas?”

I needn’t worry. He didn’t fret in the least about his failed attempt at a Christmas surprise. He quickly stripped off his jacket and winter gear while I thanked him over and over and was asleep before I was done telling him all about the Gift of the Magi and how thankful I was. Then I woke up Mrs. Curmudgeon and told her all about it too. (I left out the Stanley Kubrick dreams. She’d have made fun of me and the pickles. I HAVE NO REGRETS ABOUT THE PICKLES.)

This year, the stupid goofy year that is 2017, is the year that I had the best Christmas present ever. (Also, the house didn’t get filled with smoke or burn down and that’s cool too.)

Merry Christmas y’all!

A.C.

P.S. Shortly after Christmas day, the chimney was cleaned and ready to go. “Christmas firewood” is heating the house even as I type this story.

So, Christmas Eve rolled around and Mrs. Curmudgeon and I needed the vacation like a dying man in the desert needs a canteen of water. I’d already sent my carpenter packing (kindly and will all due respect) and I’d already scheduled some down-time at work. All in the interest of family peace and personal recovery. I really needed a break because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

That evening the family ate out and I just had to have spicy bacon / jalapeño poppers. The intent was to share but when everyone saw the fire coming out of my ears and the blood drain from my face, they deferred. Wimps! I gobbled them all up, and (since I was sweating from the spices) washed it down with several pints of stout. Yum! (In retrospect I shoulda’ stuck with blander food.)

On the ride home, the weather report noted that it was going to hit -20 and maybe colder. I announced that the woodstove wasn’t running so I’d bring the generator in from the garage. If the grid went down the generator can power the furnace. Some time ago I bought a Powerhorse generator. It’s a “pretty sweet at half the price” knockoff of the awesome but massively overpriced Honda EU2000i. My knockoff looks just as sturdy as the Honda but I haven’t fully tested it. Last week I did a half assed pull on the cord when it had spent weeks in sub 10 degrees. It didn’t seem eager to start and I didn’t have time to dink around with it. (Likely I’d have been able to start it if I’d been motivated.) I reasoned that the little critter would start just fine if it was stored in a 50 degree mudroom as opposed to a 10 degree shed. With a cold snap on the way and the woodstove kaput it was time to keep the generator close at hand. I also mentioned my new portable Mr. Buddy propane heater which I’ve hooked to a fresh 30# tank. That’s the backup backup in case the grid croaked and the generator wouldn’t start. I may have whined that I really like sitting by the fire and hadn’t done so for weeks.

Back home I was up late wrapping presents. Then I indulged in one of my favorite late-night snacks. Pickles. I ate the whole goddamn jar.

Don’t judge me! They were fucking delicious. I have no regrets.

But I did have odd dreams. Jalapeno poppers, stout, and pickles. What was I thinking?

I dreamed vividly that I was in Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey. Not what you’re thinking; not the happy funtime dudes in ape suits hitting each other with bones furry parade that everyone remembers. Nope. I was in the weirder scenes that come right at the end. Do you remember it? You should. It’s a bitchin’ movie!

In my jalapeño/pickle fueled dream I was in the extremely white room of life and death after mankind went and fucked with the Monolith. It’s a disturbing scene but what the hell. I love pickles and deserve the ensuing freaky dreams.

So, I’m floating in this unconscious dreamlike state of Kubrick’s symbolism and sporting a stomach that’s a cement mixer when it dawns on me that it’s really cold in space. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t the Monolith have included a nice fireplace in the imaginary symbolic bedroom of Mankind’s development into a new state? Would it have killed an otherworldly intelligence the likes of which we cannot truly comprehend to give me a better electric blanket?

Then I was awake. Suddenly! Something was amiss. My stomach seemed fine but my head was still fuzzy. Was there a Monolith in the yard? Giant floating Kubrikian space babies in the sky? What was up? Why was I so cold?

I started sweeping the house. The house was chillier than it should be. Lights were on that weren’t supposed to be on. Since the lights were on, that meant the power wasn’t out, yet it was way too cold. Everything was silent. The dog was asleep.

I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. Then I rounded a corner and ran smack dab into our kid who was just entering the house. I about gave him a heart attack.

