I previously discussed the travails of my mobile phone.
The battery was draining like crazy.
I tried various techniques I knew about or I discovered online. Shutting down unused apps that ran in the background, shutting down or reduced permissions on greedy apps, reseating my battery.
They worked. Sort of. These attempts were fleeting in results. I would execute them time and again, yet the problem of the rapid battery discharge kept returning and at times got worse. My phone actually crapped out after about four hours one day. At a time when I needed to be connected while on the move.
Funny though, because not so long ago in my planetary existence, I would just keep in touch through payphones, walkie-talkies, cork boards at cafés, prearranged rendezvous, and the like.
Now, I find myself more dependent on mobile telephone technology as a tool to move through the world. It is a boon and a curse simultaneously.
Anyway, when the phone crapped out that time, I was pretty pissed. It does not help that my phone has a(n) USB-C connector. I do not know about where you all are, but in my neck of the woods, it is very uncommon. It is very difficult for me to cadge someone's charger to salvage my link to the world.
I did in the end, finally find the correct cable connection, but by then, it was academic. I was at the end of my day's tasks and nearly on my way home.
At this point, I started carrying what I call juice boxes: portable power packs, or power banks. Still, my phone was drinking at an alarming rate.
I resolved to go to where I bought the phone to see if they knew why this was all happening. Yet, I could not find the time to get there. Hell, I have been so blooming busy this past month, I have only posted once in this month of February.
During one of my bouts of insomnia, I was tooling around the interweb, hoping I would find that eureka site that would reveal all I needed to solve this mystery. I came across a page that said to remove the sim-card and and reseat it.
Honestly, I did not take much stock in it. Yet, I noticed that while running diagnostic software, I would get messages about weak wifi signals affecting performance. I figured, initially, that it was the boy with is multitude of tech bellowing back and for over the ethersphere.
However, the problem persisted when the boy was not trying to take over the world or I was at other locations using wifi.
Finally, a couple of days ago, in the middle of the night, or was it in the wee hours of the morning? Anyway, I did exactly what this site said to do. I pulled the sim-card out and reseated it. Voilà! The crazy-assed, super-speedy battery draining stopped. It was just like when I first got my phone. I looks like I can go for a couple or few days without a recharge! I even left the phone off the charger overnight and it only went down a percent or two.
So, a simple fix it appears. And perchance a touch of magic(k). No conspiracies, at least in this case. I certainly know the Gnomes are helping me out here and there. I had a leather punch I could not find for months. Two days ago, it reappeared in a drawer that I have checked tens, dozens, hundreds of times without luck. Until the last time. Thanks guys!
Skynet is obviously busy elsewhere. The replicants have apparently determined I will be seen as a crank and a kook. Fine. Nothing new there. The squirrels though. Oh, the squirrels. Not done with those jokers, by a long shot.
Sorry, I digress.
So, this fix appears to work for phones that use removable sim-cards. As far as I know, Apple devices do not have that capability. Well, sorry and too bad. I am not a fan of Apple, I find their software largely counter-intuitive, much like how Microsoft appears to be trundling towards at an ever increasing pace.
Anyhoo, I appear to have solved the Hardy Boys Mystery of the Rapidly Draining Telephonic Device. Now, if I can only figure out what happened to my scarves (aka scarfses) that vanished, yes vanished, at an event. I am so pissed and upset about that still. blbbl
Yeah, so, sorry for the tardiness in posting. Been a busy couple of weeks. So, here we go...
This whole thing of meeting people for lunch. I just do not seem to get it.
You see on television, especially soap opera type shows, and in the movies, people going out for lunch together during the workday. In some inconceivable way, they manage to do this and lead fulfilling, successful careers.
Yet, somehow, whenever I have attempted such endeavours, the day is lost. Not necessarily a bad thing. However, for me, meeting people for lunch is at least a two hour affair. If not at least a full-half-working day. (Conceptualise that one!)
How can people "do lunch" regularly and still keep their jobs? Obviously, I need to live in one of the many alternate dimensions or universes where time moves at a slower pace, but people move at the same pace we do here.
However, the intrigue of a soap opera life would just knock the crap out of me. All those affairs, murder plots, diabolical corporate takeovers, having a relationship with your half-sibling and not knowing it, gorillas kidnapping my wife? Just not my cup of tea, as they say.
