Truth or Taint

March 12, 2021 — Pat Bertram

After all these years of living in an e-world, I’m still not comfortable with the penchant for rating everything. Ratings do help, at times, to give me an overview of a product or service, but for the most part, the ratings don’t help me at all. I certainly have no interest in being rated myself, which is why I’ve left the ratings widget off this blog. I figure if people like what I say, they will read. If they don’t, they won’t. I learn more from comments than I would from a rating, though to me, the comments are more about a discussion than whether or not someone likes me or my blog.

Leaving off the widget doesn’t always help, since Facebook has banned my blog from their site, either because of complaints about abuse or because they have deemed it spam — I’m still not clear on what their rational was. Either way, it’s made my life a bit more difficult (though at the same time, it gives me a good excuse to remove myself from that environment).

I do like when people leave book reviews for my books since those are one of the few promotional opportunities most of us writers are given. I even occasionally read reviews, especially if I’m not sure I’d like a book and want to see what it’s about. (In that case I read the bad reviews to see what people hated about the book.)

But generally speaking, I don’t like this ratings world, and I don’t participate. Unfortunately, I recently made a mistake and when a company I had purchased a product from a year ago asked me for my opinion of the product, I sent them a quick comment. But that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted ratings. The ratings weren’t about how satisfied I was with the product, but rather if the product helped with back pain and if it improved my posture. Since I didn’t buy the product for either of those non-existent issues — I bought it for convenience since it was a side-loading pack rather than a backpack — I couldn’t give them the ratings they wanted. So now, I keep getting emails telling me I didn’t finish my review, and would I please finish it. And oh, by the way, would I also please leave a review online so their customers could see it.

I finally had enough and trashed the emails.

So, no more ratings!

All this emphasis on ratings makes me wonder if people reading the ratings are astute enough to know when a rating is legitimate rather than a paid review, and realistic enough to know that sometimes people give low ratings for personal reasons that have nothing to do with the actual product or service. Not to keep harping on the FB thing, but those who got me banned had no real basis for their displeasure since this blog is neither abuse nor spam.

It used to be that people would get mad, say their piece, and the words would dissipate into the atmosphere. Not anymore. Now those words hang around forever, tainting people and products, though admittedly sometimes it’s not a taint but the truth.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

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A Better Mood

February 27, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I was very discouraged yesterday, not just because of the fiasco on facebook (not a typo, it doesn’t deserve the respect of being capitalized) and being banned for unfairly and untruthfully being labeled abusive, but because of several other issues too, the main one being my car.

I had a tune-up toward the end of last year, including replacing the spark plugs, and the venerable 49-year-old VW bug sailed along as if it were a youngster again. Within a month or two, I started having problems with the car bucking. At first I thought perhaps the choke wasn’t working due to the frigid winter weather, because everything seemed to work better once I’d been driving a few miles, but when the weather cleared, the bucking got worse the more I drove.

So I took it back to the mechanic, and he discovered that those new spark plugs had already burned out. At the same time, he found that a part in the carburetor wasn’t working properly, and it was letting too much air into the engine. I’m going to have him replace the carburetor, but those spark plugs burning out so fast sure worried me! After a bit of checking on the internet, I discovered it was due to the engine running hot, which was due to a lean fuel mixture (too much air in the fuel), which was due to the carburetor not working right. Who knew? Well, any mechanic or mechanically inclined person would know, just not me. Now that I know that the spark plugs won’t always be burning out every month or so and that the car can be fixed, it makes me feel a lot better.

At least about that.

I still feel discomfited about the whole FB thing: that people would on purpose sabotage me and that there is no recourse, but I’m gradually finding my way back to a better mood, especially since there’s nothing I can do about the ban. In the long run, I suppose, it doesn’t really matter. With as much as FB is changing, and with as many “friends” who are voluntarily leaving, I have a hunch the site wouldn’t do book sales much good anyway. (I tell myself that because if I really thought it was hurting me as an author, I’d be furious, and I don’t want to be angry.)

I’d considered signing up for Instagram now that I have a phone that is powerful enough and big enough to edit photos and to handle the site, but Instagram is owned by FB, and I don’t see any point in rewarding anyone who treats me badly.

