The Zenzoid Files

Had an interesting phone call today.

“I got a Kitchenaid wall oven and the door is locked closed after I ran the clean cycle. I called Kitchenaid and they said to call you.”

Since I’m the authorized Whirlpool/Kitchenaid servicer in the area, Kitchenaid referred him to me.

“Yes, I can fix this for you. May I have your name, sir?”

He told me his name. I remembered him from another job I did for him previously. An older guy and his wife. She seemed ok, but he was a real peculiar sort. The kind you read about in Tales from the Dark Side. I replaced the condenser fan motor in his Sub-Zero refrigerator.

“I had another fellow out here a while back,” he continued, “but I didn’t want to call him again because I don’t think he knew what in the hell he was doing!”

“Really?” I replied. “What did he work on?”

“He did something to my Sub-Zero and since then it’s been running too long.”

Now this was a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into the mind of a customer. He obviously didn’t remember me but, oh, how I remember him. I was there twice, once to diagnose and then returned with the fan motor to do the repair. Each time I had one of my kids with me (I usually take one of my kids with me on service calls). They still shudder when the they think of walking in that house. How to describe it; let’s see, ever been in the back room of a mortuary, where they embalm the bodies? That’s what this house felt like. We were all a little creeped out by it.

“Running too long?” I queried. “Well, why didn’t you call me back to see if it was something related to the repair I did, which was to replace the condenser fan motor?”

After a bit of a pause…

“That wasn’t you, was it?” he asked, sounding a little unsure of himself. “We were very upset with you!”

“It certainly was,” I replied. “I remember the job vividly. You called me out because your refrigerator was making a loud vibrating noise. I found the condenser fan to be bad and replaced it. Are you telling me that the refrigerator is making noise again?”

“No,” he replied, “it just seems to run too long.”

“‘Seems to run too long?’ And so rather than call me to even ask me about it, you just stewed on it and bad-mouthed me to everyone you know. That about right?”

“Well, everytime you come over you charge us just to walk in the door,” he exclaimed, sounding defensive.

And he should be defensive because now he was flat-out lying.

“Mr. Stanley, you know that’s not true,” I declared. “I charge one flat fee for any repair that’s completed to your satisfaction and I tell people that fee right on the phone, when they call for service. The only thing added to that fee is the cost of parts. And I warranty my work for one year, parts and labor, with a lifetime warranty on workmanship.”

A longer pause…

“So, what about my wall oven?” he finally asked.

“I’m afraid you’ll need to call someone else to take care of that for you,” I replied. “You’re obviously a customer who can’t be pleased. And I’m not going to give you another thing to bad-mouth me about. At least this way, the worst you can say about me is that I refused to come out. But I’m telling you that straight up instead of weaseling out. Most appliance techs have been so abused by customers like you who put them under the witch hunt the moment they walk in your house that they no longer have enough self-respect to just say ‘no’ to customers like you. So they’ll either grovel in a futile attempt to please you or tell you they’ll show up, but don’t, and then not answer the phone when you call to find out where they were. Have a nice day.”

And I hung up.

This conversation reveals everything that’s wrong with the appliance repair trade. Appliance techs are already behind the eight ball the moment they walk in the customer’s house. Most people have been conditioned by 60 Minutes and other tabloid TV shows to view appliance repair techs as morally deficient cretins whose main objective with a service call is to screw the customer.

Granted, there are lots of charlatans and cretins out there, like this jive-turkey from Sears A&E. I get horror stories everyday by email or in the repair forum. But overwhelmingly, the vast majority of independent appliance servicers are conscientious and highly skilled tradesmen who’ve invested thousands of hours learning the basic skills, keeping up with the new models, and honing their craft in the field. In fact, to be good at appliance repair, you need both excellent mechanical and electrical skills. To do it right, you need a more diverse and technically demanding set of skills for appliance repair than you do for any of the other skilled trades.

