New Gadgets, Petcube!

Recently I wrote how we received the Amazon Echo Dot for christmas.  It was a fun gadget, but it was just a novelty and not really utilized for anything.  That changed when I bought two outlets that connect to wifi to control power to whatever you plug into them.  So now, both lamps in the living room are controlled by voice with Alexa or by using the app from wherever you are.  Not a necessary thing, but I think it's pretty neat.

Since then, I was looking for a bluetooth speaker to use exclusively for Alexa.  I would up getting a bigger version of the Amazon Basics bluetooth speaker that I already have and like.  Now it is much easier to listen to music - anything we really want through Alexa and Amazon Prime.  Another use for the Dot, and a good one for us.

While I was getting that speaker I came across another gadget that caught my fancy, and I ordered it pretty quickly - the Petcube.  The Petcube is a 4 inch cube with a camera that connects to wifi that you can use to see your pets from wherever you are on your phone via the app.   When you log into the camera the cube itself makes a noise and a light on it turns blue letting you know the camera is live.  Through the app you can play with the cats with a laser or turn on the sound to talk to them.  You can also take a picture or video if they happen to be super cute.  If it's dark, they have a more expensive version with night vision, but again, I can turn on the lamps from anywhere with my phone.  There is also a feature you can pay for that will use it like security, recording when it detects loud sounds or movement.

The cats have become familiar with the noise it makes when it comes on, so when they hear it they will come out to the living room and start looking for the laser!  It's not the easiest to control, with your finger on your phone screen, but they do have fun with it.  And almost everyone I know has absolutely loved it when I showed it to them, other than one relative who acted rather dismissive but I think he likes to think he's on top of all the tech things so it's old news to him.  I think it's quite a lot of fun and still not something everyone has heard of, but I know several people that I showed it to who may have one of their own soon!

Late Easter Bunnies?

We lost the tree 2 years ago now, April 25 actually, and then we had much fewer squirrels in the yard last year. This year, a brood of what seem to be yearling - or maybe 2 year old - rabbits have moved into our yard.  Well, maybe not 'moved in,' as I think I would find out where they lived, but our yard has certainly been their playground lately.  I keep telling my wife I need a pellet gun - half-heartedly, of course - and she always exclaims her disagreement.  As long as they don't eat all the flowers that I'll buy this spring then I guess at least they give the cats something to watch.
My wife says there are four, but I have only ever seen three at a time.  I'm pretty sure this will continue until proof is presented...

Happy Blogday To Me!

I almost forgot, this is my Blogday!  I've been doing this for eight f**king years!   Wow.

Edit 4/11, added new 8 pic.

That's a long time to keep something up that is as personal as it is public.  I've had friends and family that care, friends and family that don't, friends and family that sign up to get emails when I post but then I rarely or never hear anything back from them.  I know blogger ain't farcebook, tweeter, linkden or Instagrat.  I don't care.  I don't want more accounts or social media so I know I don't make it easy to be my friend that way.  I just like having my own little corner of the internet here that I can say and post (almost) whatever I wish.  Just - and sometimes mostly - for me.  An online journal, or a diary, of sorts.  I appreciate those that come along for the ride and I also appreciate the new friends I've made along the way.

Blogging is always a bit of work in progress.  The other day I tweaked my template and lost my lists in the right column.  This is the second time I lost my lists, I can't remember if I was messing with my template last time.  I will build them again, but it may be later tonight, tomorrow or even next week.  Whenever I feel I have the time and gumption to get it done.

I don't want this to take away from my post earlier this evening - we got bikes!  Scroll down or click here to read all about that!  And Happy Blogday to me!

New Bikes!

I've said it here a few times now over the last few years, and finally we have bicycles!  Last weekend we went to look at them in a store then came home and shopped online for what we wanted.  They arrived on Thursday this past week, the delivery driver was good enough to leave them at the back door since we weren't at home.  We've never had a delivery stolen but we know that it has happened in the area before.  That night I started putting mine together, and today I finished it and put my wife's together.  Hers went much smoother than mine.  She has a nifty 3 speed that has the normal brakes of a one speed, while I have a 7 speed with hand brakes.  We won't be riding in any races, just riding around our side of town, eventually.

