Author: bdharrellauthor

A retired bellyacher, sometimes writer and guardian of the dog Filbrix.

The Jesus Thing

(Foreword: Some may find this post not to be of their liking. Be advised that I respect all beliefs, although I find some of those beliefs more interesting than others.)

On July 15th, 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered an address to the Harvard School of Divinity, discounting Biblical miracles and declaring that while Jesus was a great man, but he wasn’t God.

                I’m inclined to believe the same thing.

                I’m also sure that, like Emerson, I might ruffle a few feathers.

I belong to a group which has been on three-year (so far) journey into the “Christian Religion,” I have had my eyes opened to a number of truths which have radically changed my view of the “Christian Religion.”

                Let me state from the outset that I believe in God. The presence of something greater than we are is evident in the observable universe and in the universe we cannot see with our human eyes. I see God not as a person, but as more of a spirit which lives in each of us, envelopes each of us, and envelops all that we can observe.

                God is universal. There is but one God. Although different cultures appear to have different Gods, those Gods are the same God (the one God) seen through different lenses or different filters.

It was in the third year of this journey that a few things began to click in my mind, dealing mostly with the pre-history of Christianity – that is, the build up of the religion prior to the birth of “Jesus (Joshua) of Nazareth.” The pieces, including the ethos of Christianity were all present prior to Jesus’ birth, but the pieces were not all tied together (so to speak) until roughly 50 years after his death. Some pieces were added in later to “Seal the deal.”

                What I have extrapolated from my readings is that Jesus/Joshua was likely a charismatic preacher familiar with the teachings of Hillel the Elder (110 BCE – 10 CE). Jesus/Joshua was likely a thorn in the side of the establishment and was handed over to death in the hands of the Romans.

                Tales of miracles done in Jesus/Joshua’s name were lifted from previous sources in other traditions – including stories of resurrection and ascension. While I doubt the veracity of the miracle/ascension stories (no matter which group tells it), I do see them as important to spreading the basic message of Christianity: “Love God, Love your neighbor.”

                Somewhere along the line, though, things got messed up. Looking through some of last year’s notes, I came across some of the musings from our reading of The Dream of God. It was noted that the big problem has been with the institutional church as opposed to the teachings of Jesus or Hillel (take yer pick). The institutional church loves to moralize – a direct contradiction to the teachings of both rabbis. Doesn’t matter the church… the hand-wringing over the new figurehead of the Anglican communion, Charles the Third is an excellent, and recent example.

                But the basic message is the same. “Love God, Love your neighbor.” This year’s group theme, Living in a Multicultural World, will hopefully pull the “Love your neighbor” part into sharp focus… giving us direction as to how we are to live from this point forward.

                I started this essay as part of a class exercise. I may have strayed from the intent of the exercise. From my point of view, though, what I see as important going forward is not who we believe, but what we believe. How do we lead our lives to have a positive impact on the people around us. Jesus may not be God… but he sure did give us a lot to live up to.

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Uncle Captain Skipper Sven Goolardi

A few years back I wrote a story about a former kid’s show host, a fellow who went by the moniker Suddsy Watters. The story centers on a free-lance writer who finds his childhood hero – a kid’s show host he almost go to see live on the afternoon John Kennedy was assasinated.

Kids shows. Gotta love ’em. The way I figure it, the golden age of local TV kid’s show hosts was between about 1955 and 1975 in the time slot between roughly 3 and 6 pm, when Mom and Dad took control of the television set for the evening news. In many markets, there were multiple hosts. For instance, while I was a kid in suburban Cleveland Ohio, there were, notably, “Barnaby” on Channel 3, “Franz the Toymaker” on Channel 8, and my favorite, “Captain Penney” on Channel 5.

Captain Penney hosted a variety of short features, including The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges. The other two hosts were geared to younger children, featuring much tamer fare. My sisters preferred Barnaby, and they came up with the term “Neighbor Doors” to describe two part “Dutch Doors”. Barnaby would appear from the upper half of the door and say “Hello little neighbors…”, hence the term “Neigbor Doors.” [As an aside, the swinging saloon doors seen on Westerns were called “Stranger Doors” from the greetings given to someone entering a saloon, as in “Howdy Stranger!”]

A few years back I read a book describing a number of those kid show hosts from coast to coast. Interesting reading. There were a lot of “Captains,” “Uncles,” at least one “Skipper,” and a host of other colorful characters. As the genre faded out, a victim of syndicated game and/or talk shows, the hosts faded, too. Some faded into obscurity, others survived by adaptation to other roles at the stations where they worked.

