Rant #3,211: Pain In My Heart

I am back … but I am writing this at about 3 a.m. in the morning, so I guess I am not sleeping very well.

The past two days have been among the busiest and most frustrating days that I can ever remember, and that is saying a lot with all my family and I have been going through the past few weeks, months, and quite frankly, since at least the fall of 2019.

I took off from the Blog on Wednesday and Thursday because I had plenty to do with my work, which was having its annual convention in Virginia Beach, Va., during those past two days.

I would be covering the convention virtually, and I was prepared for almost non-stop work from about 7:30 a.m. in the morning to well into the evening, as not only would I have to sit through the convention days, but when that was over, I had to summarize what took place and what was said … 3,000 word pieces, but difficult to put together and write from audio recordings I made of the proceedings each day.

I have done this in the past, and while it is often tedious and boring, the voice recordings are immaculate, and provide me with plenty of fodder for good stories.

Ii proceeded to do the same thing on Wednesday. Everything was set up by 7 a.m. for my task with the convention. I got onto the convention seamlessly through my computer, had my yellow pad and pen ready to go, and things went along swimmingly though about 11:30 a.m., when convention members took a scheduled lunch break.

I had already eaten something, so I left one computer to go to another, where I found a story separate from the convention that I had to write up, so I set about doing that, while my recording continued to roll on the other, convention-linked computer.

The story that I had to edit was a little involved, and it took me a while to finish it. When I was finally done with that story, I heard some talking coming out of the other computer, so I went to my convention-linked computer, everything was going well with the recording, and I took my own break to pick up my son at work (my wife had taken him to work in my stead in the morning).

I did my job, came home, and walked over to the convention-linked computer—and promptly found that the recording had completely crashed, wiping out the first six hours or so of the convention.

I had taken some notes, but honestly, I have learned to lean on the recordings more in recent years for content, so while I did not panic, I was pretty distraught about the whole thing.

I started up my recording device again—it worked this time—and I once again covered the convention as I normally would, but with the thought in the back of my mind of, “How am I going to get content that I lost for the first six hours of this thing?”

Note: I actually was able to get the sound file that conked out on me, but it could not be opened no matter what I did.

I was sunk but not totally out, and I figured that I would get whatever I could during the afternoon session, and I did just that.

All the while—during both the morning and the afternoon—I was getting text messages from the realtor that people would be coming to look over the house during Thursday, Friday and into and through the weekend … with the stake in the ground saying that the house was for sale, the reality really sunk into me that my family’s world would be changing one way or the other, and we simply had to deal with it the best way we could—

And the best way we could deal with it right now was for me to continue to cover the convention and figure out what I was going to do about the missing first six hours of this meeting.

Although I was getting these texts and even phone calls during my time trying to cover this convention, my cellphone had been giving me problems for the past few weeks or so. It was an older Samsung Galaxy phone from at least five or six years ago, and after providing me stellar service on a number of levels during those years, it was quite obvious that its lifespan was coming to an end … but I decided that I would go with it as far as I could, as now was not the time for me go get a new cellphone.

In the middle or covering the afternoon portion of the convention, my phone needed charging, so I hooked it up and it charged up while I was firmly ensconced in what I was doing.

The phone charged, but when I disengaged it form the charger, I could not get it to boot up, no matter what I did to get it going.

So in the middle of covering this convention—and already with one electronic device failing me in the morning—I now had to deal with the fact that my phone was dead as a doornail, so to speak, and that I needed a new one.

After the convention ended for the day well after 4:30 p.m., I went right to the local Verizon store to get a replacement, and after more than two hours, I had a new phone, another Samsung phone that was much like my original phone and hopefully, do what I needed it to do, for both business and pleasure purposes.

I came home, ate a quick dinner, and at about 7:30 p.m., I went to work putting together something for the story I was writing on the convention, just using what I was able to cover in the afternoon.

It wasn’t an easy piece to write, even in this truncated form, but I completed what I was writing at about 10:30 p.m. … and then went to work on trying to set up my new phone, which was not helped by the fact that my old phone was unusable, so I could not transfer over any data form the old phone to the new one--I basically had to start from scratch with the new phone, gathering up some major apps I use—like email and Facebook—and trying to remember all the usernames and passwords.

I did pretty well with that—one or two of the apps I had some trouble with, but when I have some time, I will work on those—and I went to sleep well after midnight, with still another day to go with my coverage of this convention.

On Thursday, I woke up at about 6 a.m., looked at my phone as I always do while getting ready for the day, and I found a text message from my bank saying that there were some questionable charges on my checking account and debit card—emanating from California and Delaware—and that my debit card had been locked.

