Category: Tech

Random Stuff at Lunch Time

Epically busy day today. Sneaking in a short post during a short lunch break. What’s going on, Robert?

When the Covid-19 lock down started I had to grab a webcam so that I could join in on the video conferencing fun. Last week I was on a Google Meet meeting and my camera started flipping out like a crazy person. I tried a couple of USB ports and it was a problem in more than one, but eventually it stabilized itself. That leads me to think there is something breaking loose within the cable. This morning I was on a Zoom meeting and my camera kept shutting off. Turns out it was basically the same issue. I ended up opening up my clam shelled laptop and using the built in camera. It’s working. Folks can see my mug when I am speaking.

Still… a Covid-19 specific tech gadget purchase failed to outlive the lock down. I’m probably going to replace it someday so that I can go back to clam shell. When I go back to the office (which is imminent) I won’t have my gigantic monitor and I’ll have the lappy open anyway, so a replacement camera will just be a home office guy.

I don’t know why but I redid my Spotify Mood Music playlist. I put this together ages ago with the intent being I would update it all the time. Any time I was drawn to a new band or song or whatever I would add something to the playlist. I kept that up for about a minute. Maybe this time I’ll stay active. I don’t use Spotify but it’s easy to share on the blog so that’s why I do it. Whatever.

Jen spoke to Harry a little bit today. He has had his first graduation practice session! We got the details on the ceremony. Masks optional and no socially distant seating. Oh good. The pandemic is over, folks. You made it through! I guess the 11,277 new cases and 245 new deaths yesterday were imagined.

Sorry. This is not a bitch about Covid thing. This is a Harry is a Legend who is graduating from High School in three days post!

Legen…

Wait for it…

We get a new Marvel show on Disney Plus starting tomorrow. Loki. Wednesdays instead of Fridays, that’s new. I think I liked Fridays better in general, but Wednesdays work too. While watching WandaVision we got into the groove of having burgers and fries for dinner while we watched the new episodes. That carried on through The Falcon and The Winter Soldier too. It will continue with Loki. I have no idea what this show is going to be like. I just know that all of us are psyched. Come on, Marvel. Live up to the hype, people! Bring it!

…dary! Legendary!

The MLB App Pisses Me Off

When I’m working at home I like to stream audio from my iPad to the HomePods in my bedroom office via AirPlay. Podcasts, music, sometimes radio, whatever.

The exception is baseball games. The MLB app for iOS lets you stream radio broadcasts for every game from every team’s local broadcast. If I use the speakers in my iPad it generally works all right. If I stream it to the HomePods… Not so much.

I set the iPad to AirPlay to the HomePods, then I open the app and connect to the Red Sox, WEEI broadcast and it doesn’t stream. It plays through the iPad speakers. Why? It also screws up the user interface so that switching back to the iPad (even though it’s actually coming through the iPad speakers) isn’t easy to do. You have to do a couple of extra swipes and taps before you can reconnect to the actual device that is already working.

A few process kills and a reboot and some magic tricks and eventually I get the app playing through the HomePods. Except that it isn’t. Instead of the live radio broadcast, which was streaming fine a second ago, it is playing television highlights from NESN. When I switch to the Boston Spanish broadcast it’s fine. When I switch to the opposing team’s radio broadcast it seems fine, when I switch back to the WEEI stream it’s NESN again.

I switch from my iPad to my iPhone and everything works fine. Thanks a pant load, MLB.

Clear That Cache

Addendum to the previous post. I cleared the cache in Vivaldi as well as cookies and a few other pieces of data and now I can write posts again! It’s such a gift. If I were half the analyst I claim to be, I would have done that first because… duh. Of course it was cache. Sign out and sign back in? What are you, an idiot? Clearly it was a little piece of corrupt data lying around.

Change of subject, we have reached the point where we are planning how to pack up the cars to drive to Vermont to help my step daughter move into her apartment. I am so happy for her and I am so sad for me and Jen. The conflicting feelings are really tough to deal with. I’m trying to look outward though and just be happy and excited for Bellana. She’s amazing and this is just one more baby step toward her taking over the world. Well, taking over the world figuratively speaking. I’m not being literal when I say that… or am I?

Okay, back to work, red head!

