Taking Your Camera on the Road

For those who remember the horrors I suffered in Israel as part of the ongoing Visa Dance , I have begun a new dance with the Alabama Power Company. And yes, it is another Visa Dance. The Dance never seems to end.

Here is a copy of my letter to them after HOURS spent yesterday trying to pay my new power bill.

As a new customer, I am beyond furious at the completely lousy service when it comes to paying my new power bill.

I was told I could pay by credit card over the phone when I set up the account. The first bill arrived within days (before I got any other mail) of establishing service requiring payment within 5 days. I thought this was a little severe and immediate, but a phone call would pay the bill and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Not true.

I called the company and found out that in order to pay by credit card I have to call another company and pay an additional fee for the “privilege” of paying by credit card.

The only method to pay, I was told, was in person, by check in the mail, or through the web page. Customer service told me I could pay through the web site with my credit card and no extra charges. I got the specific information I would need to do so and visited the web site immediately.

Wrong again.

I went through the whole process only to finally read the small print that says “credit cards not accepted at this time” and was stuck having to dig out some checks I haven’t used for more than 5 years (living on the road, everything is handled by web and credit cards today) and fill in the information for automatic check withdrawal.

Thinking that the bill was now paid and I could get on with my work and life, a screen comes up thanking me for signing up for automatic withdrawal and that it will take 30-40 days to go into effect. WHAT????

I haven’t paid my bill at all!!!

According to customer service on the phone, the only other choice is to mail in a check or show up in person somewhere to pay the bill.

This is totally outrageous and completely unprofessional. Besides providing power to the community, it is the responsibility of the company to accept payment for such services. Your inability to conveniently do so is in an easy manner is completely irresponsible.

Having lived all over the world and the United States, I’ve never had so much trouble to pay any utility bill.

For others like myself, would you please get your act together and make paying by credit card and by phone or web page more convenient. This has been the method of paying for decades, so why should it be so hard to do it here in Alabama? Unbelievable.

And the dance continues….
Mobile, Alabama

As we are learning about new technology with our move back to the states and having to make new decisions on that technology, we have to learn the jargon. I found a great glossary of terms by Wireless Week on tons of terms related to Wireless and Wireless Networks. Enjoy!
Mobile, Alabama

I looked around at our pitiful excuse of a Christmasy home and realized that something I’ve taken for granted was missing. It’s absence actually hurt when I recognized it. Silliness. But still, it hurts.

We have no Christmas cards. I know it is silly, but living in Israel we rarely got an advertisement in the mail let alone a card from anyone until Christmas. Then the cards and end-of-the-year stories of the lives of our friends and relatives would start showing up. They’d slow down by February, since the mail takes so long to get there, but for three to four months I would actually be excited about the mail box. By the middle of February, the mail box would become empty and boring again and life would go on. Brent, if he remembered, would check it and pick up the odd bill or two once in a while and toss the occasional mail box stuffers trying to sell us kosher pizza with tuna and carrots on it. No, thanks.

The first two years of our life in Israel, I would use the cards as decoration, stringing lines along the shelves near the windows or between the two lamps on the far wall of the living room above the table. Later I would decorate the credenzas to fill as much space as possible with their colorful pictures and graphics. As the numbers dwindled during the five years, I would add the previous years’ cards to make it look like a lot of people cared, but more to add more color to the apartment. As I would put them away at the end of the season, I’d re-read each one and think about each person and how special it was to have the bestest of friends.

Since we just arrived and about two people know our address, and some don’t even know we’ve left Israel, we have no Christmas cards. Nothing. I don’t even have the Christmas cards from the past years to hang up to add some color and sparkle to the trailer.

It’s not that I feel neglected. My email inbox is overwhelmed and I’m trying desperately to keep up with all of the emails that piled up while we were traveling and waiting for our Internet line to be hooked up. I’m not neglected. I just miss the signs of caring, the signs of Christmas for us, and the color.

With the increase in email as a way to communicate, I hope the art of the Christmas card doesn’t die off. They bring such a smile.

As for me, maybe I’ll go to the dollar store and get some cheap cards and pretend they are the ones that came from friends. I know you are all thinking about us, many of you missing us a lot more than others as you become accustomed to our absence. We’re thinking about you a lot, too, and I mailed off notes and gifts to you over the past couple of weeks in between travels and travails. And I’m working my fingers to the bone writing emails, too.

Still, I didn’t realize how much I’d miss them. Hmmm.
Mobile, Alabama

According to a report featured on CNN, 10 percent of all bird will be extinct by the end of this century. The information comes from a report compiled by a team at Stanford University in California. They report that climate and environmental change shows that at least 1,200 species of birds will be gone by 2100.

Only 1.3 percent of bird species have gone extinct since 1500, the report says, and the global number of individual birds is estimated to have experienced a 20 percent to 25 percent reduction during the same period.

According to CNN, “In November the World Conservation Union reported that it found 12 percent of all bird species were threatened with extinction, along with nearly one-fourth of the world’s mammals, a third of amphibians and 42 percent of all turtles and tortoises.”

Should we be worried? Nah.
Mobile, Alabama

After much tearing apart the trailer to figure out which of the many cable lines we have running through the trailer are the ones for the cable television input, only to find out that the problem wasn’t in the trailer but outside on the connection at the post, we finally got the television on and hooked to cable. Then we had to connect the cable modem so we have DSL. That was more complicated and I’m still working on it. But we are back on the Internet…sorta.

