Category: Grab Bag
Stuff about stuff
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Other World Problems?
I think this would be somewhere beyond 1st World Problems.
Spending too much on jet fuel?
The E1000 GX is the ONLY aircraft that flies over 300 knots on less than 50 gallons of jet fuel per hour. Combine that with the thrill of a 4,000 feet-per-minute climb out, both achievable even when fully loaded with 1,100 pounds of passengers and luggage.
Now that’s Epic.Jet fuel is currently $2.25/gal. I know eh! Shockingly cheap!
Still, flying this plane at 50 gal/hr is only $112.5/hr
A drop in the bucket compared to all the other costs of having a jet plane ?
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Read this for encouragement
When you hope, hope big, hope boldly, hope dangerously. Hope with the understanding that hope, itself, is a force, a medicine, and an agent of change.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel.
You can weather the storm, walk through the valley, and hold on during the midnight hour.
A new horizon awaits you, and your first step on this new path of your life journey starts right now.
Our ultimate hope is found in the name of Jesus. In fact, just take a moment and say the name of Jesus out loud right now.
There is power in that name.
The clouds will soon pass. A new chapter is yet to be written. Breathe deeply and allow hope to enter your soul one more time.
Pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
You can make it. You will make it. You are a remarkably resilient person.
You’re not done yet!
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Love thy Neighbour
There has been a change in the neighbourhood and we’re all getting an opportunity to put into practice the Great Commandment to love your neighbour as you love yourself.
The back story. We live on a boulevard, a fancy name for an extra big bay. There is also an elementary school on our boulevard. With the school comes school buses. The corner near us is fairly tight and the bigger school buses have difficulty making the corner and keeping off people’s front yard. This problem is compounded in the winter when there are snow banks everywhere and when people park their cars right around the corner. Now the road is super narrow, and the buses have pretty much no choice except to cut the corner across a neighbours front yard leaving very big and deep ruts.
To deal with this the city has taken action and this sign arrived yesterday.
The no stopping direction is from our driveway right around the corner towards the school Seems like a good idea to handle the issue of making it easier for the buses to get around the corner. There are a lot of buses twice a day. But, this new signage has knocked out about 8-10 parking spots. For sure this will not be welcomed by quite a few people and willmake visitor parking much more awkward.
Enter the neighbour who has “issues” with the new parking restrictions. This neighbour had five cars, a long driveway and a two car garage. However, two or more of the cars are using the public road as their personal parking lot. Generally, two cars from this neighbour are parked overnight on the road and not in front of their house but in front of another neighbour’s house. This is not good etiquette at the best of times.
Within hours of the sign showing up there are many neighbours on the street expressing their thoughts on the signs, sometime quite heatedly. The ‘special’ neighbour is quite unhappy, voicing his opinion that I can park anywhere I want and I have lots of money to pay lots of tickets. Basically, “Bring it on!” This should be interesting.
A few more hours later, with several cars now parked in a no stopping zone, a police cruiser shows up. There are several more intense conversations with the police officer and many of the neighbours including the “special” neighbour. We find out on the grape vine later that the police were not there about the parking but because Mister “Special” has allegedly assaulted one of the other neighbours by splashing her with dirty water three time. She is in her 80s, had a stroke and uses a walker.
This morning the city is back and there is an addition to the controversial sign in an effort to clarify things. ?
I’m a “NEW” sign, just in case you didn’t notice. So far tonight there is one car in the “no stopping zone”. I’m guessing that a few folks have called that in.
And then there is this. I didn’t really think this whole issue would affect me but a car has pulled up in front of our house and parked in front of a fire hydrant. The occupants went down the street to Mr. “Special’s” house.
Pretty sure this is too close to the fire hydrant ? About an hour later I’m in the back yard with a friend BBQing some steaks and we notice a City of Winnipeg Parking Enforcement car stopped at the end of our driveway.
Sure enough the car above got a ticket and another car in the “new” no stopping zone got a ticket.
Just to be clear, we did not call in and complain (rat them out). The timing seems a little funny and either somebody in the hood called it in or the City automatically ups the monitoring in areas where parking are restrictions are changed.
We’re now thinking we can rent our driveway out for parking. What do you think?
Update: 2023/05/16
Sometime overnight, under the cover of darkness, several of the new parking signs were “removed”!
The place where the sign used to be. Hmmm. The neighbourhood grape vine confirms that three signs were uprooted and tossed into the school yard around the corner. I noticed a City of Winnipeg Parking Enforcement vehicle drive by this morning so I guess the city is well aware of the situation. Seems like things are heating up. I wonder what’s next?
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Farts in a Bag
You know how you can sense when you’re about to fart? You just know you have a second or two to decide if you can let fly safely. Perhaps your in a close quarters situation and you can attempt to hold it in to avoid any potential embarrassment.
