Let’s Talk Quality

It’s winter. It’s been snowing. The weather has been cold, mild, cold, thawed out, frozen over again, wet snow, dry snow, winter. The roads are a mess. By the time the plow/sanders come by the snow on the road is already packed down by traffic till it’s ice. This makes for treacherous driving. Of course, there was a time when putting snow tires on the car helped the wheels grip the road some better, but apparently those days are gone.
We have four snow tires on the car. Used to be four all season radials was good enough. Then putting snow tires on the front (front wheel drive) was an ample safety measure. Now there’s four snow tires on there .... and you wouldn’t know it. Geez, hit an icy patch on the right and the tire slides right off instead of going over it. But of course, when there’s an oncoming car, you have to move over and make room, because the sander has only sanded the middle of the road. (Remember when they did both sides?) Sure, everyone wants to drive on the sand, but when you’re passing an oncoming car, it’s move over or crash. One wheel on the sand has to do.

So I steer the car with the snow tires on up onto the icy track, and it slides off. That won’t do, so up onto the ice I steer again. It slides off, or tries to as I stubbornly wrestle the car back up onto the icy track, at least till the other car safely passes. But geez, up, slide, up, slide ~ the hood of the car is bobbing up and down like the bow of a boat in a three-foot swell. A person could get sea sick just driving to town.

Where did these snow tires come from? Where were they made? More to the point, what are they made with? Because I’m sure the same material used to make those treads is also used to coat the bottoms of toboggans to make them slip and slide better and faster.

Let’s face it, it isn’t just happening with tires. Does anybody else remember when our mechanics could turn the brake rotors at least once to make them last longer? No more. Score the thin rotors available now and they’re done. Sure, they’re cheaper, but what isn’t? Especially in the quality meaning of the word.

Crap. It’s all crap. Used to be it was odd to encounter a mistake with a product, now we can take for granted that something will be wrong. Cheap labour. Cheap production. Cheap product. Even if you try to find and pay for good quality, it just isn’t there. Just kind of isn’t worth buying stuff anymore. Oh well. I guess that’ll save money, won’t it? Problem is, what’ll I do when I need to replace something I really need, like these snow tires? Hmmm... maybe I could have a local craftsman carve me some out of wood. Won’t be any slipperier than the ones on there now, I’m sure.

The Ying and Yang of Computer Technology

Computers: very much a mixed blessing. I mean, I love the idea, because it allows me to research and reach out into the world to learn new things and talk to all kinds of people. The computer allowed me to find out what was wrong with me in a society where doctors are either unavailable or content to tell patients it’s all in their head. Gluten. Simple. Don’t eat it. Thank you computer!

My old computer wouldn’t do all these things for me. I mean, I guess computer years are a lot like dog years. It was over ten years old. Not just old, but decrepit. It wouldn’t do Facebook or Twitter, wouldn’t even stay online for very long. I’d be going along, looking for things, and the computer would just.... I dunno... burp? And I’d suddenly be offline. Like an old man... when the burps and farts start, and the waistline starts to creep toward the armpits, it can no longer do the things it used to.

So I went out and got one of these newfangled laptops. Heh. Ok, I learned to type on an old Olivetti-Underwood manual typewriter. The school didn’t ever have to worry about the business equipment disappearing because even the captain of the football team couldn’t run off with one of those things. The keyboard has evolved over the years till it’s marginally different from the one I learned to type about 75 wpm on. Not only is it terribly flat, there are all kinds of keys I just don’t understand. I’m typing away, as I am now, and suddenly I’ll apparently tag a key I didn’t mean to. A little box will appear asking me if I really want to leave the page. I don’t, and this should be my chance to reverse the boo-boo, right? But no. It doesn’t wait for me to cancel. It’s gone. I’ve had the whole browser close on me. I have no idea what button I hit to do this. There’s all kinds of extraneous little buttons and symbols on this thing. And they do strange things. It took me months to discover how to turn off the É thing and get the ? back. I used to have to turn the whole thing off and start fresh. Came across it by accident. In fact “accident” seems to define my relationship with this newfangled thang.

I have to use a mouse, even though this came with one of the those built-in little finger pad thingies. I can’t use it, any more than I can wear a watch. I have a some sort of bizarre electrical field around me that makes things like that go wonky. Even just passing my hands over it has Twitter dancin', down, then up, then ZING, all around ~ dosie doe! So the bottom right hand corner of my newfangled ‘puter is already worn in spots from the mouse. I guess I should count myself lucky there was a place to plug it in. I had to go to lengths to get this thing to do dial-up. Hey, it’s not my fault there’s no better hook-up here. Primitive describes my living conditions a few different ways.

