Welcome to my new domain, paulquirk.ca. I decided to change to this domain name for a number of reasons. My old domain name, pquirk.com, got its top level domain name from the word commercial, which I felt was misleading as there is often nothing commercial about the content I normally create and post here. As a Canadian citizen, the top level .ca domain name is more representative of me and my perspective as a person living in the western democracy of Canada. Also, the price of a .ca domain is less expensive than a .com domain now, which aligns better with my philosophy that a truly democratized Internet should be made affordable to everyone, and accessibility is only half of that equation; having one’s own “Place” on the Internet where one can be free to express one’s creativity, skill, and to share their perspective free from the influence of ad revenue driven corporations is the other half. As a Canadian, I actually may have some say with regards to the .ca domain.

So the unexpected just happened. I was involved in an automobile accident this morning. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. I was driving in the left lane on a four lane road following another vehicle, when another driver decided to move from the right lane into my lane, but apparently misjudged as the rear wheel of their car clipped my front bumper, sending them into what I can only describe as a self-inflicted pit maneuver . In shock, I called 9-1-1 and checked to see if the other driver was okay. The police arrived, made the accident scene safe, did their investigation, and EMS made sure everybody was uninjured.

This week I have an update and a conclusion to my previous issues with Google’s email service.

I posted my problem in support.google.com , and actually got responses in a reasonable amount of time. One, a Platinum Product Expert, suggested Google had been sending warning messages to my admin account, and advised I see the G Suite legacy free edition page for options. I went there, and clicked on the “I used my account for personal use” button as I had done in the past, but nothing happened. At first, I thought this was just lip service, but later I’d find I was mistaken. Another, a Diamond Product Expert, suggested I should have gone to Google takeout before transferring my e-mail, which irritated me as my primary goal at the time was to get my e-mail working again so that I might not miss any important messages. He also mentioned that the admin account was getting messages for almost a year, and said if I wasn’t getting those messages, it wasn’t the admin account. He suggested I try admin@yourdomain.

Two years ago, Google offered a free workspace account for personal use. This allowed me to use their GMail services for my own personal domain name e-mail. Since my Android phone was already tied into their services, this seemed like a sensible thing to do to simplify things.

Two days ago, and without any notice, my e-mail suddenly stopped working, as though it was never there. When I went into my Google e-mail app on my phone, the account wasn’t there; only my backup account could be seen. Thinking it to be a problem with the Android app, I decided to use my web browser to visit gmail.com, and was presented with this.

If you watch television or Youtube in Ontario, you’ve probably seen the advertisement of a frozen woman with a pained look on her face, bundled up huddling next to her furnace pleading for it to not break down. Then as her furnace breaks down, she puts her head down in defeat and collapses, and as the screen fades to black, they flash the message: “Don’t let your home own you.” Some pretty good advertising by G&C advertising, sticking with what works: Selling fear of a highly exaggerated problem, and then selling the solution. As a homeowner for over a quarter of a century, I want to laugh when I see this advertisement, except I can’t, because I believe the tactics being used are inherently dishonest, so it’s not funny to me.