After some messing around, I’ve got the computer connected to the modem but the wireless router isn’t up yet. I’m still working on it. But I did get a chance to tear apart the trailer again in the search for wires and cables and how they flow through the trailer.

Originally there was one input to the trailer for the cable, but we didn’t have a television. Oh, we did but it was a little tiny handheld, slightly larger than my Palm handheld computer. With a 2 inch screen, you could hear the show and make out the fact that people were moving across the screen, if you got decent reception, and it worked well enough for the little things we wanted to watch. Okay, it worked well for the little things “I” wanted to watch. Brent wasn’t interested in it at all. When my mother came to visit, she and I crowded around the little TV to watch Ellen announce she was gay on her television show, just to get a piece of history. But it was a struggle to see.

In Greensboro, I finally splurged and bought a used Dish Network satellite system from a neighbor and a new television. I got to use it for barely six months when we moved to Israel. It went into storage in Tulsa and we unburied it three weeks ago. Since we were not happy with the service from Dish Network in any way shape or form, and they still owe us a LOT of money (and I’m seriously still thinking of suing them, the shits), we decided to leave it all in storage, collecting dust. Maybe I’ll try to sell it, but it stays in the storage unit for now.

To make the satellite system work, we had to put all the pieces somewhere. Brent figured out how to put the VCR over the refrigerator along with the car stereo we got for a radio and CD player in the trailer. We strung cable from the cable/electrical inlet to the VCR and then back through the trailer. Then I strung more cable around the trailer to connect to the television sitting on the “shelf” storage unit behind the couch. Okay, partly on the back of the couch in the corner. It was quite the setup but it worked, over time.

When the new refrigerator went in, it was taller and we lost the space for the VCR, though the radio could stay. With Comcast, we don’t need a whole bunch of connections running in and out of the trailer for the satellite, but we do have a jungle of cables to mess around with.

The poor Comcast guy went through the trailer testing all the cables to find one that worked. When we couldn’t find one that worked, I started tearing the low cupboards apart, tracing the cables back to the inlet. While pulling out drawers and cleaning supplies, he said he wanted to check something outside. He went out and I started unscrewing the power panel to get in behind where the cable came in and out of the trailer to check there. Then I went outside to check the connection from the outside.

He turned from the outside pole where the cable connection was and said, “I figured it out. The problem was here. Sorry about that.”

What could I say. I now had 30 minutes or more to put everything back together again (comes out faster than goes in, as with everything) and the problem wasn’t in the trailer. He came back in and we found the right cable, connected the television, and bingo, I have cable TV.

Cable TV might not be very exciting for you, but for me, the opportunity to actually watch TV, especially the SCIFI channel, and everything is pretty much in English, I’m thrilled. Almost all my television watching has been via downloads from peer-to-peer file sharing while living overseas for the past five years.

Then came the problems hooking up the modem, but eventually we figured it out. It took some time with the Comcast guy to figure out that I couldn’t connect to the wireless router directly. I have to connect directly to the Internet through the DSL modem first, and then set up the router. Here are the Linksys directions for setting up the DSL modem from Comcast with the Linksys Wireless Router or search Linksys Support for Comcast.

So we are online as of late today and I’ll start dealing with the vast piles of email tomorrow…or the next day. I’m still trying to unbury things around me, and I have to split my time between the computer and the cleaning up, fixing and repairing, and cleaning up again, or this will never get done. Actually, I think I’m doing pretty good for being a week and a half into this move. With no one bothering me, no invites out to lunch or for walks, and little or no interruption, I’m actually get a lot done. Hopefully the same will apply when I start writing. I have to curb all my gregariousness and concentrate on making the fingers and thoughts fly into my computer.

Oh, the shippers called today in the middle of the Comcast trauma. Our stuff has arrived in New York. We have to pay the final installment of our almost $3000 USD shipping costs, AND the glorious news that, of course, our container was picked by the wonderful and over enthusiastic Homeland Security Idiots to be searched for weapons of mass destruction. Since they couldn’t find any in Iraq, I doubt their ability to find anything in my container of crap from Israel. I’m sure the 1929 Singer sewing machine will get their attention, though. Anyway, the rule is that if our container is picked by the government customs agents, we have to pay for the inspection. This is the part that sucks – big time sucks.

According to the woman who called me from the shipping company, that particular terminal charges between $370 – 400 USD to check a container. The fee is split among the container’s contents and we will probably have to pay about $50-100 USD for the inspection. Pigs.

I really believe that if the US government wants these things inspected, they should just pay for it themselves. Honestly. It’s for the protection of the citizens, then the taxes the citizens pay should pay for such inspections. It is ridiculous to be penalized as an individual, whether I’m a citizen or not, for something I don’t buy or choose. Creeps.

Anyway, she told me that the stuff should be arriving in Tulsa in January but she’ll have more details in a week or so after the security check.

Nothing we do is easy.
Mobile, Alabama—–

In 2002, Microsoft set deadlines for support on its software. They have a chart showing the dates of the product life for customer support on their site on their deadline chart if you are interested. It seems that Windows XP Pro retires their mainstream support on December 31, 2006, and their extended support on December 31, 2011.

By the way, twice a year (unless we are going on an extended trip or moving) in April and November we review all our software and hardware and look for updates. Some of our computer programs automatically update themselves where there is a new version or update available, which I like because it takes the work and hunt away. Those that don’t, we go through our list (you are keeping a list of all your software and hardware installed as you install it, right?) and start upgrading. If a paid version is due, depending upon how much we use it, we will upgrade for a fee every other year or more, learning to save money while living with the previous version. This is unless the upgrade is a major improvement.

