This may seem unusual for what most might consider an Electronics or Computer Tech Blog but this is Human Body Tech.  Let me preach on it…………..

Sometime around the year 2000 or so I was ridiculously fat and getting fatter.  I finally decided that it was time to knuckle down and do what needed to be done.  I was living in Japan and on a business trip to Pax River, Maryland and hopped on a treadmill for the first time.  I had to run in boxer shorts and dress socks but I ran a mile on the treadmill.

I’ll spare you the progression story but suffice to say I was a huge “runner” but a runner nonetheless.  And along with that hugeness came aches and pains.  I was highly motivated to run and read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on.  There is no shortage of motivational running literature out there.  And then the inevitable happened.  I got a mild injury, probably to my IT Band.  The IT Band is a thick bunch of fibers that runs along the outside of your thighs and knee.  While researching my ouch-ee I read a book called The Pain Free Runner, about Myofascial Release for the first time.

I’m no Doctor or Nurse or Physical Therapist or anything of the sort.  I was nothing but a fat, hurt runner.   But I’ll my best to explain this in layman’s terms.  When some muscle hurts in your body the actual site of the injury or “Trigger Point” is somewhere else.  The tension from the knotted muscles or tissue pull and stretch the affected muscle where you feel the pain.  Release the knotted muscle and the pain subsides.

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You’d think a modern Tech Blog would discuss modern equipment but the reality is sometimes tech that is still laying around gets forgotten about and in some sense this blog is about an attempt to upgrade some old tech.

Back when I was a pup fluorescent lighting was everywhere.  It was probably the most common way to light up larger spaces.  If you got your hands on a 4′ long lighting fixture you were living large.  My dad found a couple somewhere and painted them red, white, and blue and hung them in his office basement.  I’ll never forget that horrific buzz.

Recently my wife and I bought a mid 1980’s country home and the back yard shed had two 4′ long fluorescent light fixtures in it.  There were a couple of bad tubes in it and sometimes the lights would come on and sometimes they wouldn’t.  Being the tech savvy dude that I am I decided to upgrade the old light tubes to LED’s with drop in replacements.  Sounds easy, right?

It was not.
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At my old house I had all manner of storm preparations in place.  We moved here in July of 2021  which gave me several months before the Winter Storm of January 2022 hit.

I, as they say………Screwed The Pooch.

Fortunately for me the power never went out because if it had I wasn’t quite ready for it.   My biggest indiscretion was that I own a 9500 watt, 50 amp generator.  That is essentially enough power to run your whole house in a storm.

At my old house I had a 7500 watt, 30 amp generator.  I ran my whole house EASILY with that.  And while this is a much larger house with mostly all electric appliances…………you pick a floor to live on.  Upstairs or Downstairs.  Actually the heating system downstairs runs on gas. So if we stay downstairs, which we mostly do anyway………….we’d never miss a beat.

So when we moved here I decided to hook a PBN50 Power Inlet Box up to the house.

• 9500 watt, 50 amp generator – ✔
• 50 amp power inlet connector – ✔
• Cord to hook them together – X

Shit.
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I’ve been on a security kick and asking myself, why don’t more people protect their personal communications?  Here’s the short list.

• It’s hard.
• Or it costs money.
• If it costs money, it’s still hard.

If you use a web-based service like ProtonMail it is actually pretty easy.  It’s all built in.  But God forbid you use Mac Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird to bring in encryption certificates.

I’m pretty tech savvy, and I’ve played with email encryption before and it just is beyond the scope of most average computer users.  People in corporate or government roles are most likely to use it, and then they have dedicated IT Departments to set it up.  When I worked in the government it was as simple as pushing a padlock button in your email.

At home, not so much.   First of all, I use Mac.  And while it is possible to add certificates to your store for free it is all command line stuff and again, it is beyond the scope of most users.  The solution is a program called GPGSuite but not only does it cost money, it seems to keep costing money as their upgrades cost money.   Mac goes from Big Sur to Monterey……..you’re buying a new encryption Suite.

What’s a boy to do?
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After setting up a new household, network, and entertainment devices I have observed the following items.  My apologies for not going in depth with device names and photos and statistics……….I’m trying to keep this as simple a read as possible.

We have a smart TV and several smart devices.  Roku, Firestick, Apple TV, and HDHomeRun for Live TV connected to an antenna.

Quick observations:

• Wireless devices and TV’s are the norm.  You have to pay bigger $$’s to get an ethernet port.  Streaming video and hi res is more likely to glitch over wifi.
• All have abandoned Optical out for audio.  They seem to think that all devices operate perfectly over HDMI or that no one has an older Audio Visual (AV) system.
• The HDHomeRun app only provides audio on some TV sets if set to Dolby Audio.

Granted I have older stuff but still.  Anyone with anything more than a few years old might have an AV system or surround sound system that worked on Optical or Digital out.  All these new devices seem to be HDMI only.

