2022 Nerdventure

So what was my New Year's Resolution(s)? Since 2007 it seems that I list out my resolutions for the new year.  I don’t necessarily believe it’s healthy to only have plans to better oneself at the first of January, but an ongoing plan to grow into a better human should be our natural state. But hey, sure dedicate to a better plan at the first of the year. Who am I to judge?

My major resolve is to break up with Amazon. Yes, online shopping was the best plan during the 2020 pando, but I have become accustomed to click-click-click and new things appear at the door. I don’t feel I’m giving my money to the best company when I need USB cords, or a cat riding a narwhal into battle themed shower curtain. So I have promised that I will find alternative sources for items in my quest to fill my emotional pit of want and need with material goods. 

But, shopping via Amazon is nothing compared to my connection to the beast via technology. Mostly through lightbulbs. Well, and smart, talking home assistants. As you know I started with smart-home tech way, way, way back. Being able to time and remotely switch lighting was the ultimate in cool for me. The ramped up tremendously in the early teens. Around 2015 I invested heavily in a system using local networks and internet hubs to automate lights, sensors and really anything that was home techie. Without going into too much technical detail every light in my house was automated. This means that Amazon’s home assistant could operate via voice control. I could ask Amazon to turn on the bedroom lights to a pre-set scene while I walked down the hall to the bedroom. It really is amazing. 

The future technology of never touching a light switch also means that Amazon’s networks have access to my home network.In simplistic terms.  And more and more it’s striking me as odd. I’m not even sure why. Yes, the assistant is listening 24/7 to human speech, waiting for the command word, but it's also about having an internal network versus a cloud somewhere. So….. this means I have to learn stuff. And I always avoid learning new stuff. I will now have to learn PC stuff, as you know I’m a mac fangirl. So here goes my 2022 nerdventure. Wish me luck as I learn home automation tech. Godspeed. 

Boxes of Books

A couple of months ago I discovered I had a second bedroom...

After living in my house for a year I stopped by the open door of my second bedroom in my two-bedroom home and gazed upon my un-packed boxes of books. A new thought just naturally appeared in my head. It was time they saw the light again assembled on the bookcases. In 2019 my books were sealed away in highly-taped moving boxes, and shipped across the fair city of Denver.  These boxes were left scattered about this forgotten room in front of  empty bookcases and unassembled desk parts. The boxes sat were the movers left them at the start of that year.

The door was left ajar as the days blurred into weeks blending into months. It was a year of ordering the electronic textbook version of school books. A year of not reading for pleasure as the quiet downtime was too much to handle in the quite house. Solitary confinement for the books and the reader. Instead there was take-a-way in front of the TV as distraction entertainment filled the place of books.

Then it happened; I walked into my second bedroom and began to fill up the shelves. I assembled my desk, pushed up my chair, and began to read again. It is nice to be back. 

Snow Day

We have a snow day today in my neck of the woods. I was actually surprised as the announcement of closing schools and local businesses scrolled across the bottom of the screen on this morning’s news. There seems to only be six inches of snow, back when I was a kid we’d have to march up hill to the school bus in two feet of snow.



My house this morning.



Did I just make a statement about “back when I was a kid”?

Great. Snow bound and apparently I get old and crotchety. It is true; I grew up on a ranch, far outside of a small town. The house sat on a long dirt road and it was quite a march up the hill to the paved state highway and the waiting school bus. We were unceremoniously thrown out of the house and told to make it to the school bus on time, but either way to not come back. My long feathery hair would flap in the snow filled air as I traversed the barren, snow banked tundra. My color changing moon boots crunching in the fresh tire tracks, attempting to be quiet and not alert the coyotes.

Okay, they weren’t coyotes. But, the neighbor’s dogs were really mean and would come knock me down and lick me. Their tongue marks would freeze on my face. So, that was bad.

What I'd be doing right now,
if I didn't have to work.

Now I don’t have to leave the house, as I work from home. This also means, I can continue working as the other half and the dog join the neighbors as they organize a block snowball fight in the middle of the street. This will be followed by a History Channel marathon, tucked under the down comforter cocooned the middle of the bed.

I’ll spend my day coordinating Excel spreadsheets in my office. I guess this is payback for being able to spend most of my days in gym shorts and a pillow made late ‘80s Bobby Brown coiffure instead of adorning my thick neck with a tie and commuting to an office. So, go! Enjoy your snow day. I’ll be here. Alone. All I need is my Excel spreadsheets. My Excel spreadsheets and my office chair. My Excel spreadsheets, my office chair and my world wide internets.

Dining Room

It took the entire day. From 10a.m. to midnight, but I finally have my gay boy dream. A new dining room.


Around 10 in the morning we hitched up a U-Haul trailer and headed towards the blue and yellow of gay Mecca. IKEA. Home of flat packed fabulous.

Already aware exactly what we wanted, the plan was to get some breakfast at the IKEA KAFE, write down the numbers using their tiny golf pencils and load up the trailer of the couple of flat cardboard boxes. We would then whisk home for some hex key assembly so we could sit down for dinner on our new dining room table and six chairs, along with a sideboard to complement the look.

Plans are funny things. They’re so flexible some times. Did you know that IKEA has two-hundred, twenty-seven million dining room chairs to choose from? I did. So on during the very first trip I stated “Oh, cool! I love these chairs! Right here! These are the chairs we should get for our dining room?!” So, when we arrived in the dining room area of the store, freshly filled up on Swedish pancakes I knew the plan. Then, two hours later…. The homosexual life partner and I needed relationship counseling. That’s when we met Chrissie, the lesbian IKEA relationship counselor.

Chrissie helped us make healthy choices about our relationship. That coming to a 100% agreement on what type of chairs we want will never happen: that compromise is healthy. Chrissie taught us a lot that day. She taught me that when your partner is a complete wacked job and just can’t make a decision that maybe you should dump his ass in the department and go shop for while.

Every 15 minutes I would call him. At one point he had 10 dining room chairs lined up in the main isle and asked everyone that walked by, who appeared to have taste take a vote. My pick, won every time. After a long shopping spree on the lower floor I returned to find him with a total, final decision. Leather. It had taken four hours to decide, yet we were ready to leave. Then as we marched to the bins we pasted a vignette with my pick, the hive mind was changed.

After 5 ½ hours we loaded up the truck and headed home. Mexican food, a pizza and two trips to Homo Depot I had my new dining room. Around hour two the question was asked “why don’t we just go to Ethan Allen?” Now I know why we didn’t, if you work for something you appreciate it more.

Fall

I had to put on a hoodie this morning to take the dog for a walk.


When this happens, I am always reassured that Fall is my favorite season. This is due to the break in the weather. The long, dry summers of Colorado turn into cool autumns. The hot, summer storms end and crisp mornings begin.

Part of this love for cooler weather is the end to air conditioning. I can now open the windows for the first time in months. In the evening, I can crack open the window as I slip into my crisp, cool new IKEA sheets and duvet. A summer of hot sheets is now behind me.

I slip into a cool sheets and drift off to sleep listening to the outside world. The sound of the AC droning on and on is gone and instead I can start to hear the owls coming awake and starting their work day.

As I wrap my duvet around me, I’m thankful for the cool room surrounding me. I listen to the night sounds in our small fictional town wafting in the window. A train blows its whistle in the distance, I’m quickly asleep.