I was obviously hacked, and I tried to call the bank as the text message said that I should do, but the call would not go through, as evidently, the bank’s Fraud Department was not open 24/7 as it used to be, so I was sunk even before I got started yesterday. I would have to go to the bank myself, but just when, what with this convention just about ready to go.

So on Thursday, once again I set everything up for my coverage, and I was ready to go at 7:30 a.m. for the coverage to begin at 8 a.m.

The appointed time came, I put on my recording device, got my yellow pad and pen ready, AND THEN—

I could not connect to the convention.

I tried everything I could do to do this—I even tried to hook up on other devices—but no matter what I did, I couldn’t connect.

After about an hour of further panic—including phone calls and email messages to my employer in Washington, D.C.—I figured that I would let the recording device do its job if the hookup to the convention ever happened, and I left the house to go to the bank and fix this further mess.

It took about an hour to do so, but just about everything was straightened out with my account. I had, in fact, been hacked, and while it took quite a while to unravel this mess, those charges accrued by the hacker are not my responsibility, and everything appears to be copacetic with my account and the new debit card I was given.

I rushed home, only to see that things were status quo—I still could not get hooked up to the convention, but the recording device—which had failed me so badly the previous day—was still recording, but recording nothing.

I let it go for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, and went about my workday as I normally would—

And happily, I was able to get a ton of information that I needed to fill out my story from the services themselves—the Army & Air Force Exchange Service and the Navy Exchange Service Command—so I had enough fodder to fill out my story—which eventually took me several hours to do, ending at about 8 p.m.

In the middle of all that, the big story in Washington is the possible government shutdown, so I edited a story on that problem in the afternoon … which had to be re-edited later in the evening, as some facts had changed.

In the middle of all of this, the realtor brought over the first groups of potential buyers—and potential landlords—to look over the house.

The realtor knew my family and I were going to be there when this happened, and I take it that he told the potential suitors that we would be there when they came look.

On my end, even though I was smack dab in the middle of all of this work I had to do, I have to say that it was quite an awkward situation having people look at your house when you are still in it and still living in it.

We were all cordial about everything, and about five groups looked at the house in rapid succession, even one with another broker in tow.

The groups of potential buyers ran from very young to a couple who appeared to be around my age, and my wife later told me that one couple actually came up from Florida to look at the house, and another came from Queens.

The stake in the ground—and in my heart—is pretty fierce right now, and we have more potential buyers coming in today too …on Saturday is the open house—where we have to not be there for about four hours or so in late morning/early afternoon—and we might even have some potential buyers coming in on Sunday during the late morning, but we can be there for that.

I spoke to the realtor, and the game plan remains the same, with my family’s endgame completely intact.

With such activity, I don’t think we will have too many problems selling the house for at least our desired sum, but, of course, the linchpin is my family being a ready-made tenant as part of the deal, which is our desire beyond the selling price of the house.

And yes, it is very awkward having people look at your house while you are still living in it—during one instance yesterday, my wife and I both heard bangs on the walls downstairs in my mother’s part of the house--but so be it; if this is the way to punctuate our endgame, then it will all be very much worth it.

As for my work, I have no idea what is going to happen about the coverage of the second day, so I have no idea if I an going to have a working Friday/weekend or not … but right now, I am so bummed out at everything that has come our way this week that I truly need a bit of a break, and you can figure out as easy as I can that all of this tumult is impacting my sleeping pattern, and that is why I am up now at past 4 a.m. writing this Rant up for you at this ungodly hour.

And all of this is forcing me to look over my shoulder at the next hurdle I am going to have to get over … which could be on Monday, early in the morning, when I have to bring in my new used car for its 5,000 mile checkup.

Based on what has been going on here lately, I am looking forward to all of this as much as I am looking forward to getting a lobotomy, but maybe it will go well—

My family and I did have one bit of good news this week, and that was that my wife won her Workman’s Compensation case against her former employer.

She had to leave her latest job because she continues to suffer from the after effects of her brain injury from May, and these after effects inhibit her ability to do certain jobs, in particular when she has to move around up and down.

Her old place of work—where her injury occurred—caved in, and while they did not take any responsibility for their actions, they simply decided that it was not worth their while to pursue this action, certainly not with store video in hand showing exactly what happened on that fateful day.

So my wife left her job and won her case all in the span of about 72 hours or so.

I guess there is a God in heaven after all …

But I ask that God to shine down on my family and I a little more brightly when it comes to the house and all of these other things that have been going on here lately.

As I said, I have a very early appointment on Monday, so I am going to have to take that day off from the Blog.

Have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Tuesday.

And please, continue to keep us in your prayers.

I still think divine intervention is the only way out of this mess we were thrown into, and the more prayers, the better.

“It is approaching 5 a.m. … do you know where your mind is?”