scott

Let there be Scones

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With everyone in the house in various stages of being sick or recovering we opted to stay in for the day. That meant parts of art projects, Lego building, naps (for the adults not the kids) and of course scones.

MC had been wanting to make the scones for a while. When my friend was visiting a few weeks ago she opted to make muffins instead of scones. That delay provided us much deliciousness today. After dinner Amelia asked for “the things that you made for me and are sweet.” MC and I both assumed she meant the scones. Sadly no butter for her or her sister. I had enough butter for all three of us

My Decor Choices in the New House, Oh I Mean The Blog Has a New Name

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That picture is the decor of the master bedroom in our new house. Ok maybe not. I am not sure if MC would be cool with that. I really did not ask. If she is then I might totally go for that minus the monolith. Unless the Monolith has a flat screen in it.

The main reason for this post is after I wrote my blog renaming post yet before it was published this Wednesday I came up with what I feel is a great name for this site, A Scott Odyssey.  I have had a few names over the years but have never focused on the name aspect of the site identity.  I have fixated more on the URL and as i have written before i kept coming back to what i am using today.  With my track record in waffling on names and URL’s i may change both in 6 months.

I think “A Scott Odyssey” is something fun and semi descriptive enough.  I also feel that it avoids all the things I highlighted I do not want to do when I renamed. On one hand writing about this is too much technical side of the blog itself however this is the minutia I OCD over. I like the Odyssey part and the play on words from 2001. Life is an Odyssey and this move we are taking is the next Chapter in it. Here is to another 14 years of writing at “A Scott Odyssey”.

The W Sisters and the Story of The Missing Wedding Ring

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What must have been 6 or more months ago I lost my wedding ring.  Needless to say i was not pleased.  What was really annoying is that I almost never take it off other than to go to bed.  My youngest has been caught on several occasions taking the ring and walking around with it.  When i noticed it was missing i made the assumption that she was the culprit.

The ring stayed missing.  Even when MC lost and then found her engagement ring T had moved.  I was pretty confident that the ring was in the house.  As we are planning to move I was hopeful that when we packed up our bedroom I would find it.

After a few months of not finding the ring I broke down and bought a new one.  Where the last one was a nice Platinum ring I bought a $40 titanium one.  it was weirdly light.  I figured i wanted to wear something but i wasn’t prepared to give up hope about my original ring.  That meant i wasn’t ready to fork over money on a gold or platinum ring to replace the original one.

Today I wore my Pea coat for the first time of the season.  As I was fishing for my keys as I was coming home with the girls I felt something metal that wasn’t keys.  I thought at first I lost my new wedding ring.  Even before i looked at it i knew it wasn’t the new one.  it was much heavier.  My hopes went up.  I was still wearing my new ring.  I had finally solved the mystery of the wedding ring.

I am now wondering how it got in there.  I can’t remember taking it off and putting it in there so it may have fallen off when i grabbed something in my pocket.  then i didn’t use the coat since the season was over.  I now feel a little bad that i thought A did it but she is totally the usual suspect on stuff like that.

Next up for my newly found ring is to go and get it resized.  I had it sized down right after I lost the weight in 2013 however even after they did the work it still felt a bit loose.  Comparing the new and old rings it is apparent the new one fits much more snug and still comes off pretty easy.  i will try to bring it in within the next week so i can start wearing it again.  I am so glad that mystery is solved.  I still would look at A for a alibi first if something like this happens again.

 

Expat Blogging Minus The Catchy Title

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One thing I want to continue to do is to blog internal about my experiences. Since our family is moving overseas it makes logical sense to write a lot more about being an expat and all the new things were going to be doing in England. In researching our overseas move I did a lot of searching the Internet for blogs to follow of Americans living in Ireland and England. Some of those blogs have been pretty entertaining and informative. Many more of them were either sites left unattended with no recent posts or just dead links. On one hand I was surprised I found a bunch of active blogs. On the other hand  all the sites I came across referenced all the other sites highlighting how small of a community that was.

One thing I decided I did not want to do was change the name of my blog to some catchy phrase to note that I am an American and I’m in England. from all the blog reading I have done I know that’s the thing to do however I’m going to buck the trend.

I might still rename the site since Blog @ Scott.ac just isn’t that catchy. Since I no longer use my powerz.org domain name the old title of the site “Powerpedia” is no longer applicable. I did love that name however. Going to look for any previous posts over the last 14 years that explained powerz. I must’ve wrote about that if not I will need to. I’m thinking of a name something like Scott-o-Pedia? I am not sure. I’m open to ideas as long as they’re not catchy on American in London phrase of some sort.