I have a Polk Audio sound bar on one TV that was several hundred dollars (came with the house) and isn’t that old.  It DOES NOT connect to HDMI.  So if I want to use a Roku AND THE SOUND BAR …………..it ain’t gonna happen.  In order to use the sound bar I have to hook up a super old (2015 era) Apple TV that I have.  Yeah it works but Apple no longer supports those devices and you just don’t get updated apps, etc. for them.

In other words, there is no backwards compatibility.

You would think that at a Tech Blog the guy writing it would only have the latest and greatest.  Well, let me tell you something about the latest.

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Well, here it is.  The day we all wait for.  Retirement.  My official work counter shows me at 37 years and 8 months and retiring as a GS-13 Step 9.

We’re quite a ways from 1982 when I went through the gates at Great Lakes Naval Training Command.  Imagine being 19 years old and departing boot camp and reporting to an aircraft carrier in dry dock.  I’m not scared of heights but when I looked down that dry dock at the USS Carl Vinson in its entirety I got a little bit of vertigo.   Not to mention the whole ship is a gigantic maze with no cheese at the end.

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CAIVRS

UPDATE:  DECEMBER 2022.  CAIVRS IS STILL BROKEN

I wrote this blog initially in June 2021.  In December 2022 I got some emails from Federal Student Aid telling me I didn’t have to pay back my loan.  I immediately logged into my FISA account which I made in June 2021 to repair the mess I wrote about below.  Remember, there is no way to check a CAIVRS report. 

There didn’t seem to be a loan however my permanent address had been changed to:

311 EXPORTING ST UNIT 2,AURORA, IN 470011339,UNITED STATES

I think I caught some more chicanery just before it started.  

Update 24 April 2023:  I got an email from the Student Loan Forgiveness program telling me my account was delinquent since Pre-Covid.  I STILL CAN’T CREATE AN ACCOUNT because my address is still the one listed above.  The name and date of birth are still wrong.  I confirmed that there are no loans in my name and no balance but these clowns are incapable of repairing the name and address associated with the previous fake loan using my SSN.

Read on for the original story.

I bet you never heard of Credit Alert Interactive Verification Reporting System (CAIVRS) before.CAIVRS was established by the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency in June of 1987.  It is a database of Social Security Numbers that are in default regarding federal loans such as Student Loans, Small Business Loans, VA Loans, etc.

The following agencies report to CAIVRS:

• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Education
• Department of Veterans Affairs
• Small Business Administration
• Department of Justice

If you default on a loan or credit card it goes to your credit report which is accessible to you.  However, if you default on a Federal Student Loan it is not reported to your credit file.  It is only reported to CAIVRS.

YOU WILL NEVER KNOW YOU WERE A VICTIM OF IDENTITY THEFT UNLESS YOU APPLY FOR FEDERAL MONEY.

DURING THIS WHOLE PROCESS I HAVE HAD MY CREDIT REPORT FROZEN.  ANY ATTEMPT AT USING MY SSN SHOULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED.  NOPE.  NOT FOR DOE AND NOT FOR CAIVRS.  HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE FRAUDULENT LOANS AND WILL NEVER KNOW BECAUSE THEY DON’T USE GOVERNMENT LOANS OF ANY KIND?

I just applied for a VA loan for a new home and was notified by my lender that I was delinquent on a Federal Student Loan and that I could not get my VA loan until this issue was cleared up.  I immediately knew this was inaccurate because I HAVE NEVER HAD A STUDENT LOAN.

Then I called the Department of Education Student Loan Debt Resolution ……………… let that sink in a moment.   This problem is so huge apparently that they have their own departmental offices.

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Samsung washer playing dead

Hear a noise from your washing machine?  Call a repairman and you’ll pay them $100 just to ring your doorbell.  They’ll charge you double for parts and charge you labor as well.

A lot of new washers (or dryers) cost in the $400 and up range so you’ve hit the price point where you just are prepared to buy another one.  Ever wonder why Appliance guys are happy to haul your old stuff away for free?  They know there really isn’t much wrong with it.  They can fix it and resell it, probably to someone looking for a new washer because theirs is broke.

I am NOT knocking appliance repair people.  That’s just how it is.  That has been the system for years.   But the new system is FIX IT YOURSELF.  Everything that has ever broken has a YouTube video attached to it.

But now a lot of manufacturers are responding to that by not selling spare parts and not publishing manuals.  That’s wrong, and many states are enacting legislation to stop them from doing such things.  The premise is, that once I buy it, it is mine and I can fix it, destroy it, paint pink unicorns on it…….IF I WANT TO.  And they can’t, or rather shouldn’t be able to stop that.

So my girlfriend has a Samsung washing machine and it started sounding like a tire mechanic was laying down on an impact wrench when the spin cycle started.  A real ratcheting sound.

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