Stupid Google Machine!

Since the last time I was locked out, I established a recovery email account, just like they told me to. All I got for my trouble was another big run around. After I went through the recovery procedure, I got a message that said my request was denied because I didn't give them enough information. Near as I can tell, the information they wanted was the month and year that I first established my Gmail account. They said that, if I didn't remember, to give it my "best guess", which I did, but my best just wasn't good enough, and my request was denied again. I tried several times and finally gave up to wait it out. Sure enough, I was back in business on the third day, just like all the other times. One good thing was that they sent me a customer satisfaction survey this time, and I told them exactly how satisfied I was with their customer service. I don't suppose it will do any good, but it made me feel better. I don't know what to do about this. It seems a shame to uproot the Institute and relocate it after all these years, since you guys are not having this problem. Maybe I will just resign myself to skipping a couple of days every three weeks or so.

The only snow shoveling I do is right around the doorways, the rest of it is done with the tractor. Our driveway is about a hundred yards long, and then there's the parking and turnaround area. The whole thing usually takes me an hour or two, depending on how much snow we get. This last storm was different because we had three layers of snow, each one with a different consistency. The first layer came down as sleet or something and then froze. Then there was some heavy wet stuff that also froze. Then we got some regular snow to top it all off. Total accumulation was not over a foot, which wouldn't have been a problem if it was all regular snow. Now it's all melting into a big sloppy mess, but we have been able to get in and out with our 4WDs. No point in trying to plow it any further, it would just tear up the gravel. I lose some gravel every year anyway, and I get a five yard load sometime during the summer to replace it.

Shortly after I first established my Face Book account, I was denied access for a year or better. I wasn't crazy about the site anyway, so I didn't try to contact them to find out what the problem was. Then one day I got an email message telling me I had a response to one of my previous posts, and to click on here to view it, which I did, and I was always able to access it after that. I had some blog posts on there at one time, but they were lost during one of their unnecessary upgrades. The main reason I don't like FB, though, is that they refuse to get my user name right. They want you to use your real name, but I promised my hypothetical wife when I first started on the internet that I would never divulge my real name. The way I got around that was I told them that my first name was "Talks", my middle name was "With", and my last name was "Beagles". For some reason, they dropped my middle name and have always called me "Talks Beagles". I tried many times to correct that, but my request was always denied. I haven't tried in a long time, but I don't care anymore. I only go there once a week to see what my family has been up to. In the process, I see some of Uncle Ken's artwork, which is cool.