Even just going to lunch with co-workers? How can you go out and get your work done?
Oh wow!?
I started this post on Friday, then I had some tasks away from home and did not get back to it right away. I tried to re-engage on Saturday, got busy again and had to let it sit. Sunday, holy mac! I was away all day, some Scouting stuff, some personal stuff, then the day was over.
Now it is Monday. Afternoon. Again, I was swamped all morning and now, I appear to have a window to get this done. We will see if I can finish this. It has been too long since I yammered on the interweb.
So, where was I?
Oh. Yeah. So. Going out to lunch with co-workers. In the past, when I have had clock-jobs, I have gone out for lunch with my fellow cubicle-internees. The typical process is as follows.
Getting there: approaching a half hour to get to the rendezvous. Sit down and order: near on another thirty minutes. Scarf down the vittles and settle-up, another one-forty-eighth of the day. Get back to our boxes, same as the first leg. So, as much as two full hours and probably longer. Why were we never fired for job abandonment?
That is just going with co-workers out for a generally crappy lunch. Now, if you try to organise with someone who works a different clock-job from you.....All I can say is that it is a huge production to figure it all out. Actually, I can say more...
Who are you going out to lunch with? Are they near your pen, or is their labour-preserve situated in a geographically distant workforce terrain?
Far away? Do you meet near their work-zoo or yours? Do you meet somewhere in the middle where there may be a strange and unknown resto-topography?
Nearby? Are their any neutral feeding grounds where you would not be encroached upon by either of your fellow inmates?
Or perhaps, you work in a desolate wasteland and have no choice but to forage afar regardless, thereby forcing you to search for a culinary safe-haven away from your natural territorial range?
Driving? Do you pick-up, get picked up, or converge upon the kill separately? Is traffic a bear? (ha!) Is parking a whole new adventure?
Walking? Are environmental conditions going to affect your temporary exodus? Does a straight-line walking distance deceptively appear shorter and faster, but only leaves you stranded in the middle of a multi-lane migratory route hoping that the lights will change soon, and long enough, to favour the boldness of your fitness-minded choice to hoof it?
So, now that all that has been weighed, measured, and most likely found wanting in the end, you are at your pasture. What now?
You can see the table you want, you can smell whatever is wafting out of the kitchen. Ah, but here is the catch. Were you far ahead enough of the other grazers that you are at the head of the line? Are there any free tables? Sadly, the usual result is the need to wait and fidget for an indeterminate time.
When, finally, you have been allowed to get your place at the trough, the often agonising process of getting service begins. How attentive is your keeper? How overwhelmed are they? How quickly can you decide on your consumables?
Get through all that have you? Now what? There is of course more. How long is it going to take for your slop-buckets to arrive? Is it the right slop-bucket? Is your water dish getting emptied faster than it is being replenished? Oh, have you managed to keep your appetite?
Now, after scarfing down your sustenance, you need to pay the piper. Right? I have, at times, had to wait longer to pay for my sins, than it took to gobble down my Reuben sammy, fries, and paltry dill pickle spear in the first place.
At this point, is generally the easiest part. Hacking your way back to your corral. Or? Is it? Really? You may need to consider if anyone is still at the maze. If it is not quite that late, is it late enough that it would be really obvious you have been on the feed-bag for a really long time? Could it be better to slink back to your personal hovel and just show up the next day brighter and earlier before first viewing? Take that chance to catch up and mull over a hard to question cover-story?
At this point you are probably rethinking how much you really enjoyed that so-so sandwich with the incorrect, and store-bought, condiment that was slathered all over, despite your request to have it on the side. That is why the universe invented Tupperware in the first place. So, you can bring stuff from home and munch away at your homemade hay bale.
So, I no longer "do lunch", unless I am on holiday, vacation, visiting, or plain dodging responsibility. I just do not have a watch with enough hours on it.
You know, what started as something pithy and a bit innocent, really turned in to a bitter monologue about being co-opted by living to work instead of working to live. I wonder if there really is some deeper subtext here? Nah. Maybe... Nah. Well... Never mind, I am too tired and hungry from this whole thing. Want to go out for a bite to eat? blbbl
