Siamese Twins

Many years ago I worked in North Carolina with a man named Henry Bunker. He was a direct descendant of one of the famous “Siamese Twins” whose real names were Chang and Eng Bunker. They were born in 1811 in Siam (now called Thailand) and came to America at age 17. They earned a living in traveling “freak shows” of that day. They married and moved to Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Together they fathered 21 children. Their families lived in separate houses, and the brothers would spend three days at one house then three days at the other house. After the Civil War they lost part of their wealth so they went back to work, meaning back to the “freak show” circuit. Sometimes, some of their children traveled with them. They died at age 62. Chang died of a stroke; Eng’s cause of death is unknown.

I recall sitting in my office talking with Henry about his world-famous forebears. He told me interesting tales about their lives—stories you won’t find by reading Wikipedia. It’s crazy how some people you consider ordinary folk have such strange stories to tell about themselves or their families. But I suppose, to them, they aren’t strange stories at all—they’re just facts and family history. I think probably a lot of us have fascinating stories to tell, if only we knew they were fascinating.

South China Sea

America is the “world’s policeman.” We are trying to keep European countries from going to war with each other. That is why, since WW2, America has had military forces stationed in Europe. For the past 75 years, that has worked fairly well. Not perfectly, mind you, but there has been no major European war during those years that have seen American troops stationed in Europe.

Now China is taking a more aggressive stance and is claiming it owns the South China Sea, a claim that is disputed by all other countries surrounding that body of water. America is disputing it, too, and regularly sends naval vessels across the South China Sea. But where are America’s allies?

Why don’t we see British, German, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., naval vessels sailing with the U.S. fleet? Wouldn’t that send a much stronger message? I know that Australia and Japan support America in keeping open the South China Sea. But if all of our “allies” are not willing to show that they are prepared to use force to keep open the South China Sea, then why should the U.S. care about it?

Just asking.

Mail It In

Yesterday I received in the mail an application for an absentee ballot. The election officials want everyone to vote by mail, which makes sense in this season of Covid-19. Then this morning I saw on the news that there had been a slight bump in the road to voting. The application came with its own return envelope, and some of the envelopes had the wrong address; i.e., some of the applications will be mailed to the wrong registrar.

I feel relieved. If this simple job had been done without errors, it might have indicated that an outbreak of competence was spreading through government. That is worrisome. What if everyone in government starts doing their job correctly? What will happen if suddenly we have a government that works? Nobody knows, because it would be unprecedented. No, there must be a few screw-ups along the way. But the nice thing about working for the government is that if you screw up enough times, you get promoted. I read about a government worker that punched his boss in the face. Because of a plethora of regulations, they couldn’t fire him, so in order to get him out of that department they promoted him. Punch your boss; get a promotion. What a deal! And government asks why they have a less than stellar reputation.

Government needs a motto, and I have a suggestion. “Here’s a simple job. Let’s count the ways you can screw it up.”

Contractor Troubles

My neighbor contracted with a company to build a fence across the back of her yard. She asked me if I would like the fence to go all the way to the corner of my garage. My garage is five feet from the property line, so the fence would extend five feet into my yard. I asked her to end the fence at the property line. The fence installers arrived and put up the new fence. They installed the fence—you can probably guess this part—all the way to my garage.

I had a new roof put on my house. It leaked. I called the owner of the roofing company, but he refused to fix the leak. I called the foreman of the crew that had done the work. He promised he would fix the leak, but as it turned out—you can probably guess this part—promising to fix the leak is all he would do.

I asked another roofing company to fix the leak. They tried several times but they only made the leak worse. Then they quit trying.

I asked a third roofer to fix the leak. I paid him $462 and thought the leak was history. But then the rain fell hard and the wind blew, and I had a funny feeling that told me I should go upstairs and peek under the eave and check on that leak. I did and—you can probably guess this part—the roof was leaking in the same place it had been leaking all along.

I called the owner of the company and told him the roof was still leaking. He asked if he could call me back in one minute because he had another call. He promised he’d call back in one minute. I told him okay. The call ended and—you can probably guess this part—he never called back. I didn’t attempt to reach him again. I was pretty sure my call would go directly to voice mail.

I saw a contractor sitting in his truck parked across the street. I walked over and told him I had a simple job for him. He said he couldn’t do it at that time, which was understandable, but he promised he would be back “next week.” He promised two or three times. He gave me his business card, and after he drove away I texted him a reminder. I never saw him again.

