Calling The Appliance Repair Help Desk....

Woke up this morning to our microwave not heating. Everything else works - just doesn't heat anything. It's under warranty so I had to call Samsung. The conversation went like this:

She: Thank you for calling Samsung. How can I help you?

Me: My microwave quit working this morning. It's under warranty.

She: I'm sorry that happened, Sir. Let's see if we can figure it out. I want to ask you a few questions. Is that alright?

Me: Sure.

She: OK. First, I'd like you to unplug the microwave.

Me: OK. Done.

She: Can you please check the power cord for any damage or frayed wires?

Me: The power cord is fine.

She: OK, Sir. Thank you. Can you please check the power cord for damage or frayed wires?

Me: The power cord doesn't have any damage.

She: OK, Sir. Thank you. Now, let's see if it's in demo mode. Can you please set the clock?

Me: OK, I set the clock.

She: OK. Now, push the Options button to option number 6.

Me: OK. I'm at option 6.

She: Can you please push the number 2?

Me: OK, done.

She: What does it say?

Me: It says "OFF"

She: OK. Please press start.

Me: OK. Done.

She: Can you please put a cup of water in the microwave and run it for 60 seconds?

Me: OK.

Sixty second interval.....

She: Did the water heat up?

Me: No. Still cold.

She: OK. It's not in the Demo mode.

Me: (Silently) Duh....

She: OK, Sir. Did you maybe use the kitchen timer by accident?

Me: (Getting a little irritated...) No, I didn't use the timer. I'm very familiar with this microwave and use the timer on a regular basis.

She: OK, Sir. I have to ask. Some people use the timer by mistake.

Me: I'm fairly intelligent. I know the difference between the two.

She: Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir. I have to ask these questions to try to solve the problem.

Me: OK.

She: Now, Sir... we need to determine if the power source is the right voltage.

Me: It's been working fine for the last year.

She: OK, Sir. Is it plugged into a dedicated 120v outlet?

Me: Yes.

She: Can you plug another appliance into the outlet to make sure the outlet is working properly?

Me: I'm looking at the clock and the interior light - both working fine. I'm pretty sure the outlet is working.

She: Yes, Sir. Do you have another appliance you can plug into it to be sure?

Me: You just had me set the clock and try to heat water in the microwave. I couldn't do either if the power source wasn't working.

She: Yes, Sir. I have to ask. Do you have another appliance you can plug into the outlet to make sure it's working?

Me: I'm not going to do that. You're just going to have to take my word for it.

She: I'm sorry, Sir. We have people who call us sometimes and say their microwave isn't working and when the technician gets there he finds the outlet not working properly. In that case you would be responsible for the call and have to pay.

Me: I'm willing to take that chance.

She: OK, Sir.

Me: (A bit irritated) Why would you not ask me that first, before I set the clock and attempt to heat water? Obviously, if the clock is on and the microwave ran for 60 seconds the outlet works.

She: I sense that you're not liking the questions I'm asking but I do have to ask them.

Me: I understand that. What I don't understand is why you don't ask that one first. Asking me now if the power is working, after I've already demonstrated more than once that it is, is nonsensical.

She: I'm sorry you feel that way, Sir. This call is being recorded and they're listening to it.

Me: Good. They need to reword their script to keep people from feeling like they're being demeaned and not smart enough to know whether or not the power is on.

She: Again, I'm sorry you feel that way. But there are some people...

Me: I understand that. But I'm not one of them. I also understand that it's not you and that you have to ask the questions. But the questions should be subjective so that if I answer the question indirectly it can be omitted.

She: Yes, Sir. I understand. But I have to ask them.

Eventually the woman understood that I had done everything that could be done to correct the problem and that I needed a service technician to come out and look at it. She gave me a ticket number and said someone would contact me in 1-2 business days. In the meantime we have no microwave. But I've got fodder for a blog....!

Happy Thanksgiving To All

A little reminder of why we celebrate Thanksgiving....

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. 

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. 

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. 

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

Dear Trump Protesters....

America has been observing your actions for the last week. We have noted your anger. We have noted your hatred of the new President-elect. We understand you're not happy with the election results. You've made it quite clear.

