Category Archives: Technology

2024, Technology, Uncategorized, work

Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics

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I was rather alarmed last Tuesday morning to get an email from my Regional Director insisting I attend a meeting that afternoon with her and four other quality control and administrative staff to discuss some problems with my “compliance” data for timely completion of psychological evaluations.

I have 20 working days from the time I first see a client for an evaluation until the report has to be entered into our electronic record system. I do about ten evaluations a month. My compliance rate is typically 90-95% of the evaluations completed within the 20 day time period. Compliance is a big deal for my agency, as our accreditation and licensure are dependent on everyone getting their paperwork done on time. 90-95% is an acceptable rate of completion.

We have electronic scheduling that helps determine paperwork compliance for most appointments. If your note is completed, a little “F” pops up on the appointment on the schedule. Due to reasons that are too tedious to relate, that doesn’t work for psychological evaluation completion. Someone has to keep a spreadsheet that lists the client’s name, date(s) of evaluation, and date of report completion. A quality control staff has to hand calculate the compliance rate. Most importantly, the appointment in the electronic calendar has to be deleted by the keeper of the spreadsheet.

At the meeting I was informed my compliance rate had dropped to 7%. Well, I knew that wasn’t accurate. I asked who was keeping the spreadsheet. None of the five other people knew what I was talking about. I then reminded them that unless the appointments were deleted from my electronic calendar, it would appear that they weren’t completed if they ran a compliance check with the electronic appointment system. I also told them that none of my evaluation appointments had been deleted from the calendar for more than a year, so it would erroneously seem that I hadn’t finished a report since January, 2023. It was at that point that the they suddenly remembered that my “noncompliance” coincided with the departure of a support staff who had apparently been responsible for the spreadsheet and the deletions, and hadn’t told her replacement or anyone else about it when she left. Everyone was quite apologetic about the mix-up.

Dealing with this nonsense took the better part of a day, what with my fuming and gnashing of teeth and doing my homework to figure out what had gone awry. It reminded me yet again of the danger of poorly run statistics.

Do you access your medical records on-line? What work deadlines have you had to contend with? When have you been wrongfully accused?

2024, Food, holidays, home, Technology

Egg-citing!

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Last month, after my egg run down to the farm, I delivered a couple dozen to PJ.  We spent a nice hour chatting and I don’t think we talked about eggs once.

Then as I was leaving, Hans came down and when we told him I had delivered eggs, he starting telling me about his little egg cooker.  It wasn’t long before I was in the kitchen and he was demonstrating the various parts.  (There aren’t actually that many parts, so it was a short demonstration.)   It seemed very intriguing and with the internet at my fingers, I had ordered one before I knew it!

It’s a fabulous little contraption.  It makes soft boiled and hard boiled as well as omelets and poached, if you want to use one of the little plates that are part of the kit.  And it’s extraordinarily easy.  I’ve been using it pretty regularly – mostly for soft boiled eggs, which I haven’t had for years since I can never get them just right using a pot of water.  I also made a few hard boiled with eggs from the farm and got the brightest orangey-yellow egg salad I’ve ever had.

Unfortunately I can’t use it for the dyed eggs this weekend.  The cooker requires a teeny pin prick in the top of each egg and that pin prick will let all kinds of dye into the eggs when they are submerged.  Oh well, not the end of the world and my little cooker won’t be side-lined long!

Thanks for PJ and Hans for introducing me to my latest kitchen gadget!

When was the last time you dyed eggs?

2024, education, Family, Food, Kids, Technology, Travel

Where in the World is XDFBen?

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A rhetorical question really. The photos will give it away. But I hardly ever get to say this so couldn’t pass it up.

A college sponsored vacation? Well, sure! At least for me. Kelly and daughter are the bonus on the trip.

Thirty four years ago we came here on our honeymoon. A year ago when I knew this event would be here, I said we couldn’t pass it up. And now I keep asking, do you recognize anything? Nope. Even the famous places, I know we were there, but not much recollection. And that’s ok. The weather was beautiful Sunday – Tuesday.  Wednesday was cloudy and Thursday It rained in the evening.

One day we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Standing on the deck watching the water, it was just beautiful. I tried to get that to be an indelible memory. I made a comment to Kelly that I thought it was pretty cool go back to an island we had been at 34 years ago and she pointed out we were on Whidbey Island, not Bainbridge Island. Damn. I don’t know where I got Bainbridge from. Well, I’m a writer, time to change the narrative! From now on, we went to Bainbridge Island as part of our Honeymoon. Wasn’t much to see there, it’s 55 minutes between returning ferries, and we were back to the dock in time to catch the next one returning to the mainland.  We all enjoyed the boat ride.

