TubaOrNotTuba

Today I made a cup of coffee. Not for the first time but it was different. We have changed machines. Just a little. New grind noise. New draw time. Buttons in exactly the same places. An accessory added. Things that I could do before with my eyes closed will now have to be re-learned. Adjusted. I do have the same coffee cup and my variety of coffee is identical so I will adjust. When I think about it we go through things like this throughout our lives. Similar, but not the same. It redefines routine it makes identical into one of those modifier’s that we cannot always use. So, what provoked this. Well, our other, trusted coffee machine has become stubborn. Recalcitrant. Buttons produced noise instead of coffee. We still bought the same model which we happen to like for a whole list of reasons. Going to another manufacturer would increase the learning curve time and leave us wondering whether or not going forward we had made the right decision. This way, we have earned another number of years where our are most used appliance is simply there. I will learn what needs to be done with a modified strategy. And the coffee? It remains the same. One of those constants that brings us joy. Are we too old for change? I think not. However we have learned to choose the battles we want to fight and our coffee is one that we have already mastered. Why make life difficult. As well, we get a new warranty which is worth more than you think. I have other ways to prepare my coffee but this is the best for me. Simply put things in place push the button and count. That’s how I do time. Second by second. With that I should probably go and get a second cup of coffee. To take me through to supper time.

All around the province there are remnants. If you go for a walk along the shore, and I warn you, it is a long walk, you can see many lighthouses. Each one unique to its location. Each one required for navigation by the ships. I believe that all of the remaining light houses are automated which means that a whole section of the economy has been retired. Nowadays, ships are not dependant on these beacons. I am trying to imagine if there are other means of transportation that are no longer as important. Obviously, the automobile has remained in place but I can remember when the bus to town was a part of our lives. There was even a designated bedroom at my grandmother’s house kept in place for the bus driver to spend the night, at the end of a run. Instead, we have traded it all in on a large bridge that does not even belong to the country. Sure, the country built the bridge but then gave it away. Right now they’re trying to find a buyer for the construction yard where the sections of that bridge were fabricated. Decades have gone by with no closure to this. My own take on this, is that we do not do a very good job of keeping our transportation systems running for a very long time. In particular, the loss of the railroad leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions. This was a vibrant system with hundreds, nay thousands of people working. Now just something between the pages of a good book.

Around our house, in the corners of certain rooms, we have some pretty interesting technology. Most of the time we forget there there. Until there is a power fire alarm or power failure when we hear them. Alarms. Now the smoke detectors get a lot of attention because they’re very loud. But there are others almost as important that we notice only when they break. In this case small battery boxes that’s served to keep gadgets running when the power is out. It does not happen very often so they fall off our radar. Until they get to the end of their useful life. There has been one, downstairs, behind the door. Farthest from the life centre of the house that when the alarm finally goes off it can be missed for days at a time. In fact, it was only because I went to the basement that I found one of them. What is that strange sound? Is there a mosquito trapped somewhere in the house? Now although gadgets can be fixed, apparently, it is much simpler to bring up Amazon and purchase a replacement. When a UPS becomes U/S, you bring it to the local recycling centre. I have no idea what happens after that. There was a time when I would have been tasked to purchase new batteries and do the fixes. Not worth my time anymore. Turns out that their replacement battery costs about the same as a whole replacement unit. An economic model that leaves me puzzled. What would happen if we simply did not bother with the units? A computer that needs be restarted? That happens anyways because when you unplug the computer from a UPS you have to restart. It also does not help that each company uses their own alarm system. Does it beep? Is it a single tone? Are there flashing lights? This most recent one should be replaced by next week. And then I will go back to normal mode. Waiting for the next one to give up. I imagine that my parents had no idea about such things when they were my age. Even my children are oblivious to the devices. But for a while I worked around a lot of important computers and every alarm sound was treated as the most obvious and necessary moment of the working day. I am glad that my other computers don’t have this problem. At least, as far as I know. And As for all the other appliances around the house I’m going to go with experience. I have never heard the stove give off such an alarm.