The one good thing that happened yesterday, besides finding out that my car can be fixed, is that while I was outside town test driving my car after I picked it up last evening, I was able to see the sun setting and also the moon rising. By the time I could stop to take a photo, though, the moon had shrunk somewhat. Still beautiful, though!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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Abusive?

February 26, 2021 — Pat Bertram

When Facebook first banned this blog from their site, the reason given was that this blog is spam. Yesterday when I tried sharing the post from the FB share button (which is now removed) at the bottom of the post I’d just written, I got a different explanation. They said: Your message couldn’t be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.

Abusive? Me? Really? I have posted a handful articles (out of a total of 2,997) that might be considered controversial, though I do try to steer a middle ground. Even so, those articles were in no way abusive, weren’t even very controversial since I wasn’t taking a stand so much as trying to sort out what I felt about the political turmoil. Sometimes when I think I’m being the most helpful or logical or innocuous or agreeable, it surprises me that not everyone agrees with what I say. To be honest, I don’t always agree with what I say. As with those few controversial posts, so often by writing for this blog, I am trying to work through a problem, an idea, a spot of confusion, and sometimes, after I’ve posted the article, I realize that because of the writing, I came to a different conclusion.

But abusive? I cannot think of a single time I said anything that anyone could say was abusive. I always try to be nice, even when people aren’t nice to me. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

Although I did not appreciate this blog being blocked because of spam, I thought maybe their bots had picked up on the repetitious bio at the end of the article, or perhaps all the links I used in the bio. Even though it did no good, I removed the links and am alternating bios to make sure other sites don’t have the same issue, but as it turns out, that wasn’t the case at all.

Abusive?

That upsets me because it is so unjust and pejorative. What’s even worse is the current system, where anyone can say anything about any person for any reason, and no matter what harm is done, there is no recourse, at least not with Facebook. I have messaged them via FB. I have emailed them. I have sent letters to their headquarters. But apparently a few grouches (that’s the only thing I can think of — that people were grouchy and ticked off that somehow a post of mine got added to their feed) can determine someone’s fate.

FB was my primary means of promotion. I spent a lot of money with them over the years. It’s probably people who saw those posts who labeled them abusive, rather than any of my FB “friends,” but that’s not my fault. I’m not the one that posted the links on those feeds; FB did.

Ironically — and cruelly — whenever I do happen to stop by FB to see if someone left a comment on my page (which I will be doing less in the future, so if you want me to see a comment, please comment here on the blog rather than on FB), I find copious messages from FB telling me I’m not posting enough and I find even more messages telling me how important it is for me to pay them to promote my posts.

If it was me personally they had a problem with, I could simply set up a new account like so many others have had to do, but they have no problem with me personally. Just my oh, so non-abusive and very personal blog.

I have found a way around their ban for now — I reblog my posts to another blog, and then post the link to the second blog on FB. I wouldn’t even be doing that much, but several people said they missed too many of my posts. They could, of course, just sign up for my blog, but these are people who spend time on FB, and so that’s where they like getting their notifications.

I know FB is a huge site, but Google is even bigger, and when I had a problem with Google for banning my blog, they responded to my query, and WordPress helped me fix it. (It was a bit of stray code — innocuous code — that somehow got attached to one photo in one post.) But FB? Nope. Once you’ve been branded as abusive, that’s it for you . . . forever.

No one has to prove their accusation. No one checks the truth of it. To me, acting on unfounded allegations is abusive. My posts are not. If you disagree and can point out any abuse, please let me know so I can change it. Just be gentle. My feelings are hurt enough right now.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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Doing the To-Dos

January 15, 2021 — Pat Bertram

It’s amazing how light one feels when everything is wiped off the to-do list, at least temporarily. Yesterday I finally published my new website with no problems — yeah! (You can check it out here: https://patbertram.com) I decided to stick with my current car insurance because of lower deductibles and accident forgiveness, so I paid that bill as well as several others. I cleaned out the file of old bills. I’m sure there were several other small chores done, too. What a great feeling!

I carried that feeling over into this day until I was scared half out of my mind by a loud screeching noise. It turns out my phone was screaming at me about a dangerous dust storm in the area. As if I didn’t know. All I had to do was look out the window. Or, if I didn’t look out the window, all I had to do was open the door, see all the blowing dust, and quickly shut the door on the outside world.

