ecobee Follow Me with Kids

I finally figured out why the kids' bedrooms were not affecting the heating or cooling

November 8, 2023

First off, I love our family’s ecobee—it’s just fantastic. I’ve now purchased three: one at our previous house, one the day we signed the dotted line on our new build, and then one when they launched the latest model with air quality monitoring.

The one thing that I couldn’t quite figure out was why the kids’ rooms, which are kind of the only rooms that I really care about, were not contributing to whether the heat or AC would be on. This was mainly the case with the heat, but sometimes the AC as well. I have a sensor in each of the kids’ rooms, and our downstairs living room (and the ecobee in the upstairs hallway is also a sensor). At night, which, with young kids, we have set to start at 6:30 PM, the only sensors that are tied to the comfort setting are in the kids’ rooms and the hallway. Our air intake is in the hallway near the thermostat on the second floor. This should mean that we’re fine. But something always bugged me—the kids’ rooms would always seem to be colder than the hallway (which makes sense, given windows, etc.), but it wouldn’t trigger the heat to come on. The kids’ rooms would show temperatures sometimes as low as 65º F when our house was set to 69º F, and yet the heat wouldn’t turn on. Even if I raised the temp to 70º F, it was no use.

I finally spent some time reading how this all works and realized that the issue was with the Follow Me setting.

A Porch Pirate Got Away

Our experience with a neighborhood porch pirate

November 6, 2023

Last weekend a package thief stole a box from our porch at 11:00 in the morning. Something about the experience has me compelled to share what happened and it might be of interest for those trying to get ahead of the thieves this time of year.

I thought I’d done what I should with our security cameras as a deterrent. I had up three cameras in the front of our house with great coverage. But all that meant is we had excellent footage of her driving past scouting for packages, pulling a u-turn, getting out, putting a phone to her ear to look like she was talking to someone, and then grabbing the package and driving off. Great footage that allowed the police to tie her to all the other packages that were stolen in the neighborhood that day but that’s it.

My main goal of the cameras was to hopefully keep the crime from happening in the first place because once it’s happened the gig’s up - the package is gone.

We don’t have any signs up indicating we have security, but a neighbor who does have a security sign also had their package stolen so they don’t care about the cameras it seems especially because she looked right into our doorbell camera.

There was some humor in the fact that she had her phone to her ear backwards and it’s super clear in the photo.

Breville Flow Rate Lever Fix

Fixing the flow rate lever on the Breville Precision Brewer

November 4, 2023

How I Fix a Stuck Flow Rate Lever on My Breville Precision Brewer

My Breville Precision Brewer has been a reliable companion for my family’s coffee needs. However, it does have one quirk: on occasion the flow rate lever gets stuck in the up position. I haven’t sorted a specific reason that it does, but when it does it’s a dealbreaker because it blocks me from taking out the brew basket.

I found this post on Reddit about at least I’m not alone.

The Simple Fix

Here’s what I’ve found consistently fixes it when it happens.

1. Leave the water tank empty after your last brew.

2. Initiate a Brew Cycle and the machine will alert you to add water, but the magic is that it will also release the lever.

Two cups

A Thought Process for Managing Overwhelm

May 22, 2023

When I was a Starbucks Partner, I quickly learned something about the feeling of overwhelm. Imagine being in the middle of a holiday rush with ten drinks queued up and a group of ten people followed by several families, all ordering complex blended drinks and seasonal drinks, with some even requesting half-and-half steamed to 145º added on top of the usual 2% milk. That’s enough to make anyone go crazy. What I was taught, however, was to not see the entire queue of drinks, but instead to focus on – you guessed it – the two drinks in front of me.

Starbucks is a machine of beverage preparation productivity, and the established rhythm supported working on the first half of one drink, finishing the second drink, then starting the next drink, finishing the previous one, and so on. It was an ingenious system and, as someone who thrives in a flow state, I found it incredibly satisfying.

EcoFlow Delta Pro Whole House Battery Backup

How I installed the EcoFlow Delta Pro for whole house battery backup.

March 6, 2023

Problems to solve:

• Maintain power during outages due to weather/other happening more regularly
• Expandable if we needed to extend the house in case of more frequent outages (OR)
• Expandable if we get solar panels to store more sun
• Not locking me into transfer switch or generator inlet
• Simple installation to start with, just allow us to get house powered when mains are down - able to be complex later if desired

Which At-Home Coffee Maker To Buy

Let's talk about what coffee you want to make and what your budget is to find the right at-home coffee set up for you. From Espresso and Lattes, to everything in-between.

April 15, 2020

Setting up the criteria for your decision

What do you want to make?

I’m going to focus on just two very simple coffee styles: Lattes and Brewed Coffee. From experience, if we start to break out into all the variances (especially on the brewed coffee side) then we’ll be here all week. So what coffee do you like?

