Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
I know fishing is a big problem. I got this text today. It is like they are not even trying. The URL isn’t even a true paypal URL. They did not eve spell multiple correctly.
All kidding aside I assume people still fall victim of this. Simple rule, do not click on links in email unless are epxecting it. Even then never let your guard down.
Saturday the girls were making stuff with Play Doh. They created a lot of food. T insisted in taking a photo and sending to M since M wasn’t home at the time. I took this photo. T insisted on taking another photo at a different angle to also message. She was very insistent in that.
One morning on my way out to go to work I must have been running a few minutes late. Or the girls were up early. Either way they both were awake when I was leaving. That is unusual for me. When I goto the office I typically leave a sleeping house. Both girls insisted on giving me hugs and kisses (as they do usually). I never have much complaints about that unless it gets into requesting it 3 or 4 times. That also can happen so it becomes a challange since who am I to pass up extra hugs and kisses even if I am trying to leave the house.
This morning in particular T inspects my cheeks before she asked “did you shave?” Only after I answered positively did she decide to kiss my cheek.
I am loving (most of the time) the little personalities they are developing.
Today is an important anniversary for me. Today 10 years ago I meet the most amazing lady. I knew from early on that something was different about her. It turned out I was right. 10 years later that superstar is my wife, and we have two awesome kids. We are on our 3rd place together. And second country.
It is like thinking back to another life i lived when i think about all the things that were different before then. Even with all the crazy going on in the world I cannot believe how unbelievably lucky I am to be with M, and have A & T.
Before issolation stopped it some of the dad’s and I from A’s class have been meeting up every few weeks. We hang out and have a few drinks a a local pub. We switch off between different local places to meet up at. It has been nice to socialize with some local people outside of work. We have been making some level of effort since the school year began.
The other night I was getting ready to go out to a meetup. Ussually we meet at around 7:30 or 8PM. So I leave right around bedtime for the girls. I said goodbye to M and the girls. M was getting them ready for bed. The girls kept enquiring where I was going. They wanted to know if i was going to eat dinner? I pointed out they just saw me eat so no. Finally i said I was going to Pub XYZ nearby. A responded “Aww, I love that place”. she was dissapoonted. I had to explain to her that it was only dad’s going out and no kids. She was still not pleased. I will remember this responce the next time i try to go there and she automatically says she doesnt like it, even though she does.
When I lived in New York and was single I had a rather large L-shaped desk. On one part of the desk I had a heavy duty monitor arm that held a 30 inch HP display. On the smaller part of the L I had another monitor arm with a 23 or 24 inch display that I used when I work from home. When I moved into M’s apartment I had to get rid of the smaller part of the desk and the L bracket that joined the two pieces together. There just wasn’t enough room for it all. I had bought of modular desk and added to it over time. When it came time to move all I took was the main base of the desk. It is what I’ve had ever since. I love that desk. By the time I had moved I switched to an Apple Cinnema display instead of the 30″ monitor so the big arm went away. The other one did too when I got rid of the smaller part of the desk.
For years my setup remained an Apple Cinema Display plugged into either a desktop or laptop. Since I’ve been in London I bought a second Dell 27 inch monitor. That way I can have my work laptop on one screen and my home computer on and other at the same time. It made for an extremely cluttered desk. It did not leave me a lot of surface area to do anything. With all this extra working from home this season and now the indefinite working from home due to the virus it finally dawned on me to take some sort of action.
I did some research and found a relatively inexpensive well reviewed dual monitor on arm. The review said it would hold the weight of my Apple Cinema Display even though the specs in the product description were unclear. The arm arrived early this week. It was trivial enough to mount my Dell monitor to it. Mounting an Apple Display is another story. It needed a special mounting bracket to do so. Since Amazon and Apple no longer carried the Apple VESA mount adapter kit I picked up one new on eBay. It arrived a few days later and after a little bit of fussing I got the adapter on the monitor. Mounting on the alarm was again pretty easy after that. I learned immediately after I put the monitor on the arm that this setup was not going to work. This particular monitor arm really would not hold the weight of an Apple Cinema Display.
My Apple Cinema display is easily 10 years old. It still works pretty well however it showing its age. I almost had to replace it a few months ago when the power cable was starting to fray and all the wires were exposed. A bunch of electrical tape later it’s still working. The only way use my work computer with it is with a special thunderbolt to USB C adapter. I’ve been pondering buying a new one for a while. With my monitor arm plans foiled I started researching other monitors. I settled for the newer version of a Dell 27 inch display I already had. The weight is about the same or lighter then what I already have so mounting wasn’t an issue. What I bought also looks pretty similar to what I have so there’s some symmetry there. Yes that actually matters a little to me.
When the new Dell monitor arrived it was pretty trivial to get it mounted on the arm like the first Dell I had. Once that was done I wrapped the cables coming from the monitor in the innerduct I had lying around. Yes I have innerduck I bought and had lying around for the exact purpose of wrapping cables in. The innerduct made it look nicer. Once it was all put together I was pretty pleased with the end result. The only thing I forgot was I needed to plug in a WebCam on the monitor that replaced the Apple Cinema Display. I do video calls with work and it slipped my mind that the new monitor did not have a camera. Luckily I had one to use.
