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1826 Days Ago

Belated Happy 5th Birthday to my bionic right hip.  I had the surgery on the day after the 2012 Presidential Election (Wednesday, 07 November 2012). It’s gone through countless miles on the treadmill and exercise bike along with all of the daily stuff that requires its services.  And it has yet to register any complaints.

The Base

January 23, 2016

flag button“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

November 8, 2017

Although he hasn’t done much of anything for them to date and many of them believe he will not make their life better in the future, he hasn’t lost their votes either.

Veteran’s Day – 2017

Veteran’s Day brings memories of the four years I spent in the U.S. Air Force (USAF).  Back in my day, it was a different world as the Draft was still in effect.  One had two choices: do nothing and hope they would not get drafted due to a deferment or just plain dumb luck or volunteer, serve their time and get on with their life.

I chose the latter.  Upon fulfilling my commitment of 4 years, 0 months, 0 days as stated on my DD 214 I once again became a civilian.  I remember the First Sergeant telling me I should stay in the service as I’d probably starve on the outside since I wouldn’t be getting my guaranteed daily “Three Hots and a Flop.”

Back in my day, one did not have much of a choice of what career field they were assigned to subsequent to completion of basic training.  All of the personnel in my Basic Training Flight ended up with a medical-related AFSC; everybody in the Flight in the barracks next to ours were assigned to fields with motor pool AFSCs.

Following basic training I spent an additional three month’s stay at Lackland AFB to attend Basic Medical Training followed by three more months at Gunter AFS to attend Medical Administrative Specialist (AFSC 906×0) Training.

From there I was assigned to the 551st USAF Hospital at Otis AFB where I spent the remainder of my time in the USAF.

So what usable civilian skills did my four years of service to my country get me?

  • learned how to make a bed and wash my own clothes
  • learned that I had no desire to work in the food service field (KP duty!!!)
  • some basic first aid skills
  • the ability to type 20 words per minute.

If I had to do it over again, would I?  Probably!!

More Bars

My cellular network service provider (Verizon) has a humongous cell tower less than two miles from our residence.  Every time I drive past the thing the signal strength indicator bars on my phone max out.  I wish I could say the same when I’m at home. Most of the time, the signal strength is one bar.  There are occasions when the cell signal is lost, i.e., no bars showing and I have to reboot the phone to get a back my one or two bars. Both incoming and outgoing calls get dropped or garbled a good two-thirds of the time.

Verizon supports an “Advanced Calling” feature that supports a Wi-Fi Calling option when no cellular network service is available.

Note that there is no option to use Wi-Fi exclusively.  If cellular service is available, the phone will use that.  The ideal solution would be to have an additional feature:

  • Wi-Fi Calling only – disable cellular service, enable Wi-Fi Calling.

Fortunately, there is a simple work-around that does this.  For example, on an Android phone, do the following:

  • Enable and configure the Advanced Calling feature, which includes Wi-Fi Calling
  • Turn on Airplane Mode, which disables all of the phone’s RF Interfaces (Cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth)
  • Enable the Wi-Fi interface
  • Connect to the Wi-Fi network.

To restore cellular voice service, simply turn off Airplane Mode.

Note: I found this solution via a Google search for “Verizon Wi-Fi Calling.”.  It works on my three-year old Samsung Galaxy 5 currently running Android 6.0.1.  There is no guarantee it will work on all Android phones.

I’m Confused

Which one is Fake News?

  • “Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over,” Trump said at an event with Japanese business executives, according to a pool report.
  • Japan’s Big 3 (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) automakers built more cars in U.S. than Detroit Big 3 (Ford, GM, Fiat Chrysler) last year. (bizjournals.com)

Hint: Make sure you read the entire article the “more than” claim comes from before you make your decision.