We spent some time outside with adjustments and learning to ride a bike all over again.  While I think it is true, that you never forget how to ride a bike, the details and the finesse of it will take time to re-learn.  Still, the harder part is going to be getting the body back into somewhat near the shape it was the last time we rode bikes.  For me it has to be at least my late teen years, while Kate thinks she may have been twelve when she last rode a bike.  We started mostly in the driveway and yard until moving to the sidewalk and then the street, but just our little corner of the street, maybe a couple hundred feet either way at the most.  It was a nice little exercise and, as my wife pointed out, much different than riding the recumbent exercise bike downstairs.

We practiced enough to be a little sore, but not too bad.  Overall, not bad for how long we've not ridden.  There are so many places we can get to just on our side of town, and so many dedicated bike paths to get there and further, if we ever wish.  I'm looking forward to getting in better riding shape this summer, even if it's just for a quick jaunt down the bike path to Atwood Ave to get ice cream! →

Spring 2017 Pictures

It was finally dry and sunny enough to get a first look at what's going on outside with all our plants.  If you're interested in looking at a bunch of small plants that probably don't mean anything to you then stop by Scoakat's Garden here!

I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with that website, but don't expect much more than what I did last year.

March This-And-Thats

Most all I've posted recently has been about the weather or my shoulder.  We've had warm spring days, cold winter days, snow, rain, thunderstorms and hail - all very recently though not necessarily all on the same day.  Thank goodness spring is coming, but officially it is already here.  We have plants coming up and I'd like to get out and take a few pictures but today is rainy and dreary, maybe tomorrow.  In the meantime, I have a few things on my mind so time to type them out!

• Just to get it out of the way, I had a cortisone shot in my left shoulder on Wednesday.  It's too early to know how well it works out, but I hope it gets better yet as the next day it was measurably worse.  It is starting to feel a bit better now but certainly not as it should.
• I mentioned spring so it may be time for my annual wish of getting bicycles to get about our side of town during our non-winter seasons.  I think I may actually follow through with it this year.  My wife would be content to walk, but I want to bike.  I feel there's a higher chance of me biking somewhere with her than walking.  I think that's because biking will take much less time than walking.
• I finally bought myself a cordless drill/screwdriver.  I've had the same corded drill since I was a teenager, and it still works wonderfully but it is a bother to keep chucking drill bits and screwdriver bits alternately when working on projects.  I bought it during the holiday sales late last year and, unfortunately, I haven't had an excuse to use it yet.  But it seems real cool!
• Last night the Badgers fell to the Florida Gators in the round of sixteen in the NCAA tournament.  It was an another exciting ride, watching them come together and get the wins when it counted.  Last night they lost by one point, at the buzzer, in overtime.  A quick and almost surgical finish to the game.  Most Badger fans were probably stunned, like me.  A few seconds after the late finish I picked up my jaw, turned off the channel and got on to other things.  I still can't make myself look up the highlights or stories yet today.
• Over the holidays we received a gift called the Amazon Echo Dot (thanks Mom and Dan!).  I set it up at home, but it was just a novelty.  We never really used it for anything, until recently.  I bought two outlets that connect to wifi and plugged in our living room lamps.  Now we turn on and off the lights by asking Alexa to do it, or I have an app that will turn them on or off from anywhere, individually or together.  Certainly nothing necessary, just a bit of fun and it makes the Dot more useful.  I've tried to think of other things we could automate in our home, but nothing else really makes a lot of sense, usefully or monetarily. 

That's all I can think of for now.  In the middle of writing this today my wife and I went out and about to a couple neighborhood places for food and drink.  Not very busy out today with the weather.   This is the kind of thing we could do on bikes during good weather.  It will happen this year - and soon!