My Half Baked Review Of My iPhone X

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I got lucky and my iPhone X arrived on launch day va the original 1-2 weeks late.

Initial feedback I have is good. The size was the main reason I wanted it. For this size screen in this size phone it makes it totally worth it. Notice the size in both photos. The X is the middle phone. Barely noticeable difference to the 6S and super small vs the 7+. Feels really food to hold vs the 7+.

Most apps worked without any issues. Several I use do not have an Z optimized version so things look smaller for now. For launch day I was pleased by how many apps were optimized for the new screen size. My only major app issue is Airwatch that I need for work apps. It would not work and would keep looking me to authenticate. I had to remove the app and reinstall it and everything was fine.

The cheap old Wireless charging pad I had did not work even if it was supposed to. The iPhone saw it but after about 30 minutes I saw no difference in charge. I need to investigate getting a better one. I will likely wait till I am in London for that so I don’t have to deal with her another power plug converter.

For my most expensive iPhone yet I am pleased with the upgrade. Now I have to prepare and ebay my 7+. I will not miss the hearty device.

Better Late Than Not at all: iOS 11 GM

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I am becoming terrible with drafts and the blog. I wrote this in mid September (this year at least) and never published or scheduled this.

It is that time of year. The time after the Apple announcement listing release dates for iOS and when it actually is available for the general public. The thing is if you are in the beta program you can get the General Master version now. I dabble in the beta versions but so not put them on my iPhone. With the GM out it is always a question of do I install it on all my devices. It is always a question yet I usually do install it.

So far in the past 24 hours I have installed it on my iPad Pro and thought it was great. That got me to install it on my work iPhone. Once I knew that was stable in installed on my personal iPhone. Now either everything will stop working together or I am set!

Next up do I play with a late beta of macOS on my laptop?

This isn’t so topical anymore since the final versions of iOS and macOS have been out for a while. I didn’t want my writing to goto waist.

The W Sisters and The Story of Scotch on the Rocks

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The girls love to pretend play. A lot of times I love pretending they’re taking our orders at a restaurant and then bringing us food. Other times they like to play school. They also just like to clean around the house which I highly encourage.

One day recently T came over to me and asked me what I wanted to order. I told her a Jack and Coke. Her reply was “Jack and coke tastes yucky pick something else.”

Next I asked her for a scotch on the rocks. Her reply was “Scotch on the rocks taste like rocks”. That’s when I just asked for a Diet Coke and she brought me one.

After I received my pretend Diet Coke I wanted to try again on the scotch so I asked for a scotch need. I was then told that I already had a drink. That conversation ended quickly.

I get up at 3 AM for only a few things…

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There only a few things that will get me up at 3 AM. The two main reasons are A and T. They do that more times than I would like but overall they are great kids.  Other things might include a flight that I really couldn’t get at any other time but first thing in the morning. Even then I would try to avoid it at all costs. Then of course there’s an Apple launch event. I’d be lying if I said I never got up at 3 AM before to order an apple device. In recent years I haven’t. Last year I wasn’t even sure if I wanted an iPhone 7. I opted to get one at the end of November.  I wasn’t motivated enough to get up in the middle of the night then.

In previous instances of me getting up to order a phone (or a tablet) I was exceedingly frustrated. I would get up at 3 AM or one time 6 AM thinking I can still get ahead of the rush. My early morning attempts were semi failures due to technical problems with Apple systems. One time I spent 45 minutes trying to place an order only to go to bed and get up at 6 AM to try again. By then it was a month wait for the product. I might go back and troll my blog history to find out what product it was that i had that happen.  I’m not too crazy, I don’t think. I only attempted this maybe twice before. I have waited out in the freezing cold for two hours for an iPad once. MC was dating at the time and she still decided to marry me. That’s how you know you have a winner.

Flash forward to this week and I had to think about if I wanted to get up early for this launch event. In the end I had sound reasons and motivation to do so. It boils down to my move overseas. We aim to move around the first week in January. That means if the constraints around supply chain for the new phone are anywhere near true, and they likely are I might not get my phone in time for my move. If anyone’s actually reading a technical post like this they might wonder why, or who cares? The answer is an iPhone cost the same in dollars as it would in pounds or close to it. That means to buy it in London it’s 30% more expensive due to conversion rates. Since I knew I wanted to buy the phone my option was to either get it before I go or pay the extra price. This phone is expensive enough so I wasn’t willing to pay more for it when I got there.

