February 2023

Quality Control.

For a while, there were major quality control issues with the manufacture of license plates in the Empire State. New York has been slowly replacing their license plates over the past few years with a new black-on-white design, but it’s still quite common to see license plates shredding and/or decomposing on vehicles.

What’s interesting is license plates made 20 years ago (beginning with “A” or “B” on passenger cars) are still quite intact and looking good. It’s these plates beginning with a “G” that are having issues.

It’s not always a great idea to go with the lowest bidder.

Preparedness.

I’m staying with my cousin while Mom is in the hospital. We’ve been watching television in the evenings, and apparently in this part of the country these television ads have been running. A lot.

How long before we start hearing that 1970s mod version of “The Lord’s Prayer” on the radio?

Caturday.

With me back east to help with Mom’s health concerns, Earl and Truman posed for a photo that made me smile and tear up a little.

Hospital.

I’m in Syracuse. Mom is not doing well and my family felt it might be a good idea if I make the trip to Tucson. Mom has had two trips to the emergency room by ambulance in the past 10 days. Her latest was due to shortness of breath.

Mom has lost 40 pounds since the beginning of November. She can’t keep food down. She is weak. She is having difficulties breathing. The doctors can’t find much wrong with her, though they are looking at spots on her liver. We’ll find out soon what’s going on there, but they don’t seem overly concerned, this is more of “ruling everything out”.

I’m hopeful she’ll pull through this, but we toured an assisted living facility this afternoon. It’s not what I want, but it’s the safest option.

Respite.

My sister and I went to a my nephew’s hockey game. It turned out to be the last game of the season but at least they made the playoffs.

We haven’t done a selfie in many years.

Snow!

For the first time since moving to Tucson nearly two years ago, we woke up with a dusting of snow on the ground.

Yesterday a truck with nitric acid tipped over about eight miles away on Interstate 10. A HAZMAT alert went out on the Emergency Alert System. Within a mile radius was shelter-in-place. That was expanded to three miles this morning.

We still stayed inside.

Storms.

Storms moving through the desert in the first half of February. Because humans are making Mother Nature very angry.

Dear Apple, Part Two.

Dear Apple,

What are you doing with HomeKit? Do you know? Does anyone on your team know? Because Siri doesn’t know. After the latest update (to 16.3?) things will work in the morning but absolutely not in the evening. Or vice versa. Or my HomePods will no longer recognize my voice. Enter password. Enter your password. Enter your password on every HomePod you own. Enter again.

Apple could have knocked it out of the park with HomeKit and the associated HomePod line of hardware. But no, it’s taken a back seat and no one knows why. Promises of things getting better and easier to navigate and more reliable fall by the wayside.

We need more love for HomeKit. Full stop. I want my home automation to live in the better security of iCloud but more importantly I want it to be reliable.

It’s not reliable right now.

Do better.

Caturday.

Truman has always enjoyed building forts in pillows and blankets. He can occasionally be found buried in the blankets of the bed enjoying a nice quiet nap away from the world. I can relate.

This week during lunch he decided to start rearranging the throw pillows on the bench around the kitchen table. When he noticed that we noticed his activity, he decided to start acting innocent and instead join the conversation.