Upgrading your software and hardware regularly is like getting a tune-up or oil change and lube on your vehicle. Every 10,000 miles whether you need it or not keeps it running on track.

Just thought you should know.
Mobile, Alabama

Yes, citizens of the United States (Americans) are stupid. On average. This is according to an annual study called the The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study which examines the average intellect and education of students from around the world. Singapore ranks #1. The United States is much lower.

The reasons given for the lack of quality education in the United States compared to the rest of the world are actually fewer than I would have thought. They say that Americans get an inconsistent exposure to math, science, and other “high” education topics. Other countries not only focus in a concentrated method on the math and science topics, they teach the rules as well as the concepts behind the rules. If you understand the why behind the rule, it tends to be more applicable throughout your studies instead of being “just another thing to memorize”.

The experts also were fairly unanimous that the “dumbing down” of America to set the levels to the lowest common denominator in the schools and having different levels at the city and state level instead of a higher federal standard for students to strive towards. Other countries have federal levels and standards for education that students have to meet in order to graduate.

According to the report, “As one example, 44 percent of eighth-graders in Singapore scored at the most advanced level in math, as did 38 percent in Taiwan. Only 7 percent in the United States did.”

One of the biggest problems with these results made me really think. Currently, in order to get high quality technical employees, such as engineers, scientists and even doctors, companies import foreign workers into the United States since they can’t find qualified workers within the states. Already, the demand for these highly educated and qualified foreign workers is draining dry. Combined with the increased difficulty for foreigners to even travel to the United States, a lot of foreign workers are refusing to come to the US. With the drop in intellect, companies dependent upon this top notch intellect will move out of the states and set up shop in foreign countries, like many hi-tech companies are already doing in India, bringing the work to the workers instead of the workers to the work.

We just aren’t keeping up with the global economy and work force needs.

Gave me something to seriously think about. What’s going on here in the US?
Mobile, Alabama

New research has just been released announcing the fact that not only are Americans fatter than most of the other populations in the world, immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least 15 years are fatter than those left behind in their home countries.

On average, most men were 11 pounds heavier and women were nine pounds heavier than those in their homeland. The reasons given were few. Mostly, the weight increase is due to the lack of exercise. The lessor reason is the combination of exposure to foods not part of their old diet and exposure to foods not part of their old diet. Yes, I repeated myself.

It seems that for many, the foods consumed here that are not on the diet back home are fatter. Stuffed with fat making products. And the food is different. For example, Mexicans grew up eating tortillas made with corn back home, but in the states, these are more difficult to find and tortillas made with flour are easy to find.

The second part of the justification on exposure to different foods is the exposure to new and different foods. People just want to try all the new foods and are tempted by the diversity, consuming more, and consuming more unhealthy foods. So people are not only eating fattening foods, they are lured by all the temptations.

Combined with the fact that 40% of calories consumed by Americans come from snacking. Goodness. There are still a lot of places in the world where people barely get a meal a day and Americans get almost half of their calories from snack food. Wow.

Also, US children have increased their weight over the past 10 years by 45% and have increased their chance of diabetes tremendously.

Brent and I are still overwhelmed by the FAT in Americans. During our five years in Israel, I lost almost a whole person in weight and Brent gained a thick waist. I was walking and exercising all day and changing my diet to eat healthy, wholesome food. Brent increased his junk food consumption, becoming a cookie fanatic, and exercised hardly at all. The people we met as we worked or explored were all thin, in some cases paper thin. By the end of the 5 years, we were seeing more fat people, especially fat young people, clearly associated with the huge growth in fast food throughout the country, especially in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Visiting the US, we were repeatedly stunned by the obesity here.

Now that we are back living here, even if only for six weeks, we are shocked by the obesity here. Over and over again we find people in Lowes, Home Depot, WalMart, Michaels, grocery stores and shopping malls who are not only obese, people younger than me are so fat they can’t hold their bodies up for any period of time so they are moving around in carts throughout the stores. More large stores in the states are buying such electronic carts for their customers. Originally, these were intended to accommodate the aging Americans, but more and more young, obese people are using them. Aging Americans, many of them health aware and raised in an America where over consumption of food wasn’t the norm, are healthier than their grandchildren. So sad.

I saw one woman, clearly at least 15 years younger than me, slowly moving through the store in one of these electric carts, her four chins shuttering as she turned her head slowly to peer down the aisles in search of something to buy. I’d never seen anyone with four chins. She was in shorts, even though the temperature shouldn’t accommodate such fashions, and I could see three chins around her ankles. I didn’t know ankles could have chins, either.

I know there are diseases that bloat and cause obesity. A very good friend of ours has a daughter born with Proter Willie Disease, an error in chromosomes at birth which turns off the “I’m full” button, causing hunger that hangs around permanently, often resulting in stealing food and hoarding in order to constantly feed the chronic hunger. After years battling her massive obesity, taking a huge toll on her heart and lungs, she is finally in a very intensive live-in program that constantly monitors her food and she has lost over 200 pounds last I heard. But the loss can’t fix her problem. There is not surgery for genes. She has had to learn how to do this, controlling herself, her will power, and her overwhelming need for food, replacing it with activity and things she enjoys doing to fill the emptiness inside.

