Rhythms on a Winter’s Night

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The last several weeks have been colder than normal. Everything is frozen. The sand in the paddock has changed to frozen ground. Snow covers everything and has for some time. The days are very short.

When it’s like this, the last thing I want to do is put on my coat, scarf, hat, and boots, and walk through the frozen air, to feed the horses. It’s what must be done, however, and it must be accomplished regularly.

Once I close the door behind me and start trudging my way across the farm to the hay barn, I notice the intense quiet. It’s a silent darkness, warmed by the automatic lights that show me the path. I hear nickers of anticipation, hooves shuffling in their padded barns.

When I go out in the summer, the sounds are so different. Even at night, there are birds and animals calling to each other and flying among the trees. The bats fly through my two-sided barn, catching the small mosquitos attracted by the lights. I hear their sonar squeaks and chirps. Birds perch on the inside of the roof, upset that I’ve disturbed their sleep. Owls call out to their friends in neighboring trees. Summer is loud.

Now, it’s in this winter’s darkness and quiet that I find calmness. I feel the warmth of the horse’s breath on my palm, even through my gloves. The rhythm of the grain falling into the mangers, and the sighs of happy horses munching on sweet orchard grass are the only sounds I hear.

Time stops. The universe takes a breath. The stars brighten and the unnoticed, the unseen becomes all that there is. Because I didn’t stay indoors when it was cold and dark outside, I saw a world at rest. Nature sleeps and it’s a joy to watch it slumber.

Gummy Worms Are Not Food

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The other night I was having a lovely dinner at a new restaurant on the island. As I was trying to decide between salmon and marinated flank steak, something bright red came sailing over my head and wiggle-splatted onto my menu. It was a gummy worm hurled by a toddler at another table. The parents ran over immediately, apologized, and removed the offensive confectionary.

It didn’t leave a mark. Most food items would have made a mess but not a gummy worm. It’s not actually food. It’s a “food-like substance”, much like most of the convenience foods sold in the United States. Michael Pollan writes extensively on this subject, and how these edible items are ruining the health of Americans, actually decreasing our lifespans. Convenience stores in North America are a cornucopia of these edible, non-food items.

Yet, in Japan, where everyone goes to the neighborhood 7-11, these same stores are chock full of vegetables and proteins. The Japanese are thinner than us and live longer than we do, in spite of the fact that a third of the population smokes.

A few months ago, my sister and her husband were driving across the state, when they heard what they thought was the unsavory sound of a tire blow out. It was that whomp-whomp of something smacking the wheel well. They stopped, got out of the car, and inspected what they thought was going to require hours of work to fix. Instead, they found a gummy worm stuck to their tire, with a trailing end flailing around, pounding on the car’s fender. They had a good laugh. Something edible would have disintegrated at some point but this did not.

I really recommend never eating something that survives a car tire traveling at 60 miles an hour. I really think kids shouldn’t eat them either.

Why Can’t We Have Nice Things?

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I just returned from Italy, where I ate great food, drank the best wine, and enjoyed how incredible the air smelled. (Yes, Italy smells great. Who knew?) I saw incredible works of art, ancient architecture, fine goods in tiny stores, little farms hand growing the best ingredients, and lots of trees everywhere, both urban and rural.

Perugia, Italy, at sunset

The most shocking things I discovered were the things that were missing. There was no homelessness, even in a big city like Rome. No one got shot. Crime was very low and walking around at night was perfectly safe. People don’t need to own cars, since trains, buses, and other forms of public transportation were everywhere, again, in both urban and rural areas. Italy is not as huge a country as the US. However, their transportation systems move millions of people every day across hundreds of miles, quickly, (can you say bullet train?), and efficiently. The tracks they run on are also much smoother than ours and the rail cars are newer, clean, and in good repair. Compared to Amtrak’s 30–40-year-old train cars and ancient tracks, Italy is years ahead of us and they have been for decades.

But it’s not just the US public systems that are so inefficient. Private ones are, too, because of all the restrictions corporations have on our daily utilities. Let me give you an example.

I took my cellphone into a mobile phone company store in Rome. I wanted an Italian SIM card so that I could have a local number and text capability. The clerks did not speak English, so we communicated through hand gestures and pictures. It took me all of 5 minutes to obtain a new card, have it installed, and pay my $20 fee for the entire month of service. In the US, you can’t get out of a phone store in under an hour or $100.

