COMPUTERS...HELP!!!!

 

Computers, Help !!!

 

I often wonder how we ever accomplished any business in the years before computers. It seems to me that a great deal of our entire daily existence is totally dependent upon one operating system or another. From the programmed coffee maker in the morning to the television set at night, when computers and their inner workings go bad, our lives seem to be placed into levels of stress not achieved twenty five years ago. I grew up in a ‘dingless’ society. A childhood in which nothing made a ‘ding’ noise, except maybe the doorbell, but we didn’t get many visitors, so that was not a problem. In today’s computer world, everything ‘bings’. The doorbell, the refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, computer, cell phone, microwave, oven, clock, smoke detector, car door, GPS directions. Ding, ding, ding all day long. You don’t even know where they come from. My weather app has a clock alarm attached to it (who knew?). This morning a new ‘ding’ starts at 6am. I’ve never heard this ‘ding’ before’. I don’t need anymore ‘reminder: dings in my life. I have enough, thank you very much. Where are the directions to shut this off?

Is this progress?.

I’m not certain all of the progress we have made is necessarily for the good.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like everyone in my family to leave my computer alone, don’t mess with it, don’t change anything, don’t try to improve it….just let it be. I like the way I have it set up and know how to use it for the things I need. If I want any changes, I’ll ask for them, otherwise just don’t do anything to it. As far as I’m concerned these things are very very fragile. There is nothing like typing a letter, report or a column that you are very proud of and then have it disappear into the far reaches of the universe never to be seen again. You have no idea what you did to cause this catastrophic event to occur and you have no idea how to resurrect what you have lost. I get the same feeling when I get a letter from the IRS.

Last weekend I’m sitting at my desk at home, happily working away, when I keep getting some type of upgrade notice from Microsoft. I didn’t want the upgrade and foolishly clicked on the delete button. Of course this not only deleted the upgrade, but apparently every thing else associated with it disappeared as well, including all of my previous operating files. After several attempts to start over I go to the Microsoft website and learn how to download the trial version of the software that I have erased. This is where the hard part comes in. To download requires me to type in a 35-character password or product key. Unfortunately for me the 8’s and the b’s look the same so I have to retype and retype until I get it correct. I also have a problem with the 0’s and the O’s ….of course you only get so many shots at this task since the ‘lockout’ notice appears if you enter the info in error too many times. Once you get the code typed in just right, then you have to wait for several very long (I mean long) minutes for the program to download. Meanwhile you’re afraid to leave and answer the phone or go to the bathroom in fear that while you’re gone, some secret important message will appear telling you to do something that will get you further along. Failing to do whatever it says may cause irreparable harm of some sort or harm to some poor baby seal or a 1,000-year-old tree in France. In fact, I’m certain that anything you do wrong will greatly increase global warming. Everything you do will increase global warming as I am told by ‘experts’. I think they ‘predicted we would all be dead by 2015.

Back to my computer issue.

I have no clue as to whether or not I’m actually making any progress or not. The little hourglass doesn’t give me any indication of how much progress (if any) I’ve made or how much further I have to go. I’m determined to do this myself and not call anyone (much less my children) for help. This has now become a personal point of pride with me. Kind of like going back to the health club for the first time in five years. You always think you can still bench press 150 pounds, no matter how old you are. You can’t, don’t try.

Finally a little note appears and tells me that it is extracting files. Yea! Panic sets into my brain. To me extraction means the same as removing, I think I’m supposed to be adding programs and files, not removing or as they say…extracting anything. But the clock is ticking and there is activity so I best sit and wait in agonizing silence while it does whatever it is trying to do. I should not have had that last cup of coffee. No, I think I’ll have a double expresso.

