Category: Interesting

I’ve been slow to post anything lately as I’m still working through the death of my wife. Thanks to “The Chief” for making the bulk of new content here lately.

I’m sorting my wife’s treasures and purging a lot of them. She valued things in terms of sentimentality and not cash value. Sadly, granddad’s ratty leather briefcase and grandma’s old dish towels don’t mean much to me, and thus didn’t make the cut. Her children generally don’t want anything. None of the three children has offered to help go through any of their mother’s stuff. I’m left to either store what I think they might like later or chuck it out.

I have a huge amount of stuff to scan this next winter. Thus far, I have scanned over 26,000 images that need review. Most were scanned and the originals were scrapped. Frankly, almost all of this stuff is meaningless unless the kids decide to be parents, then maybe their past will begin to have some significance. But right now, they have no future or thought of perpetuating the species. (In fairness, one child is looking at adoption but that is different than having your own offspring.)  The boys are seemingly content to spend their free time in front of small screens playing video games and having cyber friends in place of real relationships.

I have been fishing a few times in the last few weeks. I’ve caught trout in local rivers and bass in a local lake. I haven’t caught anything big, but I haven’t gotten skunked anywhere yet.

One project I’ve been working on is completing the railing for the deck. I bought the materials from Home Depot. Almost every box that has been delivered has been damaged. I have spent much time cleaning up the material so it can be used. I am still missing one box which should be delivered this week, or else I start complaining. I’ve been putting off the stair railing but may have to do that soon. (It’s the hardest so I have been saving it for last.)

I have set aside a small place near the front door for some photos of my wife. I’m lacking one more picture frame to complete this area. Meanwhile, the craft room is almost stripped bare, at least compared to how it looked before.

Th electricians have never finished the garage but I’m hoping that they will finish the job. It should only take one guy a day to finish what remains.

I’ve committed to connecting the upper stories of the house and garage. Hopefully my contractor can do the work as we discussed. I’m penciled in for August but that was before his daughter ran up $18K in medical bills. (The down side of not having medical insurance.) It was also before I decided to go to Ireland for two weeks.

Yep, I paid for a trip to Ireland. My wife made me promise to take a trip somewhere we would have enjoyed going together. I know I’m supposed to go because the recommended book to read prior to the trip is, “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” St Patrick is the best.

Anyway, that’s the highlights for now.

My initial comment here is that I have actually done this. What I have done will be different than for you but the principles that I express here will be helpful.

First you need to understand what the person was using as their main points of identity. In a world of two-factor identification, this is important to start closing accounts online. Apple or Microsoft or Google and perhaps Facebook are what I would consider the usual suspects. (Leave these accounts for last.) Also, knowing the PIN to get into a person’s cell phone is a must. Typically, this is a four-digit number.

Banking and Money

Start with financial stuff. Freeze the debit or credit cards. Close any accounts tied to a person’s bank. Amazon, PayPal, Venmo, eBay, etc. You don’t want anyone draining the bank account while you are doing other things.

Please note that bank accounts can create terrible experiences for spouses, trustees, and relations. Financial institutions will often freeze accounts, want to see a death certificates, and be made aware of a clearly defined successor to any accounts. My wife and I have a Trust and that removed a lot of obstacles in this area. My former next-door neighbor let her husband handle all the bills and when he died, the banks and credit cards froze all the liquid assets. She went over six weeks just to get control of her checking account. Meanwhile, no bills could be paid, and she couldn’t buy any food.

Subscriptions

Cancel subscription services: Netflix, Disney Plus, Discovery Plus, Max, Kindle, etc. Do this even if you want to keep them. Redo any streaming accounts in the name of a living person.

Photos, Documents, and the like

Once you close the financial accounts, you need to start unwinding the stuff on the cell phone. Archive photos, email, text messages, documents on the phone. Also, check the “cloud storage” from Google, One Drive, Dropbox, Apple, etc. Put what you want to keep on a PC or laptop. To access Android data, you can set up Blue Stacks on your computer. Then you can access copies of photos, text messages, contact lists, etc. It takes patience and computer skills to do this.

Concerning text messages, they can be backed up and copied to a PC; however, they are completely unreadable without restoring them to another cell phone or using third party software. I can see them in Google Messages via Blue Stacks but can’t print them, which is really frustrating. I found third party software that can print them but the text message file from my wife’s phone was over 4 GB, and the software can’t handle such a large file without crashing.

