What’s on your mind?

[Scepticalscribe]

Nest IQ cams? So your network can be hacked and you'll be watched?

Honestly I don't really get the home automation thing. You can buy a device that dims your lights with your voice.
Then they sell you a device to where on your wrist that warns you when you haven't got up for x minutes? Can anyone else see the irony?

Probably great if you are old or disabled. For me I can manage to turn on the lights.

Agree absolutely.

I understand the yeas and nays of home automation, but I cannot stop thinking of HAL 9000 or Skynet (pardon my inner Fox Mulder).

My thing with Apple is the QC and ridiculous greed. And -yet- it still works for me, so I accept the limitations and deal with them on my terms (My usage of Apple services hasn’t changed in the last decade, and it will likely stay that way).

Agree completely on Apple's (disimproving or deteriorating) QC, and pure unadulterated greed.

And no, I don't get this promotion of services that are not really necessary.

However, in a silent house, I managed what was probably my best night's sleep since my mother passed away three weeks. ago; the first fortnight, I had wondered whether normal sleep patterns would ever return (and I am one who has rarely had trouble sleeping) and that restlessness, and unsettled rest, along with shocking grief, ever - even somewhat or occasionally - subside.

Now, it seems to take the form of waves, rather than an endless tsunami.

It is hard though; very hard.

It is not just that I have lost my mother (and you only ever have one mother, your first and primary carer, and the first relationship you will ever have) - and, until her dementia, (and even during it), I had an excellent, close and funny relationship with her - it is that since her dementia kicked in I have had responsibility (both de facto and de jure) for arranging, organising, ordering and running her life, an arrangement that the High Court confirmed a few years ago, when I was awarded an Enduring Power of Attorney.

So, it is not just emotional, visceral, and personal, the loss is practical and physical as well.

 

[kazmac]

I’m not sure I’m old or (completely) disabled yet, but I have no problem delegating routine tasks like lights, music, and daily briefings.

I’m also not concerned at all over someone hacking their way in to intercept the Nest IQ feed. I’m only in the house a few weeks out of the year and installing them where I can monitor certain areas in my absence.

Btw, my Apple Watch not only tells me when I’ve been sitting to long (so I just raise my arm over my head), it also reminds me to breath. How sweet is this?

So you’re holding your breathe most of the time? I kid.

@Scepticalscribe I am glad to hear of your relations with mom, I’ve always been close to my mom. We’re as close as we’ve ever been thank goodness.

Oh, sleep. There is such a difference when I get a full night straight through. The inability to attain this is due to the noise outside our house -and blissfully- lack there of, but I know my body is also shifting toward maturity and sleep patterns are different. I hope you will find that balance soon.

Sending hugs...and then water, wheatgrass and sleep for me.

I am stupid hungry, but doing water and wheatgrass first is better for me.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

So you’re holding your breathe most of the time? I kid.

@Scepticalscribe I am glad to hear of your relations with mom, I’ve always been close to my mom. We’re as close as we’ve ever been thank goodness.

Oh, sleep. There is such a difference when I get a full night straight through. The inability to attain this is due to the noise outside our house -and blissfully- lack there of, but I know my body is also shifting toward maturity and sleep patterns are different. I hope you will find that balance soon.

Sending hugs...and then water, wheatgrass and sleep for me.

I am stupid hungry, but doing water and wheatgrass first is better for me.

Thank you.

Hugs always welcome & received with gratitude (especially virtual hugs); which is funny, because in real life, apart from my public persona (when I deliver briefings and talks), I am very much an introvert and not terribly demonstrative.

 

[Gutwrench]

So you’re holding your breathe most of the time? I kid.

@Scepticalscribe I am glad to hear of your relations with mom, I’ve always been close to my mom. We’re as close as we’ve ever been thank goodness.

Oh, sleep. There is such a difference when I get a full night straight through. The inability to attain this is due to the noise outside our house -and blissfully- lack there of, but I know my body is also shifting toward maturity and sleep patterns are different. I hope you will find that balance soon.

Sending hugs...and then water, wheatgrass and sleep for me.

I am stupid hungry, but doing water and wheatgrass first is better for me.

