Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 18

Missing, Presumed Lost

I've blogged many times about how I like doing these virtual challenges that earn me medals. One of the companies sends the medals after the distance is covered. I like that because it holds me accountable. No steps, no medal.

Usually, everything goes like clockwork. I finish a challenge, the app asks me if I want my medal, I click yes, verify my address, and a week or so later, there it is.

Only that didn't happen with my New York City medal. The post office showed it sitting at the same location for a couple of weeks. It never arrived and it never moved.

After a few more days, I reported it lost.

The form isn't easy to find on the post office website, but I located it and I uploaded a picture of the medal. I expected it to be found quickly and resume its progress. This isn't what happened,

Finally, after weeks of nothing, I contacted the company that mailed out the challenge. They insure it, so I wanted to let them know it was missing and get a new medal sent to me.

They asked I wait around another week because it was still in their arrival window, but if it didn't arrive to contact them. The date came and went without my medal arriving. I gave it a couple more days, and then contacted the company again. They promptly sent out a replacement.

And on the day the post office marked the medal as delivered, there was no medal in my mailbox!

The same New York City medal was missing again. Sadly, unless our good mail lady is working, we frequently have mail misdelivered. And sure enough, after a few days it did actually arrive. Guessing one of my neighbors got it, threw it back in the box, and it was picked up and re-delivered.

This all happened in October. Recently, I got an update from the post office. The original medal that I'd reported missing? Still not found.

Past the Winter Solstice

We are past the winter solstice!

I'm in the northern hemisphere, so now my days are getting longer. I love the long days of summer and miss them horribly, but the worst is over.

My favorite time of year is from the spring equinox until the summer solstice. I love the daylight lasting longer and longer. When I lived in Minnesota, the daylight lasted even longer than it does in Georgia. We used to run around outside playing until nine o'clock at night because it wasn't entirely dark yet.

Fall equinox until winter solstice feels like a slog. I hate it getting dark so early. (Although nowhere near as early down here as in Minnesota!) Actually, in all honesty, I feel my spirits sag when we hit summer solstice because I know they days are getting shorter, but it really hits at the equinox.

I'm a summer person. I love warm weather and long days. My mood plummets once I have to put on long sleeves and a jacket? Ugh! I know there are people who lament the heat and humidity, but I spent most of my life in Minneapolis where the summers disappeared in a blink of an eye and winters were eternal. There's nothing anyone can say to dissuade my love of summer. :-)

And now we're past the shortest day and on our way to warm weather, green grass, leafy trees, and everything that's awesome!

Upgrade Hell

I have a scanner on my desk. It's not a flatbed scanner, but something with a much smaller footprint. I don't use it often because I usually scan with my phone, but sometimes there are too many pages and it's easier to just let them feed through the scanner.

A few weeks ago, I needed to scan a package of papers and decided to use the real scanner. I turned it on, put my pages in the feeder, and went to open the software.

All I get is a notification window telling me that the software has been discontinued and replaced with a new program which doesn't do as much as the software I'm used to.

Whatever. I don't use a lot of the features anyway. Just let me scan my papers because I need to leave the house and I want to do this quickly.

There was no quick about it. The software would not open. Okay, I'll download the new software. Small problem--my scanner isn't listed as an option. I scroll down and find it in a discontinued section. Well, I'm not buying a new scanner when there's nothing wrong with this one. The only problem is their damn software.

The name of my scanner is a link and I click it. And end up in some weird loop where it says there's a version of the new software available for me, but when I click, I end up back on the page I started at.

I'm not sure how long I kept circling. I'm not sure how I ended up finding something that would download, but I get the new software installed. Now I can scan my pages.

Wrong.

The scanning software opens, but throws an error message telling me to try again later, or if the problem persists, to reinstall the software. The problem persists. I try to reinstall. It tells me the software is already installed and when I click okay, the box closes and no other option is available.

I end up using my phone to scan the document because I'm cursing the scanner company at this point.

The next day, I try again. This time I get a notification window saying that my anti-virus software is blocking their scanning software and to whitelist a list of program-related files. I do that, although I couldn't find one of them.

Same error message and I still can't reinstall the software.

Somehow I find the old software. When I try to open it, I get a message about a firmware upgrade. I run the upgrade and try to scan the document. This time it works. On the old software.

I never got the new software to work. Epic fail.

That Gouge Hurt

I have a gas cooktop in my kitchen. I'm assuming it's what the builder installed because the woman I bought the house from hadn't owned it for very long. It's fine, but the big issue is the knobs to control the burners are plastic.

When they're taking on and off to clean around them, it's apparently easy to break them. The manufacturer was charging $25+ per knob for replacements. I know because I bought three of them.

