Music and Technology

For the most part, I think I'm pretty with it when it comes to technology.   Having been a self-employed business person for most of my adult life I've had the hands-on experience of choosing computers, printers, scanners, FAX machines and the like going back to the early 1980's when I purchased an Apple II+ desktop personal computer complete with huge floppy disks tethered to an IBM Selectric typewriter that was modified to be a computer printer with it's typing ball whizzing at a speed with which no real person could compete, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 - 3 minutes per page.  Early on I abandoned the Apple corps for an IBM PC AT and subsequently became a dedicated Windows/Microsoft disciple.  I felt as though I was an early adapter with most things based in technology.  In addition to a Windows based computer network at our office I have a NetBook, an Android Smartphone and a wireless hotspot of my very own.  I know my way around a bluetooth connection.  I had been very secure with my technology skills.  However, something has just happened that has shaken me to the very core of my digital expertise.

We bought a new computer a few weeks ago for our home; we chose a souped up notebook to replace the stand alone system simultaneously gaining precious space in our home office.  The operating system, Windows 7, allowed for a seamless transfer of nearly all the data from our old desktop.  Thousands upon thousands of photos and video files along with Word and Excel documents came streaming into the new expansive hard drive almost effortlessly.  Everything was going great until our digital music came across and I took the opportunity to demonstrate what a wonderful job our new notebook was doing by playing one of Mitzi's digital downloads on the new platform.  After listening to a few stanzas of the song I have now forgotten, my wife made the comment "I'd like to be able to put some of this music on a CD and play it in my car".   Knowing that there is a trick, but not knowing the actual sleight of hand involved, I commented that transferring the music to a CD and expecting it to play in her 6 year old SUV's dashboard was not as easy as it might appear.  Why, most of these files were MP3, I chortled and I was pretty darn sure her CD player wasn't going to be able to take those digital etchings and convert them to music.  In fact, I further explained with all the typical arrogance husband's can muster in these situations, copying this music to a CD was old fashioned and most people born after 1965 put them on an iPod.  Recognizing that we have a collection of 45 and 33 RPM Records (look it up if you don't know what they are), multiple shelves of cassette tapes (we jettisoned the 8 Tracks some years ago) and many more shelves full of CD recordings this threw Mitzi into a tizzy.  She let me know in no uncertain terms that the iPod technology was nothing more than a cheap trick by electronics manufacturers to pry even more money from the grasp of consumers and having gone through the conversions from an actual record player to various tape players and then ultimately CD players and then repurchasing music 2 and 3 times to be able to be heard on the various devices was the end of the line for her.  That was it - until I casually mentioned there was a good chance the next car she bought probably wouldn't include a CD player.  In fact, I bragged, my new Honda had a direct connection for an iPod that would play the contents of the digital device through its fancy stereo system.  After some further discussion we came to the conclusion we needed to adapt to the new fangled system for recorded music or risk being relegated to the trash heap of squaredom by our offspring and theirs.

The closest I had actually ever been to an iPod was when I bought one for my granddaughter, Sydney, as a Christmas gift 2 or 3 years ago.  As with most of my shopping I had my daughter circle the item in the Target catalog that appears around Halloween every year and I grunted my way through the Target store after shoving the page into the hands of a somewhat helpful clerk making sure I exited the store with the "pink" one.  I recollect the word "Nano" was involved but that's about it.  I do remember Sydney was suitably pleased with the color.  I also remember being shocked at the miniatureness of the device once it was extricated from the packaging, obviously designed to make you feel like you were getting your money's worth.

Mitzi and I visited the local Best Buy on Sunday with hope of embarking upon our new adventure into the world of digital music on portable devices.  What we found first were row upon row of accessories for attaching to one's iPod to elevate the volume, charge the battery, share headphones and ear buds and convert them into game playing devices or movie theaters.  Not wanting to get distracted from the task at hand we only casually noticed these peripheral devices while searching for the actual Apple product which we ultimately located in a Fort Knox quality plexiglass display case.  Peering through the inch thick plastic we observed a device not as thick and perhaps smaller in other dimension than a book of matches with a nearby label identifying it as an "iPod Shuffle" for something slightly under 50 bucks that looked more like a foil wrapped chocolate mint than a device for recording and playing music;  An "iPod Classic" was next to it with a price tag of about $250 - I liked the sound of the name Classic;  Framing the "Shuffle" and the "Classic" were various versions of a device referred to as "iPod Touch" touting massive amounts of memory and the ability to do everything that is part of your daily routine short of washing your car.  The prices for the "Touch" devices ranged from $200 to $400 with the upper end of the range providing enough gigabytes of storage to apparently include every piece of recorded music that will ever exist.  Being ill-prepared to make a choice among these offerings I could immediately feel my heart pounding out a rhythmic beat in my temples and my palms beginning to perspire.

