Google Loop Anyone?

Okay, so it's been a while since I blogged on this particular blog.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy.  I've been keeping up Danny's Facebook page, doing lots of photography work, packing away the hours looking at Pinterest pins and wishing I had the time to build a guest house, make lights out of cardboard lanterns, and lived on the Isle of Crete.

It isn't like I haven't thought about blogging.  I have.  Late at night after editing my next load of photographs (which I've also spent some time getting pretty proficient at doing), or watching a new video from my photography class, I've thought about getting back to "At the End of My Leash."  Many times I've been AT the END of my leash.  I wanted to tell you all about them.

So why haven't I?  Google.

You know as you get older, if you don't mark absolutely everything down on a piece of paper, you forget it.  Especially passwords.  Or how you originally got into certain accounts. (Sigh...)

I have a little, spiral bound notebook I got from a printer who was trying to sell me stuff.  I keep it in my desk drawer and now I mark every single, solitary account note that I can into that little book.  If a thief got into our house and located this little book, it would give him or her the access to an entire world of blogging, email, facebook, pinterest, websites, photography ecommerce, etc.  How EXCITING!

I keep waiting for the movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie about just this subject!  Cracking the Pinterest codes.  Why no one has done a social media mission impossible type movie is beyond me.

So, today, I decided that I would return to my blog.  Then I realized why I hadn't.  Because every time I try to return to my blog it asks me to "LOG IN."  And apparently, in a more non-lucid moment, I decided to create an entirely new email account that would apply ONLY to my blog.  Then of course, I forgot what that email account was.  And not only did I forget the email account, but I forgot the password to the email account I forgot (this is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most lost thing you can do as a human).

I created this albatross of an account when I wasn't writing things down in little, spiral-bound notebooks.

On and off, all day, between doing real noteworthy things, like going to buy the rest of my garden plants, cleaning stalls, etc. I tried wracking my brain and the account log in screen to figure out what in the heck I could have named this particular account.  Most unsuccessfully I kept seeing this:
.....there is no account by that name
.....there is no account by that name
.....there is no account by that name
.....there is no account by that name (you stupid idiotic mere human that you are)
.....there is no account by that name (ha ha ha ha ha....we machines win and you lose)

Okay, so my mind was making up the rest, but this quickly became the WAR OF THE TECHNO WORLDS: MAN VERSUS MACHINE: MACHINE VERSUS GOOGLE!!!!!

Google gave me some options.  They basically can be summed up into this loop:
"Hi silly human!  You are here because you've forgotten who you are.  We are going to torture you for a while and then if you are smart enough, and you can get around this continuous loop of non-help we are about to provide you, we will allow you access back into whatever you are seeking.  But you have to be smart.  We only let smart people out of the loop.  And it's pretty endless.  Have a nice day!   MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"

So, I was given a few ways to find my way back.  First it asked me for the name of the account I could not remember.  Uh huh.  Scratch that one.

Then it asked me to answer some questions.
"When did you create this account?" Month, Day, Year
WTF?  If I can't remember the password, how am I supposed to remember when I created the account?
"Oh, if you can't remember exactly, go ahead and guess." (I am serious.)
Guess number one entered.
"What's the last password you remember?"
I don't.  I don't remember.  I freakin' don't remember my name some days. 
Guess number two entered.
Four more just as invalid questions later I finally check SUBMIT and get this:
"SORRY, YOUR INFORMATION IS INCORRECT."  Really?  All those guesses you told me to make are incorrect?  Go on!

It's about this point I am wondering who designed any of this.  Do you think there is a two way screen somewhere and they are watching through my computer eye and seeing me pull every strand of hair out?  I needed a haircut anyway.

But, finally, I began to think like the machines behind this loop.  I began to think that maybe, somewhere, at some point, I was sent something that would give me a clue and I would be able to finally say:  IT WAS COLONEL MUSTARD IN THE DEN WITH THE KNIFE!!!!!

And I was right.  I found a clue.  I found an old email from 2011, when apparently I created the account, and it had the exact email address in it that I needed.  Then it was only to find out the password.  That in itself is another whole blog post.  But suffice it to say:

And the account information is in the spiral binder in my desk drawer, so chances are you are going to see more blog posts.

Aaaarrrrrrooooooo!!!!!!!!!  (Humans win....)