Less than 4 hours sleep a couple nights ago, the next night before bed I had the weird ‘no sleep’ brain thing going on. You ever do that?
It’s when you’re so tired you have short bursts of numb-nothing thoughts. Experts say the brain on no sleep does things in a similar way to what it does when you’re drunk. Exhausted neurons respond more slowly and send weaker signals. What experts didn’t mention is that it could cause you to dream something ridiculous.
My dream was like a movie.
I was walking outside somewhere with several people I guess I knew because we were talking. Then came a zoomed in, close-up shot of a piece of chewing gum in a silver wrapper. Probably Doublemint because that’s my favorite. I open it slowly and pop it in my mouth. Then, that one slice of gum soon felt like 10 pieces of hubba bubba!
When the gum got so huge I couldn’t keep it behind my lips, I had to start picking it out… gobs of it! I didn’t care that my friends saw me doing it because even that was better than having it burst out of my mouth in some volcanic blast. I spent the whole rest of this dream (who knows how long it was – it felt like hours) pulling gum out of my mouth. No matter how much of that gunk I raked out it just kept growing bigger.
What a waste of brain cells, right? Thing is, when I woke up, I wasn’t thirsty and my mouth felt normal.
Then I had a bad dream that was real.
Always an Apple fan girl, I’m used to trading in phones to get a new iPhone. Apple sends you a box filled with packing and a label already affixed. All you need to do is put your trade-in inside the box provided and shove it in any UPS drop off box… and there’s one just down the street from me.
Trading in a phone to Samsung is an AWFUL experience. They send you an email with a PDF of a label. You have to find your own suitable sized box, print your own label and you have to take it to a FedEx shipping center. You are NOT allowed to drop it in a box… you must get a receipt. The nearest shipping center to me is on the other side of Columbus. ARG!
There was only one perk.
The only good thing about the horrible Samsung trade-in experience is that I spent the afternoon with my son and favorite granddaughter… and we ate lunch.
And then I got lucky.
I was able to secretly catch Ben acting totally goofy — jamming to a song that Coco demanded he not change to something else — and I’m now actively planning a blackmail scheme.
TIL (Today I Learned): Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a disease associated with abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain. These deposits, called Lewy bodies, affect chemicals in the brain whose changes, in turn, can lead to problems with thinking, movement, behavior, and mood.
The reason I learned about LBD is because Robin Williams’ autopsy revealed he had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout his entire brain and brainstem — he had Lewy body disease (LBD).
Everyone I know uses their phone to take photos. Only a few people I know do back-ups. Some of the people who have back-ups don’t even know they have them, and especially don’t know how to find them when something goes wrong.
Back it up!
The Basics — If you have an iPhone, you know your photos are stored within the iCloud service. Android keeps everything in a downloads folder (usually called My Files) on your phone. If you want your photos backed up to your Google account, you have to turn that on (settings/accounts and backup/backup data) — and if you have a Samsung phone you also have a Samsung cloud.
iPhone is easier.
Android breaks stuff into work and personal. If I’m not in the “work” area of my phone, my photos go to my personal gmail account. Since I use my work email most often (we have Google business email accounts for the corporate domain), I have a bunch of photos under that identity and others on another Google account. With an iPhone — it’s just iCloud. Easy Peasy.
How I know about the 11th of March in years past.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can easily back-up your photos. While there’s a storage limit on videos, you can store all the photos you want in the cloud service they provide to you at no additional cost. You just download their free app available no matter what OS you’re using.
Grab the app for your phone — any phone will do — to automatically upload images. Grab the app on your computer/tablet too so you can view them there as well. When you upload photos to Amazon Photos, they’ll also display on your Echo Show and Fire TV.
And then, every day you get served “on this day” photos.
You get some really awesome memories… like this “on this day” from 2012…
And next year on March 11th, I’ll have this sleepy-tired hound dog photo pop up to make me smile. 🙂
All 92 Indiana counties are a big code COVID red. Just in time for the IU vs. Purdue game tonight at Assembly Hall. Who would’ve ever guessed that COVID would be worse in Seymour, Indiana than it is in Las Vegas, NV? Not me, that’s for sure.
