technology – Seclusion 101 with AnneMarie

July 24th – Beyond Magic

July 24, 2021July 24, 2021 by annemariedemyen, posted in Magical Moments - July 2021

Dan picked up our new computer on his way home from work on Thursday. Yesterday, he unboxed it and attached all of the wires to connect it to all the outlying bits and pieces. Last night I got it up and running! 🎉🎉🎉

The magic in this is that technical skills are not my strong suit. In fact, my technical skills probably rate just south of my ‘handling power tool‘ skills. You know, those skills that enabled me to attach my cell phone to a shipping carton while trying to operate a tape gun. The same skills that saw me almost take out a neighbour with our electric knife. Those skills… 🙄

My technical skills are worse. Setting up an alarm clock is typically a two or three hour process involving cuss words and a couple of glasses of wine. Setting up a software program is worse. The instructions might as well be in a foreign language. Chances are, they probably are and I just haven’t figured that out yet.

However, last night I set out to get our computer up and running and I got the job done! Without wine or cuss words! There were a couple of small hiccups. The first being that it seemed the keyboard was non-functional (operator error). The second was that, despite very clearly asking if Norton Antivirus would be installed on this computer and getting a very clear ‘NO’, it was definitely there. 🤦 The good news is, after my initial meltdown, it seems I was able to totally uninstall that abomination and successfully install AVG! Yay me!

Our new computer is up and running! Now for the beyond magical.

Last night, there was a full moon! A full moon and I successfully completed a complicated technical task. That is indeed beyond magical.

I am not a full moon fixing type of person. In the days leading up to, and including the day of a full moon, I destroy. Vehicles break down. Tools and electronics cease to function. Meals burn. Once during a full moon, I walked through the office where I was working and jammed four printers without laying a hand on any of them. One was a blueprint copier! A blueprint copier is like a giant wringer from the top of an old-fashioned wringer washer. It consists of two massive rollers that feet a giant piece of paper through print heads. There is supposedly no way to jam one. I did it. I did it so well that the giant piece of paper running through it totally vanished. The technician who came out to make things right was amazed.

Anyway, last night there was a full moon and I successfully set up our new computer. I feel so darn magical!

I hope everyone is having a nice (full moon) weekend. Take care and I will see you tomorrow. 💞

Choosing My Battles

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020 by annemariedemyen, posted in life, Uncategorized

It appears that technology (currently WordPress) is determined to pose ongoing challenges. I have never been one who enjoys conflict, so I make an effort to choose my battles.

Today my battle of choice was aligning my website address with the title of my blog, since WordPress had gone rogue on me and decided my website address should be ‘seclusion101withannemarie.com‘ instead of ‘retirement101with annemarie.com‘.

Since chances were slim to nil of getting the website address changed, I decided to go with it and change my blog title instead. That alone was battle enough as WordPress did not seem to believe I really want to make the change.

This has been my mission since 9:00 this morning. I have taken short breaks to have a bath, do my hair, have brunch, dust the livingroom, run to the pharmacy, go with Dan to get the Jeep washed and buy groceries, put away the groceries, walk Kat the dog, and have a short chat with my neighbour Kim. Finally at 4:00 this afternoon, my mission appears to be complete and my new blog title is here to stay!

Tomorrow, I will work on changing my tag line or adding a category to my menu. One battle a day and I should start to see some progress!

Auto-Correct

February 16, 2020February 20, 2020 by annemariedemyen, posted in life

It started out innocently enough. I would write a simple text to my sister. “Hey! How are you feeling today?” And hit send. Moments later she would receive a text that said “Harry, have you been falling today?”. To which she would reply “Are you furry drunk?”

Within months, these obnoxious auto-corrects had taken over my Google searches – no I did not mean how to skin a fox in Yugoslavia! (What would possess you to think I would want to skin a fox anywhere?) Then it infiltrated the body of my emails – “OMG! I am so sorry, I typed ‘shutters‘. I have no idea why auto-correct changed the ‘u’ to an ‘i’.”

