Walt's Corner

Not to be confused with Walt’s Corner, which was started in 2005 and was maintained at that time with iWeb (the fuck is that?). Walt’s Corner lives on BasilWeb.

BasilWeb began in 2003. I was in the process of transitioning out of the army. One of the courses told us to make sure we had a professional email address. Not something that could possibly be a turn-off to hiring authorities. Hey – I’m looking for a job. Please send your application to eat-me@gmail.com.

Email addresses being typically assigned by your Internet Service Provider (ISP), had the potential to no longer be valid should I choose to use another ISP. That left me the usual, gmail or hotmail. I hated to depend on those because they are free. And you know what free means. If any services are free, then you are the product. I decided to open my own domain and settled on basilweb.net. That gave me my own email server and I’ve had the same email address for 20 years this year. My shortened first name at last name web dot net.

To celebrate this personal small anniversary, I had a Zippo engraved. Antique brass finish with the Tree of Life (not to be confused with the Tree of Life – yet another object the Judeo-Christian culture has appropriated for its own uses) engraved on the front, my engraving on the back.

My usual spot for a cut is Regular Joe’s. Unless I peek my head in and see a roomful of customers waiting; then it’s Yes We Do. They ask for my phone number and know exactly how I want it. There are currently 2 people there that I prefer just because they are the ones who usually cut my hair and know my eccentricities.

Today went down differently. For those who don’t know me, I don’t like different. Some new dude is there. Obviously new. And shadowing another stylist. Not good. He’s the one who calls me up. Fine. I ask if he’s any good with scissor, because I don’t like the clippers. Claims he is. He asks, “How would you like your hair done, boss?” I reply, “Same as always,” and proceed to explain, as I’m sure it’s written down on the slip of paper that has my name on it. That’s how Regular Joe’s works. So you don’t have to explain what you want on each and every visit.

Right off the bat, he turns into Machine Gun Inquisitor. How’s your day so far? What are your plans for today? Plans for the Super Bowl? Where are you from? How long have you been in El Paso? What brought you to El Paso? Why did you stay in El Paso? You didn’t like Orlando?

I give short, courteous, to the point answers. Good. This. Might watch it – who is playing? Orlando. Since 1996. The Army. I like it. No. Jesus H. Christ, what is this? The Spanish Inquisition? Can’t a mufucka just get a haircut in peace?

Those last three sentences were in my head. At least I think/hope. What I did say was “No more conversation please,” to which he responded, “What?” I repeated myself, “No more conversation please.” To his credit, the only other words from his mouth were relevant to my haircut.  He finished my hair. Pretty good job at it, too. Gave me my shampoo, I paid, left him my customary $10 tip and left. Headed back to my cigar lounge to roast another pound of coffee, sip some whiskey, smoke a cigar, and memorialize this interaction on Walt’s Corner.

I’m an introvert. Living through the pandemic forced others to live my life. The difference is, I choose this life. I enjoy this life. Interacting with humans is exhausting. The older I get the less I’m willing to put up with unnecessary conversation.

5 out of 5 stars

Strand at the top of his game!

Sit in, buckle up, and grab that “Oh crap” bar, because baby, this is gonna throw you around! Fast paced and hard to put down. This book had me sneaking in small reads here and there throughout the day when I normally don’t do that. Thanks for the adventure, Jeff!

Click here to see the book on Amazon. Free if you’re on Kindle Unlimited, but please purchase if you can to truly support this author.

I set up the new printer, an HP Color Laserjet Pro M283fdw over two days. Each day, first thing in the morning after brewing my coffee. Because the day doesn’t even begin until I’m sipping on that bold brew.

Day 1. I opened the box. Turned it upside down and lifted the box off the printer. It was well shielded by styrofoam and soft plastic wrap. After removing the side pieces of the foam I noticed the standard pieces of orange tape they use at the factory to secure all the flaps and trays. Peeled them off. It comes with the toner cartridges already installed. Placed the MFD on its table, plugged it in and powered it up. Selected my language. That took all of 4 minutes, if that. And that was all I planned to do for that day.