Why is it like this? There are a number of reasons:

  • Cellular carriers make phones proprietary to each company, so if you change carriers, you have to buy a new phone. In Italy, all phones must work with all carriers as mandated by law. You just have to change the SIM card.
  • US companies use their customer service personnel as their front line of marketing. Managers grade their employees not on their level of service, but on their ability to sell the latest upgrades. This is why it sometimes feels that they are less than helpful in solving your problems. (I used to work for a couple of phone companies, so I know how they are.)
  • Companies in Italy have a much more difficult time price-gouging customers, because they are regulated and watched more closely that in the US. A monthly charge for unlimited service might be $30. In the US, it can be up to $150 at a big carrier.

Once again, the US consumer is getting the very short end of the straw when it comes to services, both public and private, because the regulatory system, as we currently have it, precludes efficiencies that would make our lives easier. No wonder so many people, especially retirees, want to go live overseas. Things just work better there.

The other noticeable absence were car fumes. Almost all the cars, delivery vans and SUVs were hybrids or EVs. The incentive for purchasing electrified vehicles is great and the EU law against polluting vehicles is pretty harsh and are becoming more stringent over time. They are actively working to have zero emissions by 2035.

It was so nice to enjoy Roman ruins in clear skies and fragrant air.

Doing It for Ourselves…

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(This is a follow up to an earlier post, http://www.geekinthecountry.com/?p=1267)

When Jared Mauch, who lives in rural Michigan, was told that the national internet service provider (ISP) in his county wanted to charge him $50,000 to connect to their broadband system, he decided to go a different route and build his own ISP. He did. Apparently, it wasn’t that hard or expensive to do.

Then his neighbors wanted to get connected. Sure, no problem. He eventually pushed broadband to 70 households in the area. He charges $55 for 100Mbps and $79 for 1Gbps speeds. (Are you getting those speeds for those prices? I’m certainly not.)

Now, by winning a competitive bid, he’s receiving $71 million to expand his service to 600 households through a Covid recovery grant. His little private company is becoming a vital local service. The kicker is that he did all this in his spare time. He has a full-time day job as a network architect.

I remember reading the Consumer Reports assessment of ISPs a couple of years ago. It gave them, on average, a rating of “D” almost across the board. Not one company scored an “A” and only one was at a “B”. It was a municipal broadband company out of Tennessee. A local ISP beat all of the major companies in terms of uptime, connectivity, and customer service. Again, it’s not that difficult. We’ve had this technology for 40 years. It’s not even close to rocket science.

Here’s my question: why are we paying such high prices for substandard service from companies who will not invest in the infrastructure needed to reach our houses and farms and who have notoriously terrible customer service? Why is every major, national ISP consistently this terrible to us?

We deserve better. Rural America deserves better.

A Bit of a Break

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After an especially bad 2021, I’ve realized that I’ve taken a break in writing, however unintentional it’s been. I know I’ll get back to it once things settle down. I wanted to give an update as to what this year has been like.

In March, I lost one of my closest friends after seven months of hospice care. He was battling several diseases that eventually got the better of him. I was able to see him a couple of times, even through Covid lock downs. Each one was a blessing. He passed away in his husband’s arms.

A week later, my mother entered hospice care. She passed on May 30 at home. I had been able to spend most all of the time she had left with her. I had just left her side for a bit to feed all the animals when the nurse called me to let me know she was gone. She was peaceful and happy right up to the end.

Even though my mother’s affairs were in good order, and I was mostly prepared for it, dealing with estates and inheritances is daunting. I spent the next two months on the phone with banks, employers, investment firms, government entities, a funeral home, newspapers, CPAs, etc. The wierdest part was that, in 2020, the federal government had changed how 401Ks and IRAs were to be handled. This actually forced me to retire from full-time work immediately or suffer huge tax implications.

Then, in July, my father suffered a major seizure and his heart stopped. He was taken to the hospital where he survived until August 8th. I was able to see him during the 10 days he was there and I said my goodbyes. My step-mother was holding his hand when he died.

His estate was not as tidy but he had an existing spouse, which made some things easier. I’m still going through his belongings with his wife. It’s both a sad and joyous experience seeing my history spelled out in his collections.

I then retired September 1st, and my company gave me an online party. (It was a quiz show format and I found that quite entertaining.) I miss my coworkers who were simply amazing people. I don’t miss the sleep deprivation, though.

