Another daily debate

With everyone having Labor Day weekend sales (lest I forget the deodorant fiasco a few years ago 😱), I can't decide if I want to order a couple books online or wait it out to finish the stacks I have currently. 

What prompted this, is the fact I was next on the list to receive Radium Girls from the library. I got it today and it's sitting on my entertainment center until Saturday when I can watch it. It finally came in and it's "only" Wednesday... but I am too tired to watch it tonight. 

I'm old... I say this as it's not even 8pm (and I'll finish writing this after 8). 

But I'm excited to see the movie. It's "based on true events" where "sisters Bessie and Jo Cavallo paint dial watches at the American Radium factory in New Jersey. When Jo's health starts to decline, Bessie starts to question if Radium is safe and discovers a veil of corporate lies". 

Originally, I heard the book review of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women NPR when it came out. Someone was interviewing Kate Moore and it sounded really good. 

Per Amazon:

The incredible true story of the women who fought America’s Undark danger

The Curies’ newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women’s cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America’s early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives...

This is one of the books I'd be buying if I talked myself in to it. As someone who enjoys knowing weird truths about history, I keep putting off the purchase of this story. 

I mean, at under $15 right now, I can't say it'll break the bank, but I also don't have the justification since I have a solid 40 books in crates on my floor right now that are collecting dust. I'm currently attempting Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon and am 35 pages in to it, as I haven't brought it out to read during my lunch breaks at work. 

I eat like a four year old and when you bring soup or salad for your afternoon meal, it's hard not to make a mess some days. 

So the book has been sitting in my back pack. It's a thick book too, so I'll be trudging slowly though it. It'll then go with the other Kennedy books I've acquired over the years... 

... yea.. #Masshole. 

Which is just as good as a reason to try to hold myself off from buying more... the want is great but the need is slim. 

Like the fact I'd want to read Eerie Appalachia: Smiling Man Indrid Cold, the Jersey Devil, the Legend of Mothman and More (American Legends) book since the authors  Mark Muncy and Kari Schultz) were on Into The Fray this month and I am getting around to listening to that episode.

The pair are always on the podcast and seem to be on more frequently when they have a book out. As much as I'm not a fan of living in America's Wang / God's Waiting Room /  The Sunshine State, the Eerie books sound cool. Like I said, I'm (sorta) in to randomly weird history, and these stories are all about the paranormally odd tourist / off the grid places south of the Peach State. 

I'd be apt to use my library on these when I get down to a decent amount of stories I own. Considering the last paperback I took out was in 2014 for the book numbers 1,2, 4 and 5 of the Dante Valentine series (I stupidly bought book three since it looked good, but went to start it and realized "shit, it's smack in the middle of a succession of books), I probably should dust my numbers off for something good rather than a two hour visual brain melting. 

I flip flop. I know. I need to make up my mind about these things. Where my eyesight is getting worse as the years go on, who knows how much longer I'll be able to read "normal" print. My coke bottle glasses will end up setting the pages on fire if I sit under a lamp the right way. 

Watch... my luck that'll happen sooner than later. 😂

Well, it's just shy of 8:30 and it's thundering like crazy. Which means it's time to log off and get the electronics powered down. 

#oldschoollearnings say "It's storming! Unplug yer sheeit!"

Off I go!

Cheers!

It's just the power of...

 ... corporate greed cheap tech.

I have made no qualms about the fact I have a fruit phone. 

The type of smartphone that comes with two decals in the same box as the actual device. 

Why does it come with stickers? Are we five? 

I don't know, but I must have at least twice as many sets to show my allegiance to a company that no longer provides headphones or a charging brick... 

Yes, it's long been talked about.. the lack of 3.5mm jack in an Apple iPhone. The same hole you can plug in your (wired) headphones in to. 

Apple decided to remove the headphone jack when they came out with the 6S and SE models in 2016. I guess it was to make people start purchasing the airpods instead... only because Bluetooth was starting to catch on with a lot of things and people wanted to be tangle free. 

I don't know the whole answer, but I know it did anger some people, including myself. The hell do you do now? If you invested in some nice wired headphones, you now how to live a dongle life in order to continuing to use said headphones.  

Which I have to do now... in  2022.

Or.. you need to invest in the aforementioned wireless technology. Which is sometimes not the best alternative to use some voice chatting services. I've been there. I know. I've used various types of wireless headphones and none are great for chatting. They're pretty amazing for podcast listening, but to make a phone call or video conference? Forget it.

