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It’s been a while since my last update. It’s a new year, and overall I am optimistic about ideas and new developments.

Here are some things I have been up to / thinking about:

• Doing a lot more Home Automation with Home Assistant. This is a great system for automating all the smart things in the house. It’s quite feature rich, but it also needs a bunch of work to really get it going.
• I started adding more Zigbee devices into the house to complement the existing WiFi and Zwave devices. My only issue was that I needed more Zwave “routers” to help in extending the signal around the house. Lot’s of plaster and brick are blocking the RF from getting around the place. Why Zigbee? Well, it’s much simpler that WiFi and possibly more secure for outside devices.
• Been looking into LoRaWan technology and devices. Which then took me on a wild ride reading up on Helium (HNT) and other similar tech. I think LoRaWan is going to really be something for IoT. I am now looking to implement this on the boat.
• I ordered a Bobcat Miner for Helium. This should be pretty interesting to setup in our town, and possibly add another on the boat in Jersey City.
• I was reading up on Algarve, Portugal. Would be great place to visit with the fam.
• Had a great time out at Sushi by Bou in Nomad location.
• Looking at 5G CBRS and micro cell tech; primarily from JMA Wireless.
• Going to rewire all the DC/AC wiring on the boat. Ordered some good marine cable. It will be good to know all of the layout incase there is an issue in the future.

• Interesting Links and Articles from tabs that I had open:
  • https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074256096/even-babies-and-toddlers-know-that-swapping-saliva-is-a-sure-sign-of-love
  • https://medium.com/voskcoin/what-is-the-best-helium-hotspot-miner-to-buy-e26f3f4a0c37
  • https://www.amazon.com/Emporia-Monitor-Circuit-Electricity-Metering/dp/B08CJGPHL9/?encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=pk7gj&pf_rd_p=e3507245-c2c1-4f99-8b1e-89193a9e9975&pf_rd_r=BK2K12RSH4DGJX7S6187&pd_rd_r=cf6e6a36-8d5e-4dfc-8aa0-edd60bf0bfba&pd_rd_wg=iKCi7&ref=pd_gw_bmx_gp_kh2l6zin&th=1
  • http://oldcomputers.net/trs80pc2.html

I am excited about the upcoming week. It is a pivotal moment, personally and professionally. The 117th World Series starts on Tuesday in Houston.

We do all this work in technology, to get to this point. The see the season reach a climactic conclusion. To have winners. To have a reason to try harder than ever to see an investment payoff.

I am traveling next week to get out to the games and to connect with some of our team and partners. Looking forward to the trip to Houston and Atlanta.

Seasonal Change

I snapped some pics of plants that are in full bloom outside our house. Brilliant colors and intricacies of their complex patterns.

Home Automation

For the longest I have had all different types of home automation technologies. In our old house I setup Insteon, which was a complex setup of new switches that communicated between each other in an evolved X10-like protocol. Over time, I switched to various things like Zwave and Zigbee devices that connected to a hub. Couple that with Google Assistant devices, some Amazon devices, a bunch of WiFi outlets — you get the point… it started to get messy.

I just recently started using Home Assistant (running a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB) to serve as the bridge between all the of technologies. So far, it’s really neat. There is a simple way to control nearly every switch in the house, to build scenes (ie. waking up, night, etc), and to interact with audio and sensor devices. Music can follow you where you go; lights can auto turn off; and certain events can trigger more complex automation scripts.

Other Interesting Findings

I now use a paid subscription of Koyfin. This is basically a Bloomberg Terminal for regular people. It’s amazing. You can research and chart nearly any equity with advanced queries and macros.

• Manually trenched the backyard (with a shovel… ouch!) about 60 feet in length to have electricians come and install ridged metal conduit to my shed for power. A few of the electricians that came to quote the job tried to talk me out of using RMC, and instead going direct burial wire. That seemed nuts near a pool, or even if we were planting in that area, it would be a disaster to strike the underground cable.
• Now that I have two circuits in the shed, I can hook up my solar panels + grid tie to an inverter/charger for a protected circuit. I have a LiPO4 battery just waiting to be hooked up.

• Assembled an amazing trampoline for the kids. This thing is huge and they are going to love it.

After all this digging and work around the backyard, and jumping on the trampoline, I woke up with a painful back and felt like I was leaning in a crooked way. YouTube saved the day with this video:

I have taken a lot of different types of transit in traveling around over the last 20 years. Just found a really cool website to look at various methods of travel to get between places: https://www.rome2rio.com/

Planted a bunch of Fargesia Rufa Clumping Bamboo in the backyard to create privacy. Hopeful that this will slowly grow over time.

Read a fascinating medium article on someone attempting to reverse engineer the disk images from CompuServe.

At some point I want to try BE OS on a VM. I remember this Operating System coming out, but I think at the time I was really into Free/OpenBSD and Linux.

Some random thoughts on things:

• Most of the SPACs that I followed in 2020, have had a rough start in 2021. EV companies have also pulled back and there is certainly enough to be said that most of them are not making profits.
• I continue to be a supporter of TSLA; actually ended up trading in the Model S P85 for a Model X P100D with FSD. It’s great for what I wanted — which was more space and plenty of options to carry a bike, more friends in the car, and the new tech is also pretty cool.
• Went out on the boat yesterday with family — way too windy and everyone was a bit freaked out with the healing and the accidental gybe. It’s hard to single hand the boat in the choppy water with wind. Lessons learned, will only take fam out when it’s calm. If I had some more experienced folks with me on the boat, we could have had a good time. The main issue is the gusts that were blowing at 20+knts and creating instability.
• BTC/ETH/and pretty much every crypto asset took a 30-50% dip. It happens. I have been through this plenty of times. New owners take over the assets as people panic sell. It’s OK. — it’s just satoshis.

My daughter was playing softball for the month. It was really great to see her have a good time hitting and fielding. She crushed some hits, and did well.

Watched some baseball with her late at night on a Met’s game going into the 10th inning. Loved hearing her questions about what was going on.

Figured out some strange electrical things that were going on after hooking up a pool heat pump. It didn’t power up the display. After grabbing a multimeter, I found the voltage was dropping way too low. Measured 170v, when it should read 220v. Turns out it was corrosion on the contacts. Cleaned them up with sandpaper, they sparkled, and then everything worked great.