I’m now recovering from a hip and knee sprain. (If I’m going to walk for miles and miles, I need to work up to it.) I have time to think about what I’m going to be doing as I move forward into a very changed world. Travel is off the table until the pandemic is done, but there are many things I want to try. Wish me luck.

A Woman in Information Technologies

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When I was born, a women could not take out a mortgage, open a bank account, or manage her investments in her own name. It wasn’t until I was 14 when that right was granted by the Supreme Court. It was not that long ago. It’s really only been within my generation that women have had a full set of rights mirroring those of men.

I started playing with computers when I was in my teens, owning my first one, a TI-99, when I was 17. (I still have it and it still works.) I learned Basic on it. When I went to college, there weren’t any decent computer science programs that interested me, so I got a music degree. When I finished, I sought out the latest computer science degree programs to see if circumstances had changed. They definitely had.

In 1984, microcomputers were all the rage and new degrees were being developed to meet the demand of programming these stand-alone machines. I set my sites (and fulfilled my requirements) to get into one of these programs. When I was ready, I sat down to talk with the director to give him my application.

He refused to take it. He said, “Women just don’t do those sort of things.”

They most certainly do! He was not open to persuasion, so I took a different road. First, I received my degree in journalism. Then, I learned absolutely everything I could about PCs, client-server systems, SQL, system administration, and web languages on my own. Since employers wanted demonstrable skills rather than just degrees, I found myself quite employable.

When I worked the help desk in one company, the other female employees and I discovered that the men spent a short time answering phones and were quickly assigned desk-side technician positions, and then system administration, while we spent years without any promotions. After questioning what was happening, we were told that we were too good with the customers to be moved into a higher position. We all quit wholesale. We later learned that the women in that department were making a third of what the men had made. This took place in the mid-1990s.

Instances of gender bias such as these are the reason why the ratio of women to men in IT is still so very lopsided. Women make up only 20-25% of computing jobs in our major IT companies, with only 18% obtaining computer science degrees. Yet, 74% of girls leaving high school and entering college want to go into IT. The culture is pushing them out. Why would you work in an environment that doesn’t want you there?

I still wanted to work in technology regardless of these experiences. It was just so fascinating. I’d had enough good experiences to understand the potential advancements that could be made in a truly inclusive environment. I pushed on, learned more, and found a better work culture.

Today, I just retired from a 36-year career in IT, mostly working as a technical writer. I’m so glad I stuck with it. The last decade and a half at Avanade have been the very best of times. I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.

For women trying to break into IT or those already in it, keep pushing to be included. Point out any inequalities you see and work to help other women succeed. For the men in IT, educate yourselves to notice instances of exclusionary behavior. Are women being interrupted when they try to speak? Are their ideas not being acknowledged? Are they being excluded from collaborative sessions or social interactions?

Have you done the statistical data analysis to determine that women really are being paid equally for their contributions? If you do, you may just find the results will shock you.

Usage Tells the Real Story

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There’s a disparity between what Internet Service Provider (ISP) companies are reporting for broadband access and what people living in rural communities are actually experiencing. According to the FCC, nearly 95% of Americans have access to broadband. This is an amalgamation of what ISPs are self-reporting to the agency. When you look at actual usage, however, it drops to nearly half of all Americans. Essentially, 157 million Americans cannot use broadband on any regular basis.

Microsoft, as part of their AirBand initiative, has been collecting data on broadband (25 Gb speed, or greater) across the country. The results are startling.

(See the link to the article here. It has additional data and information.)

There may be connectivity in the community or on the street, but it doesn’t reach houses or businesses, it’s too expensive to connect, or services are over-reported as being available when they actually aren’t. Let me give you some examples I’ve seen in my travels:

  • A cellphone customer suddenly can’t get access. She calls the company to ask why. They state that there is coverage in her area and she should have signal. They also mention that one of the towers was taken down but that shouldn’t affect her access. She’s on a 2-year contract which she can’t eliminate. She doesn’t have access. The company says she does. She’s stuck.
  • An ISP brings connectivity to the street, but doesn’t connect it to the farmhouse, because the house is half a mile inside the farm. To conserve energy and work time, farmhouses are centered within the farm, not placed at the edge. The company requires $10,000 to complete the full connection, because of the distance. For many farmers, that is their entire annual salary.
  • The Covid-19 lockdown has closed libraries and coffee shops where so many people usually access the internet. Without these resources, they are essentially cut off from most connectivity, including governmental services.