I hadn’t been able to locate the permissions for that alert app so I could turn off the notifications. If an alert goes off in the night, it would probably scare me into a heart attack. Luckily, I finally managed to turn off all notifications. If I ever feel the need, I can always turn them on again, but for now, it’s more of an annoyance than a lifesaver. When I go out, I check the weather anyway, otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Besides, I can’t do anything about the weather, war, riots, whatever, so it’s better if I slept through it.

Because of my finally finding that permission setting, I hunted once more for the photo editor permissions. I have no idea why the default setting was “no permissions” because with no permissions, the app wouldn’t work. I’d never been able to find the permissions before, and even though I didn’t find them today, I did something in the search for that setting that turned on the photo editor.

Now I just have to figure out how to turn off the “Find my phone” app. It keeps telling me . . . something. Maybe that I need to sign up for it. Apparently, I can’t turn off the notifications they keep sending me to sign up for the app unless I sign up for app, which makes no sense to me, but that’s a conundrum for a different day. (And I wondered why I was so hesitant to fiddle with my website!)

Speaking of conundrums: for some reason, WordPress held the comments of some long-time commenters for moderation. If this happened to you, or happens sometime in the future, please do not take it personally. It’s merely a blip in the program. I would never require moderation for those of you who come here frequently.

So, that’s my day. How is yours?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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New Website!

January 14, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been hesitating about publishing my new website. Yesterday I said I didn’t know why, but I do — it’s that so often things go wrong and I simply did not feel up to dealing with any crisis. For example, books that I get from other sources than Barnes and Noble will sometimes show up on my nook and sometimes not. So frustrating!

But putting off the inevitable doesn’t guarantee that the frustration level of publishing a new website will be any less than if I did it immediately, so today, I pushed the button.

Nothing happened. The computer didn’t blow up. The sun kept shining. The wind kept blowing. And the old website remained.

Luckily, all it took was time. Eventually, the new website showed up. It seems okay to me, though the real thing looks a lot different from the preview. The difference comes mostly in the size of the font and the photos, though there isn’t anything I can do about that — the template comes pre-sized.

Still, I am pleased, with both the way the site and that it is finished.

The best thing about the site is that it is now secured. My old site, since was an http address rather than an https address, came with a google warning that it was unsecured. It’s also mobile ready so that it fits well in a cell phone’s screen.

If you care to take a look, you can find the site at Home (patbertram.com). Feel free to let me know if you see any typos or anything that doesn’t look quite right.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in internet, life. Tags: , , , , . 13 Comments »

Hesitating

January 13, 2021 — Pat Bertram

The demise of Adobe Flash Player made my old web builder defunct, so I’ve had to create a new website using a more current web builder. Although intimidating at first, the new web builder was actually easy and fun and intuitive. (I prefer intuitive programs because I don’t have to watch boring videos or read long articles of instruction. I can simply . . . do.)

Now, to the best of my knowledge, the new website is finished. I just have to click “publish” for it to go live, but I hesitate to take that final step. I don’t know why. It’s not as if the world as I know it will end. The old site will end, of course, with no way to get it back, but most of what was on there is posted in other places, so I can recover any information I inadvertently leave off the new site. And I can always redo the new site if I need to make changes.

But still, I hesitate.

Partly, I don’t want to have to go through the site once it’s published to make sure I did everything right. I’ve read through everything so many times that I’ve developed a blind spot for those words. Partly (even though this justification of my procrastination is something I just now thought of rather than a real reason for delaying), the longer I wait, the fresher those words will seem and so I’ll be able to read them as they are rather than as I wish them to be. And partly . . . who knows. Stubbornness, maybe, or contrariness. Although I like the new site better than the old one — it’s much more professional and easier for people to use — I’m still being forced to change, and I don’t like the feeling of being herded.

So I hesitate some more.

I’d considered pausing here and hitting the “publish” button so I could brag that I did it, but . . . well, I didn’t.