As we simultaneously hyper-ventilated Mitzi's inclination was to summon a Salesperson which is Big Box lingo for Armed Robber in my way of thinking.  My instincts told me to run out the door as quickly as I could.  The last thing I wanted was to engage in a conversation regarding some digital device about which I knew only that it existed with some member of the appropriately named "Geek Squad".  I envisioned myself leaving the store with an armload of accessories and and an extended warranty if I didn't escape at that very moment not to mention several hundred dollars poorer.  "Let's talk to Sydney before we decide" I hollered over my shoulder as I waved goodbye to the Best Buy security cop upon my exit through the automatic doors.

Tooth Fairy

I have a vague recollection of when I was first visited by the Tooth Fairy after losing one of my bottom incisors somewhere around 6 years of age.  Having no older brothers or sisters to spoil it, the concept of the tooth fairy as told to me by my parents was exciting, what with the idea I could trade my no longer useful tooth for cold hard cash and all.  I placed the tooth under my pillow before I went to sleep that night and awoke the following morning to find a dime where the tooth had been stowed.  Ten cents was a good amount of money to a 6 year old in 1959, enough to buy two nickel candy bars.  Dentists today would cringe at the idea but that was the thinking of a 6 year old in 1959.  I continued the tradition with an appropriate bump up in compensation for my children.

Now, I've done the research.  Most things today cost roughly 10 times more, on average, than they did in 1959.  Cars were priced from $2,000 to $4,000; Average homes were $30,000;  A postage stamp was 4 cents;  A loaf of bread about 25 cents.  Some of the things we buy are nearly 20 times more.  For instance, a gallon of gasoline in 1959 clicked over at 25 cents; that nickel candy bar costs about a buck today.

Given the level of confidence I had in my research and wanting to appear to be a magnanimous Grandpa knowing I was in direct competition with the dentine nymph I set the standard with my grandchildren that I would provide compensation to each of them for the loss of their first tooth at the rate of 5 genuine U.S. Dollars.  In 2007 Sydney met the requirement and Papa forked over the requisite 5 bucks.  Emily followed a year later and then Tanner a year after that.  In each case I kept my word.  All of them seemed more than satisfied with the remuneration that remained consistent and fair.  After all, it was 50 times what I earned for my first traumatic tooth loss experience.  Usually when I turned over the Half-Sawbuck I was met with excited laughter and hugs; worth every penny.

A few weeks ago I was riding in the back seat of my daughter, Carri's, vehicle with my nearly 6 year old grandson, Davis, seated next to me properly strapped into his mandatory "booster" headed toward downtown San Diego where we were to have something to eat.  Out of the corner of my eye I observed he had a noticeable gap at the bottom of his mouth where I suspected a tooth used to reside.  Apparently his older sister, Emily, either didn't remember or purposely withheld the information about the sizable reward that Papa provides for the loss of the first tooth.  When I quizzed Davis about the circumstances surrounding the loss of his incisor he was quick to point out that, in fact, he had actually lost both of the bottom front ones.  As I listened to his retelling of the experience I purposefully peeled off a $5 bill from the wad of folded bank notes I keep in my front pants pocket and handed it to him, snapping it quickly to gain his attention to the massive award he had obviously not anticipated.  As I handed the somewhat worn note to him he reacted in a way that caught me a little off-guard.  "Don't you have a ten?" he queried in an annoyed tone as if I had just insulted him.  Perhaps I did but now that he had thrown down the gauntlet I was more than willing to quickly take up my sword in defense.  "Nope" I responded with the precision of a highly trained medieval Knight deftly wielding his rapier after carefully choosing my words.  "Then I don't want it" he parried my thrust.

"Let's put this in the piggy bank in your bedroom"  Carri interjected from the front seat with all the conciliatory concern of a parent insecure about how well they have imparted graciousness lessons to their offspring.  "We'll save it for something you'll want to buy later" she offered in her best attempt at refereeing.

Davis took another look at the Fiver, considered its value relative to his pride, mulled over his options then further pronounced "I don't want this one.  It has a tear".

I sat silently the rest of the ride.