I phoned a plumber and, of course, got his answering device. I left my name and number and asked him to return my call. He never called me.

A man who does occasional yard work for me said he knew a man who would definitely do a simple roof repair job for me which I estimate would take 5 to 10 minutes to do. My yard guy said the man would call me in 2 weeks. I never heard anything from him. No phone call, nothing.

This kind of thing happens all the time with every company I deal with regardless of size. Whatever happened to “integrity” in this country? Oh, I know. Integrity is something people had in olden days, and this is modern times. “Get with the program, VW. Things like integrity, doing a good job, and keeping your word are so 20th century.”

I know, but what can I say? I’m a 20th century guy. Keeping my word is part of my DNA.

Is State Farm Still There?

Most home owners have an insurance policy on their home. If you are such a home owner, then think about this—you’re betting money that your home is going to be damaged or destroyed, and the insurance company is taking your bet and they’re betting that nothing seriously bad is going to happen to your house. So, you’re betting against yourself each time you send your insurance company a check.

I’ve had home insurance for years and I’ve never made a claim. Nevertheless, my insurance company (State Farm) has decided to terminate my home insurance, effective in September. However, they will allow me to continue sending them money if I will do two things.

I have a little side “porch” (it’s about 3x5 feet and is commonly called a “stoop” in these parts) and State Farm wants me to put a railing on it and down two steps to the ground. I suppose they fear someone may fall into the grassy yard, which would be a drop of about 1 to 3 feet, depending on where the “victim” was standing. There is a door on the end of my house that allows access to this stoop. However, that door hasn’t been used in many years. In fact, if you were inside my house, you would see a refrigerator parked in front of that door. That’s because my kitchen is so small that there’s no good place to put the fridge without getting rid of a kitchen cabinet and a cutting-block table.

“But what if there’s a fire?” you ask. My answer: I have a front door, a back door, and a basement door that all open to the outside. Plus, the refrigerator is on wheels and can be rolled away from the side door in an emergency. Nevertheless, simply because the stoop exists it must have a railing, even though it has never had a railing and that has never been a problem.

Then there’s the second issue. The stoop is made of cement block with a brick façade, as is the rest of the house. So the brick, in this case, is not structurally significant. It doesn’t support anything. It merely hides the cement block and makes the stoop blend in with the rest of the house. But the brickwork on the stoop is getting to be in bad shape. Some of the mortar has deteriorated and one or two bricks have become loose. It’s a cosmetic issue. Nevertheless, State Farm insists I must repair the stoop’s façade or my policy will be cancelled.

Frankly, I think State Farm just wants to eliminate older homes (that may have more problems) from their customer pool. My guess is they prefer to insure newer homes, and I can understand that. While I’ve been betting against myself for years, State Farm has been betting on me. But now they’ve chosen to not bet on me. So I’ve been thinking about countering their non-bet on me with my own non-bet against me. I’ll quit betting against myself and allow the insurance to drop. I’ll save hundreds of dollars each year which can be applied to expenses like, oh, let’s say…railings and mortar repairs.

Maybe State Farm will reconsider their decision to drop me and do what the jingle says and be like a good neighbor. Remember that jingle? “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!” Maybe they’ll be there, but that’s up to them. (By the way, do you know who wrote that jingle? It was written by Barry Manilow. He was paid $500 for writing it. State Farm really got some mileage out of that jingle. It’s an earworm—once you hear it, you can’t forget it.)

My home insurance may be ending, but at least State Farm still has my auto policy—for a while. Just kidding, I would never cancel my State Farm auto insurance just because State Farm canceled my home insurance.

Oh, who am I kidding? Sure I would!

[Update 8/15/2020: State Farm Update]

Isaias Update

I woke early, around 3:15AM. The outer rain bands of Isaias arrived in my central Virginia city at 3:40AM with a powerful burst of rainfall. I got up and got on the computer and turned on the local news. There were tornado warnings, then tornados confirmed on the ground. At 5:55AM, electric power went off, then returned. I went back to bed and went to sleep.

When I awoke at 8:30AM, all was quiet. No rain, no wind, and the sun was out. But the local news had photos and video of significant storm damage, apparently from tornadoes. Many trees are down, some falling on cars or houses. Tractor-trailers are blown over onto their sides, lying across the road. Flash floods required water rescues for stranded motorists. Several hundred thousand people, mostly in eastern counties and the Northern Neck, were without electricity.

Rainfall measured at a nearby airport was 5.37 inches, and maximum wind at the airport was 51 mph, but was 70 mph in eastern Virginia, near the storm center. 

