The Passing of Dad's Last Living Sibling

My dad's brother passed away last week. He wanted to be buried in his wife's family's cemetery. So my brother and I took a weekend trip up to the town where my dad grew up. My brother got off work a bit early. I was off early in the afternoon because I had to take a certification exam. We left right around rush hour.

I took the wheel initially. There was traffic west and north of the big city that is north of us. Half way through the trip, we stopped off at the biggest city we could find for dinner. The city had no fast food or restaurants to speak of. Just a single crowded Subway. We went to the next town North, in the suburb of the city. Got some Red Robin burgers. My brother had trouble with the payment kiosk.

Checked into our hotel. My brother recognized it as the one my dad and him stayed in last time they were up there. Was disappointed there was not fridge in our room and at the weak continental breakfast. Made it to the funeral home early the next day. Spotted my cousin who I have not spoke to since she got married like 25 to 30 years ago.

There was a lively priest at the service. We met the daughter of dad's second cousin. At the cemetery, the VFW did a 3-gun salute. We met at a popular restaurant afterwards for brunch. Sat by my cousin who I have not talked with for 25 years. I knew she was intelligent. But I was surprised that she was so blue collar. She hated when she moved to the south. Found out she rode a Harley motorcycle.

Learned more about my cousin's youngest son. Although he is in the music business, he needs a part time job as well to pay the bills. That night my brother and I went to a famous hot dog restaurant in town. Thought they closed early, so we had an early dinner. On the ride home we stopped half way to switch drivers. My brother followed signs for Visitor Info thinking it would be like a rest area. Turned out to be the Harley manufacturing warehouse site.

Welcoming a new Fiat 500L

I had gone to my local used car store. Narrowed down my next car choices to either a 2012 Nissan Versa or a 2015 Fiat 500. The Versa was nice because I like the body style and they sometimes comes with a good navigation system. The Fiat 500 is just a cool looking car. The problem with the Versa is that the good body style was last made in 2012. Too old. And the Fiat 500 is small and has a weak engine.

So I decided to consider the Fiat 500L. It is a four door version of the smaller car with a zippier engine. I figured I needed to drive one to see how powerful the engine was. The web site said that there were none at my local used car store. The one I had been eying at their western store had apparently been sold. There was one at their southern store, but just as I was about to leave, my contact there said it also was being sold. The store way up north would not answer their phone.

In desperation, I consider a more common car such as the Nissan Altima four door sedan. I went to my local used car store again. My sales guy was not there. A lady took me out to the Altima car area. It was cold so she left me there and told me to find her if I had any questions. The back seat of the Altima did not have enough head room. I tried a whole lot of other sedans (10 to 15 of them). The back seat headroom was lacking in all of them.

As I wandered the parking lot, I came over to where the Nissan Versa cars were. That is where I saw a Fiat 500L four door car. The colors in the interior and exterior were nasty. There was a weird sunroof inside that took away precious headroom. But I was able to take it out on a test drive. The engine was very zippy. I loved it. Inside I had the sales lady search for another one of the Fiat 500L vehicles in their nationwide inventory. We found my car.

I paid a fee for the car store to transport my car of choice to the local lot. It should be here in less than three weeks. I cannot wait.

Cell Phone Scam Detected

My brother decided to join our family phone plan. The rest of us in the family have iPhones. My brother used to have an iPhone 5. But I think the screen cracked and he went back to Android. He has a Samsung Galaxy S6.

Momoko called our phone provider. She upped our monthly bandwidth (my brother uses even more than the kids). She tried to add my brother to our plan. The phone provider service rep said she could not do that because my brother's phone was only a 2g phone. WTF?

Luckily my brother mentioned that he needed to go the phone store to buy a new phone. I investigated and heard the shenanigans. Umm the Samsung Galaxy S6 is like one generation ago, equivalent to the iPhone 6. My brother even has a phone plan with a company that is a subsidiary to our phone provider. He is using 4G-LTE service probably with our phone towers.

The real kicker is that we are upping our monthly cell phone bill to $300+, which is almost $4000 per year. These guys have to be able to give us a free phone or something. Otherwise it will be time to pull the ultimate trump card - "put me in touch with someone who can help cancel our cell phone service".

The OA

Netflix released an eight part series last month called The OA. The title is short for the Original Angel. Prarie is a girl who is reunited with her adoptive parents seven years after she goes missing. She was blind when she disappeared. She can now see. And she has strange scars on her back.

Prarie assembles a bunch of kids plus one teacher from her school. They meet in an abandoned house at night. She asks them to each leave the front doors of their houses open. She then goes and tells them her entire life story.

The synopsis of the story she tells is that she is a young girl in Russia who has a near death experience after a school bus crash. She is sent to the USA to live with her aunt. Then she get adopted by two old parents. She leaves for New York because she feels like she can somehow find her dad there.

Prarie says she is kidnapped by a weird doctor that studies near death experience cases. She finds other prisoners in the underground mine where she is trapped. The doctor performs experiments on the prisoners. They unite as Prarie thinks they can use some sort of magic to summon a portal to get the heck out of there.

There is a lot more to this series. There are eight episodes, each of which is about 45 minutes long. There is occasional gratuitous sex scenes. The ideas of the near death experiences are literally out of this world. It reminds me a little of a previous work by the main character called The Sound of My Voice.