Insurance

My wife, Mitzi  (yes, its her real name) and I completed an application for Long Term Care Insurance a few weeks ago.  Now we are waiting to see if we qualify, which I think is a nice way of saying the insurance company figured out we have just enough money left to pay the premiums.  I don't really want the insurance for me, after all, if I needed Long Term Care who better to provide that than my betrothed?  On the other hand, when Mitzi thinks about relying on me to provide for her comfort and well-being given that she can no longer perform 2 of the requisite "5 functions for daily living" the concept frightens her more than whatever ailment would cause her to be in that situation.  It would scare me too.  In any event, we originally wanted to pursue just the insurance for her, figuring we could spend all our remaining resources taking care of me but would then necessarily need to rely on some other method for allowing her to live out the rest of her days in dignity (or whatever euphemistic phrase the marketing materials use to whitewash the reality of dying).

Our agent convinced us that we should both apply for coverage with the understanding that we are entitled to incredible discounts based on our application as a couple and that there is a good chance I would be denied, due to my history of whipping cancer at least twice, which makes me not such a good risk for some reason known only to the "underwriters".  If they deny me but approve her then the premiums for her alone would still be calculated using the Husband Applied But Was Denied However The Wife Is Someone We Want To Collect Premiums From Because We Know We'll Come Out Ahead rate table, which I am told is much less than if she just applied on her own.

My biggest fear now is that the insurance company will, for some yet to be understood reason, approve me at an upwardly adjusted premium which if I then decline (since I have no intention of getting the insurance for myself in any event) will trigger a clause in the contract which negates any sort of discount on Mitzi's policy payments.  Hence, the anxiety of waiting for the good news, bad news telephone call, or more probably, email since it insulates the poor slob delivering the bad news from my immediate knee jerk reaction which would include anger, four letter words and whining, no doubt.

All of this anxious waiting has caused me to consider just what in the name of insurance I have already gotten myself into regarding the money that is transferred from me to the various insurance companies that regularly disappears from my grasp in the form of automatic debits to my checking account, payroll deductions and business expenses.

Let's see how this all adds up, shall we?  Homeowner's Insurance: The mortgage company owns my home but my name is on the title.  The mortgage company requires that I have hazard insurance to cover their loan so I fork over $900 for that every year . I used to have "flood insurance" with the low, low annual premium of $1,400, even though I live in the desert but we recently got that requirement cancelled through the work of my neighbor whom I have never met, the engineer, not the train kind, and I think a very large "campaign contribution" to our congressperson.  Automobile Insurance: I own 2 cars which have requirements for insurance at a cost to me of $1,800 per year.  Medical Insurance:  Since I am self employed I get to see the REAL COST for medical insurance as it does not get disguised as an "employee benefit" or massaged into some other expense.  Add the cost of Dental and Vision coverage and those medically related premiums run $13,000 per year, but, I'm damn glad I have that coverage which I'll discuss later in another epistle.  Life Insurance:  Various term insurance policies require about $2,000 annually to keep them in force.  Seems odd to have both Life Insurance and Long Term Care Insurance now that I think about it; one's a bet that you'll live a while longer and the other that you won't.  Business Liability Insurance:  Landlords and folks we do business with make sure our company has that type to the tune of $1,200 per year in case a client gets a serious paper cut on a stack of documents.  Errors and Omissions Insurance:  This is an interesting concept.  35 years in the business of selling real estate and arranging financing for folks buying homes and refinancing existing loans with a flawless track record doesn't lessen the need to have insurance in case we forget to tell someone something they should know.  I won't say I've never made an error or an omission but no insurance company has ever forked over a dime because I did, yet I am obligated to carry this coverage to the tune of $6,000 per year.  Add these all up and the first $26,300 I generate every year goes just to pay insurance premiums.  Throw in a grand for Worker's Compensation (in case I trip on the copy machine) and tack on the long term care policy for Mitzi and that total climbs to more than $30,000 every year.

I'm waiting for the day the Insurance companies start offering policies that will pay your premiums on all your other insurance in case you run out of money in the meantime.   If I was a Buddhist I would want my reincarnation to take the form of an insurance company.  The worn out line about how all the massive buildings and casinos in Las Vegas were built on the backs of less than lucky gamblers ought to be rewritten to include all large cities and insurance policy holders in the stead of gamblers since most of the big buildings in the world are likely owned or financed by insurance companies.  I think we could solve the budget deficit situation by allowing the IRS to redirect half of the premiums we pay the insurance companies directly to the US Treasury.  I think they would still have enough to pay claims and make a decent profit.  Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich:  Are you listening?

