July 2023 Update: Why The TNA Pages Are Delayed, and Why I'm Old, Bald, And Grumpy

 

Update: 07-30-23

Greetings (just in case anyone actually looks at this…)!

It’s time for a long-overdue update on the state of life here at the Shelley 3-ring circus… Uh, I mean household.

As many of my Artist friends and followers of my TNA story know, I have been so far behind on updating / posting new pages. There are many reasons it’s kind of moved downward on the priority list.

I mentioned something about a 3-ring circus above, and that pretty much describes the last couple of years. At least.

About 3 – 4 years ago, we decided it was time to find another place to live. 

This area used to be nice, well maintained, and peaceful. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case. We now have a lot of folks in the area that love their (swear word of your choice here) obnoxious rap / hip-hop noise pollution and want to share it with the world – or at least with everyone within a mile or so. So they equip their vehicles with a 300,000,000 watt amplifier, and sub-woofers apparently made out of titanium. And they think 02:00 – 04:00 AM is the perfect time to rattle windows.

And of course, with this kind of mentality, crime seems to closely follow. It’s not terribly rare to hear gunshots every so often. And that scares the #### out of me, as Jolene sits right next to the front room window when watching TV.

Beyond that we are surrounded by three busy thoroughfares on our north and west, and to the south is a merge point for two major highways, I-70, and 40 Highway.

So, the search for a new place to live began… To make a long story short, about the time we started looking, all hell broke loose with the COVID mess.

When the pandemic slowed down, we started the search again. Holy crap!! The prices!! I mean, seriously…. This place needs a good deal of work, and Zillow estimates its selling price at around 150,000! I’d be tickled to death if I could get anywhere near that! But damn! A decent 2 – 3 bedroom house here in the Kansas City area will set you back anywhere from 200K-bucks to almost 500K (that’s a HALF MILLION bucks, folks!).

Since our only income at the moment is Social Security… No can do….

I’m not sure what my property value would really be – especially with the house next door on the west. A single elderly lady lives there alone (her mom used to live there as well, but she passed away several years ago). I’ve only been inside that house once… You’ve seen those “hoarder houses” on TV? That’s what this place is. And it extends to the outside as well. The City has been out several times to get her to clean things up.

And her backyard is a jungle.

I’ve mowed her front yard a few times, as have other neighbors (there are still a few decent folks here). But that back yard…. OMG.

Which brings me to another aspect of this relocation thing… Both Jo and I are in our 70’s. I’m 74, she’s 72. She has arthritis, vertigo, diabetes, and a couple other health issues. She’s a fighter, but she can only do so much. I’m 74, and while I’m still active and am able to do stuff a lot of 50 – 60ish guys can’t do, I’m now dealing with this irregular heart-beat my FNP discovered during my last visit.

I recently saw a Cardiologist, and from what he said, I’m not in any kind of danger – an irregular heart-beat is pretty common. I’ve been tracking my blood pressure and showed him the readings I’ve been writing down. He said the BP looked fine. He prescribed a heart monitor for me to wear for 30 days, so I now have a little alien tracking device 😉 stuck to my chest.

Anyway, getting back on track… Jo and I were discussing (and sometimes just cussing) our current stage of life, and what we want for the future. Neither of us are terribly enthusiastic about mowing lawns, digging up weeds, trimming the neighbor’s uncontrolled viney-stuff out of the fence, shoveling snow, etc. etc. And then there’s the house maintenance aspect. In the last 4 years:

Sewer replacement, outside: $10,000.00

Sewer replacement inside: $13,000.00

New roof: $10,000.00

New guttering: $3500.00

New AC unit: $4500.00

And of course the yearly insurance bill: $4100.00

We still have plenty of work to do and will likely add painting to the above list. And on it goes. So….

We’ve decided it’s time to look into one of those 55+ “retirement” communities / apartments. For about the same amount as a house payment, we could get a decent 2-bedroom apartment – with all utilities paid, and someone else has to worry about (and pay for) property upkeep and maintenance. So the search goes on.

Another tractor-trailer’s worth of frustration I’ve been dealing with is trying to get my (badly neglected) website transferred to a new hosting provider. I am totally frustrated and disgusted with my present provider, GoDaddy. Their so-called “support” is beyond abysmal. And their customer care skills are non-existent.

I’ll make this relatively quick – this blog is pretty long already – but basically here’s what precipitated this decision..

A bit over a year ago (or maybe longer), GoDaddy decided to become part of Micro$oft. As such there were a number of changes – none of them good.

Jo and I have been using Mozilla Thunderbird as our email client for years. It’s simple, it’s uncluttered, and easy to use.

With GoDaddy’s new system, they pretty much require you to use MS Outlook. Personally, I hate Outlook. It’s clunky, cluttered, and a pain in the butt to use.

Anyway, GoDaddy changed something – I’m not sure what – and totally loused up both Jo’s and my emails. When either of us tries to get email via Thunderbird, this is what we get:

I have spent HOURS over several days after this error first appeared trying to get email to work with Thunderbird – all to no avail. Getting on the phone with GD’s support is an exercise in extreme frustration. First, you have to deal with the “bot” which is apparently designed to frustrate callers enough to just hang up. If you do manage to get it to connect you with some guy in India that can barely speak English, you end up on a lengthy “wait que” for a tech. One of the times I called, I ended up waiting for over an hour and a half. I finally gave up and disconnected.

Their “chat” feature is no better. Fight with the “bot,” get on a wait list, eventually connect with some guy in India that doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground.

Anyway, if anyone wants more of this adventure, I’ll be happy to post a blog about it later.

For now, I just wanted to give all of you a little peek into what passes as my life lately. I am trying to get back into doing some writing on the story and creating some new pages.

There will be some new girls joining the adventures, and some plot changes (subtle ones) as well. I’ll probably have to change a couple of upcoming pages, as I’ve not heard anything from one of my collaborators. I’ve emailed him several times but have never had a reply. So onward with or without his character.

 The Girls WILL be back!

Until next time…

Stay well, stay safe, stay creative!

Rod