u/Bjorlyn

A while back I went through a series of months where I really struggled to use my phone, my tablet, my kindle, and just about everything with a touchscreen, including the check-out screens at the bank and the grocery store. Have you experienced this frustration?

After a while, my problem just disappeared.

Warmer weather brought my hands back to life. During the winter, I often need to use a stylus, because my hands are both cold and dry, and simply don't have the electrical conductivity to trigger touchscreens.

It's a problem that many seniors experience. Now when a gen-whatever rolls their eyes at me, I sometimes let them know, yeah, it really IS because I'm old that I'm so slow at some computer tasks, but not for the reason they think.

I also learned that keeping my hands moisturized really improves my touchscreen use in the winter. There's a good article about this at Medium: Touch screens don’t work for everyone!

Oh yeah, and seniors have more trouble triggering those bathroom sink sensors too. Maybe we really do become invisible!

Sacramento Solons Program, Spring 1974

Slide into summer with the full Sacramento Solons program from Spring 1974, courtesy of the Sacramento Room at our public library.

You can browse through 37 pages, with lots of great commentary about baseball in Sacramento back in the day. The advertising will bring you waaaaay back.

Something to chat about while chomping on your hot dog and waiting for that perfect play!

https://preview.redd.it/zsgzghqtw51h1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=e7ee6d6eb0058ec903ccd4a4e77bcdc15241e1eb

The Rocklin City Council unanimously approved a $2.23 million loan Tuesday to help fund The Steven, a 180-unit affordable senior apartment complex near Sierra College Boulevard.

The project is part of College Park, a 900-unit, mixed-use development tied to Sierra College. The Steven will serve residents 55 and older earning between 30% and 70% of area median income.

https://www.abridged.org/news/rocklin-senior-housing-development/

I’ve been very active in mutual aid, sweep defense and organizing around homelessness policy in Sacramento since 2020. I have a lot of experience working with people and communities who live on the streets.

I often meet elders who were lifelong housed workers until a devastating life event like the death of a spouse or disabling/bankrupting health crisis made them homeless for the first time in middle or old age.

which bears out what the data says. this is the most rapidly growing segment of homeless population — older people who can no longer keep up with the constantly rising cost of living.

i recently took a job at a local cat shelter and i wasn’t really prepared for the perspective it would give me on what it looks like to “become” homeless.

in the month i have been there, i have witnessed two cat surrenders from people who were in the process of losing their housing. my coworkers assured me its a regular thing.

one was a single older woman. the other was a married older couple. the women were sobbing in both cases. they were obviously so scared, and they fucking loved their cats 💔 the husband was gentle and sad. he asked me to sit with their cat in the office so she wouldn’t be alone when they walked out of the door, and you could feel their immense pain, sadness and fear as they did. i went back to my office and cried.

i am not one to think anyone deserves homelessness more than another, i think it’s wrong for a society to allow anyone to be homeless.

but y’all…seeing people at this stage is heartbreaking. these could be anyone’s normie parents. nothing about them was giving homeless. they were clean and well groomed. but after a few months on the streets, they will start to “look homeless” and may develop visible mental health issues due to the stress of living outside, being treated as worthless and a criminal.

just sharing because i have these unique perspectives from actually being in community with many homeless folks/communities, and now witnessing the stage of housing loss. the shock, the fear and impossible decisions 💔

i wish people understood homelessness is an economic issue first and foremost, and housing is the solution. these people don’t need psychiatric help or drug treatment. they need a fucking apartment and to have their cats back in their arms.

Downtown Grid! Eggplant Alley... what the heck?

You may not have known that the City Council considered a very different set of alley names in 2010, representing city names from around the world. The list can be found here: https://records.cityofsacramento.org/ViewDoc.aspx?ID=s6tFBnt4W+IQe/le3kN1rTUZOzlzm8Bw

That list was amended and adopted in 2011. https://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&clip_id=2799&meta_id=373613

My alleyway, between Capitol and L, is the same on both lists: Liestal. That's Sacramento’s sister city in Switzerland. Wonder why it didn't change. Does anyone know?

Here’s the full list of the current names:

• Blues Alley
• Chinatown Alley
• Democracy Alley
• Eggplant Alley
• Fat Alley
• Government Alley
• Historic Alley
• Improv Alley
• Jazz Alley
• Kayak Alley
• Capitol Liestal Alley
• Matsui Alley
• Neighbors Alley
• Opera Alley
• Powerhouse Alley
• Quill Alley
• Rice Alley
• Solons Alley
• Tomato Alley
• Uptown Alley
• Victorian Alley

https://preview.redd.it/lvyn01n4vs0h1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=59af11186bb8255b5918622eb16cb541a4658ba4

Calling all Grandmas and Grandpas! Great Aunts and Great Uncles! If you've got 16 or 17 year-olds in your sphere of influence, let them know about preregistration to vote. They'll automatically be registered upon their 18th birthday.