I’m almost done I promise…

I was a child once; though I can’t quite remember it. I was also a teenager, which I recall slightly better but it’s still fuzzy. Hell, I can barely remember Tuesday.

The one thing I’m absolutely clear on is that being a teenager sucked. You’ve got the mind of an adult but the wisdom of a child. All this in a brain that runs a 24/7 emotional rollercoaster between beatific and a darkness that would scare Stalin. It’s a tough time and every kid everywhere has my sympathy.

There’s only one thing that sucks more than being a teenager and that’s having a teenager in the house. I love my kids, but I swear they’re going to kill me. Even so, sometimes you see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that they’re going to be OK. You, the dumbass trying to raise them, haven’t fucked up too bad and they’re going to be the excellent adults you always knew they could be.

Oh wait… I forgot the part about the giant floating space baby…

Before I tell what did not happen (but almost happened) I need to tell you how I got there. In the last few posts I vaguely referred to a multi-week cascading tsunami of overbooked schedules and exhaustion. A miserable slog of shit sandwiches and overwork started going off the rails as the snow started flying. At first, I followed the good practice of starting a fire in the woodstove each evening after work. Unfortunately, events got ahead of me. Several days in a row all I could do was come home and collapse. I was too busy and something had to give. Rather than babysit the woodstove I used what time I had to snatch bits of sleep between days of tilting at windmills.

I’ve always got a backup. In addition to God’s most blessed heat-source (firewood), I maintain a furnace as plan B. (I have other plans too… though they are decreasingly efficient. Somewhere around plan J is when I burn the kitchen table in the bathtub.) Preparedness is not merely fun time adventures like the Russkies dropping the bomb or zombies on the lawn; it’s something to lean on when life is bleeding you dry. I chose to let the furnace do the talking and let tomorrow solve itself. Mind you, the furnace keeps the pipes thawed and such but it’s not really “cozy”; it’s more like “wear a sweater and tough it out cupcake”.

You’d think that, in the midst of a personal emergency, letting off my desired firewood track and leaning on the furnace fuel crutch was a wise decision. However, in the middle of that week there was a brutal windstorm. It blew the cap right off the chimney! I found it lying in the lawn. This isn’t a big deal. A woodstove’s chimney works just fine without a cap.

Almost.

A woodstove’s chimney does not need a cap provided you continuously use the woodstove or the weather is fairly tame. (By definition, winds that rip parts of your house away are not tame.)

In the midst of all this I had a deadline. Not one of these wishy-washy bullshit snowflake “soft deadlines” that are common these days but a real “must get it done on the exact specified time” deadlines. Just to make things more interesting it was for a test. Just to make things even more interesting I didn’t take a class for this material. Classes take days and weeks (and more!). Who has time for that? Being the overconfident Curmudgeon I am, I would simply “self-study”. What could go wrong? Each day I thought “I’ve gotta’ learn that shit” and it was top priority. Each day had a new and improved miniature personal emergency always took precedence. On the very last day before the “no excuses” moment I determined to save my ass by studying hard. I didn’t have printed materials or books but the Internet would provide. Experimenting with technology I hadn’t yet used, I jammed an HDMI cable into my laptop, shoved it into my TV, brought up a bunch of online lectures, put on a huge pot of coffee (Death Wish!), and the table was set for me overload my sleep deprived brain. I’d retrieve my ass from the thin ice upon which I was skating. The room was chilly. It was far too cold to concentrate and I was going to be there all day. In fact, the night before there’d been rain, followed by sleet, followed by a freeze. I’d just toss some kindling in the woodstove and have a nice cozy study session/marathon.

When a woodstove’s chimney does not have a cap, and when you don’t use it every day, and when it’s windy and snowy, an annoying phenomenon can take place. (It’s not a sure thing, it’s just a possibility.) Snow can get in the chimney. It can collect, get warm and squishy during warm conditions, get more packed as it freezes each night, lather, rinse, repeat. When I lit that kindling, the house immediately flooded with thick smoke. The chimney was iced up big time. I was forced to extinguish the flames, open the windows, and vent. Also swear. I swore a lot. Nature had formed a tiny personal glacier in the crack of my psyche’s ass… and I didn’t like it one bit!