Over and over again, I proved myself that I have too much idle time. This afternoon, I began to wonder. How large was my family home. The one where some of my family still lives. The one built according to a standard floor plan developed around the time of the Second World War. And I have a number of ways to find out. The simplest way would be to go and drive over there with a tape measure and do my own measurements. Not so simple really because if property is 2 days away. I could also ask a family member but most of them are busy. Too busy for such a thing. I have a nephew who lives not far away who is in the trades as they say. He knows how to use a tape measure so that might be a possibility. Then I started to think outside the box. What if I went through the various for sale notices on the Internet and found a similar property. Remember it is a standard floor plan. Or I could call up a taxation notice because in many municipalities those are also available online. Let us be even more creative. I have an app that would allow me to call up a satellite image and to make a good approximation of the floor plan based on those photos. Or, I could search the archives that are out there of floor plans developed for the government back 80 years ago. What about if I called a local realtor to see if they had something similar in their archives. As you can see there are too many possibilities for me to act immediately or rationally. Remember I do not need to know how large the house was. This is just idle thought. In the end I will probably do none of the above. I will simply wonder for years to come. At least I know how large my own house is. I did those measurements years ago. And I recorded them in a number of apps because that’s what you do when you have too much time and too much technology available. I can even provide a 3D walkthrough of the house with imaginary furniture. But I won’t. Knowing that I can is enough.

Depending upon where you live, weather events are celebrated in unique ways. Here the local TV station shows us pictures of peoples’ front doors mirrored by snow. It’s kind of our thing. The current storm is just about over except for the clean up. It was an epic day. The simple stuff like schools being closed. The once in a century things like a by election being postponed. Close to here the snow plow got stuck. Really stuck. They had to send out a large snow blower to free the monster. And we have nothing compared to the people in the next province to us. When someone gets 150 centimetres of snow, life stops temporarily. Apparently visits to the hospital are down. All the trains ran on time but that was easy. We do not do trains anymore. Here, at our house the deck was cleared several times. And with enough snow moved out of the way the car is back in I think it’s normal place. The RV did not have enough traction to go anywhere. We have enough milk on hand to get us through probably the next round of snow. There will be one because storms can last for days. They even closed to local ski centre. Too much of a good thing. As for mail delivery and parcel delivery, we will never know. If they don’t come to your door you probably don’t have anything to worry about. No real traffic on the road outside. Don’t get me wrong. Winter is a wonderful season much better than the one we call mud. And for all those people that want to have fields to plow, wells to drink from next summer this snow is welcome.

People age. Some more graciously than others. Or is it gracefully I’m never sure. Similarly our appliances do the same thing. Shorter life stand spans but a similar curve. When you first pull them out of their boxes they’re eager. Like puppies. Then they settle news routines and you hope they will live forever but they rarely do. We’re at the point, after about a decade we’re starting to show signs of aging. The appliances, I mean. Or microwave oven has a mind of its own. Quite apart from the computer. Will it work on any given day? We no longer know. Always best to have a Plan B as they say. Today, the coffee machine started acting oddly. There is a vibrating pump inside the machine and when things get old the switches on the front no longer activate the pump do you know how bad a coffee can taste if it’s made without pressure? I do. Now, we do have some options. There is a small capsule machine that has limited number of doses available. But it’s not the beans I prefer. I also have some older drip machines around. Or better put, drip devices. We will have to decide what happens next perhaps, after good night’s rest, the coffee machine will jump back into its proper place in the routine. It is the machine we use most often in the house so it has kind of an important place. And with the right amount of money I can bring in a brand new one with a real warranty. We’re not there yet. We remain filled with hope. I shudder to think what will happen when one of the other more important appliances gives up will I have warm milk or dirty clothes or… I’m probably forgetting some devices. Anyhow that’s where I’m at right now.