Reading about this, it made sense to me that upon turning 18, voter registration may fall way down a new adult's list of priorities. They face massive changes as they navigate away from the very school systems that have bracketed their lives, and have taught them about civics and democracy.

According to The Civics Center, under 30% of 18-year-olds are registered to vote compared to 75% of voters older than 45 in the United States.

My immediate family have very different political ideas than my own, but I'm taking a moment to reach out and suggest pre-registration. Regardless of your own views, here's a chance to start a conversation about the importance of voting.

California

https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/outreach/highschool/pre-reg-flyer.pdf

Different state?

https://www.thecivicscenter.org/prereg

Crazy that Ticketmaster's main phone number on their website is flagged by my carrier as a scam. Yes, I checked the URL.

I get multiple emails from a particular venue that I want to stop. All communications preferences are unchecked on Ticketmaster.

I spoke to customer service, who told me that the only way to stop emails from Ticketmaster is to delete my account. Is Ticketmaster customer service really telling me to delete my account?

I have been sort of anticipating the implosion of the internet, I'm thinking this is a harbinger.

https://preview.redd.it/bqjq1utr2szg1.png?width=917&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b0c45e7cc6d9ced139536378c27bcd971eaf9c5

Helped a friend with Chase Bank account to determine what options she had for disabling Zelle. This is what came up first, and thought it might be of interest to this community generally. Curious to know how our experts would rewrite the warning to be more effective.

Zelle was added to Chase accounts as an opt-out rather than an opt-in.

As an aside, there did not appear to be an option for disabling Zelle. Instead, Chase offered the option of removing linked accounts that she relies upon for moving money between accounts in different banks. It wasn't clear whether those transfers were being made using Zelle, and so we didn't disable the linked accounts on the Zelle page. However, the transfers she had made in the past without did not show up in Zelle history. Quite confusing. We'll make a call.

I should say at the beginning that I prefer reading rather than video or audio, so I'll focus on that.

I'm living on Social Security and find it difficult to get quality and in-depth news.

I recently signed up for emails from https://www.abridged.org/ which is a KVIE local journalism effort, and very active on Reddit. I love this service, which shows up in my email daily with a headline in the subject line, but which is also available just by going to their website.

But it's not really enough. I've found good access to local news in Reddit, but I'm sad thinking back to the days when I had a better handle on what was going on in my city.

I used to subscribe to the Sacramento Bee when I was more flush with cash. I finally cancelled my subscription and rarely miss them. It's far too expensive, the investigative reporting diminished, and their marketing is incredibly intrusive.

Off and on, I will subscribe to the LA Times. I tend to do this when there is a California story I want to pursue in-depth, as when fires are devastating a part of the state. You can usually subscribe or resubscribe with a special offer, but they don't have the same easy low-cost continuation as I've experienced with the New York Times.

I subscribe to the New York Times, because the reliability and depth of the reporting is my cup of tea. I have found that if you subscribe to one of their initial special offers you can call to cancel at the end of the subscription and they will offer you another wonderful option. I called to cancel my family subscription that was $15 per month, and they offered me $5 per month for the same subscription for 18 months. That means I can offer five other people I care for full access.

Cancelled my Washington Post subscription because of Bezos' influence and reduction of staff.

Settling into retirement, I know that I miss a lot of news I would have experienced in an average work day. I miss the words "Hey, did you hear?" more than I would have expected.

I would love to hear the experience of others.

[Edit: changed the first line. I prefer reading news, not listening or viewing.]

I've been following the r/scams subreddit closely for a couple of months now, and I just want to say thank you to the moderators and frequent commenters.

Your efforts have improved my knowledge and have changed my behavior. I check links before clicking. I carefully read urls. I pay careful attention to the information I provide when I am on the phone. I don't hand my phone to anyone anymore, for any reason. I changed my password manager and culled accounts I no longer use. After opting out, my information hits on google search went from literally hundreds to just a few that I really can't change. I don't just reflexively hit unsubscribe links in email, or type stop to texts. I can't even begin to list everything I've learned, and hope to learn more.

The moderators and commenters here create an atmosphere of patience, calm and kindness. There is a recognition that scammers are sneaky and mean and ruthless, and that it can happen to the best of us.

I also want to express my gratitude to those who have posted here while under threat of a real scam, or in the aftermath. I've learned about lots of different scams -- and about how to avoid them -- by hearing from the people who have experienced them in real time. I have to admit that I wouldn't pay as much attention by just reading the list and characteristics of common scams. I also recognize how often scammers rely on panic and the desperation to act immediately without the help of others. If people didn't post, I would be much less likely to learn.

I can't say I'm less concerned about being scammed, but I am less anxious, and I have a far better understanding as I work to avoid it.

Thanks so much to all of you.