The Countertop Shuffle

Welcome back, dear reader.

This week, I have news about the reno, an unwelcome bug, and a spam email “from” me. Maybe I should start with that last one first, as it’s the most important.

No, I Am Not Trying To Spam You

So, some of you get an email from me each week announcing the latest post. Those emails tend to be very short — just a sentence or two and a link — and they are sent via BCC since I don’t need to share all of your email addresses with each other and the world.

Such an email might read like this:

From: Jeff Powell <<my legitimate email address>>

Another Week, Another Thumbscrew

Yes, that’s right, it’s been another week and nothing has gone to plan. You can catch up with the chaos if you like.

<<link to a post on medium.com>>

Hoping you are well,

— jeffp

Nice and simple, right? Well, one of you (Hello, Andre!) sent me an email this past week and shared a message he received. It looked a bit like this:

From: Jeff Powell <<a garbage email address that is definitely not mine>>

Finally getting around to sending these! I hope you remember one of them. <<dangerous link here that does not point to medium.com>>

Sent from my iPhone

Some of you are experts at recognizing bad email, and some are not. But there are three different tells in just that bit of text that can assure you it did not come from me and that (VERY IMPORTANTLY!) you should NOT click on the link:

1. The "from" email address is wrong. If you’re getting these messages, you asked to be on the email list, and you should have my email address in your contacts. But it is really important to check the actual email address, not just the name. Both say “Jeff Powell," but that’s not enough. That text can be faked easily. The "from" address is harder to fake, and in the case that Andre shared with me, the email address was definitely not mine. But here’s the problem: some software — notably on phones where the screen size is small — don’t display the email address by default. You may have to tap on something in the message to see the full email address, and you should do that before you click on any link in the email. If it’s not right, don’t click.
2. The link wasn’t to medium.com. My weekly posts are hosted on Medium, and a link to somewhere else needs serious explanation. Don’t click on it until you confirm — perhaps by emailing me and asking about it — if it’s legitimate.
3. I don’t own an iPhone. Not all of you will know this, but some will. I am pretty much allergic to everything made by Apple. I’ve tried it in the past, and it just doesn’t work for me. The defaults are wrong, the assumptions about how user interfaces should work are wrong or backwards, and my fingers get tied in knots trying to do anything on a Mac or an iPhone. If you get anything from me saying it came from an iPhone (or a Mac or an iPad, for that matter), it wasn’t me. Delete with extreme prejudice.

Now, I conversed with Andre, and for various reasons, I think there is a pretty good chance that the email he got did not originate because my computer (or Google’s servers) was (were) hacked. However, there is always the chance I am wrong about that, so I am asking a question:

Have you received any similar spam emails claiming to come from me?

If so, please let me know and forward them to me so I can have a look at the details.

In the meantime, if you want to build the habit of not clicking on links in email (always a good idea!) remember that my posts can be found here:

[embed]Jeff Powell - Medium Read writing from Jeff Powell on Medium. Sculptor/Artist. Former programmer. Former volunteer firefighter. Former…jrpstonecarver.medium.com

Click on that and bookmark the page that comes up in your browser. Then, when you get an email from me, rather than clicking on the link, go to your browser and select the bookmark for my page.

It’s always safer to do that than to click on a link in an email. I won’t send out a bad link, but other people might attempt to impersonate me, and if the bad guys have ever seen your email inbox and trash folder, they will know what the emails from me look like, and creating a fake one — similar to what Andre received — is trivial.

Another option is to create a free account on Medium and subscribe to my posts directly there. You’ll get notified of new posts by them, and I think they might even email them to you. If you do that and want to stop getting my weekly announcements, just let me know. I am happy to take you off the list for any reason.

Regardless, keep safe out there!

The Unwelcome Bug

Have I mentioned how much I hate getting old?

When I was a kid, I don’t recall getting sick very often. Yes, it happened, but not that often (I think), and when it did, I recovered quickly.

These days, I get a couple of colds (or worse) every year, and the latest one arrived last Saturday night. I went to bed feeling just slightly off and woke up in the middle of the night thinking I had a bad case of acid reflux. However, the next time I woke up, I realized that it was instead a sore throat. Not good.

As of today — the following Friday — I am on the mend. Things have improved, and the river of phlegm is much reduced.

I am certain it was not COVID-19. I’ve had COVID, and I know how I react to the vaccines. COVID means two weeks of abject misery, not just five days of being grumpy.

In any case, I am much improved, and by next week this will all be but a happy memory. Or something. But it was a low productivity week as a result.

On The Renovation

Last week I showed you the partial railing:

This week we have the full railing installed:

The eagle-eyed amongst you will note the doors leaning against the wall behind the railing. There’s a story there.

We’re replacing all the doors upstairs as part of this craziness because the ones that were here were some or all of the following:

• Junk
• Badly installed
• Bi-fold monstrosities

The new doors all need paint, and that has been going on, but the carpeting was scheduled to be installed on Monday, and that meant getting the doors out of the way for the installer. Thus, they got moved downstairs into the entryway.

But note the past tense: “scheduled”.

The thing is, the countertop people were supposed to install yesterday (Thursday), and the tile guys were supposed to come back and finish today (Friday). But there was a delay getting the countertop slab delivered. Instead of installing on Thursday, they got the material on Thursday, and they need time to do the actual cutting & polishing. So they called and asked to delay until this coming Tuesday.

And the tile guys have to wait until the quartz is in, so they’re pushed out as well.

As a result, we decided to delay the carpet installation by another week, since we'd rather get as much really messy work as possible done before the carpet is in place. That moves the carpet installation to May 18 instead of May 11.

In the meantime, the electrician was here for a day and installed about half of the fixtures. And more painting has been going on as well. In general, the more we get done before the carpet goes in, the better. So while I am not thrilled at the delay, it does help in some ways.

Oh, and the glass company stopped by today to have a look at the main shower. We’re doing something slightly odd, and we wanted to be sure they could do it the way we want. It turns out they can, so that’s good.

Next week should see the countertop and final tile work done, and maybe the glass will be measured up as well, though it will not yet be installed. If we’re really lucky, we might even see the plumber too!

I did not install the closet system last weekend as I was sick, but I hope to get that done this weekend. We’ll see.

In any case, that’s all the news that’s fit to print this time.

Be careful! Avoid all the badies: viruses, bacteria, prions, and spam!