I always thought that if Tracy could do that, anyone could lose weight. She is such an incredible example to me and so many. We’re not born with the need to feed. We control everything that goes into our mouths and we can control how we live our lives to increase our exercise. The steps we can take are simple. We can park our cars further from the shopping mall or WalMart so we walk further. Take an extra lap around the inside of the mall or huge store before starting your purchases. If the store, library, post office, or any other destination is less than a mile away, walk it. It should only take about 20 minutes, if that long. Everyone in the United States lives on a “block”, whether it is a country block or city block, it is still a block. Twice a day, take a walk around the block. When you get better at it, make it two blocks. And so on. Instead of watching the news on television, get a portable radio or Walkman and put it on NPR (National Public Radio) and walk while you catch up on the news.

I’m not an exercise guru, though I’m working on broadening my exercise regime to include yoga and pilates, but I am shocked at the fat in America. Honestly shocked. And having lived overseas for five years, I can tell you that the rest of the world is totally grossed out when they see Americans. Brent remembers standing in the airplane hanger at work when a group of men approached from the parking lot. He’d only been in Israel for a few months but could spot the Americans among the group in an instance. He told me that they were all “round”. Round faces, round bodies, round bellies, round legs, and a round way of walking, moving from side to side instead of staying straight up and moving from the hips down. Over time, even if he couldn’t make out the body outline of the approaching person, the walk, or waddle, would tell him that this was an American.

We export a lot to the rest of the world, and fat is high on the agenda of our exports. McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, all fat-oriented stores assault the international world.

But when it comes to touring Americans, trust me when I say that from image alone, foreigners find you offensive with your obesity. They judge Americans as lazy, lacking will power, consumptive, wasteful, and boring. The “boring” comes from another problem – lack of education. Yes, another report was announced today that says Americans are once again towards the bottom of the pile when it comes to education around the world. Singapore was on the top across all of the educational tests, as were most of the Asian and European countries. I’ll have more on that later.
Mobile, Alabama

The list of chores and things to do and fix on the trailer seem overwhelming. But we got up early and started plugging away at them. Brent will probably be working Saturdays any moment now, and I was thankful to have him for two days to help get the heavy stuff done.

Over the week, we’ve been working on fixing the leaks for the hoses. Leaks cost money, so having the connectors and water filters water tight is critical. Unfortunately, the washers were all dried up and hardened, and a couple of the hoses were rotten from exposure to the elements. So we replaced what we could and worked in the dark with head lamps to track down the leaks and replace the connectors. But we needed more. So it was off to Home Depot to get more parts and pieces.

During the week, we’d made an evening run to WalMart to buy a short 10 foot hose and a water regulator, which reduces the water pressure before going into the trailer, protecting our flimsy plumbing. A day later, we can’t find the bag with the hose and regulator. I spent the next two digging through the remains of everything, keeping an eye out for it. Nothing. So we had to make another trip back to WalMart to get another one. We can’t figure out where it went. The trailer is only 30 feet (about 10 meters) long and a few feet wide. There aren’t that many places to lose things in.

Anyway, Saturday was spent tearing apart one of the bedroom windows and the back “kitchen” window to replace the window cranks. We raced over to two RV shops Saturday morning to pick up the parts and a few other things we needed, a pain since they are only open from 8-5 during the week and from 8-1:30 on Saturday. Not decent hours in any way shape or form. Bad business, folks.

The window cranks are a bitch to get off. Called “window operators”, these things were not designed for easy removal. They are a small metal crank box with a small gear shaft. A long metal pole is braced across the window and you turn the small crank to rotate the window out or in. The metal pole is put in using a combination of screws and rivets, so you have to cut the rivets off (and replace them with what, we’re not sure) to get the pole out. You can’t get the crank out until the pole is out. Brent fought for hours with the bedroom window (his father and I had worked on it for a couple of hours in Tulsa, too) and finally got it fixed, thank god for the Dremel.

He decided to completely remove the back window from the trailer, so for most of the day I had a completely unrestricted view outside into the trailer park. I told him I wanted it replaced with a bay window so I could put my plants in there. He laughed. Weakly. Just what we need, another three feet or so hanging off the back of the trailer.

I worked on running the cable and telephone lines to the trailer, in preparation for the upcoming hook ups. And I spent hours trapped in the hallway sorting through suitcases of clothing and odds and ends, trying to figure out what to keep and toss and what to put away, since winter isn’t high on the agenda here in Mobile. Though it is supposed to get cold, maybe even to freezing in the next few days. I believe it when I see it, as I wipe sweat from my eyes.

I also worked on laying away and sorting the bathroom stuff. We had added cotton balls and cotton swabs to our shopping list earlier in the week, stocking up, and I found a plastic sealed container of each back in the deep recesses of the bottom cabinet. Damn. They were tightly sealed and in the dark, so they are still good. One of the few things we can still use in the trailer after five years of weather and exposure. I also brought the bug repellents to the front of the cabinet after digging and scratching at the four mosquito bites I already have since arriving. Ugh.

Finally the window was put back on, though we will need to run to the hardware store again to get some new screws. Most of the screws Brent removed from the window were so rusted, they broke off or were unusable. Not a good sign.

So he decided to take a look at the water system. He replaced all the connections with new ones and put it all back together, and then turned on the outdoor shower to clean himself off (and the outdoor shower, which was covered with mildew) only to find the thing leaking like a water fountain. “Tomorrow,” he informed me, and went to work on other projects.

Sunday, I pumped up the bike tires and test drove them around the campground. It feels strange and wonderful to be back on a bike again. Love it. I look forward to doing some rides around here, though I’m not sure where, it is a lot safer than our campground in Greensboro.