Other than news, most local stations did away with local programming sometime in the seventies. Too expensive by the time you figured in props and the personnel needed to run shows. Besides, there were standards which came into play which took away some of the bread and butter that the stations relied on to keep the shows running.

For stations wanting to keep a certain amount of local content, there was another opportunity available to them. One of the Hollywood studios made available a catalog of “B” feature horror flicks at bargain rates to individual stations. Many of the operators in the markets where the package of horror flicks was purchased, used a host, sometimes called a “sprocket jockey.” Hosts were as diverse as the markets where they worked – usually with monikers having to do with horror movie tropes.

In Cleveland in the mid sixties, it was Ghoulardi. Channel 8 knew a good thing when they had it and they milked the routine for all it was worth. To Ghoulardi’s credit, the person playing the character (Ernie Anderson) organized a baseball team which would appear at various places around town to raise money for charitable organizations. Ghoulardi departed Cleveland at around the same time our family left, and at about the same time as Cleveland’s most popular disc jocky – A fellow with the moniker “Jerry G” (of Jerry G and Company).

Jerry G moved to Chicago, became Jerry G Bishop, worked at a couple of radio stations, then was tapped to be a horror host on one of the Chicago’s television stations.

Called himself Svengoolie.

From a description seen on the internet (“If it’s on the internet, it must be true”) a portion of Jerry G Bishop’s schtick was lifted from Ernie Anderson’s Ghoulardi. At least, there had to be some cross-pollination as Jerry G and Ghoulardi were working the same market in the same time frame. Svengoolie was moderately popular in its day. Again, going back on the internet (“It has to be true”), a fellow named Rich Koz started sending jokes to Svengoolie, eventually being hired as a writer for the show. Mr. Koz continued the show when Bishop left, calling himself Son of Svengoolie.

At some point, Bishop gave his blessing to Mr. Koz to use the Svengoolie moniker still used by Mr. Koz on his show seen on Saturday nights on ME-TV.

While I contend that the current success of Svengoolie may hinge a little on his being a descendant of Ghoulardi, there are a number of dissimilarities. Svengoolie depends a lot on what we call “Dad Jokes,” while Ghoulardi’s humor centered on ethnic humor. Sven is more politically correct. It should also be noted that Rich Koz has had the Svengoolie moniker all to himself for a couple of decades, Ghoulardi was a relative flash in the pan, lasting less than five years.

Anyhoo, that’s my rattle for this Sunday evening. Anyone else have a favorite kid’s show host or sprocket jockey? I’m always open for suggestions.

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The Penguin – A Prophet

The Penguin – A Prophet

I have a Saturday night routine which leads down strange paths. I watch “Me-TV” for a string of shows, starting with The Three Stooges and ending with the first few moments of Star Trek. In between are Svengoolie (a direct descendent of Ghoulardi), the horror movie host, and Batman (In Color!). I have reasons (mostly nostalgic) for watching this Saturday night block, but I won’t get into those reasons for the moment.

What struck me was the Batman episodes run this past Saturday: Hizzonner the Penguin, followed by Dizzoner the Penguin from the second season. Burgess Meredith does an excellent job of portraying a costumed criminal with a bird fetish. In the pair of episodes shown on Me-TV this past Saturday, The Penguin stages an event enabling him to run for Mayor of Gotham City. Since it looks like he will win the election, Batman is asked to run against the “Fowl Fiend,” vowing to concentrate on the issues while Penguin works on making the Mayoral race into a popularity contest.

Included in Penguin’s bag of tricks are twists of logic (“I’m always seen in the newspapers with the police, while Batman is seen in the newspapers with criminals… therefore, I am more trustworthy.”) Hints of ballot manipulation, and finally, when the ballot counting shows Penguin losing, there are demands of a recount, accusations of fraud, and a kidnapping of the Board of Elections.

Sounds vaguely familiar. Like what transpired fifty and fifty-four years later in a pair of certain Presidential elections involving someone wearing a red hat.

A few major points stood out.

Penguin first threw his hat in the ring with a staged event. The man in the red hat descended an escalator in a staged event where he threw his hat in the ring.

Instead of building up his own qualifications, both preferred to take pot shots at their opponents.

Both called the election process to be stacked against them, especially when they were losing; both taking to subverting the process and demanding that no more votes be counted when it became obvious that the tide had turned.

