Clean teeth and thoughts about coughing up funds

I have clean teeth.

Before getting my teeth impressions for my night (mouth) guard, my dentist noticed some "potholes" in a couple of molars and patched those ups. You could see a bit of the dentin, which was scary. It was a cost that I wasn't expected, but I managed to have enough in my emergency fund to handle it.

With my nightguard, the office wanted a deposit for $200. I told her that I didn't have that much. Instead, I managed to put down a deposit of $68 dollars. It costs well over $400 for it. I frankly feel that the restorations and cleaning are my down payment, along with being a patient for nearly two decades.

I'm not a fan of paying up first. I frankly feel that the office is making sure that it gets paid immediately and inconveniencing customers. I learned that I don't need to file the claim myself -- that the office still does it. It doesn't jive with the woman's explanation when I pressed her about it last week. She said that the office was short-staffed. Yet, you can still file claims on behalf of your patients. Interesting...

I dislike policies that only make sense to a business and don't benefit patients.

Troubleshooting is my forte

I have been using an app on my phone to upload photos and write about my experiences for a while. Earlier this week, I upgraded the app to the latest version. It caused the upload photos feature to die.

I used to work in technical support. I was good at it. I ended up in second-level support. I'm not bragging. I look back at who I was back then and I was great.

These days, I often do troubleshooting at work. I am good at it, too. I am proud that I have this knack.

I reported this app issue to the software company. The woman insisted that I use the e-mail address associated with my account with this app. I had to explain that my messages get forward to my current account and provided my actual e-mail address on file. It is never a requirement to log into the account and write from it, although it is helpful. Just ask me for the e-mail address that I have registered with would have been sufficient.

The woman asked for screenshots and steps on what was going on. I write for a living, so that was easy for me to put together. I also pointed out that I have a Google Pixel 2XL phone running Android 10.

As expected, support couldn't reproduce this issue. It went to the engineering department.

I fixed the issue by myself a couple of hours ago. I could strengthen this support department if they offered a job to me.

I basically removed the faulty app. I went and downloaded an old app version that was released in March. I then installed it.

I proceeded to upgrade the app to the current version. The upload photo functionality works again. Go, me!

I wrote back to support and said that I fixed the issue myself. I didn't bother thanking the woman, as I did all the work. I did end the message cordially, though.

Thank goodness I enjoy solving issues. Otherwise, this app would be useless on my phone without this functionality restore.

My Mac is back, Jack!

Good news! My Mac mini works again.

I texted with an Apple support person last night, who asked me to reset my Mac mini's non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) system settings. After my system tried restarting, it still got stuck at a grey status bar.

I had it running overnight. I turned off my computer in the morning. After work, I powered it back on and it magically booted up. Yay!

I'll off to bed. I was up so late last night troubleshooting that I'm exhausted and sleepy.

Issues with my Mac mini and file backups

I had a bit of a scare with my Mac mini a couple of days ago. It was one reason why I didn't post anything in my blog for a bit. Yesterday, my Mac mini was still out of commission. I used my laptop to make my update.

The last time I used my Mac mini was the night before I went on vacation. When I came back, I uploaded all my photos to my computer and then shut it down.

The next day, my Mac mini would not boot up. You typically get a white progress bar and then your screen to sign in. I ended up with a black screen with four options to restore my computer. It wasn't a good sign.

I rebooted it a few times. I got something different each time, including a circle with a slash across it. My Mac mini was also trying to detect the power button and my wireless mouse, but was unsuccessful.

I decided to unplug my computer's power cable from the wall outlet, wait for roughly five minutes, plug it back in, and start my computer up. Guess what? My computer came back to life. Yay!

I did some research online. This incident happens when an automatic software update starts, but doesn't install completely. It must have happened while I was uploading my photos, but I had no indication that an update had happened. Powering off my computer cleared this installation process up and allowed my computer to boot up properly.

The last time this computer died on me occurred when I was upgrading the operating system. I went to the Genius Bar at my local Apple store. For some reason, genius sounds sarcastic in my head. The solution was to reinstall the operating system, which meant that whatever files weren't backed up would be lost.

I was bright back then to have the majority of my important files, the bulk of which are my photos and music, on my external hard drive. Wiping my entire hard drive was fine. I restored them just fine.

However, after restoring my Mac mini, my music remained on my external hard drive, but my photos had to be on my computer's hard drive to sync properly with my iPhone.

This recent scare made me decide to do the following:

• Move my Photos library back to my external hard drive. I don't own an iPhone anymore, so I don't have the need to store this library on my hard drive.
• Back up my Mac mim's hard drive. 

The second point is significant. I don't know why I never got around to backing up my data. The photos that I take on my Google Pixel phone are automatically backed up to Google Photos, so I"m good there. My photos taken with my DSLR camera are not backed up. Should I lose them on my hard drive, I have nothing.

Right now, I am in the process of moving my photos from my hard drive to my external hard drive. I have 170 GB of photos. It will take a while!

I also have Time Machine set up to back up my files at long last. Better late than never, as the saying goes.

My right eye is back to normal... yay!

Last Wednesday, I went to my ophthalmologist for an appointment. I used to go monthly. This appointment was the first one in two months, which is good news. It simply means that my right eye is making good progress.

To recap, I had an eye stroke back in late March. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I was constantly looking through a water droplet and was getting dizzy.

I didn't think that I would make a fully recovery. Just reading up on various studies saying that it was rare wasn't the best news. My guy felt that if anyone could make a full recovery, it would be me. I didn't want to set my standards so high. He understood.

He was right. On Wednesday, I went in and did my eye test. I could read even the tiniest print during the eye test. I was shocked!

My doctor said that my right eye is 20/20, meaning that the blood splats have disappeared from my central vision. I am now seeing him every three months for my eye injections. There is still a chance that fluid will seep out.

I am thankful that my sight has been restored. It also helps that I have kept my stress and blood pressure controlled. My ophthalmologist cites bad luck as the cause. He also indicated that I am young to have this condition happen to me, so my recovery was easier. Handling a crazy workload at work back then didn't help. I am glad that things are much better these days.

My phone locked itself automatically - weird and good

I thought that Friday would be a quiet day at work. Nope. Drama and weirdness occurred.

I will go with my strange incident. After work, after a trying day, I went out to have a drink and a bite to each with a friend.

We went to a bar and grill close by our workplace. I was checking my phone while waiting for him and it automatically went into lockdown. I tried using my known password, but I couldn't unlock my phone.

After dinner, I had to drive to a different part of the area that I vaguely know. I am so glad that I have a GPS in my car. Otherwise, it would have taken me a bit longer to get there, especially when it gets dark so early in the evening.

I got home and called Google Pixel support. I must say that tech support there is pretty slick. You basically type a brief synopsis of the problem online, click a button, and in a minute, you get a phone call.

The person on the other end said that my phone had to be factory-reset. It meant that I would lose all my data.

The cool thing about this phone is that I have unlimited photo storage and my phone is automatically backed up. So, restoring my phone was straightforward. It went ahead and downloaded all my apps.

In some ways, my phone works better than before.

I asked the tech support person why my phone would simply lock on its own and not let me in. He figures that the cause was a bug somewhere, but he has noted the issue down.

I am so dependent on my phone. However, not using it for four hours felt pretty good.