Always Different, Rarely Better

I'm Tired of Website Changes for Change Sake

Am I the only person who only goes to a website once a year (or so) and hate to find everything different? It makes it difficult and some times impossible to find what you need to do. Why are website designers always changing websites? I never feel like it makes anything better, just slower and easier for ads.

Could it be that this is the way the justify their existence, and paychecks, for the companies that always need a newer website? Or is it the fault of the company? They don't think they had such a good quarter last go and so of course, a newer image -- or at least website -- will fix everything.

When at all possible, I use this as a good excuse to stop using that website all together. For example, Multnomah County Libraries updated their website with loads of fanfare promising that it was going to better for everyone.

But here is the basic fact, after the new website was unleashed on the public it had tons of problems, programming was not even finished yet, so then they told us to wait -- it would get better -- eventually.

But after months and months, my queries only seemed to get slower and slower. When I finally was able to search for and place holds on three items on the Washington County Cooperative Library Services system in the time it took to just get my hits on Multnomah County's site, I said, "I'm done." I haven't been back since. I tried to tell them what was going on, but all they cared about was the little pictures and the ability for people to "rate" items. Oh boy! Such pretty little pictures, but it takes hours to place a hold! What a deal!

Seems there are some benefits to living in Washington County. I made sure and emailed my experiences to the webmaster out here and VIOLA! when they updated their system, we didn't lose our functionality just to make things prettier. I don't mean to take credit for that since the webmaster emailed back something which might possibly imply something like he agreed with me -- though I'm sure he really couldn't make any such statement officially or in any way that would be felt unprofessional.

No. We live in a decrepit age where change for change sake alone rules the day. Just wait, people will vote for one of the two Democrats left for just this reason...

Still here

What do you call painting a building with aluminum siding in October in Hillsboro?

Love That Oregon Dept of Human Services

So what would you think of someone who told you the deadline was on the 10th, mailed you the paperwork on the 17th but put on it the paperwork was due on the 20th and you receive it on the 21st? This is exactly how Oregon's Department of Human Services deals with it's Food Stamps Clients.

If that isn't bad enough, they don't bother to tell me WHERE the form is supposed to go -- must it be taken in person to one of their branch offices where they except paperwork between the hours of 8:00 - 9:00 am Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday? Or do you have to send it to one of the lovely processing centers? Of course they expect their clients to GUESS!!!

And then my favorite, when you try to call the processing center, you sit on hold for 10 minutes only to be dumped in a voice mail. Past experience with that has resulted in being ignored, so one has to keep trying until one gets through. Which I did after 4 tries this go round -- not too bad.

I have to say that this time the employee who took my call was pretty helpful. At first, all she wanted to say was "we have 10 business days to process your application." I knew it wasn't even worth trying to argue about the fact that will make my food stamps late in August and after all, THEY are the one's who mailed the paperwork 7 days after it was due! Why would they care if I couldn't buy food because they fucked up?!?

But in their defense, the worker I called processed my application the same day. I don't know if she took pity on me or thought I deserved it since I was trying to be nice and polite on the phone while pointing out their slip up. She had a question though and left me a voice mail but of course she forgot (I belive intentionally since all employees in the processing center do this) to give me her extension. So guess who gets to play the game with voice mail again! Lucky me!

Well, get this, I have the boss' extension number, so I just called her and got really lucky! She actually picked up the phone!!! She must have thought it was Ed McMahon calling to tell her she has won the $10 billion prize or something...

While I don't have it in writing yet, and nothing really counts until it's in black and white, I got a message this morning that everything is okay. So I should be able to buy food as usual next month.

But I ask you, would you accept this kind of treatment without getting at least a little pissed off?!?!?

Modern Banking - How is this an improvement?

Back in the old days -- the mid 80's -- when I worked in a Texas savings and loan as a teller, we were expected to handle 90% of customer transactions. Come to the window and the teller should be able to do whatever you need short of issue a credit card or mortgage loan. Of course if we couldn't help, we were reponsible for getting them right to the person who could.

I have not received a statement from Bank of America since September 2006. In January (or maybe late December) I called their Toll Free Customer Support number and was told "everything is okay." There was no reason they could see why mail wouldn't get to me. The even said they would mail out copies of the statements I hadn't recieved.

Now in July I've yet to get anything other than a replacement Debit card from the bank. I have to submit a copy of the statement with my Oregon Health Plan application, so I bit the bullet and decided to go and try to get the problem fixed.

After an hour in the bank, I had a piece of paper which may or may not be acceptable to the state, but that's another issue. Of course the branch was very busy and the wait was so long that Bank of America threw away at least 10 clients before me (these were names on the list that didn't respond when they were called), so the wait really wasn't that bad though the waiting area is so tiny it can hardly hold people.