Facebook

The easiest account to close was Facebook; however, it takes some thought and preparation before you act. First you need to decide if you want to delete the account or have Facebook archive it. Either way, the contents of the account can be downloaded. This includes all photos posted, friend lists, and other stuff. Deleting the account is easy but there is another option. You can give control of the account to someone else. In the bowls of Facebook settings, it is possible to designate anyone on the friends list as a beneficiary. (Of course, FB calls this by another name.) The designated person can then go to their Facebook account and report that the person died. Before doing this, you will need a scanned copy of the death certificate. Fill out a simple form, again buried in the bowls of account settings, and be sure to attach the death certificate.

Reporting the death of a Facebook person and subsequent approval will lock the deceased person’s account, archive the account, and affix “In Memory of…” to the top of the FB page. This also givs the beneficiary control of the account. The beneficiary can post on the account, back it up, or delete it.

Root Accounts

There is a good chance that all or some phone data is backed up on Google, Microsoft, and/or Apple servers. Deleting these primary accounts will end any hope of data recovery. Use a tech savvy person to do this and then do a factory reset to the phone.

Final thought, Samsung no longer has their own cloud storage; instead, they piggyback it onto Microsoft’s One Drive. I am not clear if this is a stand-alone backup or part of the disk space allocated to Samsung users. Without a valid email account, you may not be able to access the data anyway. If you are extra paranoid, keep this in mind.

Have fun doing this. It took me a week and I’m not totally done, just at a comfortable place to stop … for now.

In this installment I will lay out a solution to our mental health crisis in the country. I again want to inform folks this part of my series is satirical in nature for one reason; none of these options are likely to ever become law.  In addition, some will likely think I am being overly mean in my commentary. My point of this series is not to attack those with actual mental illness, it’s the cheating scum who doctor shop so they too can ride the crazy train.

No weapons allowed: This applies to the entire household. Junior gets a diagnosis, it doesn’t matter who owns the guns, they must be turned over to authorities.  Any knife that isn’t a serrated blade as well. Too many crazies in the world right now. We have had enough shootings/killings.  Can’t take any more chances.  Nope you cannot keep it in a safe or at a relative’s house. If you’re on a pill or someone in your household is… it’s gone.  This will be made easier when the Sith Lord gets his way and the government maintains a national database for firearm ownership.

Mandatory mental health checkups: once every other week, by a trained, licensed professional.  Again, we cannot take chances here. We never know who the next person will be to open fire on a school/business/church etc.

TV viewing capped at one hour a day. Again, this is obvious. With the average person watching north of 8 hours a day, we cannot have you being brainwashed.  There is reality, and fantasy land, TV is mostly fantasy land.  The news makes people depressed and distressed. Depressed people are the ones who typically go on these rampages.

No more internet privacy: A copy of your browser history will be sent daily to your psychiatric caseworker for review.  Anything flagged will have you remanded to the psycho ward.  The dark web and other rabbit holes create a massive problem in this world. Remember, you are on a pill. You are not normal.  Internet time is also capped at 1 hour daily.  Again, like tv, too much brainwashing going on.

NO alcohol or drugs: legal or illegal. You will be wearing a monitor.  You are on a pill. We need to ensure that nothing interferes with the chemical balance of the body’s systems which the pill is trying to maintain.

Mandatory driving tests twice a year: Behind the wheel.  Unlike being innocent until proven guilty, here you need to prove you can drive safely twice a year.  Heck, have you seen the size/speed of some of these cars lately?  Yikes.

No voting: Again, if you are less of a citizen or crazy… no vote for you.

Mandatory inpatient care: Military style, one weekend a month, two weeks a year.  You are under evaluation, not simply going to a doctor and trying to get out of it.

Obviously the above will never be allowed to happen.  Truthfully, I do not even believe these would ever be voted in. The premise of this series is not to demean the folks who actually do have disabilities as they are actively seeking help.  I am going after the losers in the game of life you see from time-to-time that use the mental health card as a sympathy card.  My opinion is if you want the “benefits” of this condition, you must deal with the reality of our situation.  In the last few mass shootings in the US, it’s been done by a person with mental illness. In many cases, the FBI has been “right on the tail” of the shooter to no avail.  It was too late.  We can no longer take a chance.  This conservative has heard/seen enough of these. If you want to play the card, you must deal with the consequences.  No more shootings.

