Scattered Thoughts . . .

Every evening, Kenzie (usually Lukey too) will call Gee on our Alexa devices.  During last night's conversation, she was a bit more animated than usual so I quickly picked up my camera and shot a few photos of her...   I have to say that these Echo Show Amazon devices were a good idea.  These devices make it easy to stay close even though we may not see each other in person for a week or so.  Of course, we also have all sorts of other uses for this Show...  our calendar, recipes, music, news, timers, alarms, notifications, even asking Alexa to add something to our shopping list.   Uncle Adam has an Echo Show also so we keep in contact with him in California as well.  Actually, we had Nan and Pop over for dinner this past weekend and while we were all at the table, we simply looked over at the Echo Show and said, "Alexa, call Adam" , and we had a little virtual visit with him while Nan and Pop were here.   Anyway, it is nice hearing from Lukey and Kenzie and actua

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

I've been trying to catch up with the many tasks on my to-do list as the season changes toward winter. One of the things I have been focused on in recent is our furnace since winter is fast approaching.  I already did some annual cleaning of the furnace... checked and cleaned electrical contacts inside the ignition... and then turned my attention toward our thermostat. Our thermostat has been a little bit of a frustration for quite some time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We replace batteries regularly and have to clean contacts inside this old programmable thermostat approximately twice each season.  Programming that old thermostat is a pain in the butt with tiny switches on the circuit board and a very clumsy interface. Usually, we just avoid changing the programming because it is such a pain in the butt and, instead, just make do with the main programming. Whenever we need a change, we simply manually change the temperature and use the hold button which de