The rest of the 45 minutes was spent 'solving' the problem. For some reason the bank decided suddenly it didn't have a street address any longer and rather communicate with me, it just stopped communicating. I supplied the information, but of course they fill out a piece of paper which will be picked up on Monday and go who knows where to be put in the system -- so there is no way to know that the problem is fixed. This took about 10 minutes.

The next issue was providing a current balance something official looking. In prior dealings with Oregon's Deptartment of Human Services they have refused to accept "Internet printouts", but this is the only thing the bank could offer.

So we then had to go through the pain of setting up online banking, but since I used to used their online banking system before they changed it 3 or so years ago, we had to recover that old log in information. Do bank employees have a quick way to do this? No, they have to used the same phone center support and wait on hold like the rest of us.

We did get through it all, but I have to wonder how on earth this type of solution is more efficient than the old fashioned person-to-person support we used to offer at the bank. At best, the bank took three to four times as long to fix the problem. That has to cost more. We set up an online account which I will probably never used again.

And conservatives want government to be run like business? Well, then imagine spending all afternoon at the DMV updating your address everytime you move.

XianJiro's Whine & Cheese Blog???

Well construction smashed, crashed, banged, and scraped ahead all weekend long and the roof looks better. It's about as light as asphalt shingles can get so my hope is that it might keep us a bit cooler this summer. Even 5F lower inside the apartment would make a world of difference when we get close to 100F outside.

I'm still pretty run down and Robin's quickly losing it. He's clearly so worked up that he's taking it out on his body with non-stop chewing and scratching. While he might have gotten into something yesterday in the forest, it seems surprisingly excessive. I think he's just stressed out.

I got conflicting information about tomorrow. The workers still have to put the gutters up and the in-charge guy seemed to think it would take 2-3 hours. He told me on Saturday, "the gutters will be done Monday or Tuesday at the latest" but it is clear they want to finish sooner but neighbors were saying both "tomorrow" and "some time Tuesday or later." Then one started talking about painting… While the owner had mentioned painting last year, nothing has been said to me recently so I really do hope that the gutters will go up and that will be the end of this year's construction.

Hopefully it will then quiet down so that I can get some sleep. Sleeping when it hits 90F works for me.

Whine & Cheese Blog

As I have been fixing the broken links on my website, I've toyed with renaming the blog since I have to resubmit it to indexes and the like. But I don't think I'll do it. Since I've had a blog, I've used the name "Kore wa XianJiro no Blog Desu" (Japanese for "This is XianJiro's Blog." I truly love being original.) Seems good enough to me.

Additionally, the latest version of Blogger allows me to attach labels to entries. In time, that will allow me to classify posts and readers will be able to 'sort' the posts so they can focus on the posts that interest them. With that functionality, I'm inclined to reintegrate View - Read - Listen which I've never been able to get that excited about anyway. My intention is, rather than catalogue everything I watch, read, or listen to as I did on Jablog, I will just focus on writing about those things I really want to write about. I will then be able to provide Amazon.com purchase links to those items and maybe get some Amazon purchase credits to buy stuff. I don't know if I'll ever be posting enough that I will really need more than a single blog. Also, it will be simpler and easier to deal with, especially when it comes to hosting the thing.

Still wondering about "Whine & Cheese," huh? Well, I've always used my blog as a way to let of steam. Clearly some readers, especially those who don't know me or my situation, view it as whining. And yes, there is a bit of that. But as I've tried to get across to folks, I've gone from what I thought was a full, interesting, fun, and fulfilling life to something that no longer makes the pain, suffering and annoyance worthwhile. I still believe that there is some value in chronicling what it's like to be disabled without Disability, to live in poverty while not feeling particularly poor, to be alone without feeling lonely, and to be so busy doing nothing important that I'm never bored.

Yes, my life is a paradox and finding happiness is enigmatic. I continue to feel adrift since I have nothing to live for other than to just see another day. This, as I have stated, doesn't quite make up for all the stuff I hate about my life and have little power to change. I also realize that my situation is truly meaningless in the bigger picture, but if I can somehow communicate to folks what it feels like maybe it will help to change what we think of as our Social Safety Net.

Food

The one bright spot in my otherwise dull existence has been my decision to change what I eat. I've grown weary and suspicious of most of the food to be had at the supermarket. Think about it -- if you have ever baked cookies, you know they are basically flour, sugar, butter, and then you add whatever to give it flavor or change the texture. It's very simple. So why does the list of ingredients of store-bought cookies read like a chemical soup with double the number of items and including many which we have no idea what they are let alone can we pronounce them? Simply -- to lower the cost or increase shelf life. But do they taste any better?

So like elsewhere in my life, I've worked to simply my food. Instead of relying on canned soup, I try to make my own. Same goes with bread and muffins. And yes, it means paying more, but I think it's worth it when the food tastes better. Turkey is a good example. I buy deli meat now that has no additives and it tastes exactly like the turkey I bake in the winter. I still find I need to rely on canned goods so now I try to select ones without additives, especially all that unneeded salt.