I have those sensations of an impending fart but discretionary farting is no longer an option. The air flows freely and somewhat noisily as it reverberated around in the bag. Sometimes it’s no big deal and other times you want to crawl under a rock. Such is life these days.
Another exciting experience is waking up in the morning to discover you’ve apparently been farting quite a bit during the night. The bag is full and bulging like you have the Hindenburg attached to your stomach and it’s trying to lift off! All hands on deck! Prepare for an emergency evacuation!
Sorry, I just had to let it all out ?
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Out of Control
So much of the anxiety arises from the parts of ourselves that want to plan and control and know the outcome of things. Of course, none of us knows these things, and life is largely out of our control.
breath prayer – Christine Valrters Paintner -
It is finished
The car repair that is ?. Today, the Santa Fe was picked up, repaired and returned to our house after 215 days of waiting for a fuel pump.
How long is 215 days?
7 months and 1 day
Or:
- 18,576,000 seconds
- 309,600 minutes
- 5160 hours
- 30 weeks and 5 days
- 58.90% of a common year (365 days)
It was a long time which included a rental car, a car loaded to us by a friend and a loaner from the dealer.
Some of the back story.
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Smart Home
I’m beginning to get more and more interested in the Smart Home or home automation now that it seems like there is a unifying standard that is beginning to take hold with several of the big players in this market place.
So, what is a “Smart Home”? Well, according to these guys…
A smart home refers to a convenient home setup where appliances and devices can be automatically controlled remotely from anywhere with an internet connection using a mobile or other networked device. Devices in a smart home are interconnected through the internet, allowing the user to control functions such as security access to the home, temperature, lighting, and a home theater remotely.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smart-home.aspIt started innocently a couple of years ago with a spur of the moment decision to buy a Google Mini speaker which was followed by a couple of smart plugs. Nothing to crazy but when were watching TV in the basement it’s “Hey Google, turn on/off the lights”.
In spite of being in deep with Apple products and services, I’d basically ignored the Apple Home app and products, until recently.
I started getting interested in upgrading my stereo, specifically the upstairs speakers in a way that would allow me to stream audio, initially Apple Music, to these existing speakers from the Pioneer receiver in the basement. However, the receiver is quite a few years old now and had no such capability. What to do? Well, a little internet searching and voila, a relatively inexpensive solution was found.
I settled on the Belkin SoundForm ConnectAudio Adapter with AirPlay 2. A few days later thanks to Amazon Prime it arrives at the house.
But in the meantime I was still contemplating updating the speakers, after all they are 15+ years old and a couple of things have changed over the years. With streaming in mind a new speakers had to work with Google and now more importantly with Airplay 2. More searching and product reviews on Airplay speakers etc. and the Sonos One was looking pretty good but pricey. Then I remembered that I’d looked a speakers in Ikea of all places and they have some bookshelf speakers that are Ikea branded Sonos products. The Ikea speakers had the features I was interested in and almost half the price of the Sonos One. This was on a Sunday and on the way to church we drive right by Ikea so a nice new pair of SYMFONISK wi-fi speakers came home with us.
SYMFONISK speakers The setup of these speakers had a few bumps along the road but after doing a factory reset on both the install went flawlessly. Streaming away in stereo to my heart content. But hey, what about the old stereo receiver speakers?
Well, the Belkin SoundForm adapter arrived on Monday and gets hooked into the Pioneer receiver and now I have another Airplay streaming device that can send the audio to both downstairs and/or upstairs speakers. Very nice, but still a minor detail to be resolved to make them easier to use. The stereo upstairs speakers are powered by a separate pair of power amps that have to be turned on. While the Pioneer receiver and all it’s components can be managed from upstairs by the multi-room remote I got way back in the day, the separate power amps require a trip to the basement to power them on. Smart Home to the rescue.
I re-purposed one of the smart plugs from a light that I hardly ever used to the power amps in the basement. Now I can power up the amps and the Pioneer receiver from upstairs and stream whatever from the iPhone/iPad etc. to the upstairs stereo speakers in both the kitchen and/or living room. I’m liking this!
This Smart Home stuff is now looking pretty interesting! Remember the “unifying standard” that I mentioned at the start of this post? It’s “Matter” and “Thread” and Apple, Google, Amazon and others are rapidly adopting this standard in their software and hardware. A good article explains all this is on The Verge called “What matters about Matter the new smart home standard”
Matter is a common language for smart home devices designed to simplify everything about the smart home, from purchase to setup and everyday use. Its biggest promise is making smart devices work with each other across platforms and ecosystems, no matter who made them. No more checking for the “works with” HomeKit, Google Home, or Alexa badges — Matter devices work with all of them. It’s also entirely local, so gadgets should respond more quickly. Yes, Matter should make your smart light bulb work just as fast as your non-smart light switch.
https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matter-smart-home-products-thread-wifi-explainerThis is now my new criteria for smart home device purchases and I’m looking forward to experimenting with a few more devices in the future.
