Month: December 2021

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Blinkie lights

The other day, my home lights stopped working. I’m using Google Home. This was slightly more than an inconvenience, because I’ve got 14 of them, all GE. Google support said to factory reset all of them. OK, that should be easy.

  • Start with light off for at least 5 seconds.
  • Turn on for 8 seconds.
  • Turn off for 2 seconds.
  • Repeat this process 5 more times, or until the light bulb flashes. The light will flash 3 times if it has been successfully reset.

Uh huh. off-on-off six times. For 14 bulbs. Not gonna happen. I am a System Administrator, which means that I am lazy. I do not do anything twice that I can automate. I wrote an Arduino program to do it.

Times six. Times 14. But screwing in a bulb and pushing a button (and drinking a beer, the beer fridge is right behind the table) beats the hell out of on-off-on-off-on-off…

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And done.

So it’s been a wonderful run, with really good folks doing all the work. I might be back – but I will give retirement a chance first.

But it’s really weird. Had lunch at North Country; I drove home, pulled in, went to the office to check email, and… oh.

Drove down to Modern Methods, https://modernmethodsbrew.com/, sat down, pulled out my phone to check email, and… oh.

This will take some getting used to.

Tomorrow morning, I am certain I will come downstairs to the office, log on, and… oh.

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Two days to go!

I’m probably eating my last regular breakfast tomorrow, because I do not plan on getting up on the ugly side of 9AM with any regularity. So I’m going to have to start making omelets for lunch.

omelet
American omelet

Two tips:

  • Salt your eggs about 15 minutes before you start cooking them. Loosen up those proteins! https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-american-omelettes-ham-and-cheese
  • Shred your own cheese. C’mon. It takes ten seconds. You won’t have sawdust or cornstarch in your omelet, and pre-shredded does a terrible job of melting. I’ve got a go-to aged gouda that is great in an omelet. Think about it. What’s the idea behind pre-shredded cheese? You don’t want it to clump together. What do you want to do with melted cheese? You want it to clump together.
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Witcher Expansion Packs

So finished bingeing the Netflix Wither show. Really liked it, even though they can call Dandelion ‘Jaskier’ as many times as they want, but he’s still Dandelion. Sorry, I’m an Old. Cleveland plays baseball at the Jake and basketball at the Gund.

Anyway. I’ve been looking for a good PC game; I loved the entire Witcher series, and so I got the Wild Hunt expansion pack. It’s the two packs – ‘Blood and Wine’ and ‘Heart of Stone’ – and cost me a whopping $8. I’m really enjoying it so far. But I have to remember how to play Gwent!

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Four days to go!

Corey and I have a tradition of sharing a Corsendonk Christmas every year. I always buy one the year before and let it age. This year’s was especially tasty, and I suspect we didn’t drink it in 2020 because… well, because 2020.

Corsendonk Christmas Ale
Corsendonk Christmas Ale
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Five days to go!

Thursday is my last day. So what do my boss and my Tech Lead do? Take the week off and leave me in charge. I’m trying to figure out what to do in a meeting that would serve them both right!

Corey got me some great glasses for Christmas:

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Retirement is imminent

27 days left, so I’m working on the web site this weekend.

I’m working through the ‘WordPress Explained’ manual, so expect some weird and lame entries in here for now.  But there will eventually be travel, beer, and pinball.  Not necessarily in that order.

First scheduled trip is to Belgium in May!

Flying into Amsterdam, train to Antwerp, then to Ghent, Bruges, and back to Amsterdam. Nine days total so I’m not even going to try to make it to Brussels.

Here’s a link to my ancient blogspot.com.

Me. And me.