5 Fabulous Finds and 1 Creepy One

Some things I stumbled across recently...

1. I was in a meeting today and one presentation focused on preparing for planned power outages.  I learned that many power companies have special programs to help medical patients who rely on their medical equipment at home having an uninterrupted supply of power.  One company provides free battery banks to help these customers, another company will send a special notice to these customers ahead of time so they have time to plan.  So if you or someone you know must have power for vital medical equipment, contact your power company to see what services they offer.
2. As I was checking my local energy company's website, I saw that they offer several useful programs.  I then checked my other utility company's websites and found they all offer extra useful services as well (examples here and here).
3. I have been binging this lady's YouTube videos lately.  She has so many great videos about how to save money on food and how to make cheap yet nutritious meals for the whole family!
4. Apparently I am old since I remember several of these "old school" pictures.
5. I guess No Buy July is a thing?  I'd never heard of it before but it sounds like a good idea.

Then there was this creepy thing...

• This popular YouTuber is a polyglot which means he speaks A LOT of languages.  His channel is usually entertaining as he films himself talking to (and shocking) the locals when he starts speaking to them in their own language.  Lately he has spoken to monkeys and dolphins in their language (?) which was also entertaining.  However, in his video today he spoke to ChatGPT in a computer language (hexadecimal) which was weird because #1, the ChatGPT sounds so real in both its conversational tone and choice of words, and #2 the ChatGPT seemed to dislike taking in this computer language (my questions would be why the dislike and how was this programmed into the language model).  I think in a few years we won't be able to tell what is real and what is fake anymore.  eeekkk

10 Things from Today

In no particular order...

1. Happy Summer Solstice day!  Today is the longest day of the year, daylight-wise, and now the days will begin getting shorter.
2. Hubby's chronic back pain is flaring up so he was only able to bowl one game on his league today.  It usually works itself out eventually but I hate seeing him in pain.
3. Does anyone know how Linda from Practical Parsimony is doing?  She usually blogs pretty regularly but I just realized I hadn't seen her posts in a while.  I haven't really been paying attention to my blog feed over the past few weeks because we have been so busy, but I always worry when my bloggy friends just disappear.
4. I got the annual bill for our house insurance today and it increased dramatically from last year.  We haven't made any claims and we live in a reasonably safe area so this bill was pretty shocking!
5. The Gmail app on my phone hasn't worked all day.  Sometimes stuff like this happens but the long duration is odd.  Then I saw this article about a major password breach so I guess I will spend the weekend changing all of my passwords :(
6. Work was eerily quiet today.  Yesterday was a holiday so it looks like everyone just took a very long weekend but our next fiscal year starts week after next and our budget/contracts are still in severe limbo!  Next week at work should be interesting...
7. People seem to be losing their shit today.  Drivers seem to be driving more insanely than usual here, people out in public seem to have an odd affect, and even the very nice girl at my favorite coffee drink place was super rude to the customer ahead of my and she is always nice to everyone so I was utterly shocked!
8. It's hot here.  Even though we are a third of the way through the summer, it looks like we still have MANY more triple-digit days ahead. Ugh
9. Grocery prices continue to climb.  We usually only shop loss leaders, but I noticed a regular whole chicken in the meat section was $20, eggs were around $7 a dozen, and a loaf of bread was $5...how are these prices even sustainable for the average family???  If we need a chicken we will get a $5 chicken from Costco, five dozen eggs for $15 from Sam's Club, and bread for $1.50 from the Dollar Tree but not all people have those shopping options.  Craziness!
10. It's hard to believe it is almost the 4th of July already! 

It's Been a Wild Couple of Weeks!

I don't even know where to start!

• We are getting ready to go on an Alaskan cruise next month.  So far it looks like about 15 friends and relatives will go (hubby's family travels in packs so when one person says they are going somewhere, before you know it, a dozen more people say they will go with you!).  I am hoping to see the Northern Lights and lots of nature since we have neither where I live; we are not looking forward to the typical 60-degree summer weather in Alaska!
• We had a step-in shower installed in hubby's bathroom and he loves it.  This is much safer when it comes to hubby getting into and out of the shower.  The cost was nearly $12k which is much more than it would have cost only five years ago, but ALL construction costs have increased exponentially over the past few years.  OTOH, it only took two days to complete and the installer did a great job.
• Politics is a complete shitshow--our president is semi-deranged (but so is the Mayor of LA when she was on the news stating they had no problem in her city while on the split screen we were seeing rioters throwing concrete blocks and e-scooters on the cops below the overpass!).  Add to that political assassinations, Israel starting a war with Iran for no good reason, the possibility of being pulled into WW3, a do-nothing Congress, people rioting against deporting illegal immigrants (if I went to another country and decided I was moving there whether the government liked it or not, I would expect to be deported immediately!)...everyday bring something new and absolutely crazy... :(
• My job (and the jobs of several people in a similar position to mine in other parts of the state) is in a perilous position.  We had a come-to-Jesus meeting with our state funders, expecting a 10% budget cut for our office, and ended up with a 35% budget cut.  Everyone is in shock.  I'm just glad hubby and I are debt-free, including the house and car, and have been saving and living below our means all of this time that I have been working.  While I can go back to being retired if worse comes to worst, many of the people I work with seem to live paycheck to paycheck,  tldr; never depend on one job for your financial survival, especially in this day and age.
• The AI situation looks pretty dire...eeekkk

Here are some pictures from our shower remodel...

5 Things from This Week

In no particular order...

1. Our weather has been pretty stormy this past week.  Maybe it is an early monsoon season?  Either way I love storms in the desert!
2. Tomorrow (June 6th) is National Donut Day.  Here are some places to get free donuts tomorrow.
3. Here is where you can get a $5 coupon for Great Clips.
4. From the 'people have lost their damn minds' file, we have had a ridiculous amount of crime/police responses in our area (examples here, here, and this case from near where my teams work in Washington State).  What is wrong with people these days???
5. Finally, on a happy note, some cute cat pictures.