I Believe Sheldon Was Right, The ATMs Are Starting To Rise Up

August 23, 2017 / Ally Bean / 59 Comments

“I don’t trust banks. I believe that when the robots rise up, ATMs will lead the charge.”

~ Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory

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HEY! DID YOU KNOW… that an ATM can take your card away from you? A legitimate card that you’ve had for a while? A card that attaches to an account that has your money in it?

Well, it can. And one did.

Here’s what happened: I drove to our local bank branch, got into the stay-in-your-car ATM lane, got to the machine, put my bright red ATM card into the machine– and WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM the machine ate my card.

Just. Like. That.

The message on the ATM screen said that my card had been confiscated for security reasons and that I needed to contact my financial institution for further assistance.

Considering that I was at my financial institution I found this message ludicrous.

Annoying.

Off-putting, even.

• • •

SO I SWORE AT… the ATM, as one does, then I drove around to the front of the bank, found a parking spot, got out of my car, wandered into the bank branch, waited in line– and finally got to a teller.

This teller, a pleasant woman, told me that the bank doesn’t want its customers to use our old bright red ATM cards, so the bank is confiscating them when you try to use one. Thereafter, I was quickly issued a new light blue ATM card that the bank wants me to use.

Uh huh.

And it worked when I used it so… *yay* I guess.

• • •

BUT HERE’S THE THING… what if I’d been on vacation when this happened? Or at the airport stuck waiting for a flight? Or I needed the cash immediately for some reason*?

What would have happened then?

The reality is that I would have been in dire straits through no doing of my own– all because the bank, who has my money, doesn’t like the ATM card it issued to me.

So instead of just sending me a new card, the bank decided that it’d be better to risk my safety and experience my ire, than waste the money on an envelope and postage to send me a new light blue ATM card.

That gets me to my money.

All of which has me thinking that Sheldon might be onto something, ‘ya know?

• • •

* Actual real-life examples of when I needed cash now:

in the hospital emergency waiting room late at night by myself, hungry, in need of cash to use in the vending machine
in a foreign country too tired to use public transit back to hotel, in need of cash to use to take a taxi
at a local art show, having found a beautiful piece of art, in need of cash to buy it from the person who made it

Images courtesy of Library of Congress: |1| |2|

Thus Far My August Has Not Been The Best

August 15, 2017 / Ally Bean / 67 Comments

Here we go…

GOBSMACKED. My car, parked legally on our street, was in an accident. I found out about this when a neighbor, then a police officer, came to our front door to tell me that someone had rear-ended my vehicle. Was it another car? A truck? A van or SUV? A person on a motorcycle?

No it was not.

It was a man on a bicycle who was going so fast that when he lost control he propelled himself through my back windshield, shattering it to bits. And hurting himself so much that he had to be airlifted to a hospital across town.

[I have no further information on his condition at this time and my car is in the process of being repaired.]

DISAPPOINTED. When Google Reader shut down a few years ago, I started using Feedly as my RSS reader. I was thrilled with their straightforward, fresh and easy-to-use format.

In fact, as one of the early community members I told everyone I knew about this service because there was no fuss when reorganizing your feeds, no distractions when reading your chosen content.

Earlier this spring, I graciously consented to take a few in-house Feedly surveys, each of which had about a gazillion questions. In my responses I praised what the company was doing, telling them that I appreciated how they were staying true to the idea that simplicity is best.

Well, Feedly didn’t listen to me. And last week they changed their simple box-oriented organizational format to a cluttered mess of feeds, shown in lists overburdened with distracting data. When I asked Feedly what the heck was going on, they told that the community wanted this.

Really? Hmmm. Not everyone.

[Therein I will leave this story, wiser to the truth in the old saying: if you aren’t paying for it, you’re the product.]

EXHAUSTED. Our 3 to 4 week remodeling project, that started on June 5th, is now into week 10. We’re still waiting for the rest of the decorative tile to arrive– and now we’re waiting for the second custom frame for the shower doors to arrive.

Why? The first custom frame, measured correctly, was then created in the factory incorrectly. This first frame, when installed in our bathroom, was too short for the doors.

So until a new frame arrives, sometime before Christmas one hopes, we have shower doors leaning against the wall in the bedroom, rather than serving, what I would believe to be, their intended purpose in the bathroom.