Next, auto-correct took to questioning my choice of email recipients. I would choose ‘Bob Smith’ from my menu of contacts and I would get a message “Did you mean Joe Brown?”. “No, I meant BOB SMITH”. 🤯

Now this has gone too far. I think “Cason” and I write “Dominic”. I think “Genie” and I say “Jennifer”. I even do it with inanimate objects. I point to the television and I say “table”. Frankly, I thought I was just getting senile. But no, I was speaking to my perfectly normal sister Elaine last night and the same thing has been happening to her. Artificial intelligence has taken over our brains and inserted an auto-correct function.

I would be fine with this, if auto-correct ever got it right. If this was actually a helpful tool. But no, that is not the case. Auto-correct shirts it up every time.

Before Retirement: Life in the Construction Industry

September 11, 2019December 29, 2019 by annemariedemyen, posted in career

I am looking forward to retirement. I am ready to have time for me. I am ready to be free of the 8 to 4:30, Monday through Friday workweek. I will not miss driving to work in the pitch dark on icy streets. I will not miss the lunchbag sandwiches, salads and soups. I will not miss being tied to a desk for eight hours a day, seeing the sunshine on the other side of the street. There are a number of things I will not miss, and there are many things that I will.

For the past twenty-five years, I have worked in the Saskatchewan construction industry. I worked at a millwork company that made amazing custom cabinets, a metal company that did phenomenal work in stainless steel, brass, aluminum, and steel, and for the past fifteen years I have worked for a company that sells and installs high end residential and commercial construction specialty products. It has been fun, interesting and gratifying.

The best part of the construction industry is the people. For the most part, I have loved working with the clients, consultants, contractors, suppliers, my bosses and co-workers. We are all a part of an industry, and the heart and soul of our industry are the tradespeople. They work through the blazing heat of summer and the frigid cold of winter. They work the hours it takes, and do what they have to do, to get the job done. At the end of the day, they are proud of what they have done. It is not just about a paycheque or personal accolades. It is a house or a hospital or a school that they helped to build, as part of a team of dedicated professionals.

The construction industry has gone through a lot of changes in the past twenty-five years. Some changes have been good, like improvements in products, design and equipment. Some changes have not been as good, in my mind. There have been a lot of new or revised programs that have added a lot of administration but little value to the industry.

Today I attended a meeting focused on digital transformation in the construction industry. It was primarily a presentation of a program designed to manage the administration and documentation of major projects. From what I could tell this particular program seemed credible.

My issue with this meeting was the pre-presentation warm up. The speaker noted that the construction industry is far behind other industries, such as manufacturing, in developing and implementing the technology required to ‘progress’ . He showed a number of small clips, most of which I had no real issue with. He had one on BIM software, one on Robotics, one on drones, one on virtual reality – all of which could be legitimately used as tools to enhance construction projects and deal with issues before they become real life brick and mortar issues.

Than he showed a clip on AI – artificial intelligence. This clip explained how technology could be implemented to constantly scan a worksite, count and record the vehicles entering and leaving the site and scan the workers from the time they step on to the site to the time they leave. It would scan where they went, what they did, record any safety infractions, check their ppe (personal protective equipment), etc. I voiced my objection to technology being used in this manner.

One of the other attendees noted that it is frustrating to constantly be monitoring workers for proper use of their ppe and that this could be a safety management tool, which the presenter quickly agreed with. Except, it would not really help to improve safety on a site. If someone was monitoring this scanner every moment, and if they saw a safety alert pop up, they would have to contact someone on the site to go address the situation. This would still be an ongoing issue for foremen and supervisors to deal with. What this technology would do, would be to provide a record so that if there was an incident, the contractor could go to court, backed with video proof of what part a worker had played in the incident and use it to mitigate any legal responsibility the company would have.

We all want everyone to go home safe at the end of the day. Workers do not want to be injured on the job or anywhere else. For the most part they are conscientious about safety – theirs and the people they work with. However, workers are human. They are working in situations that are not ideal and under conditions that are problematic. They are working with dangerous tools and with product that has the potential to turn lethal in a gust of wind or a slight miss-step. Accidents do and will continue to happen. When they do, injured workers and their families should be taken care of. That is what worker’s compensation and disabilty insurance is for.

Artificial intelligence that is implemented to dehumanize our workforce is not progress. Technology used in this manner is an appalling insult to the front line workers in our industry. Next summer, this will no longer be ‘my industry’ but I hope that those who remain will ensure that it remains an industry where workers are treated with respect and appreciation.