Finally it says that it is finished, but nothing appears on my computer. Instead, it has downloaded everything to my laptop since I had it on as well to help me in my quest for reinstatement. Once again, a wave of defeat sweeps over me and I’m tempted to call someone, anyone and ask for assistance. I shut down the laptop and go back to the big PC and try once more, holding my breath and praying that somehow, some way it will all work out and everything will be back as it was. I’m not certain God acts on computer repair prayer requests and tend to think He treats them like requests from football coaches. Someone has to win and someone has to lose, so He just lets things work themselves out on their own.

However, hallelujah….I’m saved ...everything is back and working …for the moment anyway. I have no idea if I did the right thing or if God took pity on me and fixed it for me. I think the prayers helped; I certainly can’t see that they hurt anything.

Note to self- increase my church tithe next week.

 

See you next week…Peary Perry

PAPER TIGERS..BAH HUMBUG..

 

PAPER TIGERS…BAH HUMBUG…

In my 84 years on earth, I have had 3 separate government contracts. One with a city, one with a state and one with the federal government. They were not easy to obtain and required a lot of time and energy to maintain. All of them required performance.

In all of these I had numerous inspectors and overseers from the agency we were contracted to do the work for. Were these inspectors always fair about their assignments and inspections? Did they seem silly about some of their rules and requirements? Yes in some cases they did.  But they were through, I’ll give them that.

 You don’t have enough time to listen to my stories about this. One example…I was written up and cited by the Department of Defense because we had punched a hole in the approval certificate for one of our employees holding a secret clearance for a government contract. It made no sense, but we still had to rectify the situation.

They inspected us from one end to the other to see if we were billing correctly, operating as was called for according to the contract and were we as a company fulfilling the terms and objectives of the contract. These inspections came regularly throughout the contact periods.

Today, we are besieged with daily doses of fraud and abuse in every state and in every agency. Voter fraud, dead social security recipients, charities without any offices or benefit to anyone other than its owner. And the list goes on day after day.

I’m tired of it, aren’t you?

A 24-year-old young man named Nick Shirley has started exposing massive amounts of fraud costing the US taxpayers billions of dollars. His life has been threatened, and he has been harassed in many places throughout the country. California has passed a law making it illegal to expose fraud and corruption in certain cases. Total insanity if you ask me. This kid should receive a medal, not fear for his life over exposing massive amounts of corruption in our system.

My question is simple, where were the auditors and agency supervisors who should have been monitoring these contracts and why did it only get exposed by Mr. Shirley? How do they get renewed year after year without producing any verifiable results?

In one case, a hospice provider billed over 57 million dollars before it came out that none of the people enrolled had died. Isn’t that the purpose of a hospice to care for the dying? Was this company some type of miracle worker group who managed to heal all of their patients. I think not. Hospices should not have folks getting healed and walking out, these are facilities where terminally ill patients go to spend their last days. They are not recreation centers.

In another situation, he found a charity that had received 87.9 million tax dollars and was on record as having 7900 members receiving services. His visit to the facility proved otherwise in a short period of time. Even the employees said the number was incorrect, but they were still billing $1600 for each member each year.   

Obviously both children’s and adult day care facilities should have a physical presence other than a restaurant or a bakery address. It also should have children or older adults with supervisors. It should not be closed to anyone asking for information on how to enroll their child or elderly adult. Enrollment applications should be readily available if asked for. The person asking for this information should not be treated in a hostile manner or asked to leave. Nor should they be threatened by police action or bodily injury if they don’t leave the building.

Where are the contract auditors for these billions of tax dollars. Why did it take a civilian young man to bring this to our attention? Where is the Dept. of Justice or regulatory agency? Once these contracts get approved and started, who does the follow-up to determine if they are effective and operating in accordance with the terms spelled out in the contracts?

All of us can tune into the congressional hearing of the day for which we can watch a total clown show in which nothing gets accomplished except camera time for the participants. Any congressperson asking a question is often answered with a vague response or the famous line.... ‘I’ll have to get that information and get back to you on that.’ Which of course never happens. Some of these participants cannot recall their annual salary or any statistic relating to their operational responsibility. Most of the information is readily available on the internet if it is needed for review. None of these people are minimum wage employees, although they should be, in my opinion. If you don’t know the basics about your agency or your department, perhaps the Golden Arches could take you on as a fry cook.