So, I have no problem with the concept of smaller, better computers. I mean, innovation is great and more compact works for me. But what are cookies and why are there some in my computer? Aren’t the crumbs bad for it? Why do I have to delete or enable them? And how do I do that? And Twitter.... oh Twitter. I thought that was something only birds could do. But my daughter showed me how and it was fine until some techy type who didn’t have enough to do decided it needed to be improved. The new Twitter is not the better Twitter. It’s slow... ponderously slow. I have to switch back to old Twitter to hold a conversation. It doesn’t tell me who retweeted my tweet so I can thank them. (The old Twitter does.) I can’t even check out new followers on the new one. Won’t even load. Simplicity was the very beauty of old Twitter, but they’ve “improved” it. {sigh}

The idea of Twitter was already a bit of a love/hate thing. I mean, I get it. Let’s keep our comments brief and to the point. It’s a mental exercise in brevity for sure, especially for someone who comes from the age of “why use 20 words to express a thought when 40 will do just as well.” Some people are really good at expressing both hilarity and profundity in 140 characters or less. I admire them. I’m still a little intimidated by this limitation, but I’m getting there. But please, make the new Twitter more like the old Twitter. Or here's a thought... call it an interesting experiment and forget it? Pull....eeeeze!

So yeah, I always say it, there are pros and cons to everything. Ying and Yang.. and computers. And one frustrated ol’ lady at the controls who's wondering what the heck will be next. Beware.

Extremism is Bad - Empathy, Good

Yesterday I tweeted “extremism is bad,” along with the words, “take the middle road.” It’s pretty unusual for me to tweet sweeping generalizations, but I felt pretty safe here, because of course, I had extremism such as Al Qaida and other religious and political extremism in mind. And I was advocating that we try harder to understand and empathize with one another, rather than taking extreme views that tend to drive us apart and even breed resentment, hate and violence. But of course, who could know that?

First I got a tweet from a young musician saying that extremism is fun. Ok. In this age of extreme sports and wild living, I can see what she means. I was young once. I remember that. Then I got a tweet from a SAHM who is homeschooling an autistic child, who may have misunderstood my intent and the exchange, and who also thinks her life is pretty extreme. Ok. Being a sometimes working, sometimes SAHM (stay at home mom) to an aspie whom I homeschooled, I can certainly understand where she is coming from too. Been there; done that.

Hmmm.... ok, how about All Generalizations are Bad? (This, of course, is satire. Think about it.) So ok, this is where the empathy comes in. I don’t think the young musician needs to change her response, even if it seems insensitive to some, because she’ll get there. Life has a knack of taking care of that youthful exuberance and light-hearted way of seeing all things. I'm for letting her enjoy it while she's young. The mom? Well, I fully understand the intense pressure cooker she’s living in, so I’ll cut her some slack too. This is called empathy. Something many of us could all use more of.

When I was a young woman, I had my fun and adventure too. I hitchhiked much of the way across Canada to see some of my country. I wanted to see how the other half lived, but I wasn’t attracted by the world’s richness, such as the Taj Mahal, castles, cathedrals or even Graceland. No, to learn more about the half that interested me, I travelled north on the Muskeg Express, a very old train with oil lamps on the walls between the windows, which opened, and the tracks visible when you raised the toilet seat. I visited several Metis settlements to take pictures and learn something about life and people. And I did, all of this and then some. I was right there with the residents when that crate of fruit came in on the train. Oh, it wasn’t the fruit we were anxious for... it was those little paper wrappers on it. Everyone wanted a share of those for the outhouse. Soft. I spent an evening in a smoke filled log cabin with an old man who's only defense against the bugs was a smudge fire. I listened, I photographed, I laughed and I learned. I wanted a photo of the train coming into the station, and I wanted it straight on. So there I was on the track as it pulled in, trying to focus my camera, when I suddenly realized I had a wide angle lens on there, and the train was much closer than it appeared through the viewfinder.

So yeah, I had my own extreme fun and adventure when I was young. When I think about it, I realize I'm probably lucky to even be here. Later, I became a mom to a beautiful baby girl who was eventually diagnosed with some challenges, so I’ve had those impossible days of extreme stress as a homeschooling mom too. Yeah, I know life can sometimes be extremely challenging.

Still, the kind of extremism I was referring to that’s so bad, that’s the hate and violence in our world. Perhaps the human age is unfolding as it must, but sometimes I just wish more people would learn compassion and empathy. But as I like to say, what good is a light without a dark to shine it on? And the middle road I spoke of? I guess in this instance, that's what empathy is.