The Young Curmudgeon

If you use an iPhone at work, within an environment that includes Microsoft Windows and Exchange, you may have run into an issue when changing your Windows or Exchange password.  If your network administrator forces you to change your login password every so often, and has the network set up to lock you out after several failed password attempts, then you need to perform a slightly non-intuitive routine in order to change your password.

The issue is that if you have an iphone, and it is using “push” to retrieve mail, calendar, or contacts from the Exchange server, it is constantly pinging the server with the password it has stored.  So, if you change your password on your computer, the iPhone will then issue a bunch of requests to the server with a password that is no longer valid.  As a result, unless you follow the following procedures, your iphone trying to connect with the old password will lock you out of your system.

So, if you are having this problem, follow the following steps each time you need to change your Windows/Exchange password:

1. Turn on Airplane mode on the iPhone.
2. Change your Windows/Exchange Password.
3. Change your iPhone password to match.
4. Turn off Airplane mode on the iPhone.

That should do it.

1. Sans-serif fonts that will seem horribly dated in retrospect

2. Unpopular war

3. Runaway inflation

4. Bell-bottom pants (today, they are called “boot cut”)

5. General mistrust of politicians, especially the President

6. Dance competitions

7. Fondue

8. “Modern” Decorative Style

9. Climate Change Concerns

10. The color brown

In my opinion, these investment practitioners write the best periodic (monthly or quarterly) commentary on the markets.  I try not to miss their commentaries.

• Howard Marks, of Oaktree Capital Management
• Jeremy Grantham, of Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo (GMO)
• John Mauldin, Frontline Thoughts.

I took a flight on U.S. Airways yesterday, from Phoenix to Portland.  When we departed, it was 112 degrees Farenheit in Phoenix, so of course, sitting in one of the most decrepit of the fleet, we were in one of the many U.S. Airways planes without the little air conditioning vents.  At the mercy of our crew, we sweltered as we awaited takeoff.

But the temperature of the plane is not why I write today.  I write today about the snack boxes for which U.S. Airways has the audacity to charge $5.

Whoever designed these snackboxes has evidently never been hungry enough to contemplate buying one.

Because of a work commitment and a tight squeeze between meeting time and flight time, I had to skip lunch.  It was with eager anticipation that I traded the rude flight attendant my $5 for one of the snackboxes she carried down the aisle.  Like a kid on Christmas, I opened it to find the following contents:

• Two crackers
• Grape jelly
• Peanut butter
• A piece of cheese
• A can of chicken salad
• A fruit roll up
• Two cookies
• A napkin and plastic knife

I ate the cookies and the fruit roll up.  Then my dilemma began.  Where to spend my crackers?  Do I make a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich?  Do I use them to scoop the chicken salad?  I settled to eat one and a half of them with the cheese, judiciously reserving the remaining half cracker for a couple bites of peanut butter.

Now, I was left with some grape jelly and some chicken salad.  What am I supposed to do with those?

This is about when it hit me that I really was expecting too much of U.S. Airways.  Who in their right mind would include in a snackbox no fewer than FOUR items that need crackers to make them edible (jelly, peanut butter, chicken salad, and cheese), and only TWO crackers for all of them?  And who would choose to make those four items, for the most part, mutually exclusive?  I wasn’t about to have chicken salad and jelly on a cracker.

I solved my dilemma by leaving the jelly and most of the peanut butter in the box, untouched.  I decided to bring the can of chicken salad home for my cat.

When I got home, my cat was eager to see me, since I had been gone for the night.  And I was eager to give him his special treat of chicken salad.  He followed me around ardently as I got a plate and emptied the chicken salad onto it.  Then, he walked up to it, sniffed it, and walked away.

Did you hear that, U.S. Airways?  Even my CAT won’t eat your food!