I made sure everyone in the house, including the dog, knew I was cold, miserable, smelly and damn well fucking needed heat and I wasn’t getting it. It was not my most gracious moment. The reason I’m mentioning it is that I know the kids were there too.

It wasn’t too bad outside. Probably 30 degrees. I could have fixed everything. I could have retrieved my ladder, climbed to the very peak of my roof, and reamed that fucking chimney until it shined. Did I mention we’d had an ice storm the night before? Everything, including the roof, was sheathed in ½” of glassy ice. It was beautiful. It was treacherous.

It took an hour to mentally regroup. The house was chilly and smelled like a BBQ but it was slowly warming up due to our weak but essential furnace. I weighed my options, I could scale the roof. If I fell then what? A trip to the emergency room would eat up what was left of my dwindling study time. (Plus, there’s the whole death and injury thing, but I was more worried about missing my deadline.) I couldn’t risk it.

I setup my laptop in my workshop and practically straddled a portable propane heater for the whole day; inhaling propane fumes while taking notes about boring on-line lectures. I soldiered on well into the night with practice tests. That night I turned my side of the electric blanket to “bake” and slept soundly. I was ready.

The next day I set out into bad driving; more sleet. My ridiculously overpowered 4×4 with expensive maintenance costs and overpriced tires is not always superfluous. Unlike the SUVs in the Starbuck’s drive through, sometimes I actually use all that capacity. This was the time. It was a long trip and the road sucked but I got to my destination like a boss. I walk into that testing facility like I was ready to kill lions with my bare intellect. I was not inadequately prepared. Yay me!

I’m glad I’d studied my ass off because the test was hard. Or at least much harder than it ought to be. Regardless, I passed and actually did overly well. (I could have wisely studied less since “barely passed” is as good as “nailed it”. However, I don’t think like that and had gone all out.)

I stepped out of the facility into a driving rain. Rain? This late in the season? There’s a word for rain, it’s called “gonna’ be ice”. All the way home, and it took hours, I was ever so grateful for that magic dial on my dash that says “4×4”. Luckily the rain progressed quickly though the ice and sleet phases and settled into the safer snowing like hell situation; though the periodic white outs were somewhat alarming. Good tires and the patience of a saint got me home in one piece.

Of course, I had a backup plan. I always do. I’d brought my arctic sleeping bag with me… and a tarp. I’m too tall to sleep in the truck but I could sleep through a sleet storm sacked out in the cargo bed of a Dodge. I’ve done it before and if I have to I’ll do it again. Also, I feared I would be too tired to drive home. Surprising even myself, I found yet another “second wind” and simple drove. (Sometimes I lust for a well-insulated slide in camper. I’m too cheap to buy one yet but my time may come. I certainly would’ve preferred a nap in a camper or at least the option should I need it. I’m probably getting a bit long in the tooth for arctic bags under tarps.) Mrs. Curmudgeon was delighted I didn’t die and of course complained that if I had half a brain I’d have stayed at a hotel somewhere. (Which is true.) But that day I just wanted to come home; it’s a guy thing.

This story was about Christmas right? How am I going to get back on track? Stay tuned.

Physicists and science fiction writers (with considerable overlap) talk about a multiverse. This is the endearing idea that every possible situation exists in one dimension or another. On Christmas morning I caught a glimpse of a very close but distinct universe. It was the universe where we had to evacuate the house at 3 AM, on Christmas morning, when it was -20°. Contrary to what you might think, it was a pretty good universe; to experience such a universe is something I’d consider a privilege and an honor. It would’ve been one of those situations where the events of late 2017 would be fondly remembered for years to come. On the other hand, the cost of earning those charming memories would include standing in the snow while freezing my balls off in the blistering cold. Only people who’ve experienced -20 can describe what -20 is like. Suffice to say, it’s not a good climate for messing around with vision quests.

Given the opportunity to experience a morning of suck followed by an epic story, I deferred and changed the course of fate. However, I came close to getting the Gift of the Magi; good and hard.

Merry Christmas indeed.

Stay tuned…

This is the eight year (I forgot 2015… whoops.) of a my Festivus Christmas tradition where we gather around the warm glow of the laptop and watch A Very Zombie Holiday.

This is a highlight of my Christmas season! All hail Monster Hunter.