I haven’t walked around my house, but looking through the windows at the neighborhood, it looks like my city escaped the worst. I’m hoping my house has all its shingles. I expect it will. I see no evidence of any leaks of rain into my house. So blue skies, wet grass, and all is quiet.  The temperature is a comfortable 74°F. I opened a front window and back door. I’d like to get a cross-breeze through the house, but the air is still. Still, it’s a very nice morning for those of us lucky enough to have missed the worst.

Isaias

I’m sitting in my house awaiting the appearance of tropical storm Isaias (pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs). Speaking of which, where did the name Isaias come from? Is it even a real name, or just a made-up word? I delved into that. Turns out, Isaias is the Spanish form of the Hebrew name Isaiah.

Why did the National Weather Service choose it? Have they run out of regular names? I bet they haven’t used ‘Igor’ for a storm but we could, and we wouldn’t need a pronunciation expert to tell us how to say it. Tropical Storm Igor: it even sounds malevolent.

I will probably have a roof leak. The last time we had a tropical storm come through my city was in 2018. Florence had been a destructive hurricane in the Carolinas but dissipated to a tropical storm when it got to central Virginia. But it was a strong storm; it blew a piece of vinyl off the north side of my north dormer. That caused the dormer to leak when the rain was heavy and the wind was blowing hard from the north. The dormer hasn’t leaked again, but tonight or tomorrow will be a test of that dormer.

And what happens when the dormer leaks? The water runs down inside the wall of the dormer and ultimately leaks through my ceiling. I have to put a bucket under it, but the ceiling is definitely screwed up.

You may be asking why haven’t I replaced that missing piece of vinyl. That’s a fair question, especially considering that I still have the vinyl—I recovered it from my front yard after the storm. I’m too old to be climbing on rooftops. And the workmen I have contacted about repairing it, and who promised to fix it, have never materialized. The thing about home repairmen is they will accept all the jobs they are offered, then they will pick and choose the easiest and best-paying jobs and blow off all the rest. You’ll never hear from them. It appears that if they can’t make $500 on a job, it’s not worth doing. And this is a 5 minute job, after the repairman gets on the roof. Stick the vinyl in place, put a couple of screws in it, and maybe some caulk. Done. Climb down the ladder, put the ladder on the truck, and accept payment.

A bigger concern is losing electricity tonight or tomorrow. I have food in the fridge and the freezer. Without power, the food will be off refrigeration and I’ll have no way to cook it. But I don’t keep enough food on hand to worry about throwing it out. I may lose a few dollars, but I have canned food on hand if it comes down to starvation—and it won’t. 

No, the real problem with having no power is having no TV and no Internet. I might be able to connect to the Web through my mobile phone, but there’s no guarantee. When I’ve lost power in previous storms, the cell towers were down, too. But not everyone’s cell service was out—only the company that I had my service with. Because that’s how my life works. When I can’t cook at home and I go to a burger joint to eat, I’m the guy in line behind the guy who orders 86 burgers to go. Yes, that really happened. (link)

So now it’s a late Monday evening and I’m just waiting for Isaias.

Just waiting.

Credit Card Dilemma

I pay all my expenditures with a credit card. It’s always the same credit card, which simplifies things. I pay the bill off every month to avoid interest charges.

In July, I paid the June bill. A few days ago I was looking at my credit card statement for July and I noticed they had credited my July payment for the June bill twice. Same day, same amount, listed twice on the statement. At first I thought the mistake was mine and I had paid the bill twice. But I checked my bank statement and it showed I had made only one payment in July to the credit card company. So this was their mistake.

I thought about saying nothing but, as I’m honest to a fault, I knew I had to let the card company know about it. So I called their 800 number, which is listed on the back of the card in a font so tiny it requires a microscope to read the number. My call was answered by a robot voice. It wanted to know how it could help me. Now these robot things are designed for simple situations such as “I want to pay my bill”, or “I want to check my balance.” They are completely inadequate for something like “You applied my payment for the June statement twice.” Saying that will elicit this response: “If you will give me a little more information, I can help you.” Trust me, there is no amount of information that will make this robot voice understand the situation. After going around the mulberry bush a few times with the robot, I hung up.

I called back with another strategy. When the robot voice answered, I told it, “I want to talk to a human.” The robot voice replied, “If you will give me a little more information, I can help you.” And I said, “No, I want to talk to a human.” The robot voice replied, “I understand, you want to talk to a human. If you will give me a little more information, I can help you.”

