We are officially in Tucson. The drive was not bad today, the house is beautiful, there is much to do, and I’m off to bed. Time changes and all that..
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We are about six hours from our new home, stationed in a Ramada in Albuquerque, N.M. I wasn’t expecting to drive through snow squalls, but we ran into two snow squalls between Tucumcari and Albuquerque. Um, this is the desert.
Overall the drive is going well. Truman has settled into a routine and takes naps. I follow road signs. Earl converses with us both and plays with his phone. It’s quite routine but still enjoyable.
Moving Day.
It’s moving day! The movers are packing up the truck as I type. We’ll be cleaning behind them and on the road this afternoon or evening.
I can’t believe it’s happening.
Right?
Technology.
This touchscreen fuel pump does not excite me.
You know the drill. You put your credit or debit card in the slot (or tap your smart device against the reader that has a 10% chance of actually being there), type in your zip code, and select your octane.
First of all, what are we accomplishing by converting from buttons to a touchscreen? I’m sure many tests were done, but do we think a touchscreen in the middle of a Chicago winter will be super responsive to user inputs? And let’s talk about that. I could barely get the touchscreen to work on a surprisingly mild March day, I can’t imagine how it would be with gloves on a sub-zero January morning.
Aesthetically, the physical device is pleasing. The interface is a little too modern and simplified for my tastes and I could do without the ads, but it’s not awful.
I just don’t get why we needed it.
I Should Have Followed You Home.
I can’t believe it’s been nearly eight years since this song’s release. The second single from the album “A”, by Agnetha Fältskog (the first ‘A’ in ABBA), “I Should Have Followed You Home” was a duet with former Take That singer Gary Barlow. Both Gary and Agnetha are so classy, and this live performance still brings me to tears all the years later. Beautiful people, beautiful music.
Dimmer.
I’ve been removing our home automation systems in preparation for the move to the desert this weekend. We’re slowly getting used to using light switches again; for the past 3 1/2 years our Philips Hue lights and motion sensors have turned on the lights where we need them.
The system is slowly being safely packed to be taken down to the new house.
After putting in new GE LED bulbs in the fixtures I noticed the dining room table lamp would not come on if the living room lights (the switches are next to each other) were dimmed down. I found this quite weird, since they’re two distinctly separate switches. I could replicate the issue easily: turn the dining room light off, turn the living room lights to the lowest dimmer setting, turn the dining room light on and nothing would happen until I turned the dimmed lights up a little bit. Then the dining room light would come out as well.
A wiring nightmare, right? No!
It turns out the GE LED bulb in the dining room light was supersensitive to the voltage variations from the dimmer, even though the light bulb wasn’t being controlled by the dimmer switch. I swapped out the bulb with another LED bulb and everything worked fine. So then I put the GE bulb in a two-bulb fixture in the bathroom far away from any dimmer switches and turned on the light.
The GE bulb noticeably lags in coming on compared to the other light.
There’s something up with that bulb, so I removed it and put another bulb in its place.
I’m happy I didn’t have to get into a wiring project tonight. We’re just that much closer to moving out on Monday.
Packing Assistant.
My husband is handling the majority of the packing for our move. He is being assisted by his supervisor.
Cyncism.
This morning, CEO Tim Cook tweeted about Apple’s efforts to address climate change.
As far as I’m concerned, anything on social media that contains positive action towards combatting Climate Change is a great thing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as I’m most likely in the second half of my life, I’m sure that I’ll be gone before the planet becomes completely uninhabitable. However, it’s going to get really bad before I live out my natural lifespan and honestly I don’t want to have a front row seat as witness to the extinction of life on Earth. It’s just not my jam.
Apple talks about Climate Change quite a bit. The company goes above and beyond others with using clean energy sources, has developed robots to dismantle old tech to recycle as much as possible to build new tech, and is working towards developing sources of needed materials without doing any more mining. Is Apple perfect? Far from it, but they’re bringing awareness to the conversation, pushing progress in the right direction, and are doing a heck of a lot more than many other companies on the planet.
Yet, too many folks on social media, most likely typing with their elbows, screech about the evils of Apple, how much they hate the company, and their suspicions that the only reason Apple is doing this is to make more money.
First of all, the United States economy is based on capitalism. Making money is what corporations do in the United States. Apple is particularly good at making money.
Do I believe this tweet from Tim Cook is first and foremost a PR stunt to bring brighter lights onto the company? I really think that is not the primary driver for this. By several accounts, Tim Cook can demanding, short, and intense. That’s part of being CEO of one of the biggest and richest companies on the planet. But I believe Tim also has a heart and he’s passionate about leaving the world better than the way he found it when he got here. Yes, Apple’s clean energy efforts bring in good PR, but the PR is a result of doing the right thing when it comes to Climate Change.
So, I’ll go on skipping over the cynical “blargh blargh blargity blargh blargh” comments to all things Apple. I just wish I didn’t have to go through the eye roll/mouse scroll effort.
