Today's peregrinations with digital discontinuities

Today's postcards from Planet RantWoman, day unformatted but plenty to do; more whines than RantWoman would prefer.

The Queen of Spades has been looking plaintively at RantWoman for a few days about the cat litter situation. Today it was time to do something about it.

RantWoman also needed to pick up some mail and some groceries. RantWoman had Stuff to DO that could have benefitted from morning energy but shopping in daylight seemed like a better idea than rush hour.  RantWoman THINKS she is more into the take one's chances on the actual humans one encounters model of shopping than say the new Amazon go experience. RantWoman still thinks this, but today had its moments. 

Routes 48 + 2 outbound to Broadway. First mail. Then Cat litter. Then groceries. Then 2+ 8 toward home. RantWoman read an article recently about how all the small connections one makes throughout one's day with different people are a strong predicter of living longer. So thank you bus drivers and other passengers. #greatthingsthathappenedontransit

Digital Discontinuity #1
Dear Krogersurvey.com,

The following rant is about the QFC store on the south end of Broadway. After a number of oopses the very helpful clerk wanted RantWoman to remember her and her box person and fill out a survey. RantWoman thinks there was mention of some kind of drawing. RantWoman cares only slightly, not enough to dig out the receipt and have someone help her find some kind of magical number on RantWoman's receipt that RantWoman is supposed to find and input into the survey. Guess what. RantWoman is not biting. RantWoman both appreciates and is annoyed by the clerk so possibly best just not to mention names. Instead RantWoman is going to whine in public and hope that her opinions will land where they can be appreciated.

Bear in mind, RantWoman's visual experience while shopping has a lot in common with the anti-drug movies popular when RantWoman was in Junior high: heavy on blur and bright blobby colors. RantWoman is quite glad in this state to find products independently; Ambassador Thwack also tends to lounge in the shopping cart, not necessarily obvious to anyone. Shopping in the middle of the day also cuts WAY back on odds that RantWoman might collide with other shoppers, especially children.

RantWoman shopped and shopped. RantWoman mostly had dairy products, bread,  and some fruit on her mind. RantWoman made it to the checkout. The clerk was chatting with another shopper, a co-worker from another store. The amiable chatter was lovely; the empty shopping cart ahead of RantWoma and not pulled past the checkout was less lovely. It got pulled through and the clerk checked out RantWoman's purchases but did not pull RantWoman's cart through with the cat litter and RantWoman's purse still in it

RantWoman paid and was presented a shorter shopping cart with only her purchases in it. RantWoman became testy; the correct cart appeared. The clerk kindly asked RantWoman TWICE whether she wanted help out. NO! RantWoman bought soup and wanted to eat her soup first. Besides, RantWoman gets around by bus and does not need help to the bus stop.

Sigh. Some kind of remodel has occurred. There used to be a small shelf with stools where one could eat one's deli purchases before getting along with the rest of one's day. Now some other thing has been installed. RantWoman did not approach close enough to know what it is. Instead RantWoman found a corner near the door to lean against, ate her soup, and went on with her day. Sigh. Probably no more buying soup at that store, and not necessarily terrible since the soup also reminded RantWoman of her doctor's admonition to be careful of salt. Homeward.

Digital Discontinuity #2: The Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing and colorful clientele. Windows 10, still in demo mode not yet fully adopted on all machines.. Trying to get work done. Connectivity flakiness. Accessibility software redesigned. Keyboard shortcuts changed. Lack of enthusiasm just to RTFM and practice. Enough said.

Digital Continuity / Discontinuity #3: Open house at the I90 Freeway station about changes in Sound Transit Routes during construction of the Judkins Park Link station. RantWoman had forgotten about the open house but RantWoman's Google calendar insistently reminded RantWoman of it. Put groceries away. Hop a bus northbound. Off at the I90 stop. Fog around on one side of Rainier.  Find one a-board and an area marked off behind blue tarps with some kind of big sign about Warning: High Voltage power lines. Fog along a little further N looking for a stoplight to cross Rainier. Find a mud path and no stoplight. Squint across the street; locate a nice white tent. Looks promising.

Back track south. Freeway offramps are so not RantWoman's favorite. Also the W side of Rainier already has lots of new fencing and a temporary bus stop with much narrower sidewalk space than the regular stop. Sigh. RantWoman will email Little Sister and ask wehtehr the new configuration will affect ability of buses to deploy wheelchair ramps. Little Sister has a power chair so, aside from  the signal and offramp situation, Little Sister can probably catch something at the next stop South. That probably is not true of some other riders who might need the lift. Sigh.

RantWoman did find info helpful. Signage was printed in large enough letters that RantWoman could read it. The two Sound Transit staff were friendly and as  helpful as RantWoman expected even when RantWoman asked about elevators and what happens to streams of bikes and pedestrians on the 23rd avenue side of the new station.

The short version of what RantWoman remembers:

--catch the buses that run on I90 now at Rainier and Charles instead of the current stop. Or catch them further downtown.

--Metro bus routes that stop on Rainier at the I90 stop will still stop there. Upon reflection, this makes RantWoman scratch her head. There will be no I90 buses to catch at the freeway stop. People who need to transfer between routes that run along that secrion of Rainier have multiple places to transfer.  RantWoman is unclear which of the routes that run along Rainier currently stop at Charles; to RantWoman it makes sense that people getting on or coming off buses to / from the Eastside would like to transfer to Rainier Avenue buses  at the same stop.  RantWoman would definitely think to check about the 9 because it is an express bus.

[OOPS: RantWoman apologizes for a temporary moment of insanity. DO NOT Change the Rainier bus stops at the I-90 stop. That is Little Sister's path to rainer avenue buses. RantWoman apologizes for even thinking of a change. Urrrrk!]

Digital Discontinuity #4 a series of graphical images with a lot of text in them: just because it is easy to attach such thigns to one's tweets does not mean it is a good idea. This rant gets its own post.

Now time to connect with RantWoman's pillow. Yep. The time stamp is...