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Thursday, January 17, 2019

Post #3954 J: Losing My Cellphone; the Trump Fast Food Feast

Well, I Lost My Cellphone Yesterday

One of the things I've gone through at least 3 or 4 times over the last 18 months is a cellphone holster. There are all sorts of nuances, e.g., one had a belt loop which was almost impossible to thread with my belt. Another had a vertical flap which didn't secure properly, and the phone slipped out  fell to the ground a number of times. The current one has multiple attachment mechanisms including a belt loop and a nice big belt clip. The belt clip works great--except it seems to slide off every 2 or 3 days or  so (it would ride up the clip, say getting in and out the car or my office chair. I almost immediately felt or heard the phone holster fall and would immediately retrieve and reattach the holster. It was an accident waiting to happen: maybe one day I wouldn't notice it fall off.

Now with winter Maryland weather, all too often I arrive at my old car to find frosted/iced windshield and windows making driving all or impossible and it would take forever for the car to warm up to clear the windows on their own. I do have multiple deicing solution bottles in my car, including one with a recipe from the Internet with a key ingredient you can find at any drugstore. Sometimes it requires multiple rounds of treatment with the cold air quickly refogging my windshield. Of course, I've got my windshield warmers on, and I'm running my wiper blades. After 5 or 10 minutes my window clear up enough to drive safely.

So I suspect it was one of those rounds of deicing windows that my phone holster must have slipped off without my noticing. I happen to be one of those people who constantly checks: do I have my wallet, my keys, my phone? Are my stove burners and small appliances (say, my coffee pot) turned off? Am I wearing my work ID lanyard? So I usually make a last-minute check before I ease out my car to  work and then can't get through gate security without my work ID. So normally I check for my phone, although there have been a couple of times I've left without the phone.(say, I was charging my phone and left in a rush).

One of the first things I do after getting into my secure work building is checking the time on the cellphone (I do have a couple of my late Dad's traditional watches I sometimes wear). That's when I first realized I wasn't wearing my holster. I went back out to my car, because one or twice I've found my phone had slipped off getting out of the car. Nope. I tried to remember--did I forget to put it on this morning? I had the distinct, uncomfortable feeling I must have dropped it outside my car this morning.

Maybe a neighbor picked it up? I call from work but it drops through to my voicemail and I hang up. But a neighbor noticed my work number showing on my cellphone and called it. I asked him if he would drop off the phone at my door (I realized later maybe I should have asked for his apartment number). Maybe a couple of hours later I got a call from one of the apartment complex maintenance workers saying she found the phone, no, not in front of my door (with no further elaboration). I asked her if she could drop it by the apartment office, but she said it was closed. She asked when I got off work and left her number to call before I left work.

When I got home, no sign of her. She had said something to the effect she was planning on visiting my building anyway to visit a neighbor. I wasn't sure how to reach her; I had left it on a notepad at work. I didn't have digit phone service. And then I suddenly remembered my Google Home Hub. (I have had a Google Voice account for years.) (I mentioned this in a recent post.) One of its features I hadn't tried was the ability to place calls. So I say, "Hey, Google. Please call [my cellphone number]." My Hub responds with a disclaimer it does not service emergency numbers but then rings my number. It goes to voice mail. No response; I had hoped it would tip her off I was home. I tried to call again 4 or 5 minutes later. No response. Long story short, I finally got a knock on the door about 15 minutes later with the nice lady dropping off my phone.

The experience sort of renews my faith in humanity. Would I have done the same? Sure. In fact, in a manner of speaking I did the same type thing. I noticed a civilian's (government worker) work ID in the grass near a sidewalk last year. (The story was that he had lost it pulling out his cellphone from his shirt pocket.) I asked another civilian if he knew the guy (yup). Losing your work ID is a big deal; there's huge red tape in replacement; it's used to get onto work premises and is a smartcard used by access your work PC and email.  Now I was prepared to spend another $100 to replace the cellphone; it would have been a nuisance, inconvenient and an expensive mistake--not to mention the hassle of reinstalling apps, losing family photos, etc. But not nearly as bad as losing my work ID. It happened to one of my former Arizona colleagues, and it took several workdays. (And, of all things, he was the security analyst on our team.)

And, oh yes, I'm now using the belt loop (which is deceptively far easier to use than others I've used in the past). So as long as the loop is durable, the days of dropping my holster are over. Still, you can be sure that I've added repeatedly checking for my phone as one of my obsessive rituals..

The Trump Clemson Fast Food Feast Kerfuffle

I wrote a handful of relevant amusing tweets , which I'll embed below. (I think, but don't ask my Twitter followers who continue to drop like flies. Now I think for some period like maybe 2 years back I seemed to be range-bound in the 30's, and then for some reason my followers went up maybe 150% within a matter of a few weeks. I've dropped maybe 20% since then and few new followers over the past 6 months or so, but I'm still up nearly double from my old range. It's really like they're dropping off one by one, as if they're trying to encourage me to leave Twitter. There may be a time I quit Twitter for good, but losing followers is not a consideration. I myself only follow a handful of people/organizations. .)

I'm not sure what Trump was going for with this stunt. Maybe he's thinking, "Do you really want to attack me for buying food from McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's? What does that say about millions of families who go there to feed their families?"  Maybe I'm overanalyzing this. But there's no doubt everyone knows that he picked up the check, maybe a few thousand dollars, mere pocket change for a billionaire. And got millions of dollars in free publicity.

To be honest, the idea of eating stacks of, at best, lukewarm, stale fast food is not something that appeals to me. I have no idea how you buy 1000 sandwiches for some 80 people. Now I'm over 100 pounds overweight, but even I can't eat that much food. I've barely eaten a full plate of food, never mind a second helping, at funeral brunches. When my Mom took me to an upscale casual food place, I for the first time I can recall had to take home leftovers. I saw one clip of a player carrying a stack of 6 sandwich cartons piled up on his plate. (I hope he was bring back food for other people.)

I'm nor even sure I could have eaten 2 sandwiches (I might munch on one or 2 protein bars at work), but DAMN, if I'm going to spend $8 for a combo at my local fast food place, it had better be hot and fresh.

Most of this food is bad for us nutritionally; as I said in a tweet, it almost hardens your arteries looking at the food.  Whatever you get nutritionally from a fish sandwich is all but lost by deep-frying it in trans fats.

When you're going to feed other people, it's more special when you're serving something people don't get every day, like a fast food place. As a colleague responded, "There's not a better metaphor for the Trump Administration than serving third class food in a first class setting."












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