Now that I’ve finished the new setup and the desk is reconfigured I don’t know what took me so long to do it in the first place. It looks much better and is more functional than the old setup. The extra space i can get by easily moving the monitors up and out of the way is nice!
A few years ago I download the app Headspace. I didn’t do much with it at the time. I had tried a few meditation apps and haven’t really done very much with them. About two years ago I decided to really focus on things I could do to calm down and be more focused. I made a leap of faith and spent some money on an discounted annual subscription to headspace. I have been using it ever since. That’s not what I specifically want to talk about in this post. It is just the background.
A friend of mine who I sat next to in the office till about year ago was talking with me one day. He asked if I had the Headspace app. I told him I did. He asked if I’d ever tried their bedtime stories. I had seen them however I had not every tried them. He proceeded to tell me how awesome they were. He summed it up by saying basically you start listening to some story they tell you and wondering what the hell is this. Is this really going to do any thing for me? The next thing you know he said you wake up the next morning surprised that it worked.
Since I already subscribed to the app I figured I would give it a try. For years I have used a white noise machine when I was in New York. Since the machine wouldn’t travel to London I have been using a simulated raining sound from my Amazon Echo. I still figured this wouldn’t hurt to try to get me to sleep.
My friend was right. The first night I tried it my experience pretty much went the way he explained it. I have been using it ever since. There are a bunch of different “Sleepcasts” you could choose from. Some are more appropriate in certain weather or seasons. I do have some favourites. Headspace claims that they are suddenly different each night. And they are different. If you listen to some of them enough and do not goto sleep right away you can tell that much of the difference is that the segments of the story are presented in different orders. There are enough of the Sleepcasts that I like to keep the variety going. The good news is every few months the release three new ones. Almost always I will fall asleep before the story ends. Sometimes if I am unable to sleep I will get to the end and the story will stop. I could tap my phone and say I am still awake and it would play more. I haven’t done that yet. I usually just tried to fall sleep on my own after that. In almost all cases though I don’t make it to the end of the story. There are many nights I don’t remember getting passed the wind down in the very beginning of the story.
The headspace Sleepcasts are now my new Grown-up’s bedtime stories. M thinks I may be using them as a crutch. She does not believe in really using aids to get to sleep. She felt that way with the sleep sounds as well. She is cool with me doing it though. And sometimes is curious to what we will listen to. I do not care how much of a crutch it is if it helps consistently i will keep using it.
I wrote this pre issolation and just haven’t gotten around to publishing it. Back in January I went with the girls to Shake Shack. It is funny how a very NY thing is all over London. There is one across the street from my office. I have never been there however I have walked past it often. There is one in Covant Garden that we have been to a few times. There is also one we go past now and again in the mall at Stratford. The girls like to goto Shake Shack now since they can play foozeball and ping pong.
The last time we went the cashier asked me if I had been here before. What raced through my mind was proudly thinking “Yes. I have even been to the original one in Madison Square Park the week it opened”. I have no problem admitting I hate lines and Shake Shack was worth the hour wait at the time. Since I am in England I was proud of my more subdued reply of simply “Yes” to his question.
Post photo is of the original Shake Shack in NYC. Not from the first time I was there. Some other time what feels like a lifetime ago.
There are some things that I knew I would do with my kids even before I had kids. Star Wars was a huge success with them. I was suprised that i was able to watch it with them when we did. They liked it so much that last weekend they just asked to watch Return of The Jedi.
Doctor Who they took to a bit less. They were a bit scared to the point the walked out on the first episode with the 13th Doctor. They still get their Doctor Who fix via action figures and other memorabilia we have in the house.
M and I have both tried to read the Lion the Witch & The Wardrobe to them. The girls have not been into it. I also tried to read the Hobbit. It was over a year ago so i likely should try again. When I did try they were not into it.
I have avoided watching the Harry Potter movies with the girls. I wanted to rad the books with them first. Around when the isolation started M began reading the Big Friendly Giant to the girls. It inspired me to go out and order Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. When we moved to England I forgot that i left a box of books and games at my sisters house. In that cache of stuff was my Harry Potter books. I have all of them in hard cover. Since I didn’t have those I settled for a paperback version.
M finished the BFG last night. As I was wrapping up work tonight the girls asked if I could start Harry Potter with them. I of course agreed. I read them the first chapter tonight. They had lots of questions. I had to try very hard not to answer. I did not want to ruin anything for them.
Going to bed T took the book with her so she could read ahead! So many parenting dreams coming true!!!
As M and I were getting the Easter baskets ready for the girls last night I realized how much extra chocolate we had. M mentioned she usually donates it to the school. With school closed we had a tone of it. We treated ourselves to some Lindt Hazelnut chocolate bunny. I also wanted some alcohol and had to think about what to best pair with the bunny. I settled on Baileys. It paired very well. I almost felt like I was a contestant on Top Chef with my prize desert. Well almost…