But the problem is one of perception; some of it self-inflicted, but most of it just a cultural thing. Plumbing and household electrical wiring are all hidden behind walls and so are mysterious, almost magical things. But people work with their appliances everyday and so acquire the false sense that they must be easy to fix. They don’t know what they don’t know. Think about that: most people don’t know what they don’t know, but think they know it all.

The other factor working against appliance repair as a viable trade is the “how much is a new one?” syndrome. People look at what it costs to buy a new appliance and, in their muddled little brains, use that as the measure for what it should cost to fix it. Any ‘tard can see that banging out a washer in a prison-camp factory in China has nothing to do with what it costs to have a skilled and trained appliance technician drive to your home and fix it. Ah, but facts are stupid things, as the Gipper used to say.

But perception is reality and it’s that perception, along with the super cheap appliances available today, that have doomed the appliance repair trade. I said “have doomed” because it’s already done; the rest is just a long, slow swan song. I’m going on record here and now to declare that the appliance repair trade is dead.

The next mega-trend in appliance repair is do-it-yourself. The Internet has made this possible. Sites like this one and excellent online parts houses, like RepairClinic empower almost anyone with a pulse with the know-how to repair their own appliances. But even this do-it-yourself trend will extinguish at some point. Without skilled and experienced techs, you wouldn’t have do-it-yourself websites– how could you? Who’s gonna be around to write pearls of wisdom or answer questions from grasshoppers in the repair forum?

But, dontchoo go frettin’ none– as long the fermented nectar is flowin’, I’ll keep right on goin’. Yee haw!

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Here’s the latest news alert from the White Mountain National Forest ranger station. Read all about road closures, bridge washouts, and other news that affects recreational backcountry access to the WMNF. (pdf file, 140k)

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Celebrating another day… on Paxil.

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We’re all hearing about this H5N1 avian flu that’s gonna kill us all. I personally think it’s bogus. While I’m sure H5N1 is a real virus, I am equally certain that the stories of massive casualties are way overblown, a la SARs. It’s yet another bogus plot to make us fearful, separated from each other, and compliant. And to sell more vaccines! Here’s more information from journalist John Rappaport. (mp3, 14mb)

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In this fifth Thanksgiving Day of the new millennium, I am filled with gratitude and thanks for cheating death another day. Life is the greatest gift of all and we tend to get so bogged down by the frustrations and minutia of day-to-day living that we lose sight of the bigger picture. That’s the really cool thing about Thanksgiving– regardless of your religion or personal philosophy, Thanksgiving is a day that calls each of us to step back from the tasks in our lives and to simply be grateful that we are alive. And it’s not even about being thankful for all the toys and crap we have in our lives, it’s about being thankful for Life itself and for that little spark of Life that infuses and animates the being of every living creature in the universe. As humans, we have a unique relationship with Life because we alone have the capacity to be grateful and thus enter into a unique and personal relationship with Life. And because we all share the same Life, regardless of our religion, ethnicity, or race, we are literally brothers and sisters.

My human brothers and sisters, let us lay aside our petty differences and earthly cares, even if only for this day, and recognize that we are all connected simply by virtue of being alive.

Lord, it is good to be here.

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Is martial law imminent in Amerika today? The Bushies and the Pentagon are pushing Congress to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Mary Maxwell has written a brief Q and A on martial law. Well worth the read, makes you wonder.

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It’s so weird being a father. I suddenly find myself middle-aged (when the frill did that happen?). How did I, an almost 46-year old, native Southerner and firm believer in the Just Cause of the Confederacy, end up here in Yankee New England with three of the coolest kids on the planet, a beautiful wife who loves me - understands me - puts up with me, and a really cool canine hiking companion? This ain’t one of those drippy navel-gazing, “why me?” things. No, I look out at the scum all around me and I know that, while I’m plenty screwed up in my own ways, at least I’m a functional scum. Actually, that was said for purely comedic effect. Not that comedic, I know, but it was experimental and you were part of the experiment. How’s it feel to be my little guinea pig? SooooWEEEEE!

