A doubtful week

The week is downhill, in an interesting way. Who else is paying attention to Bill Gates, the last hero with clay feet? How sad that his ego outstrips his common sense. Suddenly we're paying close attention to Melinda Gates for the wise words. She at least is kicking his can to the curb, and has been working on the details for the last couple of years.

I ordered her book, The Moment of Lift, and for more "background understanding, added The Biography of Melinda Gate, by Andrew Stone. The former has not arrived, but the "biography" came yesterday. Andrew Stone is surely a pseudonym; English is less than second language for him, and composition is less than his understanding. I wrote a review, concluding I have been to a rent party with this purchase.

Speaking of moguls, I stumbled on the movie Jobs, and have watched it close to the end. There are several films about the man, and I wonder if any have attempted to burnish his image. I am not interested in the film to augment my understanding of Steve Jobs, but in the coincidence of simultaneously ordering a Square, that little Apple device that processes credit cards on a phone.

In a couple of weeks I hope to need to process cards at the Peninsula Flea, and decided to give the Square a trial run. For all my searching I could not find a headphone jack on my phone. The one tiny opening that might work was not large enough. Later Laura told me that is the reset port.

I called Square and had a nice conversation that concluded in the purchase of a reader for cards, as the operator concluded that Android or not, my phone had no headphone jack. I ordered a reader that wi-fi's to my phone. I'm waiting for it's arrival.

Perusing  the Square shop (called Square Up, which amused me), I saw the little Square was available in two terminals, the headphone type and the charger type. Wondering if the charger type terminal would have worked on my phone, I called the local Apple store, where the device is available.

The "specialist" I talked with could not have been more disinterested. It's so hard to have a conversation with someone who does not give a damn about understanding the problem and discussing solutions. So, I'll just wait for the new reader. I would have preferred reaching through the phone and shaking the dismissive specialist into a clerk with a job. 

And finally, 'splain this one to me, Lucy. Back in my show days, the drill was: I applied to a show with my resume and slides of my work. If accepted I paid the show fee and showed up on the appointed day with my best attitude, to make the show a success for the people who came, the people who put it on, and me. The people who put on the show were responsible for the venue and advertising. I retired in 2003.

Fast forward almost twenty years. I applied to the Peninsula Flea in the usual way, paid my fee and went to my loom to stock up. Suddenly I am receiving emails from a coordinator asking why I am not promoting my work and the show on my Facebook, the show's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube....

No, no, no, no, no a thousand times to all of the above. Sometimes I wonder not only at the world we are leaving but the people we are leaving it to!