Now, if you just want to copy me, I wrote a post about what my coffee setup is these days. You can see that here: My 2020 Coffee Setup.

What is your budget?

You can start as affordable as $10 for a great coffee maker setup and I’ll top out at around $800 for everything you need. We’ll chat about everything in between.

What goes into coffee?

Let’s first talk about what goes into a good cup of coffee. Water and ground beans. Let’s start there.

My 2020 Coffee Setup

My daily coffee setup and what I love about it.

April 15, 2020

A few years ago I wrote about how I brewed my coffee in the morning. Honest, I have more gear now but I often revert back to the simpler times with just my AreoPress. That said, I’ve changed things up a bit and I couldn’t be happier.

How to Change the Temperature of the Breville Infuser Espresso Machine

The Breville Infuser (BES840XL) has a programable PID allowing temperature changes from 196º F to 204º F. Here is how, and why, one might want to do this.

April 17, 2018

Why would one want to change the temperature?

Coffee is nearly all water. That said, the water you use to extract your coffee impacts the flavor of the coffee. Temperatures below 195 ºF (90.5 ºC) will produce a weakly flavored, or under-extracted, shot of espresso. The higher the temperature, the more “total dissolvable solids” will be present in your final shot leading to a more developed shot of espresso. Of course, you can go crazy and have your temperature too hot. Your Breville Infuser’s PID limits you to 204 ºF (95.56 ºC) F so you can’t get too wild.

How I Make My Morning Coffee

In the mornings I like to keep my coffee routine simple. Here's a step-by-step guide on how I make my coffee using an Aeropress.

January 2, 2017

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about how I make my coffee. Being a massive coffee nerd (I have more than 4 textbook style books on coffee and its chemistry) people seem to think that making my morning coffee could be equated to launching the Space Shuttle. I can assure that it is not.

Here is a super simple step-by-step inspired by Marco Arment from this podcast. This is how I make my coffee using an AeroPress every morning.

LostGrid Version 8

December 28, 2016

Version 8 is now available

What Changed?

See full changelog below for all the changes.

Breaking Changes

• Waffle grids now have their last element floated to the left. This can be changed to make the last element float to the right. You can revert to having the last element float to the right by adding “float-right” to the end of line. a { lost-waffle: 2/5 3 0 no-flex float-right; }
• The Offset was initially done backwards (negative went right and positive went left). This is now more intuitive. You can get your existing project working with version 8 by simply making your previous negative fractions positive and your positive fractions negative. (e.g. lost-offset: 1/3; => lost-offset: -1/3;)
• LostGrid no longer supports 0.10 and 0.12 versions of Node.

New Features

• You can now use vw and vh as units for grid calculations instead of the default %. Read the Docs
• A new “rounder” feature was added allowing you to adjust the rounder multiplier. (See this post to learn more)

LostGrid to no longer support older versions of Node

Some notes about LostGrid and Node versions.

November 9, 2016

LostGrid is going to drop support for Node v0.10 and v0.12

Okay okay…not just yet. But I’m releasing a patch today that will start to put warnings out there about the drop of Node support in Version 8. Version 8 isn’t quite ready yet and I’m going hold off releasing it until December when Node support for v0.12 ends.

Moving forward, LostGrid is going to support Node versions according to the Node LTS docs. See Docs here

LostGrid, the Pixel Gap

LostGrid's new beta is looking to solve some of the pixel gap issues with a new rounding parameter.

November 6, 2016

LostGrid Version 8 Beta 1 (the second one) (v8.0.0-beta.1)

This second beta release of LostGrid’s Version 8 is working to solve the pixel gap issues that some users experience using Calc-based grids. Inspired by the original creator of LostGrid, Cory Simmons, there is now a “rounder” parameter.

Read Beyond Yourself

Do you ever read a book that is beyond you...that you don't feel like you're completely ready for? Good.

October 30, 2016

My mom did a lot of things right; I am so blessed by her. I was reading a book this evening, The Essential Wooden: A Lifetime of lessons on Leaders and Leadership, and something hit me and hit me hard. …and something I realize my mom, whether she knew it or not, was doing very, very right: She got me books I wasn’t ready to read.

Have a few books on your bookshelf you’re not ready for. One day, maybe not tomorrow, you’ll be ready for them…and when you are you’ll be glad they are there.

LostGrid Gets A New Beta

LostGrid has some updates that are now in beta; things like lost-offset are getting a facelift.

October 18, 2016

LostGrid has a beta! (v8.0.0-beta.0)

This first release has a new more intuitive version of lost-offset that now shifts the content a bit more like you’d feel it should. Negative fractions moves it to the left and positive fractions move it to the right. It feels great to use!

The Ongoing Adventures of a Frontend Developer

Links and notes from my talk at Clark College in Washington.

October 5, 2016

I was asked to give a talk on “The Ongoing Adventures of a Frontend Developer” at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. Here are some links and notes from that talk.