Truman is slowing getting used to having to be in a harness to go out on the balcony. I can’t use the harness or leash to guide him in anyway, he has to be leading the way at all times. If I give it a little tug to suggest he go to another part of the balcony, he’ll flop over on his side and start playing with the leash.
I’m happy that’s he’s getting to experience the balcony a little but I’m very happy he’s on a harness, he’s pressed his head against the metal mesh below the railing and goes to the floor. I don’t have to worry about him ever falling off the balcony, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try to jump on the railing and we can’t have that.
I think he’s looking forward to the warmer weather just as much as we are.
Last night was the series finale of ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder”. No spoilers here; so you don’t have to worry about the content of this blog post.
My husband and I have watched the series since day one and while some of the storylines have been a little out there and there has been some unevenness along the way, particularly with the last one or two seasons, Viola Davis is a powerhouse and for the most part the supporting cast has been strong.
With the series finale I know I’m a little sad to see the story come to an end but they wrapped everything up well and didn’t take any last minute wild detours to try to close everything up with a pretty bow. In the series’ universe little of the finale felt contrived.
I particularly enjoyed the addition of Amirah Vann to the cast a couple of seasons ago and I always enjoyed her scenes. While a completely different experience, I feel the same way I felt when “Downton Abbey” came to an end, satisfied with the ending, hopeful for a movie someday, and sad that our regular viewing has come to an end.
We’ve been watching the documentary “Hillary” on Hulu. The documentary blends events from Hillary Clinton’s past with recorded events from her 2016 presidential election run. There are few restrictions around the direction of discussion or the comments made on any of the events shared.
At times it’s hard for me to watch.
I fully believe Secretary Clinton was the best choice for president in 2016, the majority of American voters felt the same way. I loathe to go through the 2020 election cycle because I have absolutely no faith in the American people doing the right thing. Trump is a disaster in every sense of the word. No self-respecting, intelligent centrist can honestly say with a straight face that he’s doing a great job.
We could have been in a better place today, right now, with Hillary Clinton in the White House. Unfortunately the electorate opted to take us into the dark, alternate reality.
I’ve spent much of the evening doing research for my ultra-geek website, The Vintage Point of Sale site. Tonight I concentrated on the systems at the long defunct department Store, Zayre. Or, maybe it was spelled *Zayre. Either way, I’m pretty sure *Zayre was using the asterisk long before Wal*mart, which is now *Walmart.
As I browsed through some old *Zayre commercials, I remembered that back in the day they were the stand-out discount department store at the holidays because they were (gasp) open 24 hours a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Unheard of in the 1980s!
I know everything is open all ways all the time these days, but back in the 1980s *Zayre would feature these “60 Hour Sales” during the holidays, where everything was specially marked for 60 hours straight, morning to night and back to morning again.
I shopped at *Zayre in the middle of the night during the 1986 Christmas holiday shopping season simply because I was in college and I could. It was around 3:00 a.m. and there were quite a few people in the brand new store in Dunkirk, New York. There was a little bit of a kicker though; you couldn’t check out for about an hour in the middle of the night because the cash register system was doing its close of day. So the staff invited you to browse the specials while they moved the date up a notch.
I don’t think I’d want to walk into a *Walmart in the wee hours of the morning in the 21st century, but back in the day shopping at *Zayre in the middle of the night was kind of nifty.
I haven’t ridden the train in over two months. This is highly unusual but to be expected with this whole pandemic thing going on. On my daily walk this morning it suddenly hit me, I miss silently observing people and watching the world go by.
It’s difficult to sit and observe people when everyone is trying to avoid one another and/or have masks covering their face. I thoroughly enjoy watching people just go about their business. I learn from people and I learn to appreciate people. Two months into these lockdowns and I’m realizing this may be the hardest thing I’m dealing with, not being able to watch people as easily as I’d like to.
Being around people, but not necessarily interacting with them, is what keeps my introverted self happy. Many think of introverts as folks curled up in a corner reading a book. That’s definitely something I enjoy. But I’m probably happier when I’m alone in a crowded room. Let me sit on the sidelines and watch people be people.
People are fascinating. Yeah, lately they’ve been rather irritating, but for the most part, people are fascinating. I’m almost always impressed in some way with a person.
I look forward to the day when we’re all able to be in relatively the same space again. It’ll be nice to watch the world go by again.
So I’ve been working on building my own Alexa device, which will eventually make its way to a wall in our home. I made great progress with the SDK (Software Development Kit) today. She’s talking in over my earbuds and responding to commands through a cheap $10 USB microphone plugged into the back of this Raspberry Pi 4.
My next step is to build a custom control screen. I am loving this challenge.
Years ago I picked up a couple of LED smart bulbs from Home Depot. As I recall, these particular bulbs were very affordable, adequate for what I had planned for them (I believe they were going in a guest bedroom), and they were branded GE. While we were using Philips Hue lights for out automation at the time (and still are today), there were notes online around the flexibility of these GE bulbs: they would be compatible with the Philips Hue hub or you could get a hub made by Wink and go with that. Home Depot had a special where they were practically giving the Wink hub away so I paid the minimal amount of cash they wanted for the hub and tried to integrate it into our smart home setup.
I was never satisfied with the Wink Hub. It became unresponsive too often and we were still moving in the Philips Hue direction. I abandoned the hub and basically forgot about it until it was recycled, along with the GE bulbs, when we moved to Chicago.
I received an email advising me my Wink Hub would no longer be functional after 5/13/20 unless I joined their subscription plan to provide continued service. The plan is $4.99 a month. There’s probably taxes too. There’s always taxes.
Looking at the calendar, the 13th of May is only a few days away. If I had invested more into the Wink Home Automation system I would be a very unhappy customer right now.
Now, in the grand scheme of things $4.99 per month doesn’t seem like a lot of money. But what doesn’t seem like a lot of money to me may seem like a lot of money to other people. Plus, I distinctly remember the Wink Hub box mentioning “No Subscription Fees!”.
It would appear that Wink has changed their mind.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, I am becoming very subscription fatigued. All of these consumption and membership and automation based subscriptions can be very taxing on the household budget. The kicker is, Wink provides a luxury, a convenience. Why pay $60 per year just to be able to turn lights on and off with my smartphone? Yes, changing colors, automating on/off times, etc. is nice, but it’s not a necessity. I can still flip a switch.
I feel bad for the folks that have gone all in on the Wink ecosystem. I’ve been reading about consumers that have built Wink into their new construction; wall switches that rely on Wink, relays that fire off sprinklers and what not, relying on Wink. Unless they pay the subscription fee, all of these devices will become INOP in just a few days.
Sorry Wink, but that’s not the way to get people to love your ecosystem.
Companies like Wink are trying to move us to a subscription dependent future. That’s not a future I want to be part of. Intrigued by these developments, I may spend some of my geek time researching open source alternatives to share on the various home automation forums I’m part of to see how folks can continue to control their devices on their terms. There’s almost always an open source solution.
Four days notice of a support paradigm shift is not the way to flip a switch.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