Hair

My Dad would assemble me and my 2 brothers in the garage every other Saturday with his electric clippers to administer the type of haircut one gets when they lose a bet.  The one point of differentiation between the 3 haircuts was that he always left my younger brother Bobby with an inch long strip of fringe covering the very top of his forehead as what can only be described as bangs.  At the time, I thought it was to help my mother identify him among the 7 of us kids but looking back on it I believe my Dad thought that would make him tougher.  Given the level of abuse Bobby took from the rest of the pre-teens in our neighborhood over his "do" I believe my father was on to something.

Once I was old enough to understand that the other half of the population that was not of my same sex (and not one of my 4 sisters) were worthy of my attention I reckoned it was worth $4 of my paper route money each fortnight  to allow the barber next to the Rexall drugstore to perform his artistry on my burgeoning locks. Another buck or so for Palmolive Hair Cream or ButchWax gave me the confidence I needed to be able to stand against the brick wall lining our high school gymnasium to watch the girls from our educational establishment dance together on Friday nights after the football games.

One marriage later, I purchased a "blow dryer" which allowed me to shape my rather substantial head of hair into various styles as I aged, each of which required a minimum of a half can of hairspray to hold in place.  By my 30's I think I was spending upwards of $35 for my haircuts which were no longer provided by a barber but now a "stylist".  I got pretty good at the home styling part until I started to notice that the amount of hair I was attempting to tease seemed to be progressively less and less.  Once I eliminated the possibility that using too hot of a setting on my blow dryer was causing the reduction in volume I started reconfiguring the remaining product of my follicles in the most efficient way possible but never to the level of Donald Trump.  It worked well for years.

In 1998 I underwent a course of chemotherapy for Lymphoma and the predicted hair loss was acute.  By the end of the 2nd of 6 administrations of the "CHOP" regimen I did not have a hair anywhere.  Sympathetic friends and healthcare providers cheerfully reminded me that post-chemo hair comes back darker, thicker and even in the case of my string straight hair there was a chance it would have some curl.  Truthfully, I secretly loved the freedom of not having to deal with hair during the chemo intake period, especially since I was spending considerable time with my head firmly planted in the toilet bowl.  Nonetheless, once I completed the 6 month curative process I was eager to see just how dark, thick and curly my new mop would be.

What a load of bullcrap that turned out to be!  The regrowth post-chemotherapy stopped at the level of a quintessential Franciscan Monk's hairline.  The dream of a screen test identifying me as the next leading man in a Hollywood Blockbuster was replaced by the reality that the only part for which I could ever be cast would be riding a burro with rosary beads draped around my neck trailing after Antonio Banderas in some godforsaken Mexican desert.

The really lousy part of it all, though, is that in spite of my inability to generate hair growth on the top of my head where it belongs, biology apparently dictates that the hair needs to get out somewhere.  I recall a few years ago my granddaughter, Sydney, then 5 or 6 years of age sitting on my lap when I recognized the look of fear and utter disgust in her eyes.  "Papa, what's wrong with your ears???"  She shrieked loud enough for Elvis to hear wherever he is,  "OOOHHHH, its HAIR!!!" she warned anyone within earshot.  Once the crimson color left my face I deposited her on the floor and headed to the bathroom to see just exactly what frightened her so much.  Donning my "reading" glasses and with as much light as I could artificially create I looked at my ears in my wife's magnified make up mirror.  What I saw would have brought weaker men to their knees.  Apparently my post-chemo hair recovery had consolidated itself in the edges and crevices of my ears in multicolored sprouts that had the consistency of 10 gauge electrical wire and grew in no discernible pattern.  I knew I needed to take action if for no other reason than to save my other grandchildren from the psychological trauma I had already caused my eldest.

I immediately turned to the Internet:  I found recommended methods for trimming the unwanted hair; ways to melt it away, wax it off and chemically remove it.  I learned that hair inside the ear canal actually has a useful purpose and must be dealt with more sensitively than the hirsute manifestation everywhere else on the half circles that stick out from the sides of my head.  I learned that electrolysis has a spotty record with stubborn ear hair and by the way can only be used on the outer ear in any event.  Never had I imagined that my problem seemed to be shared by nearly every man (and more than a few women) over the age of 39.  I felt only a little less embarrassed.

My visits to the barber shop these days for my $15 "Reverse fade with a 1 1/2, Zero on top" are spent mostly with my barber using various implements to eradicate as much of the unruly hair growth that has since evolved from my ears to include an invasion of my eyebrows where 4 to 5 inch silver sprouts spring up literally overnight.  I find he does a far better job at controlling the affliction than I with my wife's makeup mirror and the collection of implements I've acquired over the years.  Between visits I do my best to control the ever present offenders with regular assists from Google .....

