Cool and clear, warming later. I hope. It was nice at the BOL this morning, a bit chilly but the sun was beating down. I was sweating while hanging Christmas lights. I’m hoping for similar here in Houston today.
Got up reasonably early. Did stuff. Little stuff, but mostly stuff that needed to be done. The extra Christmas lights on the dock went up when the mower didn’t start… no idea why, no time to troubleshoot or recharge the battery. Eventually drove home and did the thing I needed to do here.
Today I’m taking the truck in for a look-see at the drive line and rear end. I noticed a small visible wobble, really small, in the rear wheel that was hit, and there is a slight pull to the right. Getting it checked out is probably prudent.
Before that though, I’ve got a pickup to do, or maybe more than one, and some stuff that needs to be moved to the shop. I’ll have to leave the truck at the repair shop overnight, so I need to do some stuff today.
Other than that it is another normal day here at Casa de Nick.
Stack!
nick
Social Security Administration: I mentioned that someone has made an appointment in Baltimore to claim my SS benefits. I have sent a registered letter stating that this is likely fraud, but who knows if it will get read, or read in time.
They have a phone number to call, for example, if you want to cancel the appointment. There’s no call-center software on the other end, it just rings. And rings. And then you get disconnected. I’ve tried over 30 times so far, at various times of day.
There’s also an email address. At least I got an auto-reply: we will read you email in the next 60 days. 60 days? The appointment is next month, so that’s likely to be useless.
Creating an account to log into the SSA website? They support two login services. Hey, progress – I can enter an international phone number! But I don’t have the documents they require, because I don’t live in the US. One of the sites would let me use a Swiss ID, but only as one of three documents. No, I don’t have a US driver’s license, etc, etc. Also, the only document I possess that has both my full name and my SSN is my military ID. Which they explicitly do not accept as a valid document? So I’ve run into a dead end there as well.
I have just found a web page with a different phone number, specifically for reporting fraud. I will try that number today.
My undergrad engineering program mandated everyone take the EIT exam as a condition to get the ABET-certified degrees. Passing was not necessary, however, and many of my fellow students did not make a passing score.
Despite mediocre grades I had one of the highest scores in the department at 83. Passing was … 68?
I think the point of the mandate was to use the exam scores as a kind of quality control in the engineering program core classes. Thermo was the problem child class at the time, but Circuits wasn’t far behind.
My female best friend who made a 73 on the test dismissed my score was white male standardized test advantage.
(Yeah, there’s a story there, but for another time.)
Time value of money got really important in large projects, public and private, after Reagan and Tip O’Neil passed a big change to depreciation laws in 1984. Plus, this was the era of double digit interest rates and 14% 30 year fixed mortgages as Volker beat inflation down so Treasuries were really investments and not just liquidity instruments like they are today.
Fast forward 30 years, and I now see passing scores on the EIT exam used as credentials by the young’n’s. One girl at the tolling company, a Miami Ohio ME grad, even uses the initials after her name in her email signature and Linkedin page.
Miami Ohio is the alma matter of the Cracker Barrel CEO.