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Apple Shortcut – Talking Reminder

Apple Shortcuts screen shot

I previously mentioned Apple Shortcuts (with a silly example) so here’s another one using the “Automation” feature.

Apple Shortcuts screen shot

You can set an Automation to run at a specific time of day, so I have one at noon to remind me to take my medication and another at 5pm to remind me to leave work.

Apple Shortcuts screen shot

You can also set an Automation to Speak Text. Yeah, just like the say command on macOS. I used to set up cron jobs to run scripts with the say command to remind me of things.

Apple Shortcuts screen shot

But wait! Remember all those awesome voices like Organ and Zarvox? They’re all here to hear!

Apple Shortcuts screen shot

Funny story, the first time I set these up I was home alone and heard someone talking from another room in the house and I freaked out! I thought someone else was in my house. Nope, just my phone talking to me.

So yeah, there could be some good prank potential with this feature if you can access someone’s phone for a few minutes.

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Pretzel Buns

Homemade Pretel Buns

Homemade Pretel Buns

One of the ways I’ve been dealing with the pain is by spending time in the kitchen baking when I am able to. It often helps me focus on something besides the pain my body is in. And it keeps me vertical and moving around instead of just lying down.

I’ve made soft pretzels in the past but always skipped the boiling part, and wow, it makes quite the difference. I’m comfortable now with it, though I still make quite a mess, but that’s sort of my style.

The recipe for these is Pretzel Buns from King Arthur. I’ve become a fan of many of their recipes, party due to the fact it’s not some recipe web site with a very long story and dozens of advertisements.

Seriously though, I absolutely love these buns! I’ve had them toasted with just a bunch of cheese, with an egg, with some cheese and leftover taco meat (surprisingly good!) and even with cream cheese. I plan to make more of these. They also freeze pretty well.

Homemade Pretel Buns

I know what you’re saying, what about the beloved Pretzilla from Miller Baking in Milwaukee? Well, those are/were my go-to for many years, and I do like to support Milwaukee companies. My niece even used to work there, but in 2020 they sold out to a private equity firm, and of course any store-bought bread-based product is going to have additives and preservatives.

One of the reasons I am trying to make/bake more at home is because I want control of what goes into things. Flour, water, yeast, and salt (and sometimes olive oil or butter) is pretty much all you need for most dough. Be it pizza, bread, pretzels, or bagels. No additional ingredients are needed if it’s not going to sit on a store shelf. (Though honestly Pretzilla is probably better than most others, and is Non-GMO, Vegan, and Kosher.)

Homemade Pretel Buns

(Apologies for the vastly different color temperatures of the photos in this post. Our kitchen lighting is weird.)

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This is the Pain (Part III)

Just a quick update since the last post…

Hey, funny story. And by “funny” I mean tragic. I got through a consultation (in great pain, since I was off my medication) and got an actual appointment to get an injection. Actually, two injections. They said that they would need to go in through both sides instead of through the back.

So I was in the hospital, and Nurse Tara was prepping me for the procedure, going through all sorts of questions and then at the end of the questions Dana mentioned my finger.

I noticed the previous night that my right index finger was a bit swollen and reddish. Guess what… I had an infection!

Nurse Tara said “Okay, hold on” and left. Another nurse came in, took a look at my finger, then left. And then the doctor came in, took a look, and told me we needed to reschedule.

Fuuuuuuuu…

Yeah, so we canceled the procedure to be on the safe side, as doing a procedure while I potentially has a blood infection was a bad idea. They told me to go to urgent care and get some antibiotics and come back in two weeks.

I’ve been in pain for two months, so I figured two more weeks would be, well… not okay, but whatever. I had no choice.

I’ve been on antibiotics a few days now, finger is looking good, and hopefully within two weeks we’ll have anther update.

Update: The “two weeks” is now three weeks due to rescheduling. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point.

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Apple Shortcut – Toot Grab

Apple Shortcuts

I’ve been messing around with Apple Shortcuts lately. It’s a weird thing, like most things from Apple that try to make complex things simple. Shortcuts (as we’ll call them) can run on macOS and iPadOS and iOS. (So on a Mac, an iPad, and an iPhone.) Not all shortcuts run on all seamlessly, as they may rely on things that work on one platform but not another.

Here is a Shortcuts User Guide but it’s for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and where’s the macOS guide? And try searching for “Apple Shortcuts” and you get plenty of results about keyboard shortcuts. Sigh…

But whatever. Besides all that, I’m just going to share some silly (and maybe some useful) shortcuts with you. I’ll show you them (so you can make your own) and explain them.

Toot Grab Shortcut

This one grabs the most recent Toot I’ve posted on Mastodon and displays it. You could change to use any RSS feed. Either another Mastodon account, or a blog you like, or any feed. (And it works on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS.)

Example output of the Shortcut

Here’s what you see when it runs. It does run a bit slow (at least on the 2018 MBP I am typing on right now) but again, this is just a silly demo.

To make your own version you’ll need to explore Shortcuts and find the commands you need.

(And yes, I know I can share shortcuts to make them easy to install, but I’d prefer you explore it and look around and figure things out.)

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Philips Sonicare Toothbrush Repair

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

I have a Philips Sonicare Toothbrush and the power button is just a small PCB mounted button that is covered by a piece of rubber. I must be an aggressive tooth brusher because I seem to have worn through the rubber!

No one wants the rubber to break… and when it does you need to find a solution to that problem!

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

I had these small rubber bands so I figured sliding a few over the hole might be okay. They were not. They didn’t cover enough area and when I used the toothbrush I kept pushing the bands around.

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

Solution? We’re gonna need a bigger band! Bigger is always better, right?

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

Well, not always… but in this case it was definitely an improvement. The big band held in place pretty well. I have no idea where I got this rubber band from so I hope it never breaks!

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

Back to the old toothbrush board! I was worried about the large rubber band because it still left a tiny gap on either side of the band that could let water into the hole.

I wrapped some electrical tape around the shaft where the hole is and I covered the rubber part completely. I gave a few button presses with just the tape and could see it would not hold up.

Philips Sonicare Toothbrush (Repaired!)

So now we have two layers of protection! The electrical tape and the rubber band. That should do it.

So far it’s help up. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to press the button because it’s quite small and the rubber band is thick. The other idea I had was a piece of heat shrink over the handle but I didn’t have any large enough to fit over the shaft.

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