I have written and asked these questions of our members of congress, both in the senate and the house without any explanation. The same as any inquiry to the FBI.

Oh, you get a nice letter back with glowing praises for having contacted their office and how much they appreciate taking the time to write, but these letters are generic in nature and can cover any topic being questioned. Most likely produced by some low-ranking employee or intern. They never answer any direct questions,

and you get sugar coated responses such as these:

“We are looking into those kinds of problems”.

“It was so good of you to bring this to my attention.”

“We are making progress in these issues”.

“If I need more information, I will call on you to help”.

Blab…Blab…Blab

As you might expect nothing gets done and the fraud and abuse marches onward.

Elected politicians should be put on notice that we are tired of this and want to see results, not words from paper tigers.

Show us some backbone and do something to instill confidence in our government.

We are losing our patience with you.

 

See you next week….Peary Perry

 

 

 

TRUISMS

 

When I started writing these blogs many years ago, I often identified little things I called ‘truisms’ or ‘Perry’s law’. These are just little quirks in life that we all seem to encounter from time to time. What’s amazing is how true they are and how often they do actually happen. For example, last night I was on my way to a meeting. If you’re even a few minutes late, you can bet the traffic will get worse and you’ll never be on time. On the other hand, if you’re early, the traffic is almost always very light and you are guaranteed to arrive far too early. If this happens in the mornings, you will always have time for at least four cups of coffee which should make you hyper in time for your people to arrive. Packing for a trip is always a challenge for me. If you take too many shirts or whatever …you can rest assured you won’t need all of them. However, if you take only exactly what you think you’ll need …. you will always need more than you packed due to a spill or rip of some sort. Try scheduling an event, the ones you thought won’t attend always will and those you thought would attend...won’t. The movie you wanted to see (even though it got bad reviews) is always full and the one you swore not to see (it got great reviews) is the only one available. When you go to a new restaurant to try out something special you can bet they will be sold out of this item. Last but not least….the pictures you didn’t care about saving always turn out great and the ones you wanted either get deleted or ruined. Here’s another list of these I’ve managed to obtain over the years: Law of Mechanical Repair - After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to use the bathroom. Law of Gravity - Any tool, nut, bolt, screw, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner. Law of Probability -The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of your act. Law of Random Numbers - If you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal and someone always answers. Law of the Alibi - If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the very next morning you will have a flat tire. Variation Law - If you change lines (or traffic lanes), the one you were in will always move faster than the one you are in now (works every time). Law of the Bath - When the body is fully immersed in water, the telephone rings. Law of Close Encounters -The probability of meeting someone you know increases dramatically when you are with someone you don't want to be seen with. Law of the Result - When you try to prove to someone that a machine won't work, it will. Law of Biomechanics - The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the reach. Law of the Theater and Hockey Arena - At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last.  They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies, and stay to the bitter end of the performance.  The aisle people also are very surly folk. The Coffee Law - As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, someone will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold. Murphy's Law of Lockers - If there are only two people in a locker room, they will have adjacent lockers. Law of Physical Surfaces - The chances of an open-faced jelly sandwich landing face down on a floor are directly correlated to the newness and cost of the carpet or rug. Law of Logical Argument - Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. Law of Physical Appearance - If the clothes fit, they're ugly. Law of Public Speaking - A closed mouth gathers no feet. Law of Commercial Marketing Strategy - As soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it. Doctors' Law - If you don't feel well, make an appointment to go to the doctor, by the time you get there you'll feel better. But don't make an appointment, and you'll stay sick. And finally, the funny noise your car makes always stops about a block before you get it to the repair shop. Or begins again on your way back home. See you next week…..Peary Perry