Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Am I High Tech?

 No, I'm not, lol.  No Alexa, no smart car, try to use no data on the phone that does not even belong to me.  TV runs off an antenna on the roof.

Some folks, in person and online, expressed surprise I use a remote control attached to a trap to catch specific cats.  How high tech.

Well I do have a sender receiver remote control unit for springing a trap from up to maybe 100 feet.  But its more a toy than a tool and I don't use it much.

That's the remote sender/receiver up top and my baby cam, also used to monitor traps, bottom.   Both gadgets are elderly now.


Ordinarily, I would forego the battery powered remote for use catching specific cats and prop the trap door up with a full water bottle instead, line tied around the bottle neck.  But topography at this location ruled out the bottle and string option.

Electronic trapping devices are quite nice, but they are electronic and need power to operate and batteries fail at the most awkward of times.   They did for me twice on Sunday.  First it was the sender unit I had in my car, ready and waiting to spring the trap, that went dead suddenly and would not spring the trap when I pulled the lever.  Dead as a doornail.

I attached a usb power pack to it, which was dangling, at times, and quickly recharged the sender.  Then it was the receiver unit on the trap whose batteries went dead.  That unit requires a small screwdriver to remove four tiny screws, and not lose them, before changing the 4 AA batteries out.   

By this time, I was out of new AA batteries and had go home and scrounge some up.

By and large the remote works ok on the trap, but I'd rather just use the bottle and string if that's a possibility.  Why?  Foolproof.  

A friend sent me a usb electric blanket after hearing I was cold in my car the two days I sat out there. Is that high tech?  Haha.  How do I like using a usb powered electric blanket?   What's not to love?  Except, you can drain your car battery using it while sitting along a road, as I was this weekend.  The solution?   My Idaho brother and his wife sent me a jackery last fall as my Christmas present.  Sure it was many months early, lol.   Like clockwork, the night I got it, the power was out here a few hours.  I plugged the TV into it and watched TV--using a little chargable generator!  I felt very smug.  But then the power blinked back on in the house and I was annoyed.  So, I can plug an electric blanket into its usb ports too, and not run my car battery dead sitting along a road while I stay toasty warm.

My last coast trip, with Slinko, the tension in my shoulders and neck got quite severe, driving in the snow, on the way over, early early morning and dark, with dim headlights.  I thought it was the bulbs going bad or the aiming wrong that made my headlights so dim on the road.   Anyhow, I found an on sale small usb powered heating pad at Walmart and got it, to wear across my shoulders while driving.  I love it and felt quite smart having this new fangled portable heating pad to use.   This too can be powered easily with my pocket sized Halo power pack. After the car's alternator was replaced my dim headlight issue also vanished.  Funny thing.

Here's my car heat pad.

Yes, of course I consider anything that plugs into power via a usb high tech.   

If you have enough data on your phone plan, you can make a device with a wifi switch, a wifi hotspot, and as trigger, the parts to a car door lock with remote.  You hook a wireless camera to watch the trap with, sending images to your phone via the hotspot and trigger the trap remotely from your phone when you see the right cat in the trap.  Or....you just watch the trap through your phone, using the hotspot and the wifi camera and go pick up the cat in trap when its sprung.    I don't even own my phone though, right now.  Nor could I afford a hotspot for trapping.   Do you think I"d ever bother with the expense of getting all this sort of shit, then putting it together, then making sure everything worked each time I went out?  I'm too lazy and also too broke to ever pull it off.

Usually I'm low tech, picking things up at the site, to solve issues.   Like a rock to hold down the paper edges.  Branches and leaves to cover a trap.  The easier the better, the less gear the better.

Two things together last night had me upset enough to basically walk in circles, open and close drawers out of stress, eat things mindlessly. 

  I thought the Salem woman who Saturday took the two kittens I trapped at the colony, would be fostering both and adopting them out through a Salem group.  Last night I discovered she had taken one almost immediately to the large big shelter.   Do they kill wild little kittens?  I don't know, possibly.  I don't know anything about their shelter side.   I'm going to try to find out where she is, if alive, today and get her back.  Last night I couldn't think straight after finding this out.  

