weather control any more. Wain, the guitarist from Boynton Beach, called. We have a meeting scheduled for Thursday. Meanwhile, Mr. Foxx (a stage name) did show up at the appointed time, and I’ll give you the report later.Cinnamon Twists, the new high-calorie, high-starch, high-carbohydrate snack from Taco Bell. They are actually quite okay. They must be incredibly cheap to make, since all franchise food joints seem to “discover” these type of treats during the declining phase of market growth.
I was over at the wig store by noon, doing the kind of work I promised myself I would never do again. Cracking passwords. Even though I did it the easy way, by calling Quickbooks and going through their tech support, it still took three hours and such work drains me. In this process, I also discovered that the former bookkeeper had registered the software to her own phone number, you know, the lady who got arrested. This opened another tangent until somebody recognized the number. All of this takes time, complicated expensive time. As I pointed out strongly, I was not around when all this stuff was being set up.
We’re not out of the weeds yet, because there are eleven different Quickbooks files on the computer. I may have to open them one by one to find the most recent entries. Quickbooks does have a neat password protection system, but it really does not go fast enough once they’ve identified you properly. This kind of work is never popular with employers and I still get treated like an employee over there. (“I get paid for what I know, not what I do.”) Cracking passwords, or actually it is really cracking password systems, seems all to easy to the people who don’t have to think it through, and besides that, it is not the kind of thing I even like letting people know can be done. Ruth did nothing but complain how long it was taking, which I understand.
There is something worth commenting on. Around half the time was spent either on hold or talking to customer service types. You can decide for yourself but nothing got done until we got past all the women and through to “Chester”, a man. I am simply telling you the absolute facts here. I do not know or care if there were any contributing or mitigating factors, only that the women were a total waste of time and they did not help a lick. It always got to some point where they would not make the necessary decision or go beyond the rule book. It took the man (and a very young and inexperienced tech at that) to grasp that this time the rules would not produce results.
This goes deeper, because the women techs constantly tried to trick me into saying something they could get in a huff over. Instead of focusing on the problem, the women would go on and on about who you are, with peculiar fascination over a call-back number “in case we get disconnected”. When Chester got on the line, it was three or four words of introduction and on to fixing the problem.
The stumbling block appeared to be that the software was registered to the wrong zip code. Why is it Chester found that item in ten minutes, using the same information that four women could not troubleshoot in over two hours? “Would the woman who knows what’s really going on just please put me through to the man in charge?”
If that last exchange sticks in your craw, you might be asking yourself why. When I got home, I took my blood pressure. 145/95. Doubleplusungood. You can bet your ass if you cause that kind of condition, I’m going to notice your gender.
I won’t bore you with the numbers but I see that I could really use a motorcycle for those 12 to 30 mile trips. These are too long for bike rides and I hate to fire up the car to go such short distances. Most such trips are almost entirely on the freeways (don’t ride a motorcycle on the local streets), so a scooter won’t quite make the grade. Years ago, Honda made a decent 250 cc machine that cruised at 75 but could hit 100 mph. Now, all they make in that range is ugly dirt bikes.
I liked the 250 because it was compact, rode low to the ground and had a real passenger seat, not a buddy seat. It was light enough to manhandle and looked like a larger bike. Of course, since I liked it, they no longer make it. This could take a week or two for the final decision.
Then, Mr. Foxx showed up. He is a somewhat natural guitarist and learns the ropes quickly. I put him through the usual paces, play this, don’t play that. That first session is always fast paced, but he did okay. He admitted he has not played for twenty years, which explains why he failed to send me a song list. I saw instantly that he’d been playing way too much blues (making chord changes at the wrong spots). That is why I wait till the end of a session, and go over what was learned.
He passed, and was rather impressed by what I’d shown him. This is often the result of them assuming it will be complicated and finding out it is so simple they overlooked it. Sometimes, it is comical how the transition happens. After an hour of playing with me, I point out some things that very few people could spot on their own, and he made the leap without hesitation.
I can’t spell it out for you, but for instance, some guitar players balk at the “de-emphasis” on what they play, like I’m trying to “take over” their part. Most guitarists do not realize they have been overplaying to compensate for a lousy backup band. It [what I just described] is a new definition of cooperation but one that works.
That impressed him. He also learned within the first minute that he could not play by watching me – a lot of guitar players try that and flop. You must listen, not watch. Like others, he is floored by the amount of analysis I’ve put into what works and he will likely put in the effort to learn the music list now. He wants to get back for another practice by the weekend. I told him to call me when he has learned ten of the tunes on the CD I gave him. If he does, we go ahead. If he does not, twenty years is a long break.