I decided that if I was not able to order the phone Friday morning and have it delivered in a reasonable time prior to the end of the year I would not get one. My alternative would be either to get an iPhone 8+ or simply stick with my 7+ until I’m back in the US for a while over the summer. The fact that the iPhone X is as thin as the iPhone 8 with a bigger screen than my current plus is so compelling for me to want it. I love the screen on my current 7+ however that phone is just way too big. Whenever I hold my work iPhone 6S it just feels more natural.

 Thursday evening I told myself I was going to bed early, maybe before 9 PM. That never happened so I went to bed around 10:15 PM. I set my phone alarm. In order not to wake MCI also set my Fitbit silent alarm to go off a minute before my phone alarm. I was aggravated when the Fitbit said it was low on battery life. I took the chance that it would last until the next morning. It did. The silent alarm went off as expected and I was able to get up and turn off the phone alarm. I know I was successful when MC asked me when she woke up if I’d gotten up in the middle of the night to do my order.

I settled into my desk with my iPhone and iPad plus a web browser ready to go hoping to have one of them work quickly. I was ready to go about two minutes ahead of schedule. A few minutes after 3 AM Eastern time my iPad started working with their store app. My initial plan was to use my IPhone upgrade program. Oddly when I tried to do that from the iPad told me I needed to do it from my phone. The challenge was the phone wasn’t loading the app. I had thought about this and the upgrade program is nice however I don’t really need it. Set aside money each month for a tech fund for purchases just like this that I know I will want to make. Whenever I sell gear I put it in the fund also. Instead of using the upgrade program I simply bought the phone out right. I got my confirmation email at 3:08 AM. Within that eight minutes from when it launched I was told a delivery time of November 10 through the 17th. It officially launches on 4 November. I’m really wondering who is actually getting the phone on the fourth?

Since I did not use my upgrade program I will need to buy my iPhone 7+ outright and then sell it on eBay to recoup the costs. It’s a minor inconvenience however I did not want to mess around with switching to my phone and waiting for it to work.

I was back in bed around 3:10 AM. Unfortunately I had trouble sleeping since I was wide awake by that time. It felt like no time passed before 6 AM rolled around and I had to get up for my morning routine.

I think getting up at  a ridiculously early hour to preorder something is for everybody? No course not. For me  I am into technology that just works. This is something that I use constantly that’s always with me so I find it worthwhile to do what I did. I know many of my friends likely don’t understand it or don’t “get it”. And that’s okay. There’s also those friends who messaged me at 330 asking me how I did. Obviously they were also up trying to score one.

For Those Who Actually Subscribe to this Blog…

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It turns out that I have people subscribed to this blog’s Feedburner Feed.  It was not many however more than I thought.  My challenge is I previously deleted most of my Google Accounts.  Turns out one of those was the account that controlled my Feedburner account.  Opps. I liked Feedburner because I could change domain names and still have the subscription feed be up to date.  Over the years I have changed his blog’s URL a bunch of times.  Surprisingly I would end up back to the original URL that I started with.  That is what I use today.

After 14 years and I keep coming back to the same site name and URL I figure I am not likely to change the URL to something else that is that much better.  I might try but I know deep down I should just give up and not try.  If I do that I do not need to maintain this feed that no longer represents the name of the site anyway.

If you do happen to use my RSS feed please update your feed to follow blog.scott.ac/feed.  The old feed “should” be telling you to redirect to the new one however I cannot test that since I am cashing the old content.  I will get around to testing later.  Thus this public service announcement about making the change if you do want to keep following me and you are not getting your updates from Facebook or Twitter.

British Siri in America, American Siri in England?

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When Siri first launched you basically got the voice they gave you. In the US it was a lady voice. In the UK it was a man. In later revisions they gave the option to choose between a male and female voice. Either at that same time or in any even further revision Apple gave you the option of choosing the accent. Originally you had one American voice for your iPhone. Now you can select an American, British, or Australian accent in either male or female voices for your English-speaking iPhone.

I’m not sure why however I light the British female voice better. I’ve been using it on my phone ever since. On my iPad to differentiate I use the British male voice. I even now use ways with the British accent voice. I have been doing this long before there was any plan to move overseas.

Now I’m asking myself the question when living in England do I set the voice to be an American female? The dilemmas I ponder while sitting on the subway during my commute. Other people might think about world peace, however I wonder what voice to use on my iPhone.