Techno-Jinx, Techno-Triumph, Travel Plans

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

4/1/23

 

Aloha Family!

 

April 1st! Can you believe it?  Springtime is here!  Well, except for those pesky little snowflakes and freezing temperatures.  I recall Spring in Ohio as a nice time when the tulips and daffodils bloomed, as did the forsythia and lilacs and flowering trees.  Of course, that was also the time of sudden frosts, tornadoes, and horrific thunderstorms.  Hmmmmmm...

Well, remember last week when I said that all my techno-toys were working again, and that I was afraid saying so would jinx things?  It took only a couple of days before the jinx kicked in and my receiver went on the fritz again -- same issue as before, it suddenly stopped streaming video to the t.v.  This time I went right for the fix -- re-initializing (re-booting) the system -- and again it worked.  However, this means I have an unreliable unit that shouldn't do this, given that it's only 2 years old.  Naturally, this happened the second time just 2 days after the warranty expired!  I decided to call anyway to see if I could get some help (of course, at the moment there is no problem).  I first tried Costco, where I bought the receiver, but they couldn't help me and referred me to Yamaha Customer Service.  I called, but their talk-to-a-human hours have been cut severely and the phone message suggested going online for a "chat."  I did, but the agent (maybe an AI?) was stumped and "escalated" my complaint to another level, one where someone was to call me on the phone, sometime in the next decade.  I was surprised and pleased when I got a call a couple of hours later and was able to explain the situation to a very knowledgeable and personable geek.  He was sympathetic but stumped, other than agreeing it must be a firmware problem on the hdmi board of the receiver.  Then for the good news.  He said Yamaha would extend my warranty and cover one future repair if it happens again!  The only downside is that I'll have to ship it to Honolulu because there is only one authorized repair place in the whole state of Hawai'i.  Yamaha will cover return shipping, but I'll have to shell out for the first trip. I'll wait until it fritzes again, so that the repair place can hopefully locate what's wrong.

Banned From The Pool!

Balancing the problem with the receiver, I managed to fix the umbrella lights that stopped working after the second dunk in the pool.  I forgot to mention last week that I had located replacements online for the solar panel and battery pack that go on the top of the umbrella.  These arrived on Wednesday and work fine.  The cost wasn't too bad, much less than a new umbrella, and all I had to do to was screw the parts into the top of the umbrella.  Now, if I can just keep the umbrella out of the pool everything will be great.  

We've finalized our travel plans for the rest of this year and we've also made preliminary arrangements for early next year.  As I've mentioned before, in May/June we'll be back in southern France and northern Italy.  The France part is primarily to see two expat friends (the current brauhaha about retirement age hopefully won't interfere much). Most of the trip will be in northwest Italy (Piedmont, Turin, Genoa) and also in Umbria and Tuscany.  We've been to Italy several times before, but not to all the places on this year's itinerary.  We'll be entirely on our own, renting a car in Marseilles and returning it in Rome.  In the fall we've signed up for another tour with ElderTreks, the company we used for visiting the Caucuses.  This time we'll be going to the Balkan countries of Macedonia, Albania, and Bulgaria.  Should be interesting, as these three have unique cultures with long and important histories.  We'll stop in Ohio on our way to visit friends.  Finally, in the spring we may finally get to go to Ethiopia.  This will be another ElderTreks tour, and we are really hoping that the political situation stays calm -- however, we've made multiple attempts for 50 years to go to Ethiopia and something has always prevented us from achieving our goal.  We'll see what happens this time.

On the home front, we did our usual Tuesday workout and on Thursday Karen played golf.  I opted to go to the driving range and practice green instead.  We drove separately and I drew the short straw to go to Costco afterwards for grocery shopping.  My big house project this week was to trim back a clump of bamboo that was getting out of hand.  This started as cutting just one stalk that had fallen over, but that led to another, to another, to another -- until the pile of cuttings was exhaustingly large.  Fortunately our gardener came for his weekly visit a couple of days later and hauled it all away.  We planted this clump shortly after we moved in to screen the view of the house next door.  It has done that, and also keeps us supplied with garden stakes, but this variety can send up stalks 30-40 feet and they lean outward toward the house, other trees, and into our neighbor's yard.  About every 6 months or so I have to whack off the stalks that are leaning too much.  Fortunately this is a "clumping" variety of bamboo, so it doesn't spread all over like some varieties do.

 

Ok, that's it for this week.  Stay the course and turn down the volume.