Category: Tech

iOS 15 is Out?

I am just losing my Apple fanboy cred left and right. I haven’t watched the video of the event they had last week where they announced the latest iPhones. That’s bad. What’s worse? Apparently iOS 15 and the associated WatchOS and iPadOS versions all came out on September 20th… two days ago.

I haven’t installed any of them.

I’m sorry, Apple. I promise to do better in the future. I’m updating my iPhone right now.

Describe Your Weekend

So Robert, why don’t you describe your weekend for us?

Okay. Saturday:

Sunday:

Notes: the hole in the stand hour streak on Saturday was due to my watch being on the charger. The hole on Sunday was due to being on a conference call, I think.

A Downside of Weekend Work

So there is a hidden downside to working around the clock over the weekend.

There are a bunch of podcasts that I like to listen to during the work week that release new episodes over the weekend. This week I’ve listened to all of them. Now I have nothing to listen to during my actual work shift tomorrow.

Bummer, dude.

Unrelated to work, there was good news today. First, we got to see Bellana for about five minutes. She was passing through town and stopped in to say hello. Second, we had a FaceTime call with Harry! Both kids on a random Sunday! If only I had had a chance to shower and change out of yesterday’s clothes! Also, if I don’t get a haircut soon my head is going to collapse under it’s own weight. Keep an eye on the news. The headline will likely be, “Red Head’s Head Implodes. News at 11:00.”

Sleep is for Suckers, Boom!

I finished up the routines I needed to run last night at a little before 3:00am. I wanted to go to sleep right away but I was too wound up. I knew a call was going to be coming to start the next phase of the process but I didn’t know when. I wanted to get at least some sleep so I spent about half an hour cooling down and I was able to finally conk out at a little after 3:30.

The text messages asking us to log back in started at about 4:45.

I didn’t actually go to bed. At least not to my bed. My work setup is still in Harry’s room after the quarantinie adventure so I just dimmed the lights a little and laid down on his bed. I messed up his pillows a bit. Sorry about that.

The SleepWatch app tells me I got 70 minutes of sleep. 55 minutes were deep sleep, so I have that going for me. I reached 14% of my nightly goal. Kick ass.

I’ve got a feeling today is going to be one of those “do not operate heavy machinery” kinda days.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Flashback

I just had an unsettling parent sitting flashback. It probably has more to do with being really tired than anything else, but here’s the story…

There are exactly two drinks that I chose to drink at home. One is Diet Pepsi because regular Coca~Cola (my personal drug of choice) is the primary reason why I am as grotesquely fat as I currently am. The other is grape flavored water. We have a Poland Springs cooler which is amazing. I fill up a water bottle with spring water and then poor some of that liquid flavoring stuff into it. Fruit Punch is good. Lemonade is all right if you get the right brand. Grape flavoring rules all. Unfortunately it’s expensive and I am trying to cut down on how quickly I blow through bottles of it by just sometimes drinking plain old, boring spring water.

That’s the first back story. Here’s the second. During the parent sitting adventure I would take a water bottle full of the delicious grape flavored water. I would also bring a second water bottle, but it would not be drinking water. It would be distilled water for my CPAP machine.

(Pause for a second to check on work. I’m still working. We were supposed to start around 4:00pm on Saturday. We instead kicked off our piece of the puzzle at 11:00pm. It’s 2:10am on Sunday and I’m still going strong.)

Here’s the flashback moment. Since dinner time I have had two 32 ounce water bottles full of the delicious grape flavored spring water. I don’t think I am going to bed any time soon and I was dealing with a little dry mouth so it was time for more water. I decided to go without the grape goop this time and just have boring plain water. I wanted to use a clean bottle though so that I didn’t get that little hint of flavoring left over from the last go-round.

I went out to the kitchen and opened up the cabinet to get a new water bottle. The first one I saw is the one I used to keep the distilled water in on parent sitting nights. I saw it there on the shelf and thought that I can’t drink out of that, it’s for the CPAP machine. Woah, wait a tick. I’m not parent sitting tonight. Sure, I am overly tired and my brain is starting to slip into autopilot, but that was weird. I was 100% positive that I could not use that particular bottle because it wasn’t for drinking.