Colors make a huge impact — not just red insofar as COVID saturation — but on any project. No matter if you’re deciding where to point your camera, refreshing your living room, or even designing a logo or a website — the colors you choose can make or break your concept.
If you need some color assistance — or just want to try out something fun — check out: Adobe’s color theme picker.
After you click the link, SELECT THE TAB FOR “EXTRACT THEME” and upload a photo that incorporates colors you love. Beach photos are great for blues and summer trees are great for greens. Baby Dharma makes for a great earthy theme. 🙂
You can also select a “mood” to generate different shades/hues from your photo… (that option is on the left):
Not a fan of “bright mood” for this photo — guess my mood is more “dull.”
I’m much happier with no “mood” at all applied.
If you live near me and prefer to stay out of the code red COVID situation, try your hand at Adobe’s Color Theme From an Image while you’re watching the Purdue/IU game tonight. Here’s hoping your team wins… so long as it’s IU. 🙂
I tried to talk Ben & Coco into letting me get Mom’s favorite for dinner… KFC. They were having NONE of that and insisted that I make chicken alfredo. It’s one thing I’ve yet to fail at in the kitchen.
Of course, with the butter and heavy cream it’s a tad fattening. We were all much skinnier before eating and before posing for a holiday photo.
I’m so out of shape that if somebody yells, “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!”… I’ll be like, “you guys go on ahead. I’m going to meet Jesus.”
We had a fabulous time — even the Peskie’s enjoyed themselves. Besides all the great gifts, Coco even liked her Haunted Mansion jacket I bought while at the park when she wasn’t looking. 🙂
Today, I take down the lights from outside (before we get rain… before it gets cold over the weekend… and before we have snow). Tomorrow, when Perry has a chance to get in the attic for my boxes, I’ll get the inside of the house back to normal.
Tonight… we have tacos incoming to celebrate the new year. Happy New Year to y’all — much wealth, health and happiness in 2022. ❤️
I’m still struggling with my love for Apple products versus what I get from other tech available. The Apple watch marries you to an iPhone. The iPhone plays nicer with an Apple computer, as it should, of course. But besides a working phone, its camera is the next most important thing to me.
I’m not a huge user of apps on a phone. I pay for my Starbucks with an app and useGoogle maps, but neither of those are exclusive to iPhone. I have an Apple credit card in my wallet and that $400+ phone/watch on my arm that I mentioned above. Those are the two things that require I use an iPhone – that’s it. I love the iPhone is easy to use and when I sport an Android, I miss the Apple product. I do!
The Android sound is better when talking on the phone and the all-important camera is — hate to admit it — BETTER! Ben and I have argued that point for a long time… me supporting the iPhone even when I doubted its superiority. Our latest debate began when he took a photo of me yesterday in my office with his Note 10+.
For a phone, that’s pretty good, right? Still I argued that my iPhone Pro Plus could do just as good and maybe even better. So we stood in the exact same spot, at the exact same time, with the exact same light, and took a photo of the exact same subject. No edits other than shrinking the photos to create a side-by-side to share here:
I’m ashamed to admit that the photo on the left was taken by my iPhone.
So now what?
If the Android sounds better when using it for calls and the camera is better… the two things I say matter most… why have I not swapped the Sim card to my Note10+ that’s sleeping in a drawer? Honestly, I dunno. Maybe it’s because I’m not as familiar with the Android operating system?
For example, I hate the split work/personal stuff and don’t know how to “fix” it. And I like iMessages — even though I can do roughly the same thing with my PC and Android phone. I like Facetime because of the Peskies… getting them to use Duo is painful when it’s close to the top of their tech level to just do Facetime. And finally, there’s just that little niggle that simply won’t let me turn loose of my iPhone — oh, and that watch that will alert family and 911 if I’ve fallen and can’t get up.
I just want it all! Why can’t iPhone put out the best camera on the planet and speakers and reception that smash everything else out there? WHY would they let an Android’s photos be superior to their flagship phone? ARG! 🙁
TIL (Today I Learned): The watch made its migration from the pocket to the wrist during World War I. Soldiers were obligated to attach them to their arms for coordinated attacks, instead of fumbling in their pockets. Before then, the “bracelet watch” had mostly been regarded as a joke and a “silly-ass fad”.