We have also noted that you, in your trumped up (pun very much intended) emotional overload, are destroying the property of others, blocking people from getting where they need to go, attacking law enforcement officers, overturning and setting fire to their vehicles and carrying signs that not only call for the assassination of the new President-elect but also for the rape of his wife. At least one of your members vowed that there will be “casualties on both sides.”

And you do this while saying all you want is peace, justice and fairness.

Here are a few things to think about...

Remember those businesses you burned down? Each of them was owned by someone and each of them employed people. How many of those owners voted for Hillary or Bernie instead of Trump? You don't know, do you? How many of their now unemployed workers voted against Trump? Again, you have no idea. You didn't think of that before you destroyed their livelihood, did you?

You know those people you're holding up by shutting down freeways? How many of them are Hillary supporters? In blue states it would be a very large number. Yet there you are, preventing them from getting where they need to go. Do you think your fellow liberal voters are pleased that you are disrupting their daily lives with your foolishness?

Those police officers you're assaulting? They're out there to protect you just as much as the others. They're there to keep people safe, to protect property and to encourage and promote the smooth flow of traffic as well as the smooth flow of your protest. When you injure one of them or set his vehicle on fire you may very well be preventing him from responding to a situation where he is truly needed. That person needing the police may also be a Hillary supporter. Yet you chose to ignore his/her needs for your own selfish and stupid reasons.

You vilified Donald Trump for his attacks on others, his harsh, late-night tweets, and particularly his disgusting comment made about women when you were 10 years old. Yet some of you are calling for his wife, who has done absolutely nothing to you, to be sexually assaulted. Gee – how is it bad for one person to even say he did it and yet call for the assault of a woman who had nothing to do with it? Do you understand how twisted that thinking is?

Of course you don't. You've been taught since day one that you are entitled to have everything you want and that losing is not part of the equation. You've gone to schools that provide you with safe spaces where you can retreat when you think your precious little feelings might be hurt by something or someone. You've gone to schools that prevent right-leaning individuals from speaking because of your precious little feelings. And you've gone to schools that cancel classes and tests when something happens just because they know you're too fragile to deal with testing and real world events at the same time.

How are you ever going to survive in the real world? The real world doesn't have safe spaces. The real world doesn't cancel your responsibilities just because something happens. That's real life. And you're going to suck at it.

While you're out there screaming your anger and destroying property the real world goes on. It's still going to go on when you're finally finished with this nonsense. And you won't know how to deal with disappointment like an adult.

Donald Trump is going to be the next President. That's just a fact. All your protests, your screaming, your destruction and even your petition to have the Electoral College shirk their duties, are not going to change that fact. The sooner you realize that the sooner you can get back to whatever it is you do when you're not protesting.

Time to grow up, children. The only casualties are your precious, fragile egos after you discovered that life sometimes just isn't going to be fair to you. The election was fair even if you didn't get what you wanted. Deal with it like adults. You'll be happier in the long run if you do.

Proudly Illiterate? Hardly. Uneducated White Man? Guilty As Charged

I read an article the other day written by Garrison Keillor entitled “Trump Voters Will Not Like What Happens Next.” For those unfamiliar with the name, Garrison Keillor is an author, humorist, radio performer and the creator of the NPR show “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Mr. Keillor explained how Donald Trump voters were all “proudly illiterate.” Apparently he conforms to the liberal media opinion, misguided as it is, that Trump was elected by “uneducated white men.”

To say that President-elect Trump was elected by mostly blue collar workers would be accurate. To call those blue collar workers illiterate and uneducated is a gross and offensive mis-generalization of the American people in general. I know that because I'm included in that group.

To Garrison Keillor I am illiterate. Since I'm writing this article in fairly legible and hopefully intelligent English, I think I'm proving him wrong.

To the left-wing media I'm uneducated. And by their academia standards they are correct. I did not complete any more than a partial year in college. But in my lifetime I've been a paramedic, certified in emergency medicine and advanced cardiac life support. If the left-wing media believes that doesn't take education I invite them to try it.