Tuesday we rode the Ferris wheel, we went to the aquarium, and we visited three used bookstores. Everything’s expensive here, but some of the food has really been good.

We hit some of the other tourist attractions, and got to watch them toss some fish.

Wednesday was the first day of the USITT conference, the United States Institute of Theatre Technology, and I am now a certified MEWP operator. Mobile Elevated Work Platform. Scissor lift, genie lift, all those big bucket things you see at construction sites or theaters. It was a good class.

Thursday I attended a soldering workshop and wired up a little LED strip,

got my hearing tested for free, saw a famous Broadway lighting designer and listened to her speak: Dawn Chiang.

Friday was a class on organizing your shop, which I’m hoping will be useful for home, as well as a class titled “the psychology of stupidity”. I’ll fill you in on that next week.

The convention Center: Two buildings, 6 floors. Getting my steps in. Not to mention how far UP HILL it is from the wharf to downtown. We were never lost, but I went the wrong direction multiple times. 

We rode the light rail and monorail, we met some friends here and had supper at their house, I made a couple new friends, and more surprising was the fact we three survived all being in one hotel room together for a week!

The people watching has been great!

March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day. 3,21, because down syndrome comes from the fact those kids have three copies of the 21st chromosome as opposed to two. That’s why it’s also called trisomy 21. Daughter is a pretty interesting kid. Lots of people will smile at her and make conversation with her, she says hello to a lot of people, and animals just love her. She’s kind of fun to hang out with.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE CERTIFIED IN?

2024, Health, Technology

Therapy Routine

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Went for my first physical therapy appointment yesterday.  It went fairly smoothly; she poked and prodded and measured.  Made me stand on one foot and then the other.  Walked up and down the hallway.

She showed me four exercises to start with – one with a strap and one with a stretchy thing.  Two on steps.  All fairly straightforward but when I got home I realized that a couple only get done once a day, one gets done twice and day and the last one gets done three times a day.  I sat with the paper in my hands for about a minute before I knew what I had to do.  A spreadsheet!  It’s pretty simple, just a chart with each exercise listed the prerequisite number of times for each day of the next week.  I imagine, since I’m a morning person, I’ll do the four together in the morning and then slot in the rest as the day goes on.  

Spreadsheet isn’t pretty, but enough to keep track of what I’m doing on a daily basis… a rustic spreadsheet as it were.  What in heaven’s name did I do before Excel?

Do you have a daily routine (with or without a spreadsheet!)?

2024, home, Media, Technology, TV, Uncategorized

The Lost Cord

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Over the past month I have had to move from one suite of offices to another suite of offices three computers we use for psychological testing at work. Our tech guy has been instructed by his superiors that he can’t assist me with the move. He is only responsible for making sure the electrical outlets in the new rooms are working. He is allowed to help if we have trouble getting the computers to work if they don’t work after I move them and reconnect all the cords.

Well, it is the reconnecting the cords that is the challenge. I am proud that I was able to keep the computers and monitors connected while I moved them so the set up wasn’t too hard. It was somewhat of a challenge to make sure the speakers were set up correctly, since I had to unplug them for the move. I used a cart to make the move.

Now that the gas stove is set up and working again in the family room, I face the task of reconnecting the TV, cable box, DVD player, and ancient VHS player to one another and get them working. When we disconnected them to move them so that the carpet installers could do their work, I tried to keep the cords plugged in to the players as much as I could. We couldn’t keep all the things connected like I did at work. I fear I may need to phone the cable company, who is also our internet and land line provider to come and help with the set up, which they will do, but I hope I can figure it out on my own. I just hope all the cords are there and not somewhere odd in the furnace room where everything was stored and where we still have too much clutter. I also have to figure out how to clean the lens on the cd player in the living room. Uffda!

What has been your greatest technological set up challenge? Is it hard or easy for you to ask for help?

2024, Farming Update, Seasons, Technology, Uncategorized

Something Something

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Today’s Farming Update is by Ben

Something Something

As I started writing this, I wasn’t sure yet what I had to write about this week, so I was not sure where this was going to end up.

