Scattered Thoughts . . .

Little by little, we're adding more to our Alexa-enabled home automation.  I had written previously about purchasing and installing an Ecobee4 Smart Thermostat. This was a project that required some research because our heating system and furnace were not compatible with these new Smart Thermostats. I figured out a way to make it all work and it only required some rewiring and a little bit of adaptation to our system. The most difficult part of that project was that I needed to learn far more than I wanted about heating systems and our particular old furnace.  This new thermostat is Alexa-enabled (Amazon's voice activated assistant) which means it can be controlled by voice as well as be controlled remotely with our cellphones, tablets or a computer. This allows us to monitor the temperatures in the house from anywhere while we are out of town. Also, since this particular Smart Thermostat is Alexa-enabled, we knew that installing this particular thermostat would open the

Way back in 1784 through 1789, when Thomas Jefferson was our US Ambassador assigned to France, he devised a decoder wheel to use for encrypting and decrypting letters sent between the US and his office in France. Being able to encrypt letters being sent between Thomas Jefferson and the US President became an urgent necessity because the European Postmasters opened and read all diplomatic letters passing through their command.  When I was a child, we would sometimes play a "Da Vinci Code" type of scavenger hunt game that consisted of written clues leading us to the following clue which eventually leads to the prize or solving the mystery. This was definitely an educational game and sometimes required some research in order to figure out various clues. I certainly enjoyed this game and have been thinking about sharing this game with the grandchildren as they get older. The grandchildren are now beginning to read so I've been thinking about this game again and wonderi