Category: Tech

Windows Updates

Windows updates are just the worst, aren’t they? Seriously!

I just got prompted to reboot to take a Windows update. Okay, I guess. I was kind of moving between tasks at that moment so it seemed like as convenient a time as any. I rebooted.

30 minutes later* and it’s finally letting me log back in! Damn, Windows updates are just the worst!

*Yeah, it was more like 2-3 minutes, maybe. Time has a way of distorting while you’re taking an OS update, doesn’t it? It’s like Covid. Thanks to Covid, the year 2019 is simultaneously yesterday and 200 years ago.

To quote the great Douglas Adams, “time is an illusion. Lunch time, doubly so.”

Testing… Testing…

I just plugged in a new keyboard at my desk in the office. Just test driving it. It is not as nice as the one it replaces, but it has a number pad and I had reached the point where I couldn’t live without one anymore.

Long live the new not-quite-as-clicky, clicky keyboard.

Empty Nesters… Again

Bellana is back in Vermont. She left last night and stayed over one of her friends’ house in order to cut down on her morning commute today. At our house she was three hours away from work, and today is a work day for her. I get it. It makes me sad to see her go, but I am also really happy we had her for a few days. Even more so as we had Harry for a few days before that, and their visits overlapped so we had them both for a day. That made me really happy. That was an extra good night.

Jen is working from the office today. I am working from home. That means I am here by my lonesome, just me and the cats. I have a podcast playing on my MacBook and it’s streaming to Home Pods scattered all over the house. I don’t have to pause the podcast if I need to get up and leave the room. Heh heh. Technology is cool. When Jen comes home I’ll shut off any streams that are anywhere other than Harry’s room/my office space.

The Great Heatwave of 2024 is going to become official today. The forecast calls for the temperature in my little city to hit 99 degrees. That will be three days over 90. Heatwave: Confirmed. It is 9:10am right now and it’s already 83 degrees. It’s going to be fun.

The forecast for the rest of the week? Rain and clouds and awful. Back to normal, I guess.

After complaining about crappy sleep for the last week or so, I finally topped six hours last night. In fact, I topped 7.5 hours. It was broken though. I fell asleep at 9:30pm. Not by choice. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and zonked out. Normally I try to eat something before I go to sleep out of fear that my stomach will get so empty over night that it will hurt. A snack at bedtime avoids that problem, but I didn’t have one last night. My last bite to eat last night was at 7:49pm. I woke up with a bit of a stomach ache at 2:30am. I had a little snack and felt better, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep until well after 3:00. Oh well. I felt really tired when I woke up today (almost an hour later than I had planned) but I feel okay now. Here’s hoping I won’t be totally exhausted today.

Okay, red head. Back to work.

Over Confidence

First, to preface the rest of the post, I don’t give the faintest shit about the NBA. I don’t follow basketball at all. Not even a little bit. I was a bit of a Boston Celtics fan when I was a kid. Part of that was because my Uncle worked for the Celtics. If you ask him nicely he’ll show you his NBA Championship rings from 1984 and 1986. I am 100% serious about that. I’ve held them in my hands.

Okay, now that the prelude is over…

The Boston Celtics, prior to last night, had a three games to none lead in the NBA Championship series. I am so uninterested that I don’t even know who they are playing. Dallas? I think? Maybe? (A quick visit to espn.com tells me that it is indeed the Dallas Mavericks)

Game four was on Friday, last night, so the events I am writing about happened on Thursday. I was on Threads.com (which is owned by bookfayce and therefore makes me want to vomit when I think about it) and saw a post from someone I don’t follow… because that’s how the idiotic newsfeed works… talking about how the Celtics had the series wrapped up and Dallas barely even put up a fight. The gist of the post was something about discrediting claims that the Western Conference was the dominate Conference in the NBA. Again, I don’t care.

My lack of interest in the series does not supersede my being from Boston, and while I do not care about the league or the series, I am always down for a pro-sports championship in my city. I responded to the post on threads by cautioning against overconfidence. I wrote something about remembering the Boston Bruins blowing a three games to none lead in 2010 and thinking that maybe the poster should wait until the Celtics actually won the series before boasting about which team was more dominate. You know, be cautious in your optimism. Don’t be cocky like Bruins fans were in 2010… or Red Sox fans were in 1986. Dig?

Why is this of interest? Because last night was game four. The Celtics had a chance to end the series and win the league championship (for the 18th time, thank you very much) with a sweep. How did the game end up? The Celtics got friggin’ trounced and lost by 38 points.

Thirty-eight points.

So… maybe you should wait until the Celtics actually win the series before commenting on the strengths or weaknesses of their opponent. You know… don’t jinx it.

I know the person who posted the comment on threads was not a Bostonian, because those of us who live here effin’ know better (he said while having yet another waking nightmare about a ground ball up the first base line going through Bill Buckner’s legs).

Cellar Dweller

My step son is home for a few days so I cannot work from the desk in his room. I’ve been using that space for my telecommuting needs for months now. When did I move things there? I can’t remember. Was it last fall? Last August maybe? I could search the blog for it but I’m too lazy at the moment.

Not using the desk in his room means I am back at the desk in the cellar. I left it all setup for work use when I moved so the big question for this morning was would it all still work?

The answer? Yes. Yes it does. All of it. Excellent. I had to plug everything into the laptop, and plug the webcam into the USB hub, and turn the speakers on, and that was it. I am now 100% back up to speed. I’m all punched in and off to the employment races.

Technology, man. You gotta just dig it.

What Do You Think?

Is it time for me and my wife to consider a career change?

Should we move to Florida and become full time Disney World YouTubers? We’ve spent so much time watching Disney World YouTube videos. You would think that we would have calmed down a little after coming home from our trip a couple of weeks ago, but since then we’ve already booked the next two Disney World vacation trips so we’re still plowing through anything YouTube has to offer… and there are so many Disney World YouTube channels that there are a ton of new videos each day.

Should we do it? I mean, I would absolutely be the most awkward DW vlogger on the net, but I also think that might be a good thing for the channel. It could be our schtick.

What do you think? Should we do it?

WiFi Blues

One of the cats has started to… somehow… inexplicably… turn off our router and kill our wifi signal. We have a MESH network thing setup in the house and she’s been doing something to shut it off. I think she’s just stepping on the plug and jarring it loose for an instant. She doesn’t unplug it completely, but she somehow makes it shut off for a split second and then it takes a few minutes to recover.

Damn it cat, now we have to find a new home for the router. Someplace you can’t screw it up.

Logic Pro 11

I haven’t watched this video yet so I don’t know if it’s any good or not. I’m just saving it for later.

Apple announced an update to Logic Pro today. Logic Pro 11, to be precise.

I’ve been using GarageBand since, what… 2010? Something like that. For years now I have been thinking of upgrading to Logic Pro. The $200 price tag is basically what has kept me away. Now?

I use the crap out of the session drummer in GarageBand. I don’t think I would use the session bass player, even if it’s awesome. I said that about the drummer function when it was announced too, but I think it will stick for the bass. A keyboard player? I generally don’t write for keyboards. I like the idea of a three piece, guitar bass and drums. That’s it. If I had a keyboard player who could write for his or her artificial self though? Can I make it sound like Jon Lord? Rick Wakeman? (gasp) Keith Freakin’ Emerson???

Is it finally time to upgrade? No. When we get back from our trip to Florida a few weeks from now, will it be time?

Maybe…

Maybe.