One other takeaway from the pair of Batman episodes – Penguin declared that when he won, he would place a variety of costumed criminals in places where they could essentially pillage Gotham City. Judging from the number of indictments stemming from the election when the fellow in the red hat won, he was able to do what Penguin never did.

Sixty-Six years later, the parallel continues.

Some of it from a piece of literature from a long-dead British author – J.R.R. Tolkien.

There was a piece I read Monday where it seems that the man in the red hat was sounding conciliatory in something he said over the weekend. My mind jumped to Chapter 10 of the second book from Professor Tolkien’s epic trilogy of Lord of the Rings. Titled, “The Voice of Saruman,” it essentially says that the evil wizard’s voice sounded just like listener wanted to hear it. To some, his words were harsh and unforgiving. To others, he sounded like he was apologetic – his words flowing like honey over his tongue. Much the same can be said about the man in the red hat and those around who still support him. His words flow like honey, but reek of revenge.

Note that both were able to get a measure of revenge. Note also that Saruman’s end came from the knife of a once-trusted advisor.

Art imitates life and life imitates art. Or so it is said. Sometimes that old saw can be alarmingly true!

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Treadmill

Treadmill

Well, it had to happen sometime. The better half and I finally decided that laying around and avoiding the heat all summer had to stop, so, we joined a gym. We are in the second week of going to a small gym in Princeton three times a week to hit the treadmill and one or two similar machines to improve our stamina, lose some weight and do something about our heart health.

To the point at which we started getting three digit temperatures, I would get out at least three times a day with the dog Filbrix on walks varying from one to five miles, depending on a number of factors. Obviously, three digit temperatures led to two walks per day of around a mile each, before sunrise and after sunset.

The local walks with the dog Filbrix led to a familiarity with certain features along the route. There are people who notice me and my canine companion; one of them stopped me at the local grocery store – hailing me as “The dog walker.” There’s a gentleman I’ve seen before who has had problems with his knees – he walks a Pitty (much to the dog Filbrix’s interest) on a regular basis. He gets around much better these days.

Other people on the route include the Asian woman with the two “Yappy Dogs” who somehow manage to be out at the same time as we are – the truck driver up the street who has the grown daughter who visits and rollerskates when she is visiting – the waver who always tells me to have a blessed day (and blesses the “doggy” while he’s at it – and Joe, the work at home guy who is good for a general conversation now and then.

Filbrix’s doggy pals include a trio I’ve nicknamed Larry, Curly and Moe, a dog I refer to as “Snarly” because all she used to do was snarl as we went by, and another “Yappy Dog” I’ve nicknamed as “Lit-tle Flearanch.” Dad always referred to unfamiliar dogs as “Flearanch.” If the people living with me at the time the dog Filbrix came to live with us had a slightly different sense of humour, I might have named her Flearanch. Just to be different.

Hmmm… strayed a bit from the theme I began with. No matter. Walking a treadmill is different than walking around a block or on a rail to trail, trail. The scenery doesn’t change much. There’s a gas station across the street. There’s some entertainment value in checking out the price of gasoline on the markee. Not much, but some. Since we go to the gym at rush hour (we get there by going the back way), I get to watch traffic get jammed up on US 380. Seen one traffic jam, you’ve seen them all. And then there are the occasional younger women who turn my head – but just a little, since the better half is usually on one of the adjacent machines.

And I really don’t mind talking with my wife. We exchange notes, figure out what we’ll eat once we get home, and discuss other topics which need to be discussed without my being on the computer keeping up with the peeps, writing on my latest project(s) or working on other non-writing projects.

Results? Well, it’s really too early to tell if this habit I’m trying to establish is doing me any good. Other than the occasional twinge, the routine hasn’t been detrimental. If the doctor is impressed with my efforts, he will let me know next month. I hope that the cholesterol numbers will be down (again), as well as the weight (which has been slowly creeping up due to the inaction caused by the triple digit temperatures).

Time will tell.

During the meanwhilst, I have an appointment with a treadmill three times a week.

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Some Words Have None of the Luck

Some Words Have None of the Luck

I had a conversation with a naturist correspondent about the word(s) “Lifestyle(s)”. My correspondent was bemoaning that the word(s) had different meanings depending on the audience within the naturist community. To some, “Iiving the naturist lifestyle” means living as much of one’s life as possible without the burden of having to wear clothing. To others, “living the naturist lifestyle” means being a “swinger,” or someone willing to sleep with another’s spouse, while their spouse sleeps with your spouse.