We worked on tons of projects, inside out, and by evening, Brent had another list of things he needed from Lowes, so off we went. We were in Lowes Hardware for at least two hours, hunting and searching to fill our list. Brent obsessed over the parts and pieces for the shower while I wandered over getting new light bulbs and other odds and ends we needed. I passed by the bird feeders, thrilled to look at the new models (National Geographic has come out with a new line of bird feeders – very cool), and paused to over hear a young couple with a child deciding on a cutesy little bird feeder, more ornamental than useful.

“I wonder what kind of birds would use this?” The wife asked.

“I don’t know but it’s cute,” the husband tried to be helpful.

I couldn’t resist. That’s just me. I have to jump in when ignorance reigns.

“Actually, this style of bird house will feed the squirrels faster than the birds.”

“What do you mean?”

“See how the roof lifts up with this flimsy catch. Squirrels will figure that out in a minute and lift it up and eat the seeds. Birds aren’t very fond of house looking bird feeders, either, especially without good landing pads. Only the smallest birds will maybe use this. It’s to look pretty in the garden rather than to feed the birds. Do you want pretty or do you want to feed the birds?”

“Oh,” the wife grins, thankful for my help, or just being nice. “We want to feed the birds.”

“Good choice.”

“But we don’t want to encourage the squirrels.”

I looked through their inventory. “Then I recommend this one with the cage around the outside of it. The birds can get through, specifically the small birds, and the squirrels have a tough time. Or,” I climbed the nearby ladder and handed down a larger one. “This one is actually better. My mother has one of these and it works great. When the squirrel gets on it, its weight pulls down the outside casing, closing off the holes. It reopens when the weight is released. A bird’s weight don’t bring down the gates.”

“But its so expensive!”

I looked at the tags. “Yes, it is, but remember, you aren’t buying this for a few months or even a year. You are buying this for years to come and enjoy. My mother has had hers for six or seven years. Forty dollars over five years is eight dollars a year to enjoy. Just clean it once or twice a year since the seeds can dry and catch in the mechanism.”

They thanked me profusely and I was on my way, leaving them to debate. They told me I should work there. No, thanks, but nice thought. Later I saw them heading to the check out with that bird feeder in hand and a nice metal cane pole to hang the feeder on. I do hope they enjoy it for a long time. We’re destroying the habitat for birds, so I love it when people invite birds into their home.

Brent finally decided on the correct o-rings and washers for the shower and we headed home just before they closed. But it was too late to work on the shower, so he’ll get to that tomorrow night after work.

I’m so exhausted I can hardly move my arms and legs, let alone my fingers, but I wanted to update you on some of our hard work. There are still stacks of boxes and stuff but they are shrinking and slowly being put away. We have definitely lightened the load in the trailer, through technology as well as by giving up on some of the pleasures we felt compelled to enjoy that just weighed too much. All my crafting stuff, fabric, and arts and crafts are in storage or tossed. Most of our books are in storage except for a few regional books to help us explore the area and Brent’s bird book collection to help him identify what he finds around here. Our music collection of CDS is in storage and most of them are in MP3 format. I have only a few exercise videos and the movies are all in storage, too. I’ve also scanned tons of paper, receipts, warranties, and instruction manuals, except for the most critical, and those are all in storage.

It’s a lot of work and there is still more to do. Wake me when its over.
Mobile, Alabama

I spent the day on the phone trying to get hooked up to the world again. Beginning early in the morning, I called the telephone company, cable television, and electricity company to get hooked up. They’ll be here next week. But I learned a few things along the way.

First of all, you have to know your address. I thought is was the address on the business card of the owner, but that turns out to be his address. The campground is different. For those of you who want to know, you can visit our contact page to get the address and new phone number. The telephone should be on by the middle of next week, I hope.

Once you know your actual address, you have to know the area code of where you are. Unable to find that readily, I thought about jumping on the Internet to look that up, but since I don’t have Internet yet, a detail since I don’t have a phone or Internet connection, that left me playing a little detective. I finally found it when I went through my cell phone’s call log memory and found the number Brent had called me from work, which had the area code listed. Our number for our temporary cell phones is still registered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so to call me from Mobile is long distance, even though his office is two miles away.

With the area code and the address, you can start.

All three places required my social security number and an alternative person or contact in case of emergency or if someone else would be accessing the account, they needed their name. The electric company handled this question poorly.

“Are you married?”

“That’s rather personal and has nothing to do with setting up my electricity, does it?”

“Well, are you?”

“I’m not going to answer that question.”

“Well, we need to know.”

“Why do you need to know?”

“We need to know if anyone else is going to call on this account. We write down their name so we know it is okay to talk to them about the service.”

“Then why didn’t you ask that in the first place.”

I told them Brent’s name but was rather miffed. I’m sure she was, too, not realizing that she was actually talking to someone who thought through questions before answering them.

The telephone company handled the question well, as did the cable company.

“Will anyone else be contacting us regarding your account?”

That’s the way to handle the question. Very professional and non-assuming of my personal living circumstances.

Of all the folks I talked to, the cable company was the most fun. She answered my questions with laughter in her voice and commiserated with my worries and woes. She was patient and kind throughout the conversation. Comcast, for this much, I thank you. Let’s see how the rest of your service works.

The electric company needed to have a home phone number, but I hadn’t gotten that yet. And they wanted a second emergency number, just in case. In case of what, I’m not sure.

