Probably Jinxing Myself

It’s been quiet here tonight. Dad has been okay. He hasn’t gotten out of bed which is good for my stress level but not so good for his recovery. He needs to get some strength back in his legs and staying in bed is not going to get him there. I’ll see if I can coax him up during the odd coffee break tomorrow.

My mother was in a lot of pain when I got here, but after her last round of meds she went to bed and has been sleeping soundly ever since.

I got a jump on the work day by setting up my computer and everything I need for tomorrow tonight. The last blog post was written on my MacBook while sitting in the living room. This one is being written on my work issued HP while sitting at the workspace in the dining room. That cheap little USB fan is running and as always it is glorious.

I still need to set up my CPAP machine in the living room. I will have to do it in the dark as dad is in there sleeping. I’ve heard the odd snore, so he’s definitely asleep. Mostly I am sitting here writing this because I am waiting for my iPhone and my Apple Watch to charge before I turn in. On previous trips here I would setup a power strip near the couch I sleep on and plug everything in there. It’s not easy to do now as we had a hospital bed setup in that room yesterday and all of the places I would sit things on while they charged have been replaced with piles and piles of stuff. I don’t want to sit a power strip or a laptop on top of that stuff as I’m not sure if any of it might be a fire hazard or not. Shoot me for being extra cautions. So now I’ll just use one plug for the CPAP machine and keep my phone next to the machine with an alarm set. Of all the times I’ve been here over the last couple of months, I have never actually needed the alarm. I’ve always managed to be up long before it goes off. That’s not necessarily a good thing.

I thought about trying to write a little music while I sit here waiting. I have the MacBook and GarageBand with me after all. No… I can’t get into it. I feel too uncomfortable with headphones on.

Okay. I am going to start the turning in process now. Wish me luck.

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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.

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Air Tag Test Drive

I completely missed everything from the last Apple event. There has been too much real life going on and not enough money to spend on gadgets anyway, so I didn’t go out of my way to find out the scoop.

My step son and my wife though, they are up to date. So much so that Harry’s four pack of Air Tags just arrived. It’s pretty cool. They are like Tile tags except they work within the iOS Find My app. You can make them beep and they can show up in the Find My map and they have a cool function where when you’re close it has a proximity thing that will put an arrow on your iPhone screen and point you in the right direction.

Pretty cool. I might get one for my keys and maybe one for my wallet. Granted, I don’t know if I’ve ever lost my keys or my wallet before but now that I have written the previous sentence it’s a guarantee that if I don’t get a pack of Air Tags I’m gonna lose everything.

>sign<

The ghost of Steve Jobs says, “jump, fat boy!” and this fat boy asks how high.

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The Apple Watch Jouney Concludes?

Our good friends at Federal Express dropped off a package today. It contained a shiny new series five Apple Watch to replace my shiny old series five Apple Watch. As I type this it is loading a backup file and pairing to my iPhone. I should have had a restore file from last week but the most recent one it offered me was from New Year’s Eve, four months ago. What’s up with that?

The battery was at about 60% when I took it out of the box. It’s on the charger now and it looks like it’s working. If the battery is in fact charging, then this should be the end of my Apple Watch journey. The pocket watch journey is still waiting on Amazon to bring me batteries. Tomorrow, I think.

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Better

Sleep was better last night. I went to bed ridiculously early. I was out cold by 9:30 or so. My AppleWatch says I woke up a couple of times but I only remember one. I was awake a bit before the Roomba kicked off its ride. I was sitting up and the cat jumped up and sat with me. As soon as Roomba made a noise though, she practically dove under the bed.

I managed a little more than eight hours of sleep. The heart rate dip wasn’t very high but it was okay. The restful sleep was also a bit less than I’d hoped but it too was okay. Much better than the hour and a half from two nights ago.

Here’s hoping my brain works a little better today than it did the last couple of days.