Correctly collected and analyzed data is crucial to understanding what is really going on in the world. If all of our important resources, such as unemployment, social security, and access to our elected representatives, are only available online, why isn’t access required in all our towns and rural spaces? Why do we still think that connectivity is a luxury?

Imperfect Competency

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A while back, I was working with my neighbors who were helping me load and move hay from my sister’s farm to mine. They are a couple who farm mostly forage, including hay.

They were both picking up 70-pound bales and loading them onto the end of the trailer. I was then stacking them in a criss-cross pattern to keep them stable when the trailer was moving. About half way through this hoisting gruntfest, somebody’s watch started beeping. “Oh”, said Emily.

“What was that?”, her husband asked.

“My Fitbit just said that I’ve done my 10,000 steps today.” It was 9 a.m. “No more exercise needed, I suppose”, she said as she continued to pick up bale after bale. This was the second 300-bale trailer she had hauled out to a farm that morning. Needless to say, she is in great physical shape.

At a size 18, Emily doesn’t feel that she is in the type of shape that she should be, hence the reason why she was wearing a Fitbit. It’s instilled in us as women that we need to be quite thin to be healthy. Yet, you can’t be a size two and move hundreds of bales of hay in a day. It requires muscles in order to farm and lots of them. So, there’s this paradox, where women cannot meet these opposing ideals and still be able to do our jobs. We are all striving constantly to achieve that which is not possible and we are made to feel badly about not doing so.

The constant feed of ideal beauty splattered across our airwaves, our print media, even our medical information, has instilled an inferiority in us as women. We never feel that we are entirely adequate even when we are quite successful.

There is a tyranny of assumptions about a woman’s competence. Her abilities should match the size of her figure in our culture. An overweight woman isn’t acceptable in a position of power. I know this to be true because I have encountered cultures where this prejudice doesn’t apply. Women are treated differently there and, often, weight and age give them greater gravitas. They are considered more competent, not less.

In my own experience, people have assumed things about me just from my physical size that were patently untrue, mostly because I’m not thin. An older, overweight woman could not possibly be technically astute and wouldn’t know or understand technology. Sometimes, it takes a great deal of convincing to get them to understand that I wrote the instructions they are quoting back to me. Yes, mansplaining is a serious problem in my life.

So, what is enough? Can we draw a line, saying that we are good where we are? Are we, as normal working women, constantly doomed to feel like we failing, trying to reach an ideal we cannot achieve? Can we stop the madness of always feeling bad about our bodies? Can we understand that we are more than merely competent? Can we be happy in our achievements?

Grace in the Time of Covid

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After three weeks of working from home, isolating myself from the world, I had to venture off my little farm to get some supplies for the ponies and the new puppy. Among the types of businesses deemed essential are farm and ranch supply stores. They are important. Spring is upon us and farmers are already preparing fields for planting. They can’t hesitate or there won’t be food this year. The seasons wait for no one and nothing.

The store had lots of notifications on the front doors about new hours and social distancing. There were stands demonstrating how far apart people should be while waiting in line. There were very few customers, yet plenty of helpful clerks. They were there to serve, doing it willingly in the face of a epidemic. I won’t soon forget that they worked in potential danger.

Companies are doing the best they can, struggling to stay open and pay their employees, or shuttering their doors when they have to, hoping that they can make it until they are able to reopen. Some businesses are really stepping up, using their funds to ensure that employees are taken care of and customers are helped. My internet provider is giving people expanded entertainment for free. Restaurants are cooking food for free. Employers that have shut down are still paying their employees.

These companies that are being good citizens during a difficult time are making an impression. They are telling us that they care about us. We are going to remember their commitment to our communities. The businesses that are rigidly inflexible, that price gouge, or that make our lives more difficult are going to be remembered, too. We are going to remember that we no longer want to do business with them.

The front line workers at grocery stores, pharmacies, take-out restaurants, hardware stores, farms, and feed & seeds usually aren’t the highest paid employees. Yet, they are willing to brave this pandemic to serve our communities. These employers are keeping their stores open even if sales are precipitously down. I don’t have to worry that I won’t have food or that my animals’ feed will run out. That’s a bright spot in all of this.