All of them had me wait while they checked my credit. This bothers me. First, I’m glad that it only took a minute or two so I could move on with the process. What bothers me is the speed at which they did it. If our credit report is viewable that fast, who else can get it that quickly? Hmmm. Makes you wonder. We’ve been out of the country for five years, but we still have good enough credit for the telephone, television, and electricity. Hmmm. And the cable company was the only one who asked permission to check my credit report. Hmmm.

The biggest problem I had was with my damn cell phone. After a bunch of research, the ease and convenience of the Tracfone got my attention. A quick purchase at WalMart, and a way too lengthy battle with their horrid web site, we had two working phones. I started out with the cheaper 200 minute prepaid cards until we get a handle on whether these work for us or not, and within the first two weeks I’d used up my 200 minutes. The killer was checking in with my parents upon arrival and then sitting on hold while credit reports and other details were getting checked by the different utilities.

So I decided to buy more minutes. I dialed up the 800 number and started punching away. Didn’t work. Kept telling me something was wrong with the numbers I was dialing. My few remaining minutes were clicking away as I tried over and over again. So I called back and after listening to too many selections that keep me from talking to a human being, I found a human who told me that I can’t add more minutes FROM my Tracfone. I have to add them from a land line. This sucks. Seems you can’t talk on the phone and punch in the code numbers while the phone is engaged. Sucks.

When Brent came home from lunch, he let me use his cell phone and I called and that worked. But still, this sucks. The whole part of having a cell phone is using the cell phone and being released from a land line. Being unable to buy time from the phone I want the time for sucks big time. Terrible design. Really bad.

Oh, and the bizarre thing is that the electrical company wouldn’t take credit cards for automatic withdrawls, only automatic withdrawls from checking accounts. Bell South says they will take credit card withdrawls automatically, but after we are hooked up and have recieved our first bill. Comcast says that they will send me a form. Goodness. This reliance on checks is becoming archaic folks. Dealing with all those pieces of papers is expensive and banks are slowly making it more difficult to use checks, charging clients for using them, and charging them for depositing them. Get with the program, folks. This is the year 2004.

So all in all, it is tough moving and getting set up. We’ve found more leaks and mildew and water damage, and more things needing fixing left and right, overhead and underneath. We’re plugging away at it all but it feels like a never ending job.
Mobile, Alabama

After lunch today, I ran Brent back to work and raced to the grocery store to get some much needed food and supplies. After a few days of non-stop unpacking, cleaning, filing, sorting, cleaning, unpacking, filing, sorting…and uncovering a path to walk through in the trailer, and suffering incredible heat and humidity 5% @#%#*% humidity), on the way back from the store I decided to risk the melting ice cream for a quick stop off at the public library just down the road from the campground.

It’s a little place, tucked into the back corner of a horrid strip mall, next to a Dollar General shop, a shop featuring the worst of capitalism products from Taiwan and China for a dollar each, more or less. But they had a bank of computers and free usage…so to speak.

Before I even could turn to look at the computers, a woman ordered me to sign in. I thought she meant sign in to be in the library, but the form said it was for signing in to use the computers. Okay, but the large type across the top of the page, and then duplicated in capital letters across every computer monitor put me off a bit. It seems there was a time limit of 30 minutes to use the computers and they weren’t messing around with that limit. I figured out that 30 minutes was fine and more than my ice cream could handle. After all, I was more worried about Hotmails ridiculous trashing of my junk email box after five days (deleting emails from friends who haven’t been “recognized” by me manually that they are okay and not junk email) than dinking around trying to respond to emails. In a week I’ll should have Internet, so I can wait and respond to anything then. The important people know how to find us.

I sat down and almost immediately was thrown into the computer monitor and keyboard. The chair slammed me forward. What the hell? I leaned back and almost flipped out backwards. What the hell is this? The young woman next to me, appearing to work on some educational project, leaned over. “All the chairs do that here.”

“I guess they are serious about the thirty minute limit, then,” I mumbled. “Don’t want anyone to get too comfortable.”

She grinned and nodded, her teeth white against her pretty dark skin. She didn’t look like a young lady who smiled much, and she hid it quickly, but it was still nice to talk to someone, even if for a few seconds. Wanting a little social contact, the large letters of the 30 minute warning stared at me, so I turned back to the screen.

I typed in my web mail address to pick up email from my web page server. It told me that the page wasn’t found. After several tries, I went to the tech support chat web page for my web page host and got someone on the line. They said they would look into it. Meanwhile, I brought up Hotmail – well, let’s say I tried. A lady with a finger waving in the air popped up onto my screen telling me that “Betsy doesn’t allow access to this site.” I was censored! Trying to get Hotmail? What the hell is going on here? Chairs that don’t chair and Internet access without Hotmail.

I overheard a librarian being very patient with a woman across from me, clearly her first time on the Internet, so I interrupted (thinking of my 30 minute limit already down 5 minutes and counting) and asked her why I couldn’t access Hotmail.

“Oh, we’ve blocked that. But I can get you on with a password.”

So I backed up and she came over and covered the screen with her hand (like I couldn’t read what she typed from the movement of her fingers, poke by poke, on the keyboard) and typed in the password. “But I can only give you ten minutes.”

“Why?”

“Because that is the rule.”

“But I have 30 minutes.”

“Yes, but Hotmail is restricted and you can only have ten minutes.”

“I guess I should be able to get to my email accounts by then.”