Maybe this weekend I’ll gather the courage to publish my new site. Or not. We’ll see.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Searching for a Tagline

December 29, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been struggling with my new website, and I’ve mostly learned how to use the website builder, or at least as much as I need to know for right now. I’ve pretty much set up the bones of the site; now it needs to be fleshed out with information about me and my books. The book part, while time-consuming, is easy. It’s just a matter of coping and pasting the blurbs and such that were on the old website.

The “about” needs to be updated. I can no longer brag about being a nomad as I did in the previous bio since I am as unnomadish as a person can get — the furthest I’ve been from home in the past few months is a mere handful of miles. But the bio is really just a matter of finding something to say about me. Whatever it is, it won’t be on the homepage; people will have to go looking for it, so it doesn’t have to be as catchy as some of the other parts of the website, such as the tagline.

Taglines are hard. You have to give the essence of your books or yourself in a matter of a few words. This morning I woke up thinking that “Author of provocative fiction and profound works of grief” would be good, but a few hours later that tagline seemed as if it would be too off putting for people who are simply looking for a bit of information about grief. Of course, search engines wouldn’t be sending them to my website for such information — they’d send grievers to one of the grief posts on my blog. Chances are, the only people who would end up at the website would be those who were specifically looking for information about me.

More importantly (to me anyway), I’m trying not to second guess myself too much and to stick with the first ideas that come to mind. Still, I want to hook people into staying, not push them away with pedantry.

So, what about “Author of intriguing fiction and insightful works about grief”?

Originally, I just used, “Author of fiction and non-fiction,” but that is boring and uninspiring to say the least.

If you have any suggestions for a tagline, I’d be glad to hear it.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in books, internet, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 7 Comments »

Web Building

December 27, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I spent a good part of the day working on my website. It had to be updated anyway because of my new book, Bob, The Right Hand of God, but this is more than a simple update. Because of Adobe Flash being discontinued, my ancient website is becoming defunct (even though my site was a plain old non-flash site, with stationary photos and text), I have to learn a new website builder and redo the entire site.

It’s not really all that complicated; it’s more of a matter of learning how to find what I need and to decide what I want to say. To that end, I looked at various examples of author websites, and though it didn’t really help much, it made me feel as if I were doing something to further my “author-ity.”

One of the problems I have that other authors don’t is the variety of genres I work with. Most authors stick with fiction or non-fiction. If fiction, they write one sort of novel, such as romances or mystery or fantasy. If non-fiction, they stick to a certain topic. Although I do stick to one topic with my non-fiction books — grief — my novels span multiple genres.

Back when I was learning to write, all the books said to write in a recognizable genre. You can put romance elements in mystery, or mystery elements in romance, but basically, you need to brand yourself by making sure your stories are predominately one thing. Well, I didn’t do that — I can only write the books that are in my head, after all, and those books ramble all over the genre spectrum. But now I know why it’s important to do what the others said to do and not what I did — it makes it a whole lot easier to figure out what to focus on when promoting yourself, and especially in figuring out what to focus on for a website.

Do I focus on grief? After all, my grief books sell more than the others.

Do I focus on the fiction? After all, most of my books are novels.

For now, I’m doing what a lot of authors do — put up a photo of myself and a gallery of my book covers on the home page, and then feature each book on a separate page.

The hardest part is to find the site in progress. If I go to the web builder page, they don’t seem to recognize what I’ve already done, so I have to click the link in the email they sent when they informed me of the pending changes. (From what one of the tech people I talked to said, I gather there are two distinct builders on my site — a free one that they gave me in exchange for the defunct one, and one I will have to pay for after an introductory period. And it’s the free one that’s hard to find.)

Mostly though, it’s just a matter of doing the work. Luckily, the old site is still up, so I have time to figure it all out and then to do what I need to do to build my website.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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Out With the Old

December 17, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Sometimes getting to the truth even about something as simple as a web site builder is almost impossible. Not that a website builder is simple by any means, but compared to the big questions concerning life and death, it is simple because there is an answer if you can find someone who will tell the truth.

And therein lies the problem.

About two months ago, I got an email from by website provider saying that with the demise of the Adobe Flash Player, my website will no longer be active, and they are switching me to a new website builder. The original builder, although wieldy to work with, was actually pretty simple to understand. This one, I just stared at in total non-comprehension. I’m not an IT person by any means, but over the years, I’ve learned how to do a lot of things, but this one has me flummoxed because it is so different.