Hondas and Surveys

My 2003 Acura had given up the ghost and after a scant 18 months of research I bought the first car I considered at the beginning of my quest:  A 2012 Honda Accord EXL V6.  I've owned no other make of automobile since 1986 but I looked at every Korean and Japanese import, some German and Swedish and even considered a Ford.   Ultimately I came back to the tried and true; a habit I find more and more is part of my routine.  I used to look forward to finding and purchasing a new vehicle.  Now I approach the process with all the enthusiasm of gulping down the putrid contrast used in a colonoscopy.  There is a reason I kept my old car 9 years and has little to do with how fond I was of the deteriorating paint.

Throughout the 5 hour process of selecting the car, negotiating the price, haggling over the value of my priceless trade-in and arranging the financing I was reminded no less than 150 times that a "Survey" would be conducted by Honda of America a few days after I took delivery of my new ride.  It was impressed upon me that nothing less than a perfect score was acceptable.  In fact, the very survival of the families of the salesperson and the finance guy was dependent upon that flawless report.  The concept was burned so deeply into my brain that I awoke each morning following the delivery of my new vehicle with the impending "Survey" in the forefront of my consciousness.  Daily followup telephone calls from my the salesperson ostensibly to see "how I was doing with my new Honda" always ended with a  reminder about the looming "Survey".  The panic in the delivery of that reminder was scarcely camouflaged.

Exactly one week after I took delivery of the shiny new Accord another call came into the office.  The highly anticipated "Survey" was to be delivered imminently through my email.  Multiple polite requests to make sure no scores other than the ultimate were satisfactory along with reminders of the mandatory execution of the salesperson and finance manager if anything less was recorded.  Thinking that the impending interrogatory would be a few simple Yes or No queries I was nothing but eager to complete the task.

The truth is I am very happy with the new Honda.  I think I negotiated a reasonable price for the new car.  I got taken on my trade but it wasn't worth the hassle to me to deal with the inevitable craigslist phone calls and missed appointments so I guess I can chalk that up to convenience.  Got my 2nd choice of color, 100K bumper to bumper warranty at 60% of the price originally offered by the salesperson and darn good financing.  When I picked the car up it had a full tank of gas and was still dripping from the requisite washing.

Within minutes my computer alerted me of a new email message.  The ominous looking sender:  "Honda Corporate Headquarters"; the title: "Honda Survey Invitation".  Invitation?  Keerist, an invitation is something you can gracefully decline if the timing isn't right.  I was lead to believe heavily disguised men with flaming rags on the ends of pointed metal rods would occupy my front yard if I didn't complete the interrogatory as prescribed within minutes.  Anxious to to be done with it I opened the body of the email to a reasonably pleasant message, thanking me in advance for sharing my "experience" and assuring me my "privacy" was of their utmost concern.  I figured the odds of my being able to complete the survey anonymously was akin to the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the World Series.

Now I don't remember the questions exactly but I can tell you that the scoring system was based on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 being best (which I had previously been advised by my new best friends was the ONLY acceptable score).  I think the guidance in the actual survey as to the meaning of the scores was that a 0 was a recommendation of a public execution of the staff at the Honda dealership and a 10 was what Mother Teresa would have earned for her work in India's orphanages.  The 25 or so questions, then, were worded in such a way as to have any lawyer that babbled in court using similar language disbarred for witness leading.  To wit:

"Was your experience (there was that word again) at Honda of Your Town such that you would equate it with the birth of your first child?"  And, "Did your salesperson and finance manager pull the pockets out of their pants and jackets and shake them vigorously in your presence to prove that you left absolutely no money on the table?"  Then, "Was your new Honda delivered in such a manner that you could have eaten 3 consecutive meals from any external surface, including the tires?"  Ultimately, "Did your salesperson explain every gizmo and gadget in easy to understand terms and read the entire owner's manual to you aloud and include the exact spelling of any word longer than 2 syllables?"

I started to hyperventilate.  I assumed that my answers to a few innocuous questions to provide an appropriate ATTABOY for the 2 faces of the Honda dealership with which I dealt would be a little less confrontational.  They were nice guys; I think I got a fair deal; The car was nearly the one I wanted and it was reasonably clean when I picked it up.  However, to live up to the standards of a "10" as described in the survey would have required a performance worthy of a standing ovation - theirs was more like a golf gallery clap.

In retrospect, I don't think Honda of America gives a tinker's damn about how happy I was with my "experience"; I think the process is designed to identify who the best salespeople are based on whether or not they can convince their customer to give them all 10's on the survey.  Strangely, since I completed the questionnaire I haven't heard from my salesperson at all ....