The other thing was a woman seems to be pretending she is trapping the colony, even using one of my videos of one of the kittens from the colony.  I dont' have any idea why someone would pretend like that.  I had thought she was normal.  I guess none of us really are.

Do I even want to know anyone at all, I think to myself.  Then I thought to myself how nuts I am at times and say to myself quit with the judging you idiot.   I'll just continue being the loner lady, works for me.


13 comments:

  1. Who knows the motivation of someone who pretends to trap and rescue kittens, but doesn't? Or what kind of mind she has that plays out that scenario? But whatever the reason, she's endangering helpless creatures and that's not alright.

    Onto more positive things--heated things that can be charged with a USB port! Who knew? I'm going to start looking around to see what all is available.

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  2. A huge sigh at that woman. I do hope you find and can reclaim the kitten.
    I struggle with high techery. I don't need or want kitchen appliances which are connected to the internet. I cannot imagine the necessity of 'talking' to my fridge while I am not home. Youngsters (and the not so young) are much more comfortable with technological advances than I am. I suspect it was ever thus...

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  3. Anonymous1:57 PM

    I had to look up the word jackery. What a good idea. The woman's behaviour is rather odd.

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  4. Sometimes the newfangled stuff isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Whatever works. I discovered my phone can be a wifi hotspot. But, I have no idea what kind of phone you have or what your plan is. Those things vary widely. Sucks about the woman who took the kittens. She never gets trusted again.

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    1. Mine can too but to make a camera work at the site of the trap if you want to leave, the hotspot has to stay with the trap to send messages to your phone, via the hotspot. I have never had a situation I'd need to long distant trigger and check a trap. I can't leave them that far from me, they'll get stolen or messed with.

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  5. My current challenge with "high tech" is that it takes me three minutes after trying to click on a blog comment pane before I get the blinky cursor that tells me I can now leave a comment.

    Perhaps, the disappointment with the first woman was the result of a misunderstanding, but the second woman was clearly deceitful, and I am confident that you're that kind of "crazy." Someone like she can't be trusted in any way whatsoever other than to be dishonest--at least this is the theory that I operate on.

    Our only cellphone is a 3G flip phone that we bought used at Goodwill over ten years ago. In the case of the trip springers that you're talking about, technology has the potential of being the enemy of ingenuity, yet it's not nearly as efficient as ingenuity.

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    1. Well, I guess soon your flip phone won't be working. I don't want or need a smart phone. I am sometimes nervous to say that publicly maybe feel I"ll be called old fashioned, stupid or old. I am old and probably old fashioned and hey, I know Morse Code. We learned it in grade school. I don't know why I said that, maybe to show I may be old but I know a few things.

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    2. It's Peggy's phone, actually, and she got her new flip phone hooked up yesterday. God knows why--no one at AT&T seemed to know--but AT&T gave it to her for free. She has a dirt-cheap pay-as-you-go plan according to which she has to pay an occasional small fee plus $2.00 for every 24-hour day she uses her phone. Since days--or longer-might pass during which she doesn't use the phone, it's a great deal. Personally, I only talk on the phone when I have to, and for that, we have free VOIP line.

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  6. I am not comfortable with most modern tech, either. Things tend to go wrong at the worst times. I just wish you could count on humans, my dear. ~hugs~ Your endeavors take great fortitude. Thank you.

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    1. Tech is a constant battle. I'd rather just give it up and read a book, a real book with paper pages, not some computer fake book that the cats pee on once and its dead forever.

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  7. I sure don't like to hear about that woman, it's just not right and especially if she is endangering the kitties. It would make me walk in circles and eat mindlessly too! It sure sounds to me like you manage very well, high tech or not. :)

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    1. It was too much stress for one night, to worry about a little kittens' fate and then that woman, and I didn't see that coming.

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  8. "the second woman was clearly deceitful, and I am confident that you're that kind of "crazy."

    I meant to say, "I am confident that you're that NOT kind of 'crazy.'" I hope you realized this before I corrected my misstatement.

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