“Probably not. These are old machines and the best you can do is get on Hotmail, look at your mail and then your ten minutes are up. You probably can’t even get time to write an email.”

“What?”

“Okay, it starts timing from when I hit enter, not from when you get to Hotmail. Are you ready?” She leaned back clear of the horrid chair from hell. “Go!”

She pressed the Enter key and jumped back. I leapt into the chair, feeling the panic of the 30 minutes now reduced to 10 minutes, and wondering when ipowerweb’s tech support would get back to me about the problems with my web site web mail.

I typed in hotmail.com and waited. Sure enough, Hotmail is so overcoded, and graphics heavy, it took three minutes to get to the login screen. I typed in my first email account and password and it took four minutes to bring the mail up. Horrible.

The chat window for the tech support popped up. The tech asked if the system was behind a firewall. I asked the librarian. She didn’t know what a firewire was. I explained it was a firewall not firewire. She told me that Bill and Melinda Gates donated these computers and she had no idea how to work them. The beginner computer user, an overdressed but lovely senior citizen, explained to the librarian that a firewall was a protector against viruses and invaders. I was stunned. The librarian had to show her where to click what to make whatever web page they were looking at move through the information, and she knew what a firewall was. Amazing. You never know. But the librarian didn’t know. I told the tech I wasn’t sure but probably.

He wanted to blame that, but I asked him what could possibly be on my web mail page that would be stopped by a firewall? That’s odd. It’s just a security web page. I should be able to access it from any computer in the world. That’s the entire purpose of web mail – to be able to pick up your email as you travel, no matter where you are.

I checked my Hotmail page and found it was still loading. Damn. The minutes were clicking like a crushing ball tapping the side of a building to check its aim before smashing into the wall. It usually takes me about 5 minutes at the most, often less, to check my three Hotmail accounts manually through the Hotmail web page. But I’ve been running on high speed cable Internet. Still, these were Gateway computers and not “that” old.

Finally I got the Hotmail page and checked for junk email. No friends, but it clearly had been emptied within the past day or so. Oh, well. Sorry to all of those who might have been in there! Curse out Hotmail for this ridiculous 5 day limit.

I signed out and it took another two minutes to get the second Hotmail account to come up. Meanwhile, the tech support guy told me that something must be blocking my 8087 and 8088 ports. He told me that I had to open those ports and wanted to give me directions on how to do that. Well, I told him, that would be fine except that I’m on a public library computer and the last thing they need is for me to go foraging around in their Control Panel and doing battle with their firewall, if they have one, which they don’t know. And they whole purpose of running such a public network is to keep people like me out of the system so I can mess with it and open up ports they might not want open, if they knew what a port was other than something a boat visits.

Screwed.

I flipped back to Hotmail and the page was still loading. Time was a pounding.

I said bye to the tech and decided to at least check what was going on with my friends in Israel. I typed in www.debka.com and waited as it slammed and smashed against the computer and through the Internet to finally load onto the screen. Hotmail finally finished loading and I saw an important message regarding our stuff being shipped from Israel to the states. I hit reply, waited again for the page to load, finished reading Debka to find out that Hamas has publicly announced that peace negotiations can co-exist with violence and that is perfectly fine for them to keep killing Israelis and everyone in their way. I typed four words in response to the email and the ten minutes was up and Hotmail was lost to me.

I still had a few minutes left of my thirty, but with no access to email in any logical way, why bother.

I stopped by the desk to ask for a library card and information on regional and local library events and I also asked why there was a limit on Hotmail of only ten minutes.

“To protect the children.”

Huh? “How does restricting and limiting access to an email service protect the children?”

“It protects them from child molesters and solicitations.”

“But I’m not a child.”

“We don’t want people viewing porn online.”

“But I’m not a child and I’m not viewing porn online. What does porn have to do with Hotmail?”

“My brother lives in Florida and he tells me that when he visits the libraries there, he can walk down the aisle of computers and see people looking at naked women all the time.”

“What does porn have to do with Hotmail.”

“Don’t you want us protecting our children from that?”

“But what does viewing porn have to do with Hotmail?”

“We want to protect our children from the evil doers who look at naked women and molest children. You should want us to do that, too.”

Okay, I knew when to give up, but the mythology that every child is looking for porn online, and that every one is looking for porn online is a myth. Besides, a little healthy viewing of naked people should be allowed, as far as I’m concerned, not that I’d say that to her. The more we hide nakedness and sexually, the more people want what they can’t have. The more accustomed people are to sex and nakedness, the less they pay attention to it. Honestly, America, loosen up.

Sure there are bad people out there doing bad things to everyone, including children. Protecting them is fine but let’s get some control here. The people we need to worry about already have access to the children and they aren’t on the computer with them. They are living in their neighborhoods, working around them, and very likely, related to them. Come on.

Anyway, to all of those eager to hear from me, I tried. I seriously tried. I’ll be online in a week or less and will be wearing out my fingers trying to chat back to all of you.

And if you are a volunteer or on the board of your local library, please tell them to loosen up and at least let adults make adult decisions about what they do during their ridiculous 30 minutes. There has to be some way to find a happy medium so a traveling stranger can stop in at a public library and check their email without running into time limits, filters, fire walls, and narrow minded religious folks.
Mobile, Alabama

We were a little slow this morning to get moving, worn out after days of panic and traveling. We cleaned up a little and then headed out to explore this new town and check out a campground closer to Brent’s work.