A writer’s voice need two key ingredients to be “Authentic:”

1. Truth: it needs to be true to the author’s own voice. This is hard to describe but a rough analogy would be the difference between describing a dangerous series of actions from experience or by just using your imagination. The schlump speaking from experience will always have the more compelling tale.

2. Full: it’s not enough to express just part of your truth, you have to express the fullness of your being for your written voice to be experienced as authoritative. I even question whether or not it matters what in the hell that voice is saying as long as it’s faithful to the truth of the person who utters it. Could be something really freaky and weird, but that may really be who that person is. And knowing who someone really and truly is, well, that’s extremely compelling to most of us. We are wired to want communion with God and each other. That’s just how we’re made. Those of you in denial of this fact are probably taking some type of SSRI for depression and mood swings– that’s what happens when you deny (or ignore, even though you always had a nagging suspicion that it’s there) the root of your being.

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Holy shi’ite, Batman, it’s 1984 in Ameedika!

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We’re almost finished with the new addition to our house. Here’s what it sounds like:

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Hiking this time of year is always tricky. You’re never quite sure whether to gear up for winter or just a cold Autumn day. And selecting the correct gear can be, in the best case, the difference between a great hike and a sucky one or, worst case, could mean an unintentional bivouac on the mountain. The problem is that the conditions at the base can be radically different from the summit conditions.

For this hike, the base conditions at the Lincoln Woods Trailhead were warm (50’s) and calm winds with barely any snow. I wasn’t sure which hiking boots to wear so I brought both my summer boots (Garamonts– light weight, glorified sneakers) and my winter boots (Columbia Bugabootos– heavy duty, insulated, water-proof boots). At the trailhead, I opted for the Columbia Bugabootos in anticipation of snow and slush.

As it turns out, I was half right, meaning I could have gone either way on the boot decision. The first three miles of the ascent up the Osseo Trail, I was regretting having worn my heavy winter boots as my feet were uncomfortably warm and soggy feeling. Above 3,000 feet, however, the snow cover became continuous with many hidden slush holes in the trail. Had I worn the Garamonts, no doubt my toes would have been cold and maybe damp, too. But I’m sure I could have managed just fine.

The summit was about 20 degrees colder with a raging wind that ripped your breath away and made it difficult to open your eyes very much if you didn’t have goggles (which I didn’t). But the visibility conditions at the summit were stunning and I did manage to get this video from the summit of Mt. Flume.

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Here’s the real scoop on this threat to break up the Internet. The GloboFascists are still soiling themselves after the rejection of the EU by the Dutch and now the French. Do you suppose that the Grand Council of Illuminati Poobahs got a little ticked with France and had some of its agent provocateurs stir the domestic pot in the homeland. Hmm, one does wonder, doesn’t one? And would two wonder twice as much?

So, why bring up all the civil unrest unpleasantness? Because that’s precisely why the neo-Napoleans desperately need to disrupt a unified, grassroots communications system, a la the Internet. Do you see why this is so?

All dictatorships are the domination of the many (The Sheeple) by the few (the GloboFascists). In order for this improbable state to persist, in defiance, by the way, of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the GloboFascists need to have complete control over the information that the Sheeple get. For, if the Sheeple were to suddenly catch on and see the GloboFascists for what they really are– petty little control freaks who also fit the profile of child molesters– the Sheeple would turn and trample them underfoot.

But history shows that, over and over, the Sheeple are easy to manipulate with fear. The time-honored tactic is thesis-antithesis-synthesis; that is:

Thesis: create a crisis, doesn’t matter how “real” it is, it’s just gotta be believable enough to fool the tube-heads out there,

Antithesis: conveniently, have just the right solution on hand like, oh, maybe a Patriot Act?