And then another knob broke.

I didn't want to pay that much again and I wondered if I could find a compatible knob for less money. And yes, yes I did find a cheaper knob. I got five knobs for less than $20.

Although I was a little worried about quality, they were much cheaper to replace and they couldn't be worse than the manufacturer's version.

And then they came.

These knobs were all metal. These things are not going to break as easily when they're removed and replaced after cleaning. I immediately swapped out all the knobs. Even the ones that weren't broken.

The short version: Shop online for better value than manufacturer replacement parts.

Um, What?

For at least a couple of years now, I've seen a super strange term. Vegan Leather.

Vegan leather? Do you mean plastic?

I know it's salesmanship. Vegan leather sounds so much better than plastic, but the term is so odd and it legitimately doesn't make sense. It sounds like the marketing department of some manufacturing company had a brainstorming session and this was the best idea they could come up with.

Then there's the sister phrase to Vegan Leather. That would be Vegan Cashmere.

Um, do you mean polyester? Or some other synthetic material?

These terms are used prominently, too. I'd prefer just not calling out what the product is made of in the headline for the listing. Put it in the details section. Instead, the sites where I'm seeing these terms are putting them in the most noticeable place.

Maybe I'm the only one annoyed by this. Maybe I shouldn't even be annoyed because I know what I'm buying when I see vegan leather or vegan cashmere. For example, vegan cashmere means the sweater will be soft and snuggly.

Ultimately, I guess the terms are doing what they set out to do--explain to the consumer what they're getting, but it still irks me.

Welcome to 2024

The title of this blog post feels like it should be a science fiction book, but it really is 2024.

Usually, I pick a word of the year, but I have nothing for the year we're just starting. I used to cut it out on vinyl and put the word in the middle of my kanban board, but I still have 2022's word up. The vinyl is kind of a pain to take down.

Maybe I'll just reuse 2023's word since I never posted it on my wall. Maybe I'll cut it small and put it on my planner cover.

Speaking of planners, I'm still setting mine up for this year. I have everything in there except birthdays and anniversaries. Those are the most time-consuming stickers to add because of all the writing it entails and because I have to go back and forth between this year and the previous year.

I think I'm going to keep this post short and simply wish you a happy and healthy 2024.

Happy New Year!

Wishing all of you a healthy and happy 2024!

Enjoy Boxing Day!

I'm taking the holidays off from blogging. Enjoy Boxing Day, my friends!

Merry Christmas, My Friends!

Wishing those who celebrate an early Merry Christmas!

Zoinks!

If you follow me on Facebook, I shared some of this story there a couple of weeks ago. This, however, is the full sequence of events.

I signed up for the postal service's Informed Delivery, so I can see what's coming in the mail the night before. Not only letters, but packages as well. The problem is that the information on the packages is rarely helpful. Instead of a person or business's name, it'll often have something like Acutane or PirateShip which are companies that do shipping (like Stamps.com).

And one day, as I'm checking packages, I see something like: eBay Pitney Bowes. Hmm, I didn't order anything from eBay. I wonder if they got into shipping?

There was a stretch where I backed a bunch of Kickstarter projects and a lot of them are shipping right now, so I thought it might be one of those. While I was curious, there was no way to get more information and it would arrive in a few days. I'd find out what it was then.

Finally, the package arrived!

It was light. So light, the wind blew it into the yard. Luckily, it wasn't in the street. I brought it in the house, looked at the label, but I didn't recognize the person's name in the from field. It must be a Kickstarter, I thought.

I open the package. It's not one of my Kickstarter rewards.

It's a Scooby Doo Christmas ornament. I look at the label on the box again. Maybe this package was mis-delivered. Nope, that's my name and address.

I pull up all my credit cards and look for weird charges. Nothing.

I remember reading about some weird scam thing when you get packages out of the blue, but I can't remember the particulars, but then I think: Scooby Doo. I love Scooby Doo. That's really a specific thing to send to me.

Maybe there's a card in the box. I take out all the newspaper that cushioned the ornament, looking for a tag of some sort. Even an invoice with a message. Nothing.

I started Googling the person who sent it and I searched for her on eBay because of the post office saying eBay Pitney Bowes. I pulled up every matching Scooby Doo ornament on the site, but I didn't find anyone from her state selling them.

Some more searching turned up the sender's FB page, but I didn't feel comfortable messaging her out of the blue. So I posted the mystery on my Facebook page and then I shared my mystery with my friends.

And that's when one of them said, hey, it was me. I sent it.

She wanted to cheer me up, which was so sweet! She also gave me a mystery I couldn't solve, but that was okay. It kept me occupied for about an hour.