Month: July 2025

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One of the advantages of living in San Diego is that you hardly ever have to use air conditioning or the heater. This is pretty much the environment I have been living in for the past 30 years. I write this as a way of explaining why I had such trouble when my fire alarm went off in my new smart apartment. Bob was cooking and apparently a minuscule amount of smoke got into the fire alarm setting it off. I could neither see nor smell any smoke but who am I to argue with a screaming fire alarm.

Bob turned on the stove fans. Alarm continued to blare. I opened the patio doors. Alarm still continued to blare. Bob told me to turn on the fan in the apartment. This seemed like a simple task and I gladly expected the challenge. In the good old days, you would just move the dial to fan, the fan would go on and the smoke would disappear.

The smart thermostats, however, are different. There is no moveable switch that can turn the fan on. The smart thermostat is a touch screen with icons. None of the icons look remotely like a fan. So I did would anybody would do in this situation, I begin to randomly hit the icons in the hope that one of those icons controlled the fan. Mind you, the alarm is screaming in my smart apartment. Scaring me, Bob, the cats and all of neighbors on the third floor.

The icons do bring up menus. Unfortunately the menu items are crammed onto a screen about the size of a baseball. I am unable to read them with or without glasses. So I was back to the tried and true method of randomly picking menu items in the hopes one of them turns on the fan. Finally after a few minutes something occurs and the fan goes on and the indecipherable amount of smoke clears the room.

Greatly relieved but also a little concerned that I can’t easily turn on the fan which also leaves Bob worried about cooking again. If the alarm is going to go off every time the oven is turned on we needed to learn how it worked. It was time for me to learn more about the thermostat. I thought since the alarm had been silenced I could calmly look at the thermostat and figure it all out. Wrong. There was still the same unrecognizable icons, the same small print, and I again found myself randomly picking an icon in slim hopes that it will be the one to tell me how to turn off the fan.

Bob suggested finding a Youtube video explaining how to use this thermostat. This annoys me because instead of being easy to use, which is how the apartment bills it, I have to watch a video on how to use this most excellent tool. I fight the urge and continue to randomly pick icons. This has become slightly more important in that I have managed to turn on the fan but now I can’t turn off the fan. After going through numerous menus and not seeing, and I mean not seeing in every sense of the word, I surrender. I go to Youtube.

This is a revelation. I thought there would be one or two videos of how to use the system. But there were numerous 5 to 10 minute videos about a variety of topics — how to set a temperature range to automatically turn on the air conditioner, how to set a temperature range to turn on the heater, how to set the temperature range for mornings and evenings, and so on and so forth. None however specifically were for how to turn the fan on and off.

I did find one that had the word fan and managed to get enough information to turn off the fan. Success. We were on the road to fully use all the great tools our smart apartment had to offer.

The problem with my lesson is that by the next day when Bob asked me how to turn the fan on and off. I couldn’t explain how it was done because it required going to the right menu options and, for the life of me, I have no memory of how I did it. Indeed, I had to watch the Youtube video again to explain how I turned off the fan. The fan I had turned off just last night. That is how easy it is to use the smart thermostat.

I guess what I am saying is that the apartment might be smart but the users are definitely stuck in the remedial class on how to work it.

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The past few weeks businesses involved in meat packing, farming, travel and leisure are complaining that they are losing workers due to ICE raids. This would cause me to break out the handkerchief and shed a tear if it weren’t for the fact that these businesses are breaking the law and they don’t seem terribly worried about talking about it. Farm AID believes that 40% of farm laborers are undocumented. This means an awful lot of farmers aren’t checking their worker’s documents.

If immigrants illegally crossing the borders is about getting law breakers, then the same strategy should be used with the businesses breaking the laws regarding hiring undocumented employees. Both parties are breaking the law, why focus on the person looking for work and not the person hiring them? ICE agents in baklavas should be taking away business owners who, apparently quite openly, are flouting the law. They should be afraid to come into work each day instead they are complaining that they no longer have access to cheap labor because ICE is taking their employees.

The problem here is cheap labor. American Businesses want employees that are willing to do backbreaking labor for pennies. Americans refused to break their backs for pennies. They also want benefits for their work — like vacation pay, health benefits, and sick pay. Immigrants are willing to risk death to come here to do backbreaking labor for pennies and no benefits because it is still better than what they get at home.

So, round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows. But I am pretty sure it won’t be higher wages.