We got some rain Thursday morning and evening. I don’t think it amounted to much. It didn’t help the muddy areas. I did spread out four bales of straw in front of the chickens’ pen as it was just a muddy mess down there. And the mud over by the shed is full of tracks and ruts. That’s worse than usual because it was fresh dirt last fall after the concrete work. Maybe I can get it smoothed out as the weather gets colder in the coming week so it’s not frozen ruts, and it will be better next year, but for now, Ish-da.

I have a young man helping me on weekends; I got to know him as a college student. He’s really interested in working with his hands and willing to try anything. And he never gets frustrated or gives up. He’s working a delivery job now, and he says he’d love to get into one of the trades like electrical or sheet metal or construction, but he really has no experience. It’s kinda cute, whenever we do a job, at the end of the day he says, “OK, what tools did I learn today?” We’ve talked a lot about which companies would hire him “green”. Meaning no school. And as I’ve talked with the HVAC guys working at the theaters or my nephew who works with a remodeling company, they are all willing to give him a chance as long as he’d plan on sticking around for a few years. And it helps I that tell them this young man isn’t a jerk. His biggest issue right now is he only has 1 pair of shoes. Loafers. Which have been terribly impractical in this mud. I’ve got nothing that fits him. I do pay him; he really should buy some boots.

Last week he and I put new batteries in my truck, we mounted some more 2×4’s on the shop walls, and we worked on changing an electrical box. Then I had him frame up the electrical box and add trim steel around it. Then I could add the “J” channel and get the pole barn steel around it.

There was an old, old fuse box here from when my Dad built the shed. I had new electrical service installed to the shed last summer

but I still need the old service. I had bought this new circuit breaker box 10 years ago and never got that installed. So, this was the time.  A job well done.

I plan on working hard on the farm financial bookwork this weekend. I meet the accountant on April 9th, but I should have 3 months of 2024 done by then, not still finishing 2023.

WHAT HAVE YOU GONE INTO GREEN?

SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SHOES.

.

2024, Business, Family, Fantasy, Technology

Cyber Highway

33 Comments

Yesterday YA had to leave her car at the dealership for a recall of some sort so I picked her up there and delivered her to the office.  When we pulled up, the front parking area was blocked off on both sides.  This, in and of itself, isn’t too extraordinary.  The building in which the travel division resides is also the “client building” and occasionally the front will be blocked off for a client arrival (which is usually accompanied by the cheering throngs).  But it soon became clear that something else was up as there were just a few parked cars on the side of the building and a couple of people were lounging about their parked vehicles. 

Turns out the company internet was down.  There were a handful of times that the internet was done in the past twenty years, the most notorious being when a squirrel committed suicide on a power line on top to Building 3.   A few times the power went with the internet which always led to flocks of folks at Caribou down the street, colloquially known as Building 7.  Most of the time though we just muddled on, working on documents, jumping into quick meetings or making phone calls until cyberspace was clear.

But these days it’s a different story.  EVERYTHING is tied to “the cloud”.  The phone is through the internet, document storage is on the cloud, the meeting platforms are online.  If the internet is down, there is no point in even going into the building.  So YA and I headed back home, with a quick stop at the Dunkin drive-through, and she quickly got her laptop fired up on the dining room table.  Luckily her using our home wifi for work doesn’t increase the cost.  And it was a shorter drive to take her to the dealership later in the day than to pick her up at the office.  Win-win!

If the internet were a real person, would they be a friend of yours?

2024, animals, Farming Update, home, Seasons, Technology

January

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Well, now it looks and feels like January in Minnesota. Snow and cold and we haven’t seen the sun in weeks. 

Days like this, I don’t miss the cow chores. Taking care of the chickens fills me with a sense of satisfaction like I used to get from the cows, without nearly the amount of work. With the cold weather predicted I’ll need to pay more attention to keeping the chickens water bucket filled. They drink a surprising amount in a day. It’s fun to watch them drink; they take “sips”, then tip their head back to swallow. Repeat. Just now I googled “how do chickens drink” and it says they don’t have an epiglottis, and their tongue isn’t helpful in this regard, so,… gravity. Google also says chickens drink about a pint or more per day. That means my 45 chickens are going through 5.6 gallons / day. Which seems about right. And with them staying inside more with the snow and cold, it’s a good thing we have a heated bucket. And I’ll need to collect eggs more often before they freeze. 