Synthesis: A new paradigm is established in the mind of the Sheeple. Reality is a mental construct and so people create their own prisons… and let other people create those prisons for them. Each Thesis-Antithesis pair moves the accepted mental paradigm of the Sheeple a step closer to accepting total control and manipulation of their lives, i.e., global plantation.

So, if “they” do bust up the Internet, then you know we’re getting to ‘em and they’re freaking out. Unfortunately for all the Sheeple and GloboFascists in this sick little game, history also teaches that these types of unhealthy relationships always end badly, usually with both sides holding towels to their rear ends while they hobble out of the locker rooms, kicked out and treated shamefully by an outside team that swept in out of nowhere. Or, something like that; you get the idea.

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ecto: what’s the payoff from giving this software access to my hardrive?

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David MacGregor:

“The greatest threat to our freedom today is not terrorism, but what governments are doing to counter this perceived terrorist threat. Let me say that again. Terrorism is not the real danger we face, it’s what governments around the world are doing to make us ’safe.’ … Terrorists do not have a grievance against Microsoft, General Motors or KFC. They do not have a grievance against your local supermarket. They do not have a grievance against YOU or your family. They have a grievance against your government.” (11/08/05)

Link to original article.

A great illustration of how gubmint solutions almost always create more problems than they solve. But war is the health of the state, as Randolph Bourne puts is so succinctly. So making enemies out of middle eastern guys is a great way to cause the sheeple to huddle together, bleeting and baaaaing for Big Brother to protect them from “the boogey man” which, by the way, Big Brother created by being Israel’s beeotch.

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NewsFactor
by Mark Long

“The call has sounded for the creation of an international body to govern the Internet as a global resource. Such a move is expected to draw fierce opposition from the U.S., which holds firm to the belief that any change in the status quo would jeopardize the Internet’s ability to function as a medium of free expression. When the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society convenes in Tunisia later this month, participants will take up the banner of extending ‘the benefits of the new telecommunication technologies to all the world’s inhabitants.’ But that somewhat innocuous stated purpose gives little clue as to what is really at stake: control of the Internet.” (11/08/05)

Link to the original story.

Typical: American treasure and toil created and built the internet and turned it into a huge economic engine so now the Globo-Fascists want to control it. What they really want is complete and total control over every aspect of your life, including what nutritional supplements you take.

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Yahoo! News

“San Franciscans have voted to outlaw private pistol packing with a ban that called for handgun owners to surrender their weapons to police. The politically powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) vowed on Wednesday to shoot down the ban with a lawsuit charging that it violates the Constitutional right of US citizens to bear arms.

Gun control advocates lauded the San Francisco disarmament measure that won the support of 58 percent of voters in Tuesday’s vote. The measure made it illegal for anyone other than police, military or licensed private security officers to own handguns. It also banned the manufacture and sale of all firearms and ammunition in the city.” (11/09/05)

http://tinyurl.com/8zs5e

I’m sure all the crackheads and gangbangers are gonna just run right down to the precinct and turn in their guns. What the hell are people thinking who vote for this feeble-minded, feel-good pap?

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Had a glorious hike up Mt. Garfield couple weeks ago. Beautiful blue skies with a light frosting of snow and rime ice on the summits. It was, how do you Ameedicans say, “et tu, beautay.” You can click the pics below for a larger view.

Also made a little 30-second Quicktime movie at the summit in a semi-successful attempt to convey the exceptionally dazzling views.

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RE: my previous rant on the hard drive crash in my Apple iBook.

Well, the local Apple store tells me they couldn’t find anything wrong with the hard drive. Did I call it, or what? Sometimes, I can see the future so clearly that I think I must be one o’ them psychotics. So, I drove up to Lebanon for a little tête-â-tête with the technicians. You know, as one brother in The Craft to another, joined by that unspoken, yet almost-palpable bond of fierce dedication and loyalty that all those blessed with being practitioners of the repairing arts have for one another.