If these were to pass, watch the number of people with “mental health issues” plummet quickly.  The number of folks popping a “pill” will drop drastically.  Again, be healthy, be well. Put the tv remote down, stop scanning the internet, none of the news is good.  Touch some grass. No, not that kind! Go outside. Be barefoot. Enjoy the world that God made for us and quit being so self-focused and quit sheltering in place to avoid life.

The Chief

One disturbing trend occurring lately is the number of older people getting diagnosed with mental health issues.  I work with someone who squealed like a piglet to his urgent care… yes, urgent care doctor, and got put on a pill.  At first, he couldn’t be prouder of himself. He got what he wanted… unfortunately for him, he has no idea that if you mention mental health issues to your doctor he/she/they (for you CA republicans out there) is required to put you on something.  It’s a “cover your butt” for the physician in case you go postal.  I found out later that he told the doctor he picked out the knife to kill himself with. 

Welp, that’s one way to get on a pill. I think they should have held him for several days for a psych evaluation, but oh well.  He then found out he had to see a psychiatrist a handful of times, and obviously this angered him as his healthcare plan didn’t fully cover this.  My suspicions for this center around his likely sighting what he “saw on tv or read somewhere online” as his reasoning to be diagnosed.  If it sounds fishy to you, it likely sounded fishy to his provider, thus he was going to pay for part of it.  I overheard a couple phone calls regarding upcoming appointments and him trying to weasel his way out of them.  Again, he probably read about it or saw it on a fictional tv show but hey, it worked so why not try it right?

Like anything else that generation has become famous for, they want their cake, want to eat it too, then when the bill comes, claim there wasn’t enough frosting, and they shouldn’t have to pay.  It’s pathetic, but here we are.

I do not really get it. When I was young, you didn’t want to be labeled as being mentally unstable, but now it is like a badge of honor or some weird sympathy card.  It’s the latter. They want to play that card when things do not go their way.  It’s wild watching him play the card whenever there is trauma in his life, or he feels like avoiding something, but when things are well, he never mentions it.  The number of people in general claiming to have mental health issues is staggering. As I mentioned in part 1, its literally the go to… like a get out of trouble-free card. 

My favorite part in the saga was when he magically declared himself totally fine and healed and was going to go to this urgent care doctor and get off the pill.  I keep labeling the doctor because, in my humble opinion, the urgent care doctor seems to be a “take this and call your primary care physician if this continues” doctor, not someone who should be prescribing things.  Especially not prescribing/diagnosing mental health issues.  So, I feel this whole thing was an act to begin with.  He went there armed with plenty of internet articles and knowledge gained from various tv series episodes.  His plan likely would have worked, except for the detail about how he had planned on killing himself.  They don’t speak about this in fantasy TV land… no doctor will let you stop taking the pills when you admit that.  Risk is too high in this litigious society we live in.  Imagine the look on his face upon hearing that.  I have a feeling he went doctor shopping after that looking for a yes, but unlike on the latest tv episode, he found no one willing to play ball.

In closing this part, I will say this, how the mighty have fallen!  The same generation that called mine; crockpot kids, dumb, stupid, addicted to their phones, social media whores etc. is now going to be known for trying to get on mental health pills.  It’s bad.  I didn’t think they would go out like this but here we are. The generation that was all about self-individualism, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, make something out of nothing, is now trying to get free government pills.  What the heck happened?

The Chief

Disclaimer: This blog is targeting people who “doctor shop” to get diagnosed with a mental health issue, not the good people who actually have a mental health issue.  If you have a real issue, I hope you are able to find affordable help or services for your condition.  I wish only the best for you… to the folks who shopped around for a diagnosis, you are the worst type of people.

I remember as a child growing up, there would be maybe one student/child at school with a learning (mental health) disability.  Again, one whole child at the entire school!  I was always enrolled in private school, which tends to attract more special needs kids because class sizes are smaller, and they usually have a program specifically for them to tailor to their needs. 

