I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

The first problem of trying to write about the socioeconomic conditions known to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as "Zion" is that there's no linguistic framework from which to begin.

To everyone outside the Church "Zion" and especially "Zionism" have a completely different meaning. Zion refers to a peaceful, utopian place but has no connotations related to economic conditions. The main forums for discussions of Zion are Judaism and Rastafari, and neither is referring explicitly to the economic system described in Acts 2:44-45. One could argue it is implicit that a heavenly society would have a radically-different economy, but just about nobody outside of the Church would make the connection without a lot of thinking.

And Zionism usually means even more specifically the creation of a physical gathering place for Jews. Since the establishment of Israel the term is even MORE narrowed to basically refer only to the existence of Israel: Zionists support the Israeli state and antizionists oppose it.

It would be great if I could just take a cue from Catholic Social Thought (CST) and create the term "Mormon Social Thought," but in October, 2018, Church president Russell M. Nelson encouraged members to retire the term "Mormon," as it has little to do with Church doctrine and merely happens to be the name of an ancient adherent to the religion. Okay, then: Latter-day Saint Social Thought (LDSST)? No dice. "LDS" is on the outs, too. Restoration Social Thought? Restored Christian Social Thought? I don't know.

Even if I had a name for it, there's no succinct way of stating what it is. There are a TON of terms for things LIKE it, but none actually fits. I'll write later this weekend about the variety of terms and their distinct meanings. And I'll try to determine which collection of them does the best job describing what I mean. But for now, I guess I'll call this socioeconomic system Restored Christian Social Thought (RCST).

Will No One Rid Me of This Meddlesome Priest?

I was born in Pittsburgh and have remained a Pittsburgh sports fan all my life, even though I moved away when I was four years old. So this week I am frustrated that yet another hockey team defeated the Penguins in a playoff series after their coach used coded language to ask his team to injury a Penguins player.

In the past it has been Barry Trotz with the Washington Capitals. This year it was Gerard Gallant with the New York Rangers. But it's the same story: a coach down in a series against the Penguins gives public comments about "getting tough" or something and in the next game one of his players concusses a Penguin.

Funny how they never take "getting tough" to mean winning more faceoffs or playing more shifts late in the game. It's almost like "getting tough" doesn't mean getting tough, it means "injure someone."

Walmart Grocery Pickup Needs to Pick It Up

My wife has been using Walmart grocery pickup for years now. When you create your order, it puts a temporary hold on your card for the amount of the order. When you pick up the order you have the option of refusing any substitute items, which would then change the total cost.

The way things worked at first, by the time I got home and opened my banking app, the final total cost had already processed. Now, though, it takes up to 10 days for the transaction to go through, and it often goes through in multiple components that sum to the order total instead of just one transaction that equals the order total. This makes the service such a bookkeeping nightmare that I no longer want to use it.

Last week my wife placed an order that came to around $85 dollars. The day of the order she refused some substitutions so what she brought home cost around $70. Walmart had $85 blocked out on our card for a week, until today when the block went away. But they STILL haven't taken ANY money. Eventually they will do a few transactions that will sum to $70. What was wrong with the old system, where it took 15 minutes for the exact total to go away?

That's just the bookkeeping end of things. It doesn't even begin to address the fact that they merged their great grocery app into their terrible everything-else app.

I understand that entropy comes for us all, but this isn't just something falling apart, this is someone actively making things worse, like a web designer working for Amazon. Stop ruining things that work just fine.

Another Blistering Hot Take

Every self-checkout kiosk should recognize when the customer has begun paying on the point-of-sale (POS) machine and not require you to push a button that says "I'm going to use the other machine to pay now."

Walmart gets it right: it asks you how you're going to pay and then, when you start paying with a card, it goes, "Oh, he's paying with a card."

Every other grocery store on Earth, however, won't start taking information from the POS machine until you tell it to. Even though I'd be pretty confident estimating that at least 95% of shoppers use a card to pay.

Neutered. Or Am I?

Part of the new job (and so the end of A Random Stranger) is a strict policy of nonpartisanship. There was a time when the controversy fueling my blog came from the ambient idiots along my path, but I've tried to become less critical of others, so the controversy had to come from politics. Now that that's off limits, one might suspect that my blogging days are past their prime.

Behold, my most elegant solution: strongly held apolitical opinions! I can rant in favor of the Oxford comma and in opposition to men wearing super-tight pants (or super-short pants without socks), and until political parties take a stance on these issues, I'm home free!