Wife swapping, if you will.

Living a “Lifestyle” has had a broader meaning over the years. Most of us of a certain age remember a fellow named Robin Leach – a presenter of the show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. It would be a safe bet to say that none of the people on that program were shown running around in their birthday suits. As to marital stability, well, that’s another matter.

I have encountered the term “Lifestyle(s) in a couple of other situations.

In the mid to late seventies, the National Lampoon published a parody of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The politically incorrect (a Lampoon specialty) conclusion came about when it was noted that the owner of the local hardware store had come up with a “Lifestyles” section. The protagonists in the story came to discover that the local townspeople had become Jewish (see what I mean by being politically incorrect?) after eating an alien deli sandwich (with a schmear, I mean, a dab of mustard).

A few years later, I worked at a radio station which moved their offices and studios into a building a few doors down from a gay nightclub. The club closed suddenly – with a notice posted on the door telling patrons that there was a new “Lifestyles” bar just down the road.

So, the term(s) “Lifestyle(s)” has taken a bit of a beating over time.

Another word with the misfortune of shifting meanings has been “Liberal.” At one time it was meant to indicate someone with an open mind – with characteristics we all strive to emulate. These days, the word has become a slur, especially in heavily “Red” areas. Come to think of it, wasn’t there a time when calling someone a “Red” indicated that the person in question was or is a communist?

Then, back to “Swinger.” Could be a kid enjoying a piece of playground equipment – or a “Hep Cat” dancing to what was once called swinging music – or a name given to a Polaroid camera, selling for “Nineteen dollars and ninety-five!”

It’s all a matter of understanding between people in a conversation. And sometimes the lines of understanding don’t easily cross between generations or other subsets of people. The phrase “Cut a rug” comes to my mind.

For some of us, the phrase “Cut a rug” is a phrase used to describe a pair of people dancing… a term not everyone is aware of.

I worked for a few years on an offshore oil drilling rig, two weeks on and two weeks off. Several of my co-workers concluded that it would be cheaper to fly back and forth to Costa Rica, stay in a hotel and enjoy the services of hot and cold running prostitutes. One of the older workers asked the pair running back and forth to Central America, “What do you do with these girls? Do you cut a rug?” Neither of the pair knew the phrase… I smiled and translated, “He wants to know if you install carpeting!”

The quip brought down the house!

English is a complex and sometimes difficult language to comprehend. It can sometimes be like a loaded gun. Just gotta be careful where you aim it!

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Grape Gum

Grape Gum

It was noted on my internet feed this morning that today marks 34 years since the Chicago Cubs played their first night game at Wrigley Stadium. Twenty years prior to the lights going on at Wrigley Field, I had an English teacher who declared herself as a baseball fan who was mad at the Cubs because Mr. Wrigley did not see fit to lighting the baseball field named in his honor. Because of that, she declared that there was to be no gum chewing in her class. Doing so would support Mr. Wrigley.

To say that Mrs. Fair disliked her English students chewing gum in her class would be a fair statement (note the play on words). While she was intolerant of all chewing gum, she was particularly intolerant of grape-flavored bubble gum.

When it came to grape gum, the woman had a nose like a hawk. If she even thought that you had grape gum on your person, you would be sent to the restroom to spit out the offending gum and then were told to rinse out your mouth before coming back to class.

There were other rules, too. I’ve forgotten most of them because, as I came to the discovery in my early days as part of that class, I sat in what I would consider to be the “Teacher’s Pet” seat. I got away with a thing or two because of my position in Mrs. Fair’s seating chart – and no, I didn’t test the limits by chewing gum, much less grape gum the entire school year. Came close, but never caught.

Why I was put into the “Teacher’s Pet” seat was likely because I was new to the school and/or new to the school system. I was in the position of having to find a whole new set of friends. Seated where I was didn’t help things, especially when the word was out that the front seat in the center row of Mrs. Fair’s classroom was… shall we say, special.

A couple of side notes having to do with my time in Mrs. Fair’s English class.

For one, we spent a few weeks studying Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. There was an extra credit assignment which found me writing a “Musical.” I did a “Weird Al” thing of setting several plot points to already existing tunes. Mrs. Fair loved it. One of the easiest projects I ever did.