Apparently Apple Watch thinks so. Haha. It reminds me to breath because breathing has relaxation benefits. What an Easter Egg!
[doublepost=1547387676][/doublepost]

Probably should test out the Generac and see if it'll fire up correctly. I doubt the incoming storm systems will knock out power unless there's a terrible amount of wind, but you can never be sure when it comes to winter weather. I'm not looking forward to the onslaught of rain. At least with the generator it means we'll be with power if it goes out, and since it's line powered, no worries about fuel.

According to the caretaker it rained a bit yesterday but that’s about it. I wanted to be out there this weekend but it didn’t work out. Next weekend isn’t looking promising now either. Such is life.

 

[kazmac]

Apparently Apple Watch thinks so. Haha. It reminds me to breath because breathing has relaxation benefits. What an Easter Egg!

Um. Note to watch: um, Duh. Oxygen and Water are quite vital to survive, not just for relaxing.

/s only lobbed @ Apple Watch.

But yes...breathing is relaxing.

 

[LizKat]

Btw, my Apple Watch not only tells me when I’ve been sitting to long (so I just raise my arm over my head), it also reminds me to breath. How sweet is this?

Guess I could use reminders to breathe when I'm in the dentist's chair. But the dentist usually provides that as a somewhat humorous part of his service. I am such a chicken, even decades after having found a good dentist. I hold my breath expecting pain I haven't felt at a dental appointment in at least 30 years.

I'm sans "automated home" assistance so far. I used to dream about something that would open cat food at dawn and dish it out downstairs to the yowling members of that perennially ungrateful species. If I end up with another cat (mine have gone to the great beyond), I might resume those dreams, but I was never likely to trust a robot to feed my kitties anyway.

Short of that I currently have enough good health left to figure it's good exercise having to do everything by getting up and going to do it in person. I can see home automation for people who are busier than I am in retirement. Trying to ensure a home-automation network's features don't get hacked starts to sound like more work than any benefit to me right now. I try to keep an open mind. When a thing reliably takes trash to the road by 7am on the designated weekdays in January and brings the recyle box back to the deck, maybe I'll be more interested. I'd rather the bot slipped and fell on an icy patch than moi.

 

[kazmac]

Guess I could use reminders to breathe when I'm in the dentist's chair. But the dentist usually provides that as a somewhat humorous part of his service. I am such a chicken, even decades after having found a good dentist. I hold my breath expecting pain I haven't felt at a dental appointment in at least 30 years.

I'm sans "automated home" assistance so far. I used to dream about something that would open cat food at dawn and dish it out downstairs to the yowling members of that perennially ungrateful species. If I end up with another cat (mine have gone to the great beyond), I might resume those dreams, but I was never likely to trust a robot to feed my kitties anyway.

Short of that I currently have enough good health left to figure it's good exercise having to do everything by getting up and going to do it in person. I can see home automation for people who are busier than I am in retirement. Trying to ensure a home-automation network's features don't get hacked starts to sound like more work than any benefit to me right now. I try to keep an open mind. When a thing reliably takes trash to the road by 7am on the designated weekdays in January and brings the recyle box back to the deck, maybe I'll be more interested. I'd rather the bot slipped and fell on an icy patch than moi.

You know the furry children would learn to outwit and manipulate said feeding bot anyway.

I like taking-the-trash-out bot though.

 

[Clix Pix]

Since I am in a fairly small apartment and retired, it is much better for me to get up and move around rather than to depend on various gizmos to turn the lights on-and-off, etc. I also prefer to control my thermostat manually, too, rather than using the programmable features. If I were out of the house on a fairly regular schedule such as when I was in the workforce, that would be a different matter. I wouldn't mind a sort of "clicker"or automated something-or-other to unlock the front door, much as the one for my car unlocks the car for me, but it's not that big of an issue. I also wouldn't mind a taking-out-the-trash bot, too!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Tacking our the trash bot in this house is called a husband!

An ironing bot would be useful. I’m a slow ironer but it’s something I rarely do.

 

[Gutwrench]

Tacking our the trash bot in this house is called a husband!

An ironing bot would be useful. I’m a slow ironer but it’s something I rarely do.

I last ironed about two months ago and that was to press a table cloth. I avoid buying clothes needing ironing. The few I have go to the dry cleaners.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I last ironed about two months ago and that was to press a table cloth. I avoid buying clothes needing ironing. The few I have go to the dry cleaners.

The only clothes that get ironed in this house are my 5 work shirts a week. Nothing else!

 

[kazmac]

I last ironed about two months ago and that was to press a table cloth. I avoid buying clothes needing ironing. The few I have go to the dry cleaners.