Here's my first apolitical hot take: scrolling signs should scroll from right to left when your language reads from left to right. Across the street from my office is a scrolling sign that gets it completely wrong. It's an ad for Heartland Bank, but you don't find that out until the very end of the scroll. First it's for K. Then it's for NK. Then it's for ANK. Finally some clarity: BANK. But which bank? Nobody knows yet! D BANK. ND BANK. And so on. I can't believe the manager didn't see this sign in operation for ONE SECOND before saying, "This is obviously backwards."

Settling In

I moved to Ohio the first weekend in March and began my new job the next Monday. My family stayed in Florida for another eight weeks. I moved with the half of our possessions that they could do without. I told my wife, Nancy, that it probably looks to the neighbors like an amicable divorce. She went to work and then I loaded the moving truck with the kids. I made sure to kiss her goodbye outside for all the neighbors to see, but I think some were still surprised when I came back two months later to help them move.

Living on my own for two months was pretty secretly great. But that was probably because I talked to my family every day and knew it was just for eight weeks. I got to only buy the food I wanted to eat and go to sleep whenever I was tired.

Our daughter, Ella, started her missionary training online towards the end of March, and at the beginning of April she went to the Provo, Utah, Missionary Training Center (MTC). She is learning Mandarin Chinese and will serve in the Boston area, arriving there towards the end of May.

Our oldest son, Will, completed his Eagle Scout award before we moved but was unable to have his board of review. He either has to go back to Florida to do it in person or the council has to allow him to do it remotely. We hope that in the time of coronavirus the council is fine with remote procedures, but we'll see.

Our second oldest son, Linus, finished his baseball season in Florida. Other parents and coaches keep telling us how great he is, so I guess we have to take this a little more seriously? But I REALLY don't want to become a baseball parent. I'm not in the requisite shape to fight anybody in a parking lot, which I'm pretty sure is de rigueur.

Our youngest son, Simon, has not had any significant changes in his life, but it seems kind of jerky to mention every kid EXCEPT him.

At the end of April I flew back to Florida. It was what we call The Williversary, which is our wedding anniversary and Will's birthday (April 28th). We loaded another moving truck, dealt with surprised neighbors who thought we'd split up, and drove to Ohio.

I've been very busy with everything that a new job and new house involve, but ideally that's settling down now. So much so that perhaps semi-regular blogging can make a comeback in my life. Remember, my goal is to keep blogging until either 1) blogging becomes cool again, or 2) society enters a new Dark Age where the Internet no longer works because some combination of solar flare and nuclear war has destroyed all electronics. Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like #2 will be the winner of that horserace.

Big Changes Are Afoot

The end of 2021 was quite busy for me, and so my blog went silent for a while. I traveled from Florida to Ohio for Thanksgiving, then from Florida to California for Christmas. I was in the final interviewing and negotiating phase of changing employment (the new job is the reason for the blog change from "A Random Stranger" to BTMinster). And the changes are nowhere near over, but at least they are far enough along that I can say some definitive things about them.

To begin with, I have accepted new employment in Columbus, OH. I will be moving from Jacksonville, FL, the first weekend in March. The logistics of this are still very undecided, but it appears that my family will stay in Florida for a few weeks after I leave. Some of that is because my wife, Nancy (previously known as "Persephone," "Super Hot 111," and "My Wife" on ARS), will be finishing up her Florida job and won't be ready to go when I have to report for work in Ohio. Some of it is because our daughter, Ella (previously known as "Crazy Jane" on ARS), has received a call to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and begins her service with home-based online training in mid-March and then reports for in-person training at the beginning of April, so it will be a lot easier for everyone if they just stay put in Florida until Ella leaves home. Some of it is because our son, Will (previously known as "Articulate Joe" on ARS), is working on finishing the Eagle Scout rank for Scouts BSA and his 18th birthday is at the end of April, so it will be easier for him to finish things in Florida than to try to figure out how to start them in Ohio. And some of it is because it will be easier to find a good housing solution for our family if I'm there in Columbus to scout and finalize the search. When we were moving to Jacksonville in 2016 many landlords refused to rent to us without us being in town to see the house in person. Should I admire their self-awareness that their properties are disappointing in person, or should I be frustrated with the inconvenience it caused us trying to line things up online from California and Ohio? A little of both.

Like I said, big changes are still coming. I am teaching an online class right now, and in February I will add to that two in-person classes. The weekend after the in-person classes end is when I move to Ohio to begin work on the following Monday. So I'm going to be very busy for the first few months of 2022.