For the other, Mrs. Fair announced one day that one day, when she retired, she would sit in her rocking chair and listen to me on the radio. She retired in June, 1972. I started working at the local radio station in December of that year. (I would mention that Mrs. Fair’s husband and the owner of the radio station where I first worked were former mayors of the town, bookending a short-lived experiment of having a Council-Manager form of government. The better half found it amusing.)

At any rate, I believe that night baseball in Wrigley Field came well after Mrs. Fair expired, so she never got to take back her vendetta against poor Mr. Wrigley. And despite having the temptation of being able to chew any gum I wanted to chew in my lifetime, I never developed a taste for grape gum.

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Happy Birthday (?) George Jetson

Happy Birthday (?) George Jetson

Earlier this week, I encountered two references relating to the impending birth of George J. Jetson, future employee of Spacely Sprokets – an enterprise which should be in full operation in 40 years. You know George, his boy, Elroy, Daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife. Sure you do. Well, George is 40 in the year 2062, meaning that he will be born sometime this year. To be specific, he will be born sometime between July 31st and August 27th.

I’ve seen both dates posted this past week, on the same data card presumably from Hanna Barbara productions. I’ll presume that both were somehow photoshopped by some enthusiastic fans.

Writers create backstories for their creations – assisted by enthusiastic fans who will somehow embellish the writer’s backstory to the Nth degree. For instance, Jane, his wife’s birthday has been pegged by fans to be on the 23rd of September, 2024. Judy and Elroy’s birthdays are still a bit hazy – Judy will be born in 2043 – Elroy in 2053.

I’m sure that Judy and Elroy’s exact dates of birth will be forthcoming before too much longer. Fans will tell us.

While musing about the impending birth of George Jetson, I recall a line I heard on an episode of The Simpsons, where Bart pointed out that a couple of Hanna Barbara cartoons were based on sitcoms: Specifically mentioned were The Flintstones, based loosely on Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners, and Top Cat, with characters cribbed from Phil Silvers’ Sergeant Bilko.

Allow me to add The Jetsons to that list.

I’m thinking of a comic strip family who made it to theatric shorts and at least a couple of attempts at a television series.

Blondie.

The elements are there, if you look for them.

George Jetson and Dagwood Bumstead both work for bombastic bosses (Mr. Spacely and Mr. Dithers) in ordinary jobs despite having a pedigreed background. (George’s grandfather was named Montague, a sure sign of family wealth – The original premise of Blondie was that she was a gold-digger, prompting Dagwood’s father to disinherit him.)

Jetson and Bumstead each have two children, an older girl and a younger boy, and both have non-descript dogs (Ast – er – Rastro and Daisy) who figure into the story lines.

The clincher is with the wife. Jane Jetson is voiced by actor Penny Singleton – the actor who portrayed Blondie Bumstead in the theatrical shorts and in one of the attempts to bring Blondie to television!

How’s that for detective work!

Regardless, we have a window for George Jetson’s birthday. The question now is, will our technology catch up with what we’ve been told to expect for 2062?

Time will tell.

Till then, Happy Birthday, George!

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The Perils of Publishing

The Perils of Publishing

I was recently reminded of the anniversary of a milestone – the pending publication of The Secret of Possum Hollow, the third of five published novels revolving around the fictional town of Magnolia Ohio. There were only a handful of readers of what I consider to be one of my two best “Magnolia” stories, making the enterprise less than renumerative. The artwork on the cover was purchased from an outfit offering pre-made book covers; the inside layout done by an outfit named BookFuel. Despite the cost of the services, I was quite pleased with the job done by BookFuel, so I decided to contact them again in conjunction with my latest project, Still Life.

When I went to contact BookFuel, I found that they were AWOL. Gone. Vamoosed.

My first contact with BookFuel was with its founder. He had read an early draft of the book which became Saving Magnolia and offered to publish it gratis. As I still had work to do on the novel, I politely declined – promising to contact him when I felt the book was finished. I eventually finished Saving Magnolia and trusted BookFuel to format the interior and provide the spine and back cover.

I was pleased enough with the job that I went ahead and had BookFuel do the cover and interior formatting for The Magnolia Chronicles. By then I had spent the better part of a thousand dollars to publish a couple of books with less than 50 sales, total.

I’m not whining by any stretch of the imagination. I had taken a course in “Novel Writing” which included a section covering “Vanity Publishers.” A vanity publisher, of which Vantage Press is likely the best known, offers complete services starting at a mere five figures. My dealings with BookFuel cost considerably less, allowing me to pursue a dream without breaking the bank… an important consideration since I was looking at investing five figures as a down payment of a home of my own. For my money, I got professional looking books which made me proud without the hassle of finding an agent who might find me a publisher and/or a professional editor.

