captainsblog | "Element, My Dear Watson!" and Other Notes of Fails Overcome

Originally, this was to be titled "The joyous night surrounded by days of fail." I’ll get to the good part eventually, probably in my next post. Because everything after about 5 last night in Rochester was really very, very good. But around it was mostly more of the same old same old when it comes to technological and other shit. Still, I'll celebrate what we did get over about, and in addition to, those moments.

After bailing out of a Rochester trip on Tuesday, yesterday was the appointed day for it. I had to wait until 11 a.m. to leave, because a friend had stopped over earlier in the week to set up some recording equipment for the final local broadcast of a long running local “news“ program ending then. We planned I would to either bring it back to him at his suburban Rochester home or at a Batavia comedy show he was performing out on my way home last night. As usual, I took Eleanor’s car for the drive, because it has more room and it gets better mileage, particularly when I have the opportunity to plug it in at my destination.

Unfortunately, that never happened. I could never find even a 110 outlet in an accessible location other than the one at my Rochester office, and I was only there for a little over an hour at the end of the afternoon. Before that, though I once again exhibited my superpower - the Magnetoman one that was screwing up my ATM deposits the previous week. This time, as soon as I got behind the wheel of the hybrid, the check engine light went on and stayed that way. It was not blinking or sending any scary notifications to the display, but it’s there, and it has to be dealt with at least by the time the car gets inspected next winter. I texted home to ask Eleanor to make an appointment for it, since the car is still well within warranty. Soonest they could get it in was the middle of August. I need to confirm that with them in an email, so there's a record that, yes, we did tell them; yes, they said it was okay to drive in the meantime as long as it's not flashing and the car doesn't blow up; and yes, they will have no way to say we voided the warranty because "ya waited too long."

Fast-forward to today: apparently my car felt left out of the attention, because on the way to the Parp! with the dog, JARVIS decided to pop an out-of-warranty idiot light of his own: BRAKE ASSIST INOPERATIVE, along with this lovely scary little icon alongside it:

Since I was getting out of the car with Pepper anyway, I had some reading time- at least until my phone battery died (again!), taking about half of this entry up to this point along with it. I did get to rest assured that the fail was not of the brakes themselves, but of the autocorrecting computer mechanism that helps you if you go into a skid, typically in snow, ice or very wet road. We're in summer and drought here, so, no problem. But I also just had a Feeling: this car has popped off codes before, from the dreaded "you won't pass emissions" check engine light to this goofy one that I've always wondered what Santa would do with-

- and those earlier ones cleared themselves before ever becoming a permanent and expensive issue.

As did this one, by the time I brought the dog back to the car. Multiple miles and stops since and it hasn't been back.

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Speaking of back, return us to those thrilling days of yesterday. Once in Rochester proper, I met with one client to get him documents (he already had them) and pick up a check (they only do electronic fund transmissions). I then stopped round the corner at the home of the friend with his Big Bag'O'Recording Equipment, in case I'd miss his show later; SPOILER ALERT: I did. I then thought about stopping at my old town library to crank some work out because they have a high-speed free EV charging station there. At least one of the two is ALWAYS in use, but the other one was available. Unfortunately, it was also broken. I think the guy from Elmer's Mobil sneaks down the street at night and clips off the grounding portion of the cord. Instead, I did that work, and got about 3 miles worth of charge, at my office there.... where I'd missed an appointment I'd scheduled first thing this morning because it got into the firm's calendar but not mine. That was yet another case of the behemoths, in this case Apple and Microsoft, not playing well together. (I wound up doing by phone and it went fine, and I also now have Zoom access to their conference room for one next week.) Even before leaving Buffalo, I revisited the other Clash of the Twit-tans I ran into last week, this one between Microsoft and Spectrum, since once again my email was giving me the dreaded Bounced Message Notification, bytes in the mailbox!! message that meant my Spectrum server was over quota again. This time, though, lesson learned: I did not start the cleanup until I'd completely saved the current contents on my laptop into a separate external file, and when I did begin mass-deleting messages, I did it from the oldest emails on up.

The last and longest of the fails before things got better? Those same friends had a small claim case scheduled for next month against a contractor who botched their bathroom work. One advantage of small claims court is the cost to get it heard: the filing fee is nominal and includes the cost of the court sending notice to the defendant by certified mail of the hearing. However, if the certified mailing is not signed for, OR if an additional regular-mail copy gets returned to the court, they will, and in this case did, issue a notice requiring the defendant to be served with process the old-fashioned way. Fine: I had an address from the entity's state records, and I had time for a nice enough afternoon drive in the countryside south of the city, so I bopped on over, notice in hand. A nice lady came to the door who said she'd never heard of the dude.

That, it turns out, would be because the contractor's residence address, still on his LLC registration to this very day, was deeded to another couple in 2009. After he'd transferred it to his wife, probably in a divorce, in 2004. As recently as last week, the contractor got a $75 court fee judgment against him in another suburban town for improper load on his truck, and that is still listing that same out-date address that must still be on his license. But we're gonna get him- because he just took a mortgage out on yet another piece of property that he's probably building a house on, just down the street from our friends, in the name of his business that lists his current real address. How does he get away with this? He uses a PO Box for his invoices and social media, and, pro tip, you can't use those on court cases.

So now he's made me angry.

After all that, I did get back to town, and in for the concert, on time and with friends, old and new. We saw an amazing show, had a bounteous meal, and I then got back on the road....

not in time to see the Batavia comedy, but I did get to listen to the Comedy of Errors coming from Philly as the Mets, aka the Nine Stooges, proceeded to lose a game they had every reason to win if their players could only hit and catch the damn ball. Hit a nasty spot of construction on the way home, but eventually made it back fine; and, other than the temporary one with the idiot light in my own car earlier today I think we're past the worst of the fail.

Even had some previous fails overcome. Earlier this week, another Rochester client sent an electrician over to install a new element in our very old oven. We'd been doing without for months after a previous fix from them that lasted a few years, and we relied on an air fryer, toaster oven and wok to get most of the bakey things done here. I've also had some nails-on-a-blackboard changes in some legacy features of newer Microsoft programs, but I've found new workarounds for both of them and am learning to enter the 21st century kicking and screaming.

And hey! Somehow today, the Mets blew a lead and came back to win anyway!

Put it in the books! And next to them, an even better report on last night's adventures to follow in Volume 2 to this one!