Not adding the "extra heft" could make more economical sense. By not providing wired headphones in the box, it makes shipping to stores less pricey. More money in Apple's pocket but less money in yours. Only because it makes you have to accessorize. 

Around 2020, Apple stated they wanted to "reduce its environmental footprint", so they won't include the basics, which would be any type of wired headphone. Lightning or otherwise. 

So getting rid of the 3.5mm hole was just the tip of the iceberg, 4 years prior. 

Moving on to other issues, they don't include a charging brick. Newer models (12 and 13) are coming with USB-C compatibility. So you can plug your phone into your MacBook if you need a quick charge. 

Way to assume people have MacBooks, Apple. Way to assume. 

Although, most laptops on the market today don't have as many USB connections. If they do, they have the opportunity to have USB-C ports, so you don't have to worry about sticking in your (charger, thumb drive, etc) the wrong way, like you do with normal USB items. Smart thinking if you're up on the times. Not so smart if you still work on stuff pre-2016. 

Stay with me... I'm circling my point and I know that.

What you lose in the box to gain the ability to be more mobile, Apple and it's benevolence has opted to gift you a SIM pin to be able to get a SIM Card in your phone. 

It must be cheaper than a brick or a headphone, apparently. But then again, what's the harm in a tiny piece of sharp metal?

Providing this pin is new in two ways:

1. It wasn't until the iPhone 4 (that I know of... because I didn't have a SIM card prior to having the iPhone 4... in late 2012. I had all Android level flip phones prior.. with no SIM cards) where you got to put a SIM card in the phone. Every model has an all encompassing shell and had no ejectable parts.. minus the SIM card spot. 

This includes the fact you still can't change the battery yourself if you have problems.

2. It's assuming you know how to do the whole SIM thing yourself. I know when I first got the iPhone 4, reading all the directions on how to make the phone my own, it said I needed to put my card in the phone. How do I do that? What do I do that with? 

After having a conversation with a tech at Verizon, they told me I need a push pin and find the little space on the side of the phone where it looks like the pin can go in to. Get that open, get the card in, put the tray back. Power on phone and I can finish updating it to my needs. 

What the hell??

Ok, sure. 

I did that. Popped the tray out, put the card in, turned on the phone. Followed the welcome screen to create my own ID and go forth I went. 10 years later and having used the 4, 6, and now 11, I've jumped around with the products but am not a fan boy by any means. I just now know what to look for to pop in my card. 

But.. when I got the 11, I was told we no longer need to keep using the same card... every new card that comes with the phone (somehow we get a new SIM card... I don't know), our information is backed up in the Cloud and on Verizon's servers. So once they activate the phone on their end, the new card knows what to do and we can throw out the old one. 

That's not weird? 

So I have 2 phones cards and nothing to do with them. I don't know why I'm keeping it. Maybe in the event the shit hits the fan and I'll need it? Who knows. 

All I know is the phone maker gets you coming and going and there's no such thing as lowering a carbon footprint if you're still making the products and shipping them differently. We are a society are still buying the accessories... the products... the everything. 

It's a need and want deal and I am struggling to want to need to use my phone, the longer I have it. I know it's nice to have, but do I really want a mini computer in my pocket? I can barely hear out of it. Hence the headphones. I could hear better on a flip phone because it was better to hold to my head. Trying to hold a flat surface and talking... not so great. Speakerphone is nice... to a point... but the world doesn't need to hear your conversation. Headphones can be challenging because you have the potential to not see your surroundings... which can be weirdly awkward if you're talking while shopping. People look at you funny. Or if you're listening to music, you don't know when people sneak up on you (happened to me). 

One of these days I'll figure this tech out... hopefully sooner than later...

Until then... stay dry in this heat and rain.

Cheers;

Side note: this post all came about due to my mother getting an iPhone 13 the beginning of this month...

See Also:

All this talk about tech... Amazon is having Labor Day Deals coming up. Which includes aforementioned headphones. Plus memory cards (my friend Tay uses them in his Android), snacks, vitamins, speakers and face cream.. much more. 

Maybe it's time to get a jump on next weekend's planning? 

It seems weird...

I know I'm not the world's most excellent mathematician, nor do I pretend to be. However, there seems to be something off kilter about my CVS transaction yesterday. 