I continue to allow myself a couple items which don't measure up to the new standard: I love Chocolate Oreos (and eat more than I should). My absolute favorite ice cream is Tillamook Mudslide and though I hate the long list of ingredients, I figure one or two (not-quite-a-)quart containers a month isn't going to ruin me and in fact provides a bit of happiness. I also still get store brand soda, but mostly I drink tea or water. Last, I buy a bag of candy for a month.

But the biggest change has been in two of my most beloved foods: chocolate and cheese. I now only buy 'gourmet' or organic chocolate bars. I usually get a couple each month. I used to really love dark chocolate, but have found that bitter and sour foods are much harder to take now. So I enjoy milk chocolates and my favorites have nuts.

Cheese on the other hand has been a huge change. While always claiming to 'love' cheese, I've never really ventured much further a field than Tillamook's better versions of the usual store cheeses found in American grocery stores. I never worried much about what I got since it all pretty much tastes the same, but any cheese turns a dull sandwich into something yummy.

Huntsman Revolution

Then I realized that I could get something called Huntsman -- an imported English cheese which combines Double Gloucester and Stilton. Wow, it was like waking from a lifelong nightmare! I started combing the shelves of the local markets trying anything that looked interesting but not too scary. I mean, I don't want anything smelly, right? I'm an American (genetically) and that fancy, stinky, foreign stuff will make me sick, won't it? What bull shit!!!

Then during lunch last October, a waiter mentioned that an upscale market in Portland carried something like 400 different cheeses. Since they don't have a store out here in Hellsboro quite yet, I started visiting the local New Seasons Cheese Department. I've gotten to know a guy who works there (THAT should tell you something right there) and I think he might even be stocking stuff I ask for. It's almost like an old-fashioned grocer-customer relationship…

I've now got a list of 65 cheeses from all over the world which I have tried. Don't misunderstand me, I don't take a free sample at New Seasons and then put it on my list. While I do take samples, it's mostly because they almost always have something to sample or to assure myself that I won't throw the cheese away after I get it home. Instead I prefer to bring it home and live with it for a while. Most cheeses change over time. Only a couple have been truly disappointing and a few have taken a few times to get used to the new flavors or textures. However, most I really enjoy and savor -- even the stinky stuff!

So now the nightly ritual is to make a cheese plate either instead of a meal or as a bedtime snack. Sometimes it's as simple as a couple crackers with a couple small pieces of cheese. Other nights I will have a huge mixture, but I rarely eat more than a few ounces at a time. It's kind of like those wine-geeks who spend all night tasting a bunch of different wines but never seem to drink a whole glass of anything.

Back to Whine & Cheese

So last night I thought I should write about a different cheese each week on the blog. Again, it would give me something to write about regularly and who knows, maybe folks will be interested to try something different from a local store. (After all, you can get books and visit websites that talk about hundreds or thousands of cheeses that rarely, if ever, make it to Oregon.) It would allow me to share with others something that has become quite important and enjoyable and maybe, just maybe, I might even make a new friend who shares this interest. [Yet that feels like asking for a miracle.]

But while we can buy exotic buffalo milk cheese from Sicily with our humble food stamps, wine and alcohol are strictly verboten. Rather than yet another Wine and Cheese Blog, I could set my blog apart by adding cheese reviews to my incessant whining. I still could use a bit of hard education though since I don't really know what they mean when they use those crazy descriptors - see cheese aficionados do basically the same thing as wine geeks, something like, "soft-white crust with a runny interior with a smoky-bacon flavor" even though the cheese isn't crusty, runny and certainly doesn't taste like bacon. Or how about "distinctive cheese with a mild, zingy, citrus taste with a delicate, goaty finish" - and they do mean goaty! My brother and I agree, trying to describe wine, and cheese, like that makes us want to say "oh what a lovely bouquet, just like a damp horse blanket allowed to ripen for three days under a pile of puppy-pee soaked newspapers with a hint of moldy lemon and mouse turd and a wonderful finish of toasted oak bark and squid anus."

I've been watching a program on PBS/OPB called "Uncorked" and I've actually learned a bit about wine. It's not that certain white wines are like drinking butter, but they have a quality that has reminded someone of butter and so it's become a term that people can learn, understand, and then use to communicate with each other. Clearly, it's nothing more than jargon and I feel I would benefit from learning some similar cheese jargon.

Then again, maybe not. I think I'd rather talk about cheese so that everyday folks can understand. I've never been much of a joiner and I can't imagine I'll be welcome at the Pumpkin Ridge Cheese Tasting Society given my lack of financial standing. Instead, I'd love to help others adventure forth and try the wonderful cheeses that do make the journey to Hillsboro and Portland. I do see how timid and overwhelmed most shoppers are as they approach the case at New Seasons. They do get lots of help from the employees, but I know I do better when I make a list of 10 things and track down 5 I'd like to try. That works better for me than asking "so which of these cheeses is good?"

Coming soon…