When The Weather Channel issues a special statement I take notice. When they continue to say that this one will be epic, I sit up with both eyes open. If they go a step further and mentioned snowfall amounts in excess of 1meter, I started to worry. What is an issue right now from them is probably the most strongly worded forecast that we have had in the last decade and I know it is a forecast; we will not know until it’s all over, whether or not this was just hyperbole. But I do trust the weather people they are usually given to speak with a measured tone. It does help that the upcoming storm is actually forecast for south of here. You know like a day to the South. I am smart enough to know when to stay home and that is exactly what I am going to do. I like my house. It is warm and dry in here and if we do get a meter of snow with the wind I will not test my limits by going camping in a tent. However not everyone is as fortunate. We have tent cities now. Something not even promised back in the good old days. You know, if you don’t be good I’ll make you go to sleep in a tent, no this is real. All we can do is wait and see. Hope that this is just a warning. Somehow, the concept of going from no snow to a meter in the trees is foreign. The kind of weather that people get in the mountains. But I live close to sea level and the biggest hill around here… we don’t have a big hill around here. So I will keep you up to date and if my house is lost in the drifts I will try to send directions on how to find me. I must not panic. I must not panic. See. Almost like a mantra. My spirit is calmer already but I do wish I had a few sled dogs.

Let me start by getting the important question out of the way. No shadows were spotted outside. No fat rodents, either. That puts a real hole in the forecasting models. Next. We did have an interesting phone call today from the people that provide dogs to needy humans. I know dogs are also needy but that’s beside the point. As conversations tend to do we moved on to other topics. Adaptive technologies. The colour mentioned a special spatula that is 2 sided and will keep you from losing your burger why you prepare the thermometer they will tell you in a loud voice whether or not the cooking temperature has been achieved. And the only question I could ask myself is, how many burgers do you need to eat in a year before you need search tools. Perhaps a different diet is required. A grilled cheese sandwich would also give you that little bit of protein. But what do I know. I have not used the barbecue since it was taken over by a colony of wasps. One whole season of poorly cooked meat avoided. We’re now trying to decide whether or not we want to put the barbecue back in service. Some great opportunities to burn ourselves if you know what I mean. Is this the time to go vegan? I will have to think that one through. Also does a talking thermometer talk all the time. Like if you set it down does it just keep saying over and over again the same sentence. Almost enough to send me off to the arms of Amazon to see what it would cost to have such an interesting piece of kit in a drawer. I wonder what my neighbours do. Do they throw the steak on the grill and wait for the order to become so strong that they want to call the fire department? I really should have asked more questions during the phone call because the colour seemed to know more about this sort of thing than I. Do they train dogs to recognize when meat is cooked? I mean from my background the dog will eat it no matter what the state blue pink red brown black. At least with a grilled cheese sandwich you can have a decent chance I’ve not ruining an expensive meal. And as for a rodent sitting outside my door. No. It did not happen. I have been told that it snowed today because it’s winter.

I never life without a schedule. Almost. I still have to deal with the sunrise and sunset and this season but for the rest of it, everything is available on the web somewheres. At the time I choose. With the single exception of my local news and weather. No big deal. There is not much news around here. But the biggest distraction is the filler. By that I am referring to the two and three minutes interludes between sections of the program when they play this loop. A time when they could be presenting commercials but choose not to. And the loop has one very distracting feature. It is non musical. The phrase lengths are determined by some algorithm that has nothing to do with what the original composer intended. Very distracting when you like to keep time by tapping or dancing around. Throw in an added bar here and there and people will fall. I suppose that could be one way to create news content. There’s probably some deep, significant reason. Probably related to the contracts they signed for advertising content. But I really wish that someone would take the time to actually listen to what the rest of us here have too listen to, while they’re off enjoying ads. See if they appreciate the musical madness. It actually makes me think of those videos you see where dogs play the piano. Dogs are also not great musicians. I must not rant about things that I cannot control. I do have a mute button, which I use from time to time. And I could have to get all my news from newspapers. Is that still a thing? I have not seen a daily newspaper in years.