Trump Catnip Toy

I was shopping Amazon for something totally unrelated a while ago and I saw this little trinket that brought me thoughts of Basil and Hamish shredding it - The Trump Catnip Toy!  It's brand new, we'll see how long it takes for it to fall apart...    :-)      Oh, and Happy Irish Day!



Video link here, email readers, if it doesn't transfer.  But stop by the website sometime, say Hi!

Hmm, March. Yeah.

I woke up to snow today, several inches through mid-morning.  They said it was going to be the light, fluffy stuff but my snow thrower was clogging every few feet.  Oh, my aching back.

I scheduled this day off a few weeks ago, it's just my luck we get March snow this day.  I got to sleep in, anyway.  A few hours were spent scanning and cropping all our wedding album photos into the computer.  Yes, we were married just before digital cameras were everywhere.  I'm glad I finally did this task as the pictures were getting well stuck in the photo album.  Now, rather than spend more time at the computer typing (and alternately shaking my arm trying to get feeling back), I think I'll go out for a bit.  I have a couple errands, now that the snow has slowed, and I may go out for a late lunch.  Overall, since I'm not at work, this is still the best Monday I've had in some time.

Relative Humidity

Today was chilly, but refreshingly sunny out, and the high winds (gusts of 40-50+ miles per hour) of the last several days finally calmed.  By the time I got home from work today the sun had warmed the porch enough again so that the cats really wanted out there.  They always want out these days when the sun is out because they know it can get even warmer than the house.  The porch does face south and the sun is starting to get higher in the sky and warmer, surely spring is coming!  I let them have access for, oh, maybe 90 minutes or so until the sunbeams left us.  My wife was home by then and they were inside, anyway.

When I went to shut the door I saw something I had never seen before.  Well, not like this.  The porch windows had condensation on the inside.  It was 24ºF (about -4ºC) outside the single pane cheap porch windows and 72ºF (about  24ºC) inside the house, the porch felt similar when I let them out, slightly cooler when I went to shut it.  The humidity outside, according to my weather app, was 24%, while inside I got a reading of 43% relative indoor humidity from the humidifier controller on the air return vents downstairs, and a reading of 37% upstairs in the computer room off the porch.  That's a lot of numbers.  I found it interesting to check for those numbers when I saw the effect.  Like I said, I have never seen this before.  I've seen the condensation on the outside, making it look similar, but never the inside.

The humidifier we had installed just after the beginning of the year has been a very good investment for our cold, dry, winter air.  The best part is that we never have to think about it.  No constantly filling up the tank, changing expensive filters every 10 days, no dripping water on the floor.  No muss, no fuss.  Twice a year I have to move the damper from 'summer' to 'winter' or back, and once a year change the water pad.  I think we made a very good investment, indeed.

Other than that, all has been well enough, I guess.  I have a few things I could mention, but I should have time this weekend that I may post another This-And-Thats.  Outside, there's no snow around, really, and just a few inches in the forecast for Monday.  Now if we can just get temperatures to stay above freezing...  I mean, really, there's already plants coming up!

Shoulderitis

Well, I wasn't in a very good mood my last post, was I?  It was how I was feeling at the time.  This will be a short post as my arm tends to fall asleep when I'm typing.

I had my MRI Tuesday evening.  I spent almost 30 minutes shoved into that toilet paper tube head first.  This was my fourth or fifth time in the big donut.  I hate it every time but I do manage by always keeping my eyes closed and concentrating on the music in the headphones.  Even the banging of the machine is somewhat comforting to me in the darkness.  Anyway, it looks like I'm headed for a cortisone injection in the near future for rotator cuff tendinitis and bursitis.  I think my doctor expected to find more from the MRI and, depending on how the shot works out, we may have to take another look at what's going on in my neck.  The pain seems to have lessened - or else I'm getting used to it - but the numb and tingly is still happening often.

So that's it for now, my arm keeps falling asleep.  Just know that my condition is not fatal, just a bother, but I reserve the right to complain sometimes.  It's my site, after all.