On a mostly unrelated note, I hung my AppleWatch on the charger next to my bed when I woke up this morning. It lit up green to show it was charging. It stayed there while I did my morning routine. When I was done I put it on again and the battery was at 48%. Huh. I put it on the charger on my desk and once again it lit up green. Then a minute later it prompted me for my passcode. Huh… not charging again. I tried again and it stayed connected. It’s up to about 75% now. My iPhone had a charger hiccup the other day too. Is this a trend? I can’t go to the Apple Store without a vaccine. This had best not become a thing.

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Apple Watch Problem

I took the latest AppleWatch update on Wednesday night. Was that a mistake?

Ever since then my watch has failed to send data to my iPhone. The Activity app, the SleepWatch app, even the full battery notification. Nuttin. Anyone else seeing this? I’m still getting notifications sent from the phone to the watch, it just appears that nothing is going the other way.

I am a sad Apple fanboy.

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More Stuff

Not to be left out of the birthday fun, my nephew is 10 today. Double digits. He’s a mini-me. He’s lucky in two ways. If you’re going to have the misfortune of looking like me, it’s good that you didn’t lose your curly hair the way I did, and also it’s extra lucky that you’re skinny while I was already well on my way to being a fat ass by the time I was 10. He is keeping all the good stuff that I had when I was little. He’s also hysterically funny and he’s not afraid of his own shadow. Two things I didn’t have at 10. So basically, if you eliminate all the stuff that I was bad at when I was 10 you have my nephew. He’s awesome and I love him and I hate that I haven’t been able to visit in forever. I am so sick of the pandemic. It’s killing me.

My father showed some improvement on Tuesday. On Wednesday he seemed to take a bit of a step back but was still better than he had been. Today the word is he seems to have improved a little bit again. We have tentative plans for next steps starting next week. It’s all scary.

We should have the bedroom done tomorrow night… assuming we don’t come up with any new ideas. The mattress is going to be the killer. We have plans in place though. The kitchen stuff starts coming next week. Next weekend is going to be another crazy furniture assemble-fest.

I made a works in progress playlist for RPM. Still not 100% invested yet. Maybe if I can get some guitar parts down it will trigger me. Maybe.

I haven’t played with blog themes yet. I browsed a little before bed last night. We’ll have to book some time soon. I have so many reminders in my phone right now. I have to schedule everything with myself or I forget everything.

I’m tired and sad and I want everything to go back to normal and I want it now.

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Wallet

I recently got myself a new iPhone. The iPhone 12 Pro Max, to be exact. I also bought a simple case and one of the new magnetic wallet things. I told myself I wasn’t going to get one of those, but when I found myself shopping on the Apple website I just went with it on impulse.

I don’t think I will use it all that often once the world is open again and we can go places. It’s just not terribly big. I can fit three credit card sized objects into it and that’s it. Under normal circumstances I am going to stick with my old wallet. At Disney World, or in some situation where I don’t want to have a lot of stuff on me, the magnetic thingamajig will be nice. For now, during the Covid-19 ridiculousness, I am using it. I guess just to get used to it.

Turns out that getting used to it is a problem. I was not aware that I did this, but every time I stand up from a sitting position, the first thing I do is unconsciously touch my right front pocket to see if my wallet is there. My right front is my normal home for wallet and keys, and over the past week every time I’ve stood up and checked I’ve had a split second of panic where I think oh shit where’s my wallet. Then I remember it’s stuck to the back of my phone.

It’s been a week and I still do it every single time. I’m guessing I will stop doing it about a day before my company opens up the buildings again and I have to start leaving the house every day.

Typical, right?

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BendGate 2020 Edition

Remember that super groovy iPhone stand thing I posted a picture of a couple of days ago?

Check out what putting my iPod touch into it for a whole day did.

Woah! It’s like BendGate all over again! I’m glad I used the iPod for the 10 hour time lapse instead of my iPhone. That woulda sucked!

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