No, we’re not doing this again. With persistence, I was able to contact a human, doubtless in a call center. After giving him sufficient proof that I was who I said I was, he checked my account on his computer. “Everything looks okay,” he told me.

“But you applied my June payment twice,” I told him. He responded, “Everything looks okay.”

I thanked him for his time and hung up. I pondered the matter. Perhaps the June payment that was listed twice on the statement had been applied only once. So I copied the statement to a spreadsheet to see if the two payments were actually applied. The spreadsheet agreed with the statement. The card company had indeed applied my June payment twice.

The outcome of this is going to be one of two things. One, I get free money on my credit card account, or two, the credit card company has me charged with committing computer fraud.

If you don’t hear from me again, well, I’m just saying—the U.S. Marshalls may have picked me up. Stay tuned for further developments.

I’m hitting the Publish button now. I have to go, there’s someone knocking on my front door. Strange, someone at my door this time of night.

Tree Be Gone

My neighbor has a tree in his backyard. It’s not a fruit tree and it’s not an ornamental tree. It’s what I call a trash tree—something that most likely sprouted from a seed buried by a squirrel, and it’s getting bigger, year by year. Now its limbs and the myriad vines growing within them have encroached several feet into my yard. I was getting tired of mowing around the branches and not being able to mow up to the property line. It’s as if the growing tree is claiming an increasing amount of my yard for itself.

So after I mowed my yard this morning, I got out my electric hedge trimmer and started whacking all the limbs and vines that would fit between the trimmer’s teeth. In about a half hour, I whacked enough limbs and vines to completely fill my 45 gallon trash receptacle.

But this isn’t the end of it. Those limbs and vines will grow back. So I began thinking: what can I do to kill this tree? I searched Google for methods of killing trees. And indeed, there are a number of ways to kill a tree.

This tree is a goner; it’s living on borrowed time. It just doesn’t know it yet. If you’re a tree, you had better keep your branches on your side of my property line. If you don’t, then sooner or later you’re going to be having a very bad day.

A Tale of Two Hospitals

A friend of mine just underwent surgery at one of the two hospitals in her community. She emailed me to say she was okay, and in her email she gave a short review of her experience. I won’t name the hospital, but here is her review:

This is the first time I have ever used this facility -- all other surgeries were at [other hospital] and wow -- the difference (and adding Covid precautions) were shocking.  Check in was not impressive at all -- I don't even think I could describe it -- I actually felt like I was being wheeled in somebody’s old crockety basement and people were everywhere (some covered and some not).  The place was unclean.  When I got to the operating room it was like entering the side door of a garage -- I'm not really good at describing it. Still I held my resolve and wasn't nervous (just aware) ... the place did not give me the feeling it was sterile.

She and I live 180 miles apart, so when I had to go to a hospital, I obviously went to a different hospital—a large hospital that was local to me. It was ten years ago, but I still remember the experience well. The hospital was sparkling clean and the people there bent over backward to help me. They put me into a semi-private room (two beds) with another patient. His family members were visiting him and were talking loudly. I called a nurse and asked her if she could bring me some disposable ear plugs because of the noise. She didn’t; instead, she wheeled me down the hall to another room, a private room (single bed). Later, another nurse came to my room and asked if there was anything I needed. Lying in a hospital bed is boring and I jokingly answered that I’d like to have a computer. She replied that she had a laptop in her car and she offered to go to her car and bring her computer back to me. I told her that wasn’t necessary, but I was plenty impressed. After I was back at home, someone from the hospital phoned me to make sure I was okay and wanted me to comment on my experience at the hospital—what I thought they did well and what I thought they could have done better. I had no complaints at all.

What a difference there was between our two experiences! It comes down to people. Hospitals, like all institutions, develop a culture. The culture can usually be summed up in a few words: “Good enough to get by”, or “Excellence.” Is “Excellence” too expensive for other hospitals to emulate? Or is “good enough” the default position of staff who don’t want to go the extra mile because it’s a bother? And which hospital is more likely to succeed, and which is more likely to fail?

It should go without saying that this dichotomy exists across many institutions in our country. Of course, the managers and directors must strike a balance, but shouldn’t we err on the side of making the customer or patient feel that he or she is in a place run by competent people who care about them?

Shouldn’t we all try to do our best, especially when dealing with people who may be in a new and scary situation? Or is “Excellence” merely an old-fashioned concept that we don’t have time for in these modern days?