I'm Back, Sort of.

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I'm Back, Sort of.

Published by T. Ó Domhnaill in General Blog · Sunday 05 Jul 2026 · 12 minutes
Tags: Crann, na, beatha, blog, I'm, Back, Sort, of, return, updates, life, changes, personal, journey, blogging, community

First, let's start with this blog. Last week, after I posted the previous article, I discovered that no one could see it. The web page was there, but no blog on it. Nothing, nada. Just a pretty background image of the Virginia Shenandoah mountains.

I generated a tech support email to the company in Italy that sold me this website creating software to ask them what gives. That's when I learned from the support community, that, due to a security coding flaw in the last update version they sent us, all blogs were now being blocked by the website hosting company in Italy. And they're working on it. That was over a week ago and they still haven't fixed the security coding error to date.

I waited and emailed back and forth all week, admittedly for another issue that I eventually fixed, but this missing blog issue in version three still hasn't been resolved yet.

One of the community tech support members told me that he had experienced the same problem with his website and he ended up reverting his software platform to a previous version that had been working before the new updates rolled out.

After a week of weak responses from Incomedia, I followed this young mans advice and rolled back my version to this one I'm writing in today, version 1. I told Incomedia that I will update as soon as they get their coding bugs fixed.

I did get my Google captcha security issue fixed in the meantime. Everyone strongly advised me to upgrade my Google security to the new enterprise level, which is offered here. I dutifully signed up and followed the instructions I was given by Incomedia, but someone forgot to inform Goggle that a bunch of novice website coders would be trying to understand their cloud platform to implement the new security keys. I tried and finally had to give up about halfway finished.

Then, when I asked Incomedia for a little help, they told me, just use the slightly older version and I'd be okay. Really???? I did and it worked on the latest version of the website platform. Yaay! So now, if anyone wants to send me a message, it's protected, I think. On this older version, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

But at least I can write in my blog and everyone can see it on my website now. The downside of doing this, is that any blog articles I write here in this version will have to be transferred to the newest version once they get things fixed. Which is what I had to do here yesterday. I had to manually copy and paste my last six blog articles from my latest version to this older version so people can read them. What a pain in the ass this is turning out to be.

But at least I can do something. That's better than doing nothing at all, which is what I was doing while relying on tech support to fix what they broke. I lasted a week. Now, I'm wondering how long it's going to take them to fix their problem? I guess we'll see.

How many people have had to fight with their insurance companies in recent memory? That's what I want to talk about next. These last two years, I've had more arguments with insurance adjusters than I care to. Last year it was all the damage to our RV during our vacation out west. This year, it started with the new roof. Which I had to have but the homeowners insurance would only cover half the roof. Go figure. So that whole affair ended up costing me $20,000 for the new roof.

Then last week, I went to take my RV up to the dealer to have the oil changed and do the annual inspection. By the time they were done, it cost me about $275. That's when I noticed the check engine light was on. I thought it was because I was a little overdue for an oil change and when the light didn't reset after they were done, I asked about it. The RV dealer had no idea and I needed to take it to a Ford dealer.

So I did. Last Monday, I let them look at it and they found that a wiring harness to a sensor had been chewed through by a rodent while the RV was parked in my storage facility. The technician took one picture and made the repairs after they asked. I gave them permission, at the cost of $800.

Then I got the bright idea to ask my insurance company to see if this might be covered. I thought it might be a long shot but it never hurts to ask. Sure enough, it was actually covered.

But that's when things started to go sideways. The insurance adjuster wanted multiple pictures of the damage, and I just had the one from the technician who did the repair. I explained the situation but she was adamant in her email. So, I went back to the dealer to inquire about the possibility of there being more pictures, but alas, no bueno. There is just the one. So, I went back to my RV and took some of my own pictures of the now repaired area and sent them in. It being a holiday weekend and all, I won't hear back until Monday, the next business day. I'm dreading that email. I'm anticipating a rejection of my claim due to not having enough pictures of the damaged wiring harness, as if I had any control over that. I should be lucky that I got the one!

If they do reject it, that will be a loss of about $500 that the claim would have paid out.

But that just goes to show just how much these insurance companies have us over a barrel. Their whole business model is predicated on everyone paying their monthly premiums and never having to file a claim. If you do, because that's what we're paying for, they want to make up all of these strict rules to dissuade policy holders from getting the money they need to help cover a repair that's listed in their policies. When I say strict rules, these are not published anywhere that the average policy holder can just reach out and quickly find out about. Nooo, they're buried in small print legalise in the policy that they're hoping no one bothers to read, until they drag it out to deny a claim.