I’ve ordered seed, fertilizer, and chemicals for spring, so that’s encouraging and exciting and a sign this snow and cold will end. Prices, jeepers. Corn seed is about $300 / bag and plants about 2.5 acres. Soybeans are $60 / bag and does about 1 acre. Oats is $13/ bag and does less than an acre. I don’t even want to tell you how much the fertilizer and spraying totals. It’s over $26,000.  Sigh. And I’m a small farmer! It’s crazy. 

Last week talking about clocks and I should have included this one. I inherited this clock at the college. It was in a cabinet, so it came with the place. 

Peter Max design. Ebay shows them at $600. That’s the thing about Ebay; just because they list that amount doesn’t mean anyone has PAID that amount. 

This cleaver (knife) has been hanging in the machine shed for years.  

I recently found it hanging on a nail in a back corner. And considering it’s been there a long time, it’s in really good shape. What’s the best way to ‘preserve’ it or save it? Oil the wooden handle? Remove the rust on the blade? I don’t know what I would ever do with it besides hang it on a wall, and I’m not up on my antiques. The only printing on it says “Genuine Warranty” and below that a numeral 8. Eight inch blade. I suggested to my family that it’s the actual knife dad dropped on his head when he was 4 years old that he said his mother poured Absorbine Jr. on his head and wrapped it with brown paper, see the scar?? My siblings were dubious and pointed out it was a hatchet, not a knife that he says he split his head with. Spoil sports. 

Tell a story about being groovy. Or a knife story. 

2024, Family, Media, Technology

Cellular Meltdown

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I used to watch that show “Monk” with Tony Shalhoub.  When someone would marvel at his talent for solving crime, he would say “it’s a gift…. and a curse”.  That’s how I feel about my cell phone.

After four years, YA wore me down about getting new phones.  I didn’t remember any angst about the last time we did phones, but it was four years ago.  The purchase of the phones was pretty straight forward; YA had done all the research so after we dickered with the salesperson about the pricing a bit, we bought the phones.  If it had been up to me, I would have coughed up the $25 to have them transfer all my stuff from the old phone to the new but YA was adamant that she could do this.

Aiy yi yi.  That’s when it got ugly.  Since we were using the old phones for trade-in, YA said I had to log onto all my various apps/accounts to make sure my logins worked before she “wiped” the old phone.  This turned out to be not as easy as you’d think…. too many times I’ve reset a password and then not written it down when I got home (think the bagel place and the gym).  So there was a fair amount of password resetting to get through.  She wasn’t exactly patient about this.

Then it turned out that my sticky note app isn’t available any longer from the app store.  At this point YA was tired of me and my techie problems.  She suggested I use the Notes that is already on my phone.  “What Notes?” was my question.  She took the phone from my hand, did a few clicks and voila… there it was.  However because she had done it instead of telling me how, I couldn’t get it back a few minutes later.  Suffice it to say we had words.  AND as I’ve looked at it, I don’t like the Notes anyway… guess I’ll have to go find myself a new sticky note app that I like.  Sigh.

It took about 90 minutes for all this – not a lifetime of suffering, but I do feel like I need to check myself into a convalescent home for a good rest!

Do you have a “technie” helper?  Do you need one?

2023, Business, home, Technology

Photo Finish

42 Comments

In the last seven weeks I haven’t gone more than a day or so without having to stop by either Home Depot or my local hardware store.  There are only a couple of bits left until the bathroom is completely finished, but we are now slowly putting it back together.  This has driven me to the hardware store several times in the last week.  Screws, anchors, springs, plugs, paintbrushes….  I feel like I’m practically living there.

Last Saturday morning, they were slammed; I wasn’t the only one with a home project.  Rather than wait around for help, I ventured to the back where the entire wall is filled with drawers and boxes of nails, screws, bolts and the like.  I needed some kind of rubber plug for the end of a spring I had bought the day before to hopefully allow us to keep using our current shower caddy.  (Anything to staunch the flow of cash into this bathroom!)  I did actually find something that would work perfectly.

None of the store employees was at the back of the store and I didn’t trust myself to remember the part number or even the price until I got to the register, as I had a few other things to pick up.  Although I had a pen, I didn’t have anything to write on.  I was just about to write on my hand when I suddenly realized I could use my phone to take a photo of the price and sku.  Not an earth-shattering thought but I’d never thought of it before.  Snapped the above picture and headed back to pick up my other items.  The young cashier did actually thank me profusely.  Apparently most people expect the employees to know all the prices which means a quick trip to the back of the store to check; I got good-customer brownie points!

When was the last time technology pleasantly surprised you?