So I called the company, and the person who responded said I didn’t have to do anything, that the tools would do most of the work, and that an actual person would work on the site and get it going for me.

A week later, I got another email from the company, reminding me about the upcoming change, and that I had to take action. So again, I called the company, and the person who answered iterated what the first person had said, and added that an entire division had been added to take care of the conversion.

Well, today, I got another email telling me I have to switch my account over, and that experts are standing by in case I have questions, which is entirely different from their actually doing the work. So I called again, and apparently, those first two guys were wrong. I do have to set up the website myself.

Now, instead of two months to figure out what the heck I’m doing, I have less than two weeks during Christmas season to update the site. Eek.

This guy said that the old website wouldn’t simply disappear at the end of the month, and since I don’t have anything that used the Adobe Flash player, I should be okay, but “should” isn’t much of a guarantee. He also said I have a very old web builder, that it was old when he started working there six years ago (as if six years is ancient history, which in tech terms, I suppose it is.)

The good news is that I will have many more pages at my disposal, the site will be mobile friendly, and it will follow Google’s security guidelines.

Once I get over my snit about being strung along for so many weeks, it might be fun to play around with a new site. At least I hope so.

Now I just have to figure out what pages I want, what I need to put on those pages, what I want to highlight on the front page, and how best to showcase my books.

Wish me luck. Or better yet, offer suggestions of what you like to see in a website!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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Waste Paper

December 8, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I was ripping my name off a slew of catalogs I got in the mail when I remembered a talk some man gave my class when I was in the eighth grade. This was decades before the internet, decades even before computers were commonplace. In fact, back then, a computer occupied almost two thousand square feet and weighed fifty tons. Any cell phone today has 1,300 times more power than those computers did, but those computers fueled the imagination. And what that man talked about was simply his imaginative extrapolation of what the world would be like in the future.

He talked of personal phones we could carry with us, though I don’t think he mentioned the multiple functions those phones now have. He talked about computers running the world, about how menial jobs would be a thing of the past since computers would do all the work, and how we’d all have more free time, though the truth is, working folks today have less free time than people did back then.

What he did say, what many people have said over the years, and what stuck with me and inspired this blog, is that we would be a paperless society in the not-too-distant future. Well, that talk was in my distant past, and as far as I know, there has been no reduction in paper. Some statistics say we use more per capita, some say we use less, so I don’t know what the truth is. But considering the number of catalogs I receive and the amount of junk mail, my personal consumption of paper is way up.

I do get a couple of bills via email and pay online, but the elimination of those few pieces of paper is offset a hundred times by the avalanche of catalogs. If I request no catalogs, they sell my name to someone who will send me catalogs.

Yep, here we are, way beyond that not-too-distant future, and paper use is astronomical.

Don’t get me wrong — I love paper. Plain white paper. Colored paper. Wrapping paper. Note paper. Lined paper. Notebook paper. Origami paper. All kinds and thicknesses of paper. It’s an amazing and versatile product that brightens my day, especially when I get a greeting card or read a book or jot down possible topics for this blog. I am especially grateful that the tarot cards I’m trying to learn are just that — cards — and not some electronic device that will shuffle and deal the non-existent cards for me. (There are such programs, and I do check one out occasionally, but that’s different than my getting a feel for the cards.)

Although I’m now in the habit of writing using a keyboard, my first books were all written longhand because I have much better brain/hand coordination than I do brain/keyboard. And although I do read ebooks, I am still old-fashioned enough to like physical printed books.

As you can see, it’s not paper as a valuable commodity I would like to see less of, just a lot less waste paper.

***

“I am Bob, the Right Hand of God. As part of the galactic renewal program, God has accepted an offer from a development company on the planet Xerxes to turn Earth into a theme park. Not even God can stop progress, but to tell the truth, He’s glad of the change. He’s never been satisfied with Earth. For one thing, there are too many humans on it. He’s decided to eliminate anyone who isn’t nice, and because He’s God, He knows who you are; you can’t talk your way out of it as you humans normally do.”

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God. 

Posted in culture, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »
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