I’ve been to Mobile before, but not for more than a couple of days and then just to drive through. My only solid memory is of driving through incredible wide boulevards shrouded in a canopy of trees covered with Spanish Moss dripping from its stretched branches over the road. As we drove into the downtown area, Brent and I were again thrilled with the sight of these vast trees and their wide reaching branches. Even lacking leaves for the winter, they are still almost a solid canopy of branches. It will be interesting to see those trees’ leaves return and see the shade they create.

We spotted a WalMart, Lowes, and Sam’s Club and a shopping mall from the highway as we drove towards Brent’s new office. From the directions off Yahoo maps on the Internet, we easily found the office right next to the downtown airport and just off Highway 10. Following the map, we were able to trace a back roads way to the campground we sought, around a cemetery. From work to the campground, the distance by road is almost exactly 2 miles. If we could find a way to cross the cemetery, it would be a little shorter, but we couldn’t find an open gate on the back of the cemetery. All fenced off and locked. Too bad. But we’ll keep looking.

The campground, Shady Acres, is pitiful but lovely. This is a first impression, of course. The owner, Charlie, was very helpful and friendly and walked us around the campground to look at potential sites, discussing their pros and cons as we asked. He also walked down to his house by the river at the back of the campground to show us the pier and covered deck that extends out over the water with chairs and tables for picnicking. This is the Dog River that twists through the south end of Mobile. We choose a site near the mobile home that acts like an office/laundry/showers, not for the access but the shade from the trees overhead. It is the least sun exposed spot that was open.

Charlie and his father started the campground as a trailer park in 1952, changing his grandfather’s rough camp site grounds into a long and short term residence trailer park, looking for more regular rents than just those who stopped by to fish or rest on their way to fishing or stopping off the highway. Two years ago, Charlie and his family decided to reopen it as a campground again, not just a long term stay trailer park. They were just tired of the mobile home business and wanted more turn around combined with some long-term stays. A better mix in a time when RV campgrounds are in need all over the place with the growing popularity of RVING.

The campground is just off a main street, Dauphin Island Street, that once might have been a major commerce expansion of the town, but is now falling apart, full of vacancies and rotting buildings as the town has moved away from the coast and hurricanes. There are a few stores near the campground, so I can get some basics with a short walk or bike ride, but driving will now become part of our life again. Damn, I miss walking down to the corner shop for fruits and veggies. I will seriously miss the convenience of access in Tel Aviv.

There are elementary schools EVERYWHERE. Can there really be that many children here? We drove around all day today, Saturday, and while we found tons of people at WalMart and Lowes, we found the streets practically empty and the people absent from all over. As quiet as Shabbat is in Israel, Mobile felt quieter than Shabbat in Tel Aviv.

There are a lot of vacant buildings and homes, windows still boarded up with people absent or living inside, with downed trees and roof damage still recovering from Hurricane Ivan that tore up this part of the United States pretty bad, but not as bad as Florida got smacked. Doesn’t matter. A lot of damage is still evident almost three months later. They’ve been having bad thunderstorms and flooding, adding to the damage, over the past month. I’m not thrilled to be in such weather, but at least it is weather, and we are mobile so we can move out of Mobile if we have enough warning of an impending storm. Brent tells me that hurricane season is over until June or July….coming too soon for me, anyway.

Honestly, driving through the town for the first time, I’d swear that this town is on its way to being a ghost town. It will be interesting to see if my first impressions pan out.

Anyway, our rent at the new campground will be a significant change, and I’m sorry, friends, but we might have to take out a loan in order to pay our new rent rate. In Tel Aviv, we paid USD $1200 (utilities like electricity and water included). At Shady Acres Campground in Mobile, Alabama, we will be paying USD $120 a month. The sound you just heard was Brent passing out.

We went to Israel to make money, believing from our agent in Tel Aviv, that we would never pay more than 25% in taxes to Israel and all the benefits of being an x-pat working overseas would actually generate money we could save and plan for the future in investments and such – were all bullshit. We ended up paying almost 50% of our income to Israel in taxes, then paid 18% sales tax on everything that was already marked up to exorbitant prices with import fees. We had to pay an extra $75 in airport fees every time we flew in and out of the country in addition to the high flight prices, and were charged too much for everything. It looks like working and living in Mobile, Alabama, might help us restock our financial cupboards we had planned on restocking seven years ago in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This will also help us recover some financial padding quickly, since we have spent way too much over the past three months of joblessness, traveling all over the states and to and from Israel, and having our stuff shipped back to Tulsa…and then getting the trailer restored for use. Cheap is good, even if the campground isn’t overwhelmingly wonderful with amenities. We are easy renters.

Anyway, we got a good look at parts of the town and found some landmarks to return to for shopping and getting trailer parts and pieces, and went to the grocery store to start to restore our panty with food and baking supplies. Brent already has plans for making cookies this week, disgusted with the store bought chocolate chip cookies. He wants to return to perfecting his chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Once we move into the new campground tomorrow, I can start unpacking and cleaning things out for good. We just kinda dumped stuff back into the trailer due to the shortage of time, and everything is shoved here and there and disordered. The desk is stuffed with empty file folders and the bed has the folder innards in boxes underneath it. I have to clean up the kitchen cupboards and organize them, sort the bathroom out, figure out the panty and clothing arrangements, and then start hitting the desk and filing tons of papers so they can be found again.

After a week or two, I might even get a chance to start writing.

We’ll see. It’s the plan, but I am often overwhelmed with the failure to get to my writing. Let’s hope so.
Mobile, Alabama