Between $4.19 in Extrabucks (three separate cash back rewards - $4, $0.10, $0.09), two different manufacturer coupons ($2 off any Tom's of Maine product, $1 off any Tom's of Maine product), I really should have walked out paying absolute zero for a $6.99 bottle of mouthwash. 

Instead, I paid 20 cents tax on a "100% savings" item. 

I edited out store information from the receipt. That is why it looks funny. 

Essentially, when I used the self checkout, I was charged tax on the mouthwash before I used any type of (digital) coupons. By having over six dollars worth of redemptions, it really should have paid for itself.

Breaking down the savings:

Product        =      6.99 (-)

Extrabuck 1 =     4.00  (-)

Coupon 1     =     1.00  (-)

Coupon 2     =      2.00 (coupon charged differently)*

6.99 - 4.00 = 2.99

2.99 - 1.00 = 1.99

* Because the second coupon was worth 2 dollars, they only subtracted 1.99 from it. 

1.99 - 1.99 = 0.00

I still have my nineteen cents in Extrabucks savings. So if I had to pay the twenty cents in tax, theoretically, I feel that the leftover change should have been used that way (the 19 cents Extra bucks plus the penny they adjusted for the 2 dollar coupon). Completely clear out my transaction. THAT is when I really would have saved 100 per cent - by using all my points and coupons to their full value instead of now having to go back to the store and figure out what to buy to spend the 19 cents. 

Somehow, by paying state tax, I feel like I didn't have a full savings. It's just another way for the government to get us hooked on things and pay frivolously. 

Yes, I went there and I don't always talk politics. It's just lately, I've been having some challenges with things and even one of my friends (Hi Cat) is having similar remarks. We were talking about how there's been some toxicity among the ranks (family and friends) and we started comparing pipe dreams. The kind of "wishin' and hopin'" (not the Dusty Springfield kind, but maybe not even along the lines of Barenaked Ladies "If I Had $1,000,000" via a scratch off kind either) thoughts where if we had enough money, we'd band like minded people together and hang out in peace. Which is also why I keep trying my hand at the Mega Millions and Powerball every few weeks. Plus the occasional scratch off. Meh.

I know, it sounds like a hippy commune when I put it this way. Trust me, it's not. I'm not delving deep into this blog with what she and I fully talk about because I don't want to give away too many trade secrets. I admit it sounds funny and stupid as hell right now to allude to things, but seeing where life is going, pipe dreams are amazing conjecture. 

A dream is a dream until you make it reality. So we're going to keep trying to find our ways of peaceful living. When we can accomplish it, I'll let you know. 

Until then, stay fresh.

Cheers;

De plane... runnnnnnnnnn

Every time I see the little baby planes (Cessnas, etc) as I'm near Page Field (the airport of Fort Myers back in the day), I think of the crop duster scene in North By Northwest. Search it out. You'll know the reference. 

Weird as it may be to correlate a Hitchcock movie to an air strip, but no matter how many times I pass the area and see the planes come and go, I can't help think about that scene. 

Yes, I know... this is no longer the 1950s and there's no Cary Grant around. Neither is anyone making movies there and just as the day is long, no corn is available (maybe just palmettos, according to Lee County Port Authority). But it's still a sight to be seen. 

Okay, so doing a little more reading on the Port Authority site, it looks like Page Field started as a puddle jump spot from Miami to Saint Petersburg but it fell through due to (ba ba ba bum... certain death) soggy grounds during summer. Of course; there's a ton of rain that saturates the area from May to October. Why is this not surprising that you can't have an air port on marsh land? Build up, man, build up. 

Build up is what the natives did. 

The area was deeded to Lee County in the early 1940s by the Works Administration because the ongoing crises at the time (Japan / Pearl Harbor / WWII) and the ease of being able to use the land to make a better runway situation. 

The whole plot became an "advanced fighter training base. The United States Army Air Corps named the field Fort Myers Army Air Base, although the official name was the Lee County Airport. Locals, however, referred to the facility by several different names". Lee County Commissions office got one name to stick: "Page Field after a local World War I flying ace, Capt. Channing Page, the first Floridian to receive a commission into the Army Air Corp". 

Needless to say, three years before the retaliation on the Japanese (the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima), Page Field was heavily used by various Bomber Groups and fighter pilots to make sure they were all up to snuff on defeating the enemy.  

