Auto Airplane PLUS+

You may have noticed that I've been fairly quiet for the past week and a half. I thought of idea for an Android application during the middle of last week, and since then I've gone into my "thought cave" and worked feverishly to get it completed. The idea is fairly simple, but I thought it was useful enough for a wide enough audience that it was worth making.

The app concept is simple: a user selects conditions during which the phone will automatically disconnect from the network (data, wifi) to both save battery and avoid interruptions.

I have played a few games on my phone where ads or other updates during the game were downright obnoxious. Some ads flashed brightly and hurt my eyes, others played videos that were hard to close, and others put clickable ads close to buttons in the game. When I enabled airplane mode, those ads and updates went away because the phone was offline.

I noticed myself switching on airplane mode when I opened certain apps, then switching it back off once I exited. Programmers are inherently lazy, since our jobs are basically to get computers to do things for us (faster and with less effort). I put my lazy mind to work and thought I could automate this repetitive behavior. That's how my app was born.

I figured this idea might be worth 99 cents to some people. So I made a catchy name (Auto Airplane PLUS+) and designed a simple logo:

When the app is published, I would like to get some folks to test out the app for free. If anyone would like to be a beta tester (ie: test a preliminary version which may have bugs), then contact me by email and I will send you a link to sign up. The only requirement is that you are using Android 2.2 to 4.4. Sorry, but the app won't work on Android 5.0+ or Apple (iOS). Thanks for your interest!

Bug Killer

Alisha and I are in the process of redoing our backyard. We started the process in the middle of last year, and just now we're finally getting the plans solidified. Last year my dad started leveling the yard and ripping out the grass, so right now our yard is full of weeds:

On the side of our house nearest to these weeds, I noticed a bunch of bugs. They all looked like this in various sizes:

There were quite a few of these on the house, so I squished about 15 of them and then still kept seeing more crawling around. Before I took the next step and started spraying bug killer or stomping them like mad, I thought to myself "Maybe I should look up what kind of bugs these are". I went inside and typed "orange black bug" into google. To my surprise, these were ladybugs in an intermediate stage! I guess our yard (and hopefully future garden) will be missing a few ladybugs this year. Luckily more have come back and it looks like we'll have plenty. Here is one of them nearly transformed into a full red-with-black-dots ladybug:

Please ignore the dying pineapple plant we're trying to grow after visiting the Dole plantation

Growing Older

I had a few things happen recently that reminded me of my age. First, Alisha noticed my first gray hair. Normally someone would be saddened by this finding, but I was excited because I didn't go completely bald before having a gray hair!

Second, I visited a chiropractor for the first time ever. I just wanted a general checkup to make sure no long-term problems were developing. In automotive circles, they call it "getting an alignment". Anyways, during the initial exam he noticed that when I stand normally my right foot goes out at a slight angle:

When he noticed this, he checked some other things and then gave me a 5mm spacer to go under my heel. Apparently one leg is shorter than the other. With all of the close plays at first base, maybe that extra 5mm would have made me "safe" one time instead of "out"! I'll have the spacer in my shoe for the next 3 weeks, then find out if I need a custom insert:

On top of that, I got an AARP membership in the mail! For those who don't know, I am only 37 years old (in fact, last year I forgot I was 36 and thought I was 37 all year). Maybe they are implying that I'm bound for early retirement?

Disco Time

Alisha and I are not dancers, but each day we have "Disco Time". We don't dance or play music from the 70's, but we do have a large number of disco balls. In fact, we've got just about every size of disco ball from 2" to 24" in diameter. We used to have a 1" disco ball, but our dog ate it. Maybe she wanted to make her bathroom breaks seem a little more magical?

Anyways, near a window at the top of our stairs, Alisha has hung several disco balls, with other larger ones sitting on the floor. Around 6pm each day the light will shine in and hit all of the disco balls. It only lasts for 5-10 minutes, so we refer to it as "Disco Time":

Disney Flowers

I forgot to share this last week with the other posts about our Disney World vacation, but while we were there Epcot (one of the disney parks) was having a flower festival. Here are some of the pictures that Alisha took around the parks of different topiaries carved into character shapes:

... and then finally us standing in front of the famous Epcot ball (there's a ride inside):

Selfie-Do's

With Alisha away, I have tried keeping myself busy with projects that would normally take time away from her, but can be tackled while she's away. I have stuff like taxes (I file the day or so before they're due) and car maintenance on my list, but those are things I put there. That's why I called this post "selfie-do's", because they're things I'm asking myself to do (as opposed to the traditional "honey-do" list).

One item I added to the list due to my own stupidity was some wire repair. A few weeks ago I was mowing and saw an old irrigation line sticking out of the ground. I wasn't paying much attention, so I mowed over it. To make matters worse, there wasn't even any grass underneath, I was just leaving the mower on for who knows what reason. Anyways, the irrigation line turned out to be an electrical line that controlled my yard's sprinkler system. This morning I did the repair:

Connected wire and covered with heat shrink tubing

Put in a nail, for rigidity

Cover it with the substance without which no manly project is complete: duct tape.

And finally clean up the appearance and seal it with electrical tape

Bachelor Pad

This morning at around 5am I dropped off Alisha at the airport. She will be visiting to spend time with her family and to help with filming a project for her dad. She'll be gone a few weeks and I'll be staying here in California, so it was strange to see her flight progress as she inched closer to Texas:

In the meantime I'll be carrying on some projects around the house, having a game night, and watching as many scary movies as I can to flush it out of my system while she's away.