When Your Work Around Needs a Work Around

Our company recently switched telecom providers, going from one digital service to another, supposedly less expensive provider (keep that point in the back of your mind). Haply, all the employees turned-in their desktop phone instruments and began using telephone service through their individual desktop computers with wired and/or wireless headsets.
Alexander Graham Bell’s head would probably explode.

In my little corner of the office, literally, there is the studio wherein we produce our daily Radio show, complete with live-streaming on YouTube, and occasionally, a guest interview or two by phone. That phone system is managed by a Comrex STAC device that had worked very well with our previous telephone service provider, but apparently ran afoul of the new guys’ system for no good reason that was offered to me. Their solution was to “stick with the old provider,” but to buy the new guys’ service as well.
What a wonderful sales pitch.

And for a period, that’s what it seemed we were going to do. I would occasionally check the phone line for a dial tone and be comforted by the dual pitch tone buzzing in my ear.
Until it didn’t.

Today we learned the phone number assigned to our Studio gear had been mistakenly ported-over into the new system, effectively cancelling the working service on that line. There’s no going back, and there’s no going forward, since the new guys say they cannot integrate the Comrex unit into their system. 

My work-around is to take calls into the show via the phone system that’s in place at our host Radio station, and pipe them into our audio stream through our remote connection.
Except…AT&T seems to have severed the phone lines for our Radio partner.

What do you do when your work-around needs a work-around?
Stay-tuned, as they say, for the outcome.
But don’t even think of calling-in now; operators are not only not standing by, they don’t care, and they’ve apparently left the building.

Emails From the DOJ

The first time the email came in, my blood ran cold. It was from the U.S. Department of Justice, and there was no mistaking the source. This was no scammer email—this was Legit. And even though subsequent messages would be received on a monthly or semi-monthly basis, the Sender line always gave me a start when I saw it in my in-box.
An email from the DOJ!

A few years ago, when I was operating my own business, I purchased what I thought was a good healthcare insurance policy. The premiums weren’t horrible, and they paid claims on time.
Until they didn’t.

That’s when I discovered I’d been scammed by a group of three operatives that left me hanging out to dry to the tune of several thousands of dollars owed to doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.
And I discovered I wasn’t the only one.

I registered as a victim of their scheme, hopeful I would be helped in some way by a victims’ compensation fund. Never saw a dime. The trio were all convicted of fraud and various nefarious crimes, and locked away in prison.
Good for them.

One of the scammers died in jail. I’ve lost track of another one.
But the emails I semi-regularly receive keep me posted on the ring leader, still behind bars.
He is not eligible for parole, but his release date keeps creeping forward. In 2023 alone I have received seven such emails notifying me of his ever-changing release date, from April 20, 2030 forward to December 30, 2029.

Recently a family friend drove to the airport to pick up a relative.
This friend is a real prankster, playing at the professional level of prankage. He took his entire family to greet his uncle, who he had not seen in some time. The group met the man at the gate with a hand-printed, bright yellow poster, “Welcome Home from Prison!”
I think I may have snorted coffee through my nose when I saw the photos.

But back to the DOJ notifications.
Thanks for the warning.
I’m not planning any ‘welcome home’ party.

The Summer of '73

It’s hard to believe 1973 was 50-years ago. The Vietnam War had ended with the Paris Peace Accords in January.
The Supreme Court’s Roe vs Wade ruling established abortion as a constitutional right. Gasoline cost 40-cents a gallon, and you could buy a brand-new Ford Galaxie 500 for $3,883. It was the prelude to my senior year of high school.

The Summer of ‘73 was also magical in that I was able to travel to Europe for the first time, spending two weeks with the Spring Woods High School Chorale as we attended the Vienna “Musikverein” Music Festival. Our itinerary also included visits to Prague, Czechoslovakia and Budapest, Hungary.
In 1973, these countries were still behind the Iron Curtain.

The world is smaller today with smartphones and the internet and the flow of instant information. We didn’t have those in 1973, and so taking a horde of high schoolers into a Communist country was a little daunting. I think we were “undauntable” at that time in our lives. The cost of that trip was around $75,000—equivalent to over a half-million in 2023 dollars.

We didn’t know that.
We just knew we’d have to raise the money to travel. A fundraising committee was formed by school officials and Chorus parents. I remember working two part-time jobs to earn money for the trip. Not all the choir families were well-off, and so some students’ passage was paid for through the generosity of others. We were the epitome of “chorus,” not just singing, but working in union towards our European goal under the watchful eye of beloved Choir Director, Jaquelyn Cocke.

I remember our border crossing from West to East: We were sternly warned by our chaperones, ‘no foolishness.’ A Soviet soldier entered our tour bus carrying a Russian automatic rifle. He slowly walked the aisle, looking at each student sternly before passing along.
You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Vienna, Austria 1973

History was all around us, ancient and contemporary. I remember putting my finger in bullet holes of in a building in Budapest, damaged in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, 16-years earlier. The city was still somber. Yet we were able to dissipate that mood with our music.
And our frisbees.

While waiting around on the front lawn of our hotel, a few of us began tossing frisbees to one another. A group of Soviet soldiers in a Russian “jeep” pulled up in front of the building, and an officer strode inside. The three remaining soldiers took interest in our Frisbee antics, and in the international language of play, we taught them how to toss the discs.

Suddenly, the officer appeared on the front steps of the hotel, and the soldiers snapped to attention. He said something that sounded harsh, and they scrambled into the jeep and started the engine. As they drove away, I made a final Frisbee toss to one of the guys in the back of the jeep--which he caught--and was last seen waving over his head as the jeep disappeared behind a rise in the road. This may have been the beginning of East-West detente.

The Spring Woods Chorus’ outreach in the Summer of ’73 included an impromptu serenade at an outdoor café, attending a Hungarian Gulaz Party, and performances in the Vienna Opera House. The Berlin Wall would fall 16-years later, and the communist Soviet Union would crumble in 1991. I imagine that soldier still has his American Frisbee.

Sources:
https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1973.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain

Special thanks to Sharleen Thomas for her photographs