[This project has had more unanticipated screw-ups than even I could envision– and I’m pretty damned creative & fretful when planning anything.]

SADDENED. It is with sorrow that I share with you, my gentle readers, that Fuzzy the Squirrel has passed away. I’d been seeing less of him around the deck this summer, and when I did see him he was moving slowly, not even bothering to swipe a few tomatoes from my pot.

Last week while watering flower beds out back of the house, I found his almost lifeless body, under a bush near our lower level patio. He glanced at me, then rolled his eyes upward, as he twitched his right front paw in the air.

Shortly thereafter he was gone from this world. However, Fuzzy will be remembered forever in the pages of this blog. May he RIP.

[All stories about Fuzzy the Squirrel are here.]

The One About The Mutual Acquaintance With The Maybe Secret Life

August 9, 2017 / Ally Bean / 53 Comments

FRIEND, WHO IS NOT A DRAMA QUEEN, is convinced that a mutual acquaintance of ours, let’s call her Maureen, has a secret life.

Friend, who lives closer to Maureen and communicates with her more frequently than I do, thinks that Maureen is up to something. Something weird, that is. Something that Maureen doesn’t want us to know about.

Friend, who enjoys ye olde Facebook, tells me that Maureen disappears for days, not responding to any form of contact and then when they do talk in person there are holes in the story– about who was there, when events happened.

EASY AS IT WOULD BE TO DISMISS Friend’s observations about Maureen, I’ve heard this story before, many years ago. And in that situation, the suspicions turned out to be correct.

Back then, that mutual acquaintance was off doing some things in another town involving a new age-y cult-type group that mutual acquaintance didn’t want anyone to know about.

But eventually we did find out– and that was long before Facebook, a simple nosy way to lurk on the edges of someone’s life. Which is, of course, what Friend is now doing as she tries to find out the truth about Maureen’s alleged secret life.

AND ME, WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT all of this? Not one blessed thing except listening to Friend.

I figure that enough people tell me their secrets and concerns without any prompting, that I don’t need to go looking for more things to know about people than what they want to share with me directly.

Case in point… read the first sentence of this post.

~ ~ ? ~ ~

Question of the Day:

Have you ever wondered if a friend or acquaintance has a secret life? And if so, did they? Or do you still not know for sure?

~ ~ ? ~ ~

A Remodeling Update: The Mess Continues & Ms. Bean Is Almost Beyond Caring

August 1, 2017August 15, 2017 / Ally Bean / 60 Comments

The mess continues, but there is progress.

√ The bathroom is close to being finished. We’re waiting on the rest of the decorative tile that the tile guy, when he’s available, will use to make a backsplash behind the sinks.

The tile, shipped from California, is apparently coming via pony express, whose riders like to spend a few nights vacation in Las Vegas before heading east with it.

Or maybe it arrives via passenger pigeon. At this point I’ve lost track of how it gets here, and only know that I want it here because until that decorative tile makes me happy this project won’t be over. So I wait.

√ The family room is in process. We had a small set-back when the painters fessed up to painting it the wrong color. They had used the bathroom wall color in the family room. While the colors are similar, they aren’t interchangeable… so the painters graciously made things right and re-painted the family room.

I’ll show you a pic of the finished room, with proper color on its walls when I do my final post about this remodeling wild ride. Sometime this month? This year? During my lifetime? Who knows?

√ The laundry room is in good shape. The washer and dryer are here, the counter and tile have been installed, and the walls have been painted the proper color. 🙄

The only difficulty with the laundry room now is that it’s on the way to the garage– that’s still a warehouse for things to come. I look forward to parking my car where the bathtub is now, and walking from the garage into the laundry room unimpeded. I dream big, don’t I?

√ The kitchen remains in a holding pattern. There’s no sign of the microwave. It’s MIA. And conversations about replacing the old caulk that’s between the granite countertop and the tile backsplash have taken a turn for the absurd.

Seems that our grout and our caulk don’t match– and they’re [were] supposed to. While I’m the first to say the combo looked good to me [for the last 9 years], these particular colors, that I’ve dubbed Dragon Snot and Cat Barf, are no longer available. Hence, there’s been much discussion about what currently available caulk color to use now; Antique Dog Tooth seems to be in the lead. Because, why not?

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