I spent my career working in federal prisons, starting as a correctional officer and working my way up to the rank of Captain. As a Captain I was the head of the entire security department. No small feat for an uneducated illiterate. For two years I was even a management training instructor. Imagine such an uneducated illiterate teaching management training to other managers.

It seems many on the left feel that if one is not an academic he or she just doesn't live up to proper standards. But just for a moment imagine a world without blue collar workers.

In a world full of academics only, who would build your homes? The architect (the academic) would design it but who would put it together?

Who would fix the problem when the electricity went out, or when you had a broken water main?

Who would make your vehicle run properly again after it breaks down, or even tow your car to a mechanic?

Oh wait. In an all academic world there would be no mechanics to which it could be towed.

Who would grow the food that you buy in the grocery stores? Who would transport it from the farms to the processing plants and to the stores? Who would stock the shelves and run the cash registers? You can bet it wouldn't be academics with impressive degrees.

Are all of these blue collar workers I've mentioned “proudly illiterate?”

In case anyone forgot – the definition of illiterate is “someone who cannot read or write.” To say Mr. Keillor is exaggerating is an understatement. What's worse is he's blatantly insulting half of the population of the United States because he's unhappy with the election results.

For the record, college educated Americans voted 59% to 41% for Hillary Clinton. Do you understand that, Mr. Keillor? Forty-one percent of the academia voted for Trump. So rather than uneducated are they simply ignorant?

You, Mr. Keillor, would appear to be the ignorant one. You have no clue who elected Donald Trump (it wasn't just uneducated white men) nor will you, in your “holier than thou” world, ever understand why it happened.

Some Thoughts On The President Elect

Yesterday, across the nation, ignorance once again reared its ugly head. People protesting against the legal, constitutional election of Donald Trump to the Presidency staged violent protests in at least 19 cities, setting fires and vandalizing businesses. At least one police vehicle was burned and several officers were injured.

The left screams that Trump is so bad, that he encourages violence and racism. So they protest him by destroying other people's property.

Trump has been called a misogynist, a xenophobe, a homophobe and a racist – none of which are true.

Misogyny is defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.” Because Trump has made derogatory comments about women in the past, including the comment he made in a supposed private conversation that was recorded without his knowledge, he is labeled a misogynist. Yet thousands of women who know him and/or work for him say that is simply untrue. And who would know better – those women who know him or the media?

Unlike Hillary, Trump actually pays women equally to their male counterparts. In some cases he pays women more. Does that show dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women?

Xenophobe is defined as “one unduly fearful of what is foreign and especially of people of foreign origin. Trump has been labeled that because he wants to stop illegal immigration and wants to prevent potential terrorists from entering the country without proper vetting. That's not xenophobia – it's intelligent management of our borders.

Why would American citizens want foreign nationals in the country illegally? We have to obey our laws and the laws of other countries we visit. Why don't they? Have you paid any attention to the protests against Trump in the last year? You see Mexican flags being waved throughout the crowds – people in our country waving a foreign flag. If they love that other country so much why are they here?

Trump doesn't want Muslim refugees brought into the country until they're properly vetted – if that's even possible. Some think that's xenophobia. Have you taken a good look at Europe? Europe is currently in turmoil because they opened their borders to Muslim refugees. People, women in particular, are being assaulted in record numbers by Muslim men. Why would we want that here? Do you really believe it will be different just because they come to the USA?

One person told me recently that Trump is going to outlaw same-sex marriage. I'm not sure where that idea came from (like the main stream, left-wing media) but Trump's stance on same-sex marriage has always been to leave it up to the individual states. He has said that over and over. But some don't seem to understand.

And no, he's not going to overturn the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. He does not have the authority, as President, to overrule the Supreme Court. That can only be done two ways – a Constitutional Amendment or a new Supreme Court ruling. And neither of those are going to happen despite what the media says.