That would be me as well. I’ll take out the trash in exchange for ironing bot.

Today, I am laundry and trash bot.

 

[0388631]

According to the caretaker it rained a bit yesterday but that’s about it. I wanted to be out there this weekend but it didn’t work out. Next weekend isn’t looking promising now either. Such is life.

You're on the outskirts of the system. It rained from around 10 PM to 9 AM the next morning nonstop.

 

[Clix Pix]

IRONING???!!!!! I can't even remember the last time I ironed anything!!!! It has been years......

 

[Apple fanboy]

IRONING???!!!!! I can't even remember the last time I ironed anything!!!! It has been years......

Well like I said only my work shirts. My mother used to iron everything! Towels, bed sheets, underwear.
Very strange!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

IRONING???!!!!! I can't even remember the last time I ironed anything!!!! It has been years......

I had this theory that men - endowed by nature with nice broad shoulders - could be said to have been potential naturals at ironing.

Personally, I hate it, and will do it under the severest duress.

My father used to do it, (pipe in mouth, whisky or wine glass to hand, classical music on the radio or in the CD player, he made ironing look civilised) but since his demise, unless really pressed, I will usually pay someone to do it.

 

[Gutwrench]

Long ago I had a pretty cool iron.

It didn’t need to be sat up when adjusting clothing on the board. It had three little feet/pegs that would pop out of the bottom to raise itself off the ironing board when I let go of the handle. Then automatically lower (retract) itself when I gripped again.

As it aged it started to misbehave much to my amusement. When I’d let go of its handle it would raise itself up and immediately drop back to the board, then rise again. Over and over until I grabbed the handle again. The cute little thing resembled a low rider bouncing at intersections.

 

[Matz]

I had this theory that men - endowed by nature with nice broad shoulders - could be said to have been potential naturals at ironing.

Personally, I hate it, and will do it under the severest duress.

My father used to do it, (pipe in mouth, whisky or wine glass to hand, classical music on the radio or in the CD player, he made ironing look civilised) but since his demise, unless really pressed, I will usually pay someone to do it.

I see what you did there.

 

[Lioness~]

Can’t even recall where that iron is. Hardly what I used it to either.

 

[LizKat]

Tacking our the trash bot in this house is called a husband!

An ironing bot would be useful. I’m a slow ironer but it’s something I rarely do.

It's funny, I can press half-yards of fabrics for sewing projects all morning sometimes and don't even think of it as ironing, more like "so when I get this second blue print done I can stack them up and start cutting".... but I do get annoyed as hell if I end up having to press even a single article of clothing. Same action, different mindset.

As a kid I got roped into running an ironing machine (a mangle, it was called, ominously enough) on laundry day when sheets and pillowcases were all cotton and wrinkled coming out of a washing machine, to point they wouldn't just hang out smooth on the laundry line and so required pressing (or so my elders insisted).

I think of that now and imagine most parents today wouldn't let a 7-yo kid near one of those things, I am not sure I would either even though I never burnt myself. I was shown how to work it, and how to move and drape the sheets to get all the surfaces ironed and avoid wrinkling what had just been done, and be quick about it so not to scorch the stuff... and was supervised closely for a few laundry days.... and after that it was just a chore I'd be called to do when the sheets had line-dried up to a certain point and time to finish them in the mangle. Loved the smooth sheets though! Otherwise 100% cotton sheets can feel a bit like sandpaper for awhile after purchase and early use.

 

[decafjava]

When will the blasted building work get done! Drills going for hours and hours. Granted they are upgrading our elevators (we have two) and the work is supposed to be done by the end of February...still driving me crazy.

 

[0388631]

When will the blasted building work get done! Drills going for hours and hours. Granted they are upgrading our elevators (we have two) and the work is supposed to be done by the end of February...still driving me crazy.

On the other hand, you can always pull a Jason Bateman under that noise.

 

[0388631]

I'm sick of this weather.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Winter does little for me, even though I have noticed that the days are beginning to lengthen.

 

[0388631]

I'm silently counting down the days until we change the time. I can almost taste the spring air. It's this damned rain. Three storm systems in succession. I was able to take a brisk walk for a half hour before having to jog back home to get out of the wet. Got in at the nick of time before it began pouring enough to make someone nutter named Noah think he should take out a dinghy with his pup.