Day 2. Same thing. Coffee. Went to the touchscreen, enabled the Wi-Fi. It showed me my network. I typed in the password on it’s iPhone-sized touchscreen keyboard. Connected. Opened an email on my iPhone and printed. Painless. Earlier in the week I had already created its email account on my mail server for it to scan to email. Also very simple for those in the know. I touched the network icon on the touchscreen, saw the IP address of the built in web server of the MFD. Selected the Scan tab. Provided the SMTP and port information. Saved. Added both our email addresses in the phone book. Placed a document in the feeder, selected Scan, chose my email address. Perfect. This took another 4 minute chunk out of my morning routine.

As far as I’m concerned, it was done. Not having owned a computer for 8 years now, I am lucky enough to have no real computing power requirements. My iPad Air and iPhone are all that I use. Carol, on the other hand, just got a brand new MacBook. I was sure it would work for her too. Sure enough, that night she was able to connect right to it. She asked, “Is it called Goliath?” Yes. Yes it is called Goliath.

Easiest setup ever.

You know, where you rob from the poor to give to the rich? Sounds like I’m talking about our tax system, but no. My wife, Carol, chose the education sector as her 2nd career. First high school and now elementary (Grade 2). Either way, It’s one of the few jobs that does not follow the norm where you bring office supplies home for personal use. Instead, you steal home supplies to fund your work. How fucked is that? You want to succeed. More importantly, you want your kids to succeed. But you’re just not provided the means to make that happen other than a room and pedestal. Turns out heating and cooling is optional too.

As a parents we always resented having to get that supply list at the beginning of the year. Sending my son to a private school I resented it even more. Bitch, I’m paying for this education. Don’t be charging me and then giving me a list of shit I’ve got to buy. Charge me more for the cost of the school instead. Goddamn. But I digress. Not sure if it was just me but when I was in school all essential supplies were provided by the school. We took this resentment with us into our 2^nd careers and we buy all the supplies her children need. There is nothing like seeing a semi-truck offloading a pallet of composition books in your driveway with a forklift. True story bro. Shoot, we even bought a scantron at one point so she wouldn’t be spending 5 hours grading 150 tests.

At one point, she was given an “allowance” of what turned out to be 3 sheets of paper per student per month, due to the insane amount of students she was responsible for. The school actually tracked that shit and cut you off when your limit was met. That’s when I got her the Xerox Workcenter. A veritable workhorse. Peripheral supplies included toner and paper. Xerox was a good/bad choice. Good in that it was a great multifunction device. Flatbed scanner, document fed scanner. Scan to email. Copy machine. Loved it. The bad? Only Xerox will work on it around here. Not sure if that’s everywhere or just my particular area here in the the desert southwest. As soon as you tell them it’s a Xerox all bets are off. Eventually the scanning component quit working, which included making copies. Minor inconvenience. She used it mainly for mass printing from her computer. It cost less just to buy a cheap scanner for when I needed that particular feature and I did.

After 7 faithful, hard years, some plastic flap from inside fell off. That flap is part of a larger component that would cost around $200 to replace. Another $200 for the part that would fix the scanning. That’s if I do it myself. An additional $200 for the Xerox on-site Maytag repairman to show up and do it for the first hour only. That was my motivation to look at some of the new devices out there. I’m already up to $400-600. That sounds like a new machine to me. Xerox was definitely off my list from a service perspective. I settled on the HP Laserjet Pro M282. It has everything I was looking for including built in email server for quick scan to emails that I enjoy. Plus it’s rated for up to 2500 copies per month. Carol approved.

I wanted to order it off Amazon, but they wouldn’t deliver to my pickup locations – said it was too heavy. I didn’t want it sitting outside my house during the day. That led me to checking out Best Buy. Wow. Been over a decade since I stepped inside a Best Buy. Technically, I didn’t step in side this one either. Curb side pick up baby. Last time I bought something from Best Buy was when X-Files and Star Trek seasons were just being released as new on New Movie/Music Tuesdays. Remember those?

Pulled it out of the box this morning. Peeled off all those hold-in-place sticker. Plugged it and fired it up. They still come with a power cord, USB cord, and telephone cord (people still use those?). There is a nice user manual on the website I’ve downloaded. I’ve already  set up the email account on my mail server for use in scan-to-email functions. Might have it up and running by the weekend.