Finally – Trump is being called a racist for comments he made about the Southern border and Muslim refugees. Trump said rapists and murderers are crossing our Southern border from Mexico. That is absolutely a fact. Not everyone who enters the country illegally is a rapist or murderer, nor did Trump say they were. But how many are OK? Ask the parents of Kate Steinle, who was murdered in California last year by an illegal who had been deported five times yet was living in the sanctuary city of San Francisco. Or ask the family of Marilyn Pharis, the 64 year old woman who was murdered by an illegal alien after she was raped.

I could undoubtedly make a long list on this page but I shouldn't have to. As I asked above – how many are OK?

It's probably not worth pointing out that Islam is not a race therefore, wanting to prevent Muslims from entering the country is not racist. But why would anyone want to prevent terrorists from entering the country? Do you enjoy the bombings and mass shootings that are being perpetrated by Muslims? Would you like more of them? I don't get it.

The desire to secure borders is not racist. We are the only country in the world who doesn't enforce our immigration laws. It's not only ridiculous it's pathetic. We allow foreign nationals to flood over our border unimpeded and unvetted to our own peril. And spare me any statement that “Obama has deported more illegals than any President in history.” I know Border Patrol agents who verify that's simply untrue. Why do you think it is that the Border Patrol union endorsed Trump?

Trump is far from perfect. He wasn't even my choice for President initially. He's crude, rude and often obnoxious – although when he speaks from a prepared speech he does pretty well. Gee – so does the current President...

Trump will surround himself with people who get things done, just as he does in his business. Sure – he's filed a few bankruptcies. Big deal. Chevrolet and Chrysler took government bailouts to prevent them from doing that very thing. Are they bad? Business is business and Trump's successes far outweigh his few failures. He didn't become a billionaire by failing.

Trump hasn't been given a chance to do anything yet. His plan for his first 100 days in office is quite sound and worth reading if you haven't. He wants term limits for Washington politicians. What could be bad about that? He wants to renegotiate trade deals so that the United States actually benefits from them instead of losing. Gee, that would suck. And he wants to repeal Obamacare and create health care savings accounts that Americans can participate in without being forced to buy something they don't want or being fined... er, uh.... taxed if they don't. And he wants to eliminate the state borders that currently prevent insurance purchases outside one's state. Heartless.

Donald Trump has been elected legally and constitutionally. Those who are violently protesting are proving how ignorant they truly are. Typical, unwashed, liberal tolerance at its best. Perhaps, once they get finished destroying things they can retreat to their safe spaces and just stay there. Quietly.

Americans Fleeing To Canada...

I didn't write this nor do I know who did. I got it in an email. And unlike Hillary, I didn't delete it.

Like Hillary, I'm going to share it. But there are no classified, top secret, secret, confidential, or "eyes only" markings on it. Enjoy.

The flood of Trump-fearing American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week. The Republican presidential campaign is prompting an exodus among left-leaning Americans who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray, pay taxes, and live according to the Constitution.

Canadian border residents say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, liberal arts majors, global-warming activists, and “green” energy proponents crossing their fields at night.

“I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn,” said southern Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. “He was cold, exhausted and hungry, and begged me for a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn’t have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?”

In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. He then installed loudspeakers that blared Rush Limbaugh across the fields, but they just stuck their fingers in their ears and kept coming. Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals just south of the border, pack them into electric cars, and drive them across the border, where they are simply left to fend for themselves after the battery dies.

“A lot of these people are not prepared for our rugged conditions,” an Alberta border patrolman said. “I found one carload without a single bottle of Perrier water, or any gemelli with shrimp and arugula. All they had was a nice little Napa Valley cabernet and some kale chips. When liberals are caught, they’re sent back across the border, often wailing that they fear persecution from Trump high-hairers.

Rumors are circulating about plans being made to build re-education camps where liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer, study the Constitution, and find jobs that actually contribute to the economy.

In recent days, liberals have turned to ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have been disguised as senior citizens taking a bus trip to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans in blue-hair wig disguises, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior citizens about Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney to prove that they were alive in the ’50s.

“If they can’t identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we become very suspicious about their age,” an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage, are buying up all the Barbara Streisand CD’s, and are overloading the internet while downloading jazzercise apps to their cell phones.

“I really feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can’t support them,” an Ottawa resident said. “After all, how many art-history majors does one country need?