In protest against the way that the parent sitting experience made me feel I took that bottle, filled it up with clear, clean Poland Springs water, and then chugged the fucker.

(Pause to check on work again. The two current utilities are still cranking along. Good good good)

On a totally unrelated note: I finished Saturday’s 30 minutes of exercise before work took off at about 11:00. Knowing that a lot of what I am doing tonight involves kicking off programs and then waiting for them to finish, and knowing that some of them would likely run for an hour or so, I decided to start Sunday’s exercise as soon after midnight as I could. I’m already up to 21 of my 30 minutes. When one of the two programs running completes I am going to kick off another one, and after I do that I am going to walk that last nine minutes. Well, some of it at least. It would be cool to have my 30 minutes in before the sun comes up. It would not be cool to make that a regular thing, but just this once? Groovy.

Ready to Go

I’m just about to punch into work for a while. Working on Saturdays is the pits, but there is a chance I can help a customer through something huge so I don’t mind it.

I checked the cellar. The bucket under the leak is empty. So is the wetvac and the dehumidifier.

Jen just did some massive upgrades to our wifi and the down and up speeds are through the roof. Thanks, Jen!

Okay. Time for some work. Wish me luck.

Bucket

Okay, unrelated topic. What do we think of the whole Instagram-as-photo-hosting-site thing? I will always prefer Flickr, but is this okay? I’m thinking no.

Tankless

Just had a plumber looking at our water heater. It’s time to go. I think there is a tankless water heater in our future.

Things I learned today. Tankless water heaters are mounted to the wall. We might be losing some of our shelving in the cellar storage area. I’ll take that in trade for not having water on my floor anymore. Another thing I learned today. Apparently our current water heater (and our furnace too? Maybe?) vents out of the chimney. That’s what the guy said. Who knew? Is he referring to the fireplace chimney or is there another vent out of the roof that is just called a chimney? I don’t know.

All I do know is that tankless water heaters are supposed to produce fewer carbon emissions which, along with driving a hybrid car, makes me feel better about my place in the universe. Not a lot better, maybe 0.01% better as I do expect I’ll be making use of air travel again at some post-Covid-19 point, but better.

Also, I am really really sick of Lake Asshole, so the sooner we get that thing installed the better.

Two Therapy Sessions

I was able to sneak into the cellar and play the guitar twice today.

I got a lot done for 50/90, which was nice, but I reached the point on the second go-round where my hands just wouldn’t do it anymore. That’s actually not a bad thing. I really need to build up more stamina, but I’ll get there.

On a gear note, I have my little recording nook in the master bedroom that has my current recording pedal board and my little 15 watt Fender amp. My big use-with-the-band pedal board and my Vox 15 watt amp (and my 30 watt Fender amp) are all in the cellar because Covid was slowing down and I thought they would be traveling to Mike the Bass Player’s house soon… and of course that hasn’t happened because the universe has intervened. The upside is I could set all of that stuff up in the cellar to keep working on 50/90 while I’m locked out of my bedroom. I bring my new Les Paul and my MacBook Pro up and down with me, as there is no way in hell those puppies are staying down there in the humidity. I set everything up far away from the flood zone, but you may note from the previous pictures that none of the electrical stuff is actually on the floor. The pedal board is, but the pedals themselves are not. That’s for flood damage prevention reasons.

So that is what I am doing to keep 50/90 going this week.

I also wanted to start with the exercising again. I started a couple of weeks ago and then fell off the wagon. I wanted to start up again today, what with it being a Monday and the iPhone Activity app starting its week on Monday. Jen wanted to do the same thing and she totally kicked ass all day today. Me? I was at two minutes of exercise as of 7:00pm tonight. Looked like I was going to fail for the day. Well, screw that folks. I’m up to 17 minutes now with 3.5 hours left in the day. I’ll get to 30 minutes, you betcha.

Okay. I need to go get a bottle of water and do another few minutes of exercise.

Looking for the bright side of self isolation. It’s tough to find, but it might be out there. Probably not, but maybe I might be able to pretend.