The war ending in 1945 ended the use of the Air Base in Fort Myers so it went back to being a "normal" airport. Way to go, locals, for helping a cause? 

Thirty eight more years, people came and went from this one area of town. I know that my (older) friends and relatives mention how things are built up now compared to then... when they used to come down here from 1965-1990 and Fort Myers was all open space.  

Even some of the friends who were born in the area and went away on a different life path, came back to see what they knew and where they were doesn't really exist anymore. Streets famously made for one way in, same way out, lined with palms or gladioluses... are missing from new memories. 

The main street we travel on near my house.. one of the plant name sakes... don't seem to have any semblance of reference to why it's named the road. 

Sure, there's a tomato field near my house (or ex tomato field, as the owners have said they've sold the land because it's not making money anymore... this is a 100 year old field with 40 years of tomato growing. When I moved here [11 years ago coming up next week], we'd always went to pick the maters. They were dirt cheap [ha ha] per pound, but over the last couple years, the price per pound skyrocketed to match the size of the tomatoes. I kid you not - if you looked closely at some of the stalks, there very well could be a single tomato the size of your palm. I've picked those before. Along with the smaller ones) but it doesn't scream "tomato road / drive". It's not located at the corner of Tomato and Other Veg. It's located at the intersection of "these things don't exist here anymore". 

Anyway, I've gotten off topic. 

Although the LCPA site doesn't get the exact date in 1983, they state that "Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) was certified for operation and Page Field was designated a general aviation airport". I saw on another website it was May 14, so I'm a day older than it. Yippie?

Page Field doesn't go away once RSW becomes the big boy on campus, even though there were some troubled years in the 1990s. Page Field needed to find its rock bottom, apparently, but with the county giving it a face lift via a "5 year plan", it has come out sober and is a "a thriving, prosperous, rapidly developing general aviation facility". 

The field has "a new general aviation terminal and FBO - Base Operations at Page Field - opened on the field's west side. The project included a 22,613-square-foot terminal building with first-class services and amenities for passengers and crews, executive conference room, seminar facility, easy access from runways with a new parallel taxiway, a new 24,000-square-foot itinerant aircraft hangar and 600,000 square feet of ramp space with exclusive business aircraft parking. A full-scale P-51 replica hangs from the ceiling in Base Operations and a fully restored AT-6 Texan trainer is displayed outside, paying homage to the airport’s history."

To which I come to the point of my ramblings. 

I have pictures, not amazingly edited, as I'm still not up to snuff on a proper editing bay. I don't have my monitor calibrated and I am not using a Fruit inspired operating system. So WYSIWYG and I'm not that sorry... I just don't have the opportunity right now for a studio. I wish I did, but my bedroom is my work area, sadly enough.

So... I'm working on an HP Pavilion Laptop with Windows 8 (Amazon has 11 and 12 generation versions, making mine... 2nd generation?), a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, Photoshop CS5, and doing my best to post amazing pictures from my Canon EOS Rebel T7i camera. 

This might be an opportune time for a commercial break.

"So.. do you like what you see and read? I've got a Ko-Fi page. Any little bit helps and could pave the way to have me get better at taking photos and uploading them". Find out how to support me here: https://ko-fi.com/abe11825

Okay.. back to the point of the program. 

Now I shall submit the following 35 photos for approval of the Midnight Society:

Thank you.

I know the picture with the sign about the first plane is off center. I wasn't really paying attention when I took the photo. I didn't know if anyone was going to come around and take my camera away or ask me not to film anything... given the fact there are "report suspicious activities" signs on the fence. All I need is to be arrested for taking photos. 

Take it as you will. Learn up on history. Have a different level of boredom. Either way, it's 86 degrees here and with humidity, it's 93. It's only 6:15pm.

Stay cool.

Cheers

See also (aka what the title came from):

• Fantasy Island ("De Plane")
• North by Northwest ("runnnnn")
  

See Also (aka links about Florida):

• About Page Field | The Page Story (the LCPA site I kept quoting)
  
• Weird histories of Fl by Mark Muncy (Via Amazon. You'll have to weed through the erotica novels, but his stuff is a side note to a lot of back stories of America's Wang)
  
• "Diverse History Comes Alive in Fort Myers in Southwest Florida"
  
• "About Fort Myers"
  
• "The History of Fort Myers" (via Fort Myers Online)
  
• "Midnight Society" quote