Game Four

Bruins/Capitals Game Four of their first round series from the Gahden in Boston tonight. One period down, no score. What else is new? I was hoping the B’s would jump out to a 10 goal lead in the first few minutes so that we could have a stress-free game night experience. 33.3% through regulation and no luck yet.

It’s Nana Sitting night and I’m sitting in her living room watching the game. Jen and the kids are at home watching whatever they are watching on our swanky new 4K Apple TV which was delivered today. Our old Apple TV was getting buggy and weird. They announced the new one right at the exact time we were starting to think about replacing it. If I were a conspiracy theory loving red head, rather than the sane and rational cat that I am, I would think that was a bit too much of a coincidence. Nope. Not me.

Go Bruins.

It Survived

When I work at my parents house I am sitting at the dining room table using a massive desk setup that belongs to my brother. Three monitors and the switcher that lets you use them with a single USB C plug, wireless keyboard and mouse, and a USB hub. Lots and lots of stuff. I’m using it every time I work here, but I have not contributed anything to the work space.

Until today.

It survived the trip. I think I am going to leave it here because it’s pretty delicate and I don’t know how many trips back and forth in a backpack it has in it. Still, this little five speed USB sucker is my new favorite desk swag.

Grinds My Gears

What was I talking about?

I was about to write a post that rips off a Family Guy episode but Taylor Hall just scored a highlight reel goal in game three of the Bruins/Capitals series and it’s all I can think about right now. Ovetchkin scored a power play goal to put the Caps up 1-0 in the second period, and then the Bruins came right back and scored to tie it. The goal was fantastic, but the blind backhand pass that set it up was utterly spectacular. Was it Krejci? I didn’t see. I need another replay.

So what was I talking about? Oh yeah, wanna know what really grinds my gears? When I’m on gmail.com and I go into the spam folder to clear it out and in the instant that I click to delete everything, a new spam message shows up and I am left with one unwanted message when I should have zero.

Yeah, that wouldn’t have been an interesting post even if it hadn’t been interrupted by an awesome goal. I think the blind backhand pass that setup the Hall goal came from Craig Smith.

Seven minutes left in the 2nd and the Caps are putting on some serious pressure. Lots of back and forth in this game though. It’s a good game right now.

Go Bruins.

The CPAP Helped

I went to bed a little before midnight last night with my alarm set for 6:00. I woke up before it went off and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I had the CPAP machine on the whole time. I figured it would help, but I was still a 6.5 foot tall guy sleeping on a two seater couch and looking like a full sized person living on dollhouse furniture. How do my sleep numbers look?

Five hours and 25 minutes of sleep.
83% of that being restful! Holy Crap, that percentage is gigantic for me!
32% Heart Rate Dip! Holy Crap, that percentage is gigantic for me!

So I guess using the machine was a good move, for last night at least. The only downside is that I had to wait an hour before I could pack it up because that’s how long it takes to upload all of the data to the server. I can deal with that.

For some reason, I cannot get to the wordpress.com editor on my Vivaldi browser on my work laptop. I can do it if I open a private window and re-log in, but I can’t get to it from the main window. Weird. Maybe I’ll try logging out and logging back in again.

Sunday night television… one of the infuriating things about hate watching Fear the Walking Dead is that every once in a while they put out an episode that doesn’t suck ass. Last night’s was okay, assuming you ignore the idiotic coincidence of that character meeting that other character out of the blue. For the most part it wasn’t so bad. I almost wish it had been terrible. It’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Uh.. uh.. we’re getting good again… here it comes… we’re getting good agai… Nope. Back to the same old awful.

Okay, it’s Monday morning. I have to finish packing up the stuff I had out last night that I don’t need during work, get my mother her 8:00am pills, and punch into work.

Have a good one, folks. May your Monday not blow chunks.

Yesterday Was a Day

Most of you won’t get this. However, if you have an Apple Watch and you use the Activity app then this will be a little behind the scenes peek into the kind of day I had yesterday…..

Sure this is a smidge too “inside baseball” for the average web surfer, but I thought it was interesting. Whatevs, right?

Duh

I’m at my mother’s house, nana sitting for the night. As soon as I pulled up to the house I realized I forgot my Air Pods Pro at home. Damn it. I’ve sort of been relying on the transparency setting to let me listen to music or podcasts while I work while still being able to hear what my mother is up to.

Duh. You dope.