I love this city.
Old School.
I am delighted to see items marked in an old school way. These young whippersnappers though think they need to use the “FOR” mark, which would actually be used in a 2 FOR 99 scenario.
I’d probably do the same thing, though. It’s geeky cool.
HomeKit, Part 2.
The switch from Amazon’s Alexa to Apple’s HomeKit to handle our household technology needs is going mostly well. HomeKit hasn’t lost any devices or scenes and routines I’ve set up, but accessing them can be tricky. Apple has a “gap” in the device department; there’s nothing equivalent to the Echo Dot or Google Home Mini. I don’t want to buy a HomePod for the bathroom, but we like to listen to music and podcasts during our morning routine.
Another gap in the HomeKit device arena is an equivalent to the Google Home Hub. We tried having an iPad fill that role, but it’s just not the same. Google has knocked it out of the park in this area; Earl can ask the Home Hub for a recipe for something spectacular and a combination of audio commands and visual cues can take him through the recipe at his own pace. An iPad requires physical input, which is not convenient when your hands are covered in cooking oil or whatever. I haven’t found an iOS app that replaces the functionality of the Google Home Hub, so it’s back on the kitchen counter again. I’m thinking of installing a couple of freebie Google Home Minis in strategic locations in the house as well.
This takes us away from an all HomeKit setup but it helps keep costs down.
The other kicker of this conversion is that some of our home automation outlets are either HomeKit or something other than HomeKit, none of the controlled outlets we purchased will interface with both systems. I purchased a couple on Amazon that should be here tomorrow; hopefully they will work with both systems simultaneously. This way we can talk to Siri or the Google Home products when we need to.
My husband just asked that we don’t continue to use Alexa, because that seemed like it took the longest for anything to happen and we found Alexa to be the least reliable when responding to voice commands.
I’ll probably have a part three to this saga in the next week or so, but I’m learning that Home Automation is still well entrenched in the “early adopters” stream. I could never see my grandparents setting up something like this.
Updates.
Who knew there would come a day when updating software in our car would become a thing? I’m surprised the car doesn’t update itself, but it’s a fun little exercise.
Theme.
A live version of the “Charlie’s Angels” theme song. One of the best television theme songs of all time.
There better be a nod to the original theme song in this movie coming out at the end of the year.
Feelin’ It.
I walked with the National Gay Pilots Association in the Chicago Pride Parade again this year. It is a magnificent feeling, hearing all that cheering and celebration as one walks and waves their way down the parade route, simply being who they are.
Mother Nature came barreling in when we were making our way through the crowds and the parade came to an early end due to lightning being detected in the area. I joined my fellow pilots at a Pride House Party. I was the oldest guy in the room but I still had a great time. Talking airplanes and getting to know each other a little more was an awesome feeling. I remarked that I missed a little bit of the aviation energy I felt back when I was flying out of KRME; there are so many places I want to take my aviation career (even though I was the oldest guy in the room), and participating with the NGPA today gave me the energy boost I was seeking.
I was talking with one of the newer members who is working on her CFI or Certified Flight Instructor rating. One of the examiners she flew with remarked that he thought women didn’t make good pilots. Some of the best pilots I know are women. I wonder how many pilots don’t think gay men make good pilots. They’d be wrong about that too.
And this is why we march in Pride Parades.
PixMob.
So last night the family went to Allstate Arena to see Shawn Mendes. He is touring on “The Tour” and puts on a good show. I’m not a huge fan of his music but he exhibits a decent amount of talent, has a good voice that doesn’t sound electronically modified too much, and puts a lot of energy into his performance.
When we were entering the arena we were all given white wrist bands with little LED lights in them. I thought these were to be used in place of lighters of the old days, but it turns out they didn’t turn on when we removed the battery protector. There were no switches.
Made by PixMob, these little bracelets lit up as Shawn took the stage and for the next 90+ minutes, our bracelets were part of the performance’s light show. They twinkled. They flashed. Waves of color danced over the crowd for the entire performance.
I was captivated by this technology.
According to Wikipedia, the bracelets are controlled by infrared signals, much like the remote control on your television.
It’s not the most productive use of technology in the world but it was impressive and it contributed to the positive energy of the show. And these days we need all the positive energy we can get.
Pride.
It’s Pride Month and Chicago’s official Pride Events are taking place this week. The celebration began last weekend with a street fair in Boystown and ends this coming week with the big Pride parade. I plan on walking in the parade again this year as part of the contingent for the National Gay Pilots’ Association. While the NGPA is more geared toward airline pilots, there are many of us General Aviation pilots who also represent and believe what the NGPA stands for.
I walked in my first Pride parade in 1989 in Boston. At that time I was part of a group called BGLAD, which I think stood for “Bisexual Gay Lesbian at Digital”, though it might have started out as “Being Gay or Lesbian At Digital”. BGLAD was part of another group called DECplus, or DEC People Like US. I found Digital (commonly known as DEC, though we always called it Digital when we worked there) to be a very supportive company in this regard.
One think that struck me about Boston Gay Pride in 1989 was that it felt like a “safe” space that at the time was usually confined to the likes of organizations like BGLAD or DECplus, or the interior of a gay bar. I was not quite 21 years old when I went to my first pride, and while the atmosphere was celebratory, there was a more militant feel to it. We were marching for so many reason: people dying of AIDS, acceptance or at the very least acknowledgement of our existence. We had to be loud and we had to be proud to get where we are today. I remember a religious contingent spitting on a few of us at the end of the parade in Boston in 1989. I remember spitting back. It wasn’t one of my proudest moments. It would be a few months before I decided to ACT UP.
Earl and I went for a walk through Boystown here in Chicago last Saturday night shortly before midnight. While the street fair had been over for the day for several hours, the streets were still hustling and bustling with partners and the like, all in celebration of Pride. So many sequins, and bright colors, and statements being made everywhere. Lines snaked down blocks waiting to get into the hottest clubs. The crowd was decidedly mixed; there were just as many bachelorette party types as there were seemingly gay people lining the streets. Honestly, I was a bit dismayed. Everywhere one looked there was people stumbling for the obvious effects of alcohol or other recreational drugs. As Earl and I made our way down the sidewalk, the atmosphere started to feel less like a safe space for gay people and more like a seedy dive bar. The smell of weed permeated the street. Young people were comparing their respective states of “rolling”. Some were coming down from it, others were at their high point, no one seemed particularly grounded. People that I sensed would have never showed any support to the gay community back in 1989 wanted to be part of the biggest party in the city in 2019.
Is this what we want Pride to become? Another excuse to get out of your mind drunk or stoned so one can stagger, scream, and puke all over Boystown?
I’m still such a country bumpkin’ living in the big city.
Back in late April I remarked to Earl that the department stores and the like were starting to put up Pride decorations like Christmas before Halloween. Pride has become a cash cow for so many outside of the “traditional” gay community. I’m old. I still interpret a gay flag on a business as a business owned by a member of the gay community. But it doesn’t really mean that anymore. The cynical side of me wonders if the pride flag really means, “hell yeah, we want your gay dollars”.
I wonder how many of partiers in the country’s first gayborhood would have been part of the rebellion back at the Stonewall in New York City in 1969. Would they have resisted police harassment? Or would they have fled the scene out the back door in search of a better party.
Perhaps we need a reminder as to why some of us Gen Xers and Baby Boomers had to spit back back in the day.