BookFuel was one of several smaller companies catering to people like me. They’re still out there. I get regular emails from at least two service providers for independent or self-publishers. A recent check on pricing shows that pricing is up. Understandable. The demand is there. From what I understand, there are upwards of 300,000 people just here in the United States writing books of one sort or another. Granted, many of those authors are in academia – but not as many as you would believe. Just in the past few years, my mother-in-law, her husband, and my wife’s brother have all written books of one sort or another. Granted, there are three memoires included (the father-in-law wrote two and edited another book just to be on the safe side) in that count, but still, a book is a book.

Anyhoo, in my case, I have at least four books on “hold,” pending the question of how I should market my product. Obviously, it would be nice to have a publisher other than me, doing the lifting while I don’t do much more than write. A friend here in the DFW Metromess has a publisher, but that publisher won’t touch the types of stories I’m writing (think Lake Wobegon with an attitude). An acquaintance about a thousand miles north and east of my little corner of the DFW Metromess is self-published – but he spends a great deal of time on social media essentially promoting his books for free.

What should I be doing, other than throwing out this question on my blog?

I’m going to keep rolling that question around in my head for a little bit. In the meantime, I believe I shall just keep on writing.

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ERCOT – You’re Welcome – NOT!!!

ERCOT – You’re Welcome – NOT!!!

This morning we recieved notice from our electric provider and the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) that we are going to be in a pickle this afternoon because of the expected high demand for electricity due to our overly hot weather. Sorry to hear that, ERCOT, but there’s an old saying out there which states, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I have done some prior planning by having an array of solar panels installed on my house. Doing my part, you see. Heck, I even “donated” 846 Kilowatts into the system between May 15th and June 15th. “Donated” is not quite what happened – I was not given credit for what I generated above and beyond my own needs during that billing cycle.

It’s a long story. The short and skinny is that I have done ERCOT a favor by generating excess electricity and sending it into the grid at what amounts to my expense.

And it ain’t the first time it happened.

Before the power grid fiasco in February, 2021, the better half and I contracted to have solar panels put on top of the house. We got the go-ahead and had a start date which incidentally came in the middle of the time ERCOT had their power hiccup. Not a problem. We waited another fortnight for the installation and had everything up and running by the first part of March.

When the panels were up, I called Reliant to get on a solar buyback program. It is important to know that Reliant is nothing more than a billing agent – a middleman. The electricity we use comes from an entity known as Texas New Mexico Power (TNMP). Reliant gave me the information on a solar buy-back program. I told them I’d go for it. They came back and told me that I needed to pay a contract termination fee before they would switch me over to the new plan.

Uh, no.

It took me several phone calls and the better part of an hour in hold hell to finally convince someone that I was not terminating service, but moving on to a new plan. That was the good news. The bad news was that it took them one (if not two) billing cycles for Reliant to catch up to the fact that I was sending them (and by extension TNMP) electricity at no cost.

After that, no problem – at least until last February.

I got a notice from Reliant that the solar plan was going away and that I would be slammed onto a month-to-month plan in the very near future. I called Reliant to ask what was going on. They told me that TNMP was no longer buying electricity from those of us with solar panels. After scratching my head for a short while, I called Reliant again, specifically asking if I was going to be credited for the power I was sending back in the grid. Their answer was that I most assuredly would be credited for the power I was sending into the system under the plan I was being slammed onto.

That assurance went away on June 24th when I opened my electric bill and noted that the line item crediting me for the electricity sent into the grid was missing.

Tried contacting their chat and had a totally unsatisfactory “conversation” with an agent who told me that I needed to call their “Solar Solutions” team. While the “Solar Solutions” agent got the issue resolved (I’m back on a solar program retroactive to June 16th), I am still more than a bit miffed that Reliant led me to believe that there would be no change in the way I would be compensated for sending power into the grid. I am also miffed that the agent told me that if I was to terminate the two-year contract I was about to enter into, there would be a termination fee attached to that termination.

So here I am. Sitting at the computer on a Monday afternoon, wondering if there will be rolling blackouts because of a lack of electricity in the grid here in the Lone Star State. On their part, they have an emergency. Still should not be counted as an emergency on my part.

Thanks for letting me unload. I feel a little better now. I’ll feel a lot better when I get my 846 kilowatt hours back.

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