As I grew older (High School & College years), suddenly more and more students were taking a pill.  It was typically Adderall which is prescribed to people who have a hard time focusing.  While this could be true, I always thought it was tied to being declared a “mental health issue.”  See, in High School and College, if you had any type of learning disability/mental health issue, you got added benefits other students didn’t enjoy.  Typically, the rules didn’t apply to you anymore. If you were late for class, acted out, etc., you were excused because you were considered a special needs student.  You also got unlimited time on tests/quizzes and got extended deadlines on reports.  It birthed the idea of an IEP (individual learning plan) and lowered an already low bar for education even lower.  Now having a special need is not seen as a liability, it’s seen as having benefits.  The number of “special needs” kids at my high school went from a couple to classrooms full when it came to final exam time.  At first, I thought it was just my generation trying to work the system… boy was I REALLY WRONG!

In my years since graduating, the special needs fraud has gotten far worse.  If you are accused of a crime, it’s now a priority to be declared special needs. Not only does it guarantee leniency, but it also likely results in dropped or dismissed charges.  If you want a medical marijuana card?  Just go doctor shopping, hell my sister got a doctor 3 counties over to issue her a diagnosis for a medical marijuana prescription for her monthly visitor.  NO one in this county or the surrounding ones would issue it, but head to Modesto, swipe your insurance information, and viola here you are.  Smoke and toke like Cheech and Chong, you’re good to go.

Lastly, in the last 10 years, I have no idea what happened.  The people old enough to be my parents started getting in on this.  They see it as the new “race card” that needs to be played when they are cornered.  Suddenly people in their 60s are claiming mental health or “brain fog.”  They shop for a doctor and get put on a pill.

In the next installment I’ll speak about the older generation and “mental health.”

Part 1/ 3.

In an effort to reduce the amount of physical stuff we have in our house; my winter project is to scan the photos that we have accumulated. As I see it, my job at this point is not to cut or cull stuff just reproduce it digitally.

Folks, this is a daunting task. I started in January with two boxes of my stuff which were mostly photo albums. The rest of it belongs to my wife. She has boxes from both her grandmothers plus her mom plus her stuff. I started with 8 boxes. There are more boxes that may have stuff in them but you gotta start somewhere.

During January, I finished going through about two and a half boxes. Thus far I have the following to report: 13,447 individual files and 159 gigabytes of storage space. There’s actually more but you get the idea. The age of the photos is about a 100-year span from the 1890’s to 1990’s. In addition, there are newspaper clippings, recipes, diaries, and other stuff.

One of the unique things in and amongst all this stuff are scrapbooks that seem to have their origin with people of limited means. One type of scrapbook from some distant relative was created from an existing book and that was covered on every page with clippings from various newspapers. Not only do you get deaths and births but entries into social pages, news articles, and a host of other things that seemed important to the person that created the book. Some are scrapbooks with five or six columns of articles on each page: front and back. The box I’m working in now has a few of these in the bottom. They look to be very labor intensive to scan. In fact, I may have to buy a book scanner to do them. I won’t really know until I start on them, probably next week.

To do this project, I’m using an Epson photo scanner (Model FF-680W). It works great but needs constant cleaning. This scanner does both front and back of photos. In addition, it also tries to auto-correct color. I am also using a multifunction HP printer/scanner (Officejet Pro 7740). Most photos have been done at 1,200 dpi and other things have mostly been 600 dpi. I am using both the Photo app in Windows 11 and ACDsee photo software. The software is mostly for cropping and touching up the things that I scan.

An example of what I’m scanning is Grandma’s scrapbook for the 1946 road trip to Glacier National Park, Canada, Utah, and other parts of the West. She has 109 pages for this road trip with receipts, postcards, personal photos, handwritten narrative of each day and so forth.

Not only is it an insight into my wife’s family but also a glimpse at post-war America. An additional ten pages in the scrapbook were for a much shorter trip in 1947. This scrapbook yielded 660 files.

I know I won’t complete this project before spring, but I hope to make a dent in the pile.

Next, I will need to tag people in the photos and try to sort them by year. Part of this will allow the first cutting of unknown people out of the pile. This is afterall a genealogy project, at least in part. Of course, if the children don’t get going with grandchildren, then this project will lose much of its importance.

I must say that I have a greater appreciation for the resilience and determination of past generations as a result of this project. I have so little information about my own family that to see another that did try to give to the next generation evokes many emotions in me.