Tag: iOS

Bed Time-ish

I’d like to be going to sleep right now but I want to let my watch charge to 100% before I do. It’s at 83% right now, but it did just take a WatchOS update so that’s cool.

An unrelated aside: did you know that on the show How I Met Your Mother, nearly every time Barney spews out some ridiculous made up statistic it’s 83%? Sometimes it’s 8.3, but usually 83. Sorry, my watch battery made me think of that, and Jen and I are binging the holy hell out of that show right now.

Sorry, what was I talking about?

The Bruins lossed again tonight. I’m afraid to read a recap and find which players will be out injured next. It seems like every game costs us another player or two.

The Red Sox won at least. We are 2-3 right now, but at least we have a better record than Baltimore. That’s pretty sweet.

I’m watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. I’m not going to be able to finish it tonight. It’s quarter to 11:00 and I still have an hour to go. The question in the morning will be finish Guardians or watch the new episode of MoonKnight.

It’s going to be a tough call, man.

The Activity App Tried to Kill Me

The iOS activity app that’s tied to the Apple Watch gives these little challenges every now and then and I like to complete them because I am easily manipulated by technology.

It had a challenge for the Lunar New Year to do one workout of at least 20 minutes between February 1st and 15th. I decided that today was the day. I was going to hop up on that exercise bike and ride for 20 minutes. I brought up an episode of Tacoma FD (s3ep12 Pickleball) on my iPad and put it on the little iPad holder on the bike’s handle bars. Then I told my wife that if she heard a loud crash coming from the bedroom it was likely because I died trying to ride the bike for 20 minutes, and off I went.

I actually went for 21 minutes. The Activity app triggers exercise time based on your heart rate and for the first minute of my workout (which I tracked in the Workout App because I am not only easily manipulated by technology, but I am also chemically dependent on using technology for everything imaginable) my heart rate did not increase enough. I wanted the 20 minute workout, but I also wanted 20 minutes worth of exercise time on the app, so I had to throw in an extra minute.

What a feeling of accomplishment! Well… I assume I would have a feeling of accomplishment for catching the little carrot that the little app dangled in front of me, but my legs hurt so much that I can’t acknowledge any feelings other than aches and pain and a general sense of blissful, pain masking numbness.

The next challenge is to do 30 minutes of exercise on Valentine’s Day. That’s no worry. I want to do 30 minutes total every day, so it’s a gimmie. Assuming I can get my legs to move again. That’s sort of a big if right now.

Time Lapse Video Idea

I’m thinking about this, but it’s dumb so I doubt I’ll do it.

After all of those burning candle time lapse videos I’ve posted since Covid came along… what if I do a really, really long time lapse of the little plant cutting from a couple of posts back? Say I put my iPad in front of it tonight before I go to bed and let it record a time lapse for 24 hours and see if we can actually see the new growth grow.

What do you think? Would it show anything? Do plants only grow when no one is looking?

Like a Great Ball of Anti-Fire

Jen came up with a project today, and like all times when Jen comes up with a project she kicked it’s ass back to the stone age like the Boss Queen that she is.

She decided her office and the living room had too many power strips and extension chords. They don’t any more. She rearranged all of the wiring everywhere and when she was done we have the same number of things plugged in but with one power strip and two big extension chords left over. It was pretty amazing to watch. She’s pretty amazing in general, but this was really cool.

You should be in awe of my wife, just like I am.

Changing the subject, did the Flickr iOS app go screwy for anyone else today? The auto upload stopped working. I think it was because I took a slow mo video this morning. The same video file made YouTube act weird too. I cleared out my phone’s photo album (everything is backed up), logged out of Flickr, took a new picture, logged back in, and everything was okay again. Weird.

Find My

Yesterday afternoon I kept the Find My app up on my iPhone so I could keep an eye on Harry’s progress as he drove home from school. Today it’s Bellana’s turn. She’s not coming home though. She’s driving a roommate home to the deep south. The app might be up all day today and tomorrow. I have no doubt that she and the group she’s with will be safe and healthy. In these uncertain and crazy Covid variant Omicron days though, I am also nervous. Be careful out there folks.

It’s Friday at 8:40am. I have to punch into work soon. I don’t want to. Harry has a remote final exam today. After he finishes that I am just going to want to hang out with him. I’m really happy he’s here. I don’t want to do anything else besides just enjoy the fact that he’s here.

Eight days until christmas. I have one gift to wrap and one more on route. I am going to be ready this year with oceans of time to spare. On the subject of christmas I feel that I should note that I have done a better job making sure the tree is watered than I ever have in any real-tree-year ever. Look at me, patting myself on the back. HoHoHo, babie.

Happy Friday.

ADDENDUM: Find My tells me that Bellana is currently driving though Saratoga Springs, NY. That brings two thoughts to my mind. First, I wonder if they took the ferry across Lake Champlain. Second, one of the best Rush concerts I ever saw was on July 5, 2008 when Jen and I road tripped all the way to Saratoga Springs to see them at SPAC. I was only in the town for a very short time, but I thought it seemed like a wonderful place. Someday we’ll go back.

Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 1002
Rush 7-5-08 Saratoga Springs, NY 416

Doofus Moment

Way to go, Apple Fan Boy. Way to miss out on the simplest, yet ridiculously useful function available on your Mac.

There I was, thinking that I could only use the Messenger Application with fellow Apple folks.

Imagine my surprise when I was a single check box click away from having all of my SMS messages show up on my computer.

Ugh… dumb ass.

What was it Brody said? Here is your finger, far from the pulse, shoved straight up your ass? Something like that.*

*That’s a Kevin Smith reference. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Would you like a chocolate covered pretzel?

Road Trip on the Books

It’s official. I’m Vermont bound in the morning. Three hours up, drop off a laptop, three hours back. Sounds like a fun day to me.

The last time we went up there we took the kids to lunch. Covid dictated we get take out and eat it in the car. Someone, I’m not sure who, did not finish their lunch (it wasn’t me, I scarfed my sub down like the universe depended on it). I went to get something out of the car this morning and… oh the smell was powerful. I cleaned out the food and opened all of the windows. I think it’s okay now.

I mentioned before that I started a time lapse video with my iPad before work this morning. It’s still running. I’m going to stop it soon. It’s been over 10 hours. That should be a pretty good chunk of data for the iPad to work with.

I was thinking about time lapses and the road trip that’s coming and trying to figure out a way to have a time lapse running out the window of the car for the whole way up and the whole way back. Can I do that? I’d have to figure out a way to either aim out the window, or balance the iPad against the window. I think it might be more trouble than it’s worth. I wish I still had that little iPod Touch. If I could keep it plugged in that would work. Too bad it died.

Oh well. Probably not worth the effort.

Okay, I need to go blow out the candles. Talk to you later.

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.