So they knew I wasn’t you’re average numb-nutz who who barely knows how to turn it on and they agreed to replace the hard drive under warranty anyway. That’s cool, and the right thing to do. Sucks that I had to make a second trip to the Apple store to make it happen instead of it being handled with a phone call.

Developing…

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If you’re looking for a special ecard to send someone and you’re sick of the same old pap from all the usual suspects– Blue Mountain, American Greetings, Hallmark, etc.– then check out these elegant and original ecards made by my very own priest, Fr. Andrew Tregubov. He and his wife are ‘world-famous iconographers and all the artwork on these cards are their original artwork. And they actually produce the physical cards themselves right there at the rectory with their own equipment! Come git you a few boxes of their original cards ratcheer.

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So, after all the bragging I did about how awesome and stable the Mac OSX platform is compared to Windows, my new 14″ iBook shat the bed!

It was on my desk, sleeping soundly and had been undisturbed for a couple days. I opened it up and everything looked normal. Got a notice to update my OS software to 10.4.3. I downloaded the mondo, 97 mb upgrade file and got an error message that it couldn’t install– it was one of those ominous, unknown errors.

“Aw, hell,” I thought, “better cinch up my a azz-strap ’cause this is sure to be one wild ride.” And I wasn’t disappointed, either. I was up all night long trying the different useless tricks at Apple’s iBook support site Did the hardware diagnostic routine– everything checked out. Ended up having to re-install the operating system from the CD. Still not sure if I saved all my files or not.

So, after this enormously time-wasting ordeal, I must ax myself, “Just what in the hell were you thinking when you got a Mac?” Ok, sure, Windows is a famously unstable platform. But in all the Windows machines I’ve owned (over half a dozen), I’ve never had one fail on me so soon and so catastrophically.

Conclusion: they ALL suck. They all steal your time. And, for the money and applications available, Windows machines are the better value.

UPDATE: Managed to boot up and install using the CD. I backed up the hard drive and then ran disk utility. Now the Mac volume was listed in red letters with with the S.M.A.R.T. status listed as “failing.” That’s end game for the one month old hard drive in this POS toy masquerading as a computer.

Next: I’ll chronicle what’s sure to be a Kafkaesque romp through corporate bureaucracy and retail store buck-passing in my attempt to get the hard drive replaced under warranty. Stay tuned!

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Whew! Lot’s of work moving into a new home. I decided I needed to take my non-appliance repair ravings out of my working website, Fixitnow.com. And what better place than Zenzoidman.com? So, to kick things off, I’ve imported all my posts from Fixitnow.com because there’s lots of goofy shit tucked in there that rightfully belongs here. Not that this site will be all goofy shit, though undoubtedly much of it will be; aside from humor bits, I’ll be posting libertarian commentary from myself and others, photos from my avocation, hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and still the occasional appliance repair post. This will leave my working, revenue-generating site more focused on the topic of appliance repair.

One thing you’ll notice is that the category on all the posts prior to this one is “Imported from Fixitnow.com.” That’s not nearly as exciting as knowing how it was imported. Since 2002, I’ve been using Blogger.com to run my working blog. Blogger had the benefit of being extremely easy to set up a blog and it’s find as long as you don’t have too many posts. But Blogger uses a static page system, meaning that any change you made to the template meant that you had to republish the entire blog in order for the change to take effect; fine for small blogs, a miserably long, often-frustrating experience for larger blogs that frequently had to be attempted multiple times before it completed. I was getting so disgusted with the whole process that I dreaded making a template change– something that can and should be done frequently, quickly, and easily; not possible with Blogger. Enter WordPress.

I found out about WordPress from my friend, Tim, who uses it for his blog. Going from Blogger to WordPress is like going from a skateboard to a Porsche. Installation of WordPress was literally one click through my control panel at my webhost, Dreamhost. And importing my Blogger posts was almost as painless using Andy Skelton’s import script and Catsutorial’s illustrated import guide.

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