I'm down to the point in my household economics where I can't afford to do more than pay the utilities, buy gas and groceries, pay the insurance premiums that the banks require us to have, and hope real hard that I won't have any more emergency repairs the rest of this year.

As it is, on top of everything else, my wife needs a necessary surgery this year, and, like everything else, it's only partially covered. It's considered an elective surgery by our health insurance company, and for an out of network provider. To which there are no in network providers for this where I live.

Once again, another insurance company wants to have me bend over a barrel so they can swat me on the backside once again. This one will cost me about $3100 after the insurance pays their paltry amount. I told my wife that we'll have to dip into our emergency savings to cover this medical bill and, hopefully, I can save some money over the next couple of years to put back in for later emergencies. At my age, these medical issues are showing up more and more these days.

We need a universal health care plan here in the United States. We used to have enough money to pay for this but our government keeps saying no. Obama came close and we see what the MAGA republicans have done to that now. Or should I say Donald Trump, who is stealing anything that isn't nailed down.

I honestly don't see how the United States can recover from everything he's doing to us. For him, it's all about the money and the power he thinks he has. Mostly, it's about the money. When the supreme court gave him immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while conducting presidential things, he took that as a license to take everything with no consequences. He's wrong but the republicans fear him, as do some democrats, so, congress won't do anything.

While we have all that going on, we're getting taken to the cleaners by these predatory insurance corporations and medical facilities. I've read so many horror stories of middle class people losing everything because these insurance companies won't pay for the things that are supposed to be covered, but, due to technicalities within the policies, they find ways to not pay the fair amount we need them to help us with. Yet, the banking and insurance corporations managed to get laws passed so that we have to keep paying these criminal organisations for insurance that only benefits the insurance companies. And the politicians wonder why we're so mad at them.

I am feeling beggared in some ways this year. I bring in enough money from my pensions and social security that, under normal circumstances, offers me a comfortable life. I found out this year, that this is just an illusion. I found out the hard way that it doesn't take all that much to strip away all of that comfort and bring you sleepless nights as you hope that there will be enough to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table.

We live on a fixed income, so I don't have the option to work overtime to try and make up that money. I'm not selling anywhere near enough books to help, nor am I making any money from Substack or Medium.com to help. I don't even make enough money from writing to these publications to buy a cup of coffee, with prices being the way they are at these fancy coffee shops.

My wife is now serious about wanting to go back to work. She needs the social security credits, so I encouraged her a little. She's bored staying at home with not enough to do, but, that's where things stop. She told me today, that one of her church friends said to her, that she would be competing for menial retail jobs with all of the local college students looking for summer work. My wife hadn't thought about that. She is obviously not a native born American, so that will also slow things down some in the search for work. Despite laws against job discrimination, we all know it happens all the time.

I don't know what the future looks like right now but it's looking a little grim. At least for the next few months while I pay off some of these small loans. With the U.S. economy tanking, and the job market slowing way down, I'm getting very concerned about whether my fixed income will still be enough to take care of us. If I had to make an educated prognosis, I would say no. I wonder now, whether I should consider going back to work as an IT tech again. I might need the money sooner than I thought.

If you read this and want to talk about it, feel free to reach out. Small comments are welcome at the bottom of this article page and larger ones can be written on the contact page as well. Your email address and info are safe with me, as I only save the email addresses for the Europeans as part of their GDPR rules. The Americans can stuff it as I won't give them anything without a court order and I don't see that happening. The less they know, the better.

Enjoy your week ahead and I'll post something again next weekend. Sláinte

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Mitch

Saturday 18 Jul 2026

My friend, just like you I am on fixed income, and I have to be careful with my expenses. That’s a tough row to hoe as the old expression goes. I just had an HVAC technician over to check out my central air. He says there’s a leak, and because of the age of my unit, It doesn’t make sense to repair it when a new one would cost just a couple thousand dollars more. So he gassed it up, and told me to drag it out for as long as possible. He figures we have about another year before we have to replace everything. I am not looking forward to the expenditure. I can promise you that. Also, I have some business to attend to in Trinidad. I do not want to risk going when all this drama is going on in the Middle East. I worry that there may not be fuel to return and I don’t want to spend several months out of my house. There’s so much going on internationally and domestically that I just don’t feel like leaving my house anymore. Look at how far we have fallen.

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