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A Robot That Cleans The House! Sort of.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post called Never Mind Astro, I Want Rosie, all about Amazon’s new robot helper Astro.
The robot was basically meant to do a few small things around the house, including turning on lights, acting as a security guard, getting you a beer (but not wine, interestingly), and playing with the kids.
At the time I complained that what I REALLY wanted was a robot that could clean my house.
Well, last Christmas, we got one. Kind of.
Our daughter gave us a Roomba.
So here is a short diary of my experiences with our new housekeeper:
Day One
She doesn’t clean the toilet or do the dishes. She doesn’t make my bed. But she DOES vacuum the floors.
Right now I’m watching as Sara (my husband named the Roomba ‘Serenity’, but I’ve shortened it to something that *I* like) is mapping out our ground floor. The cats are petrified. But curious.
They are following Sara around the house, trying to figure out who she is and what she’s doing. Sara is merrily going about her business.
I can almost hear her wondering “What the heck is this? A cat toy? Useless! And it’s in my way!”
Oddly enough I felt like I should clean up and move a lot of things around before she even got started. But I’ve given up. It’s not my job. Is it?
She softly bumps into a chair leg, then tries again, then tries again, before finally figuring out that she’s not going to get past it. So she spins around and tries another way.
We have the advantage of all of our rooms, including our bedroom, being on the main floor, so she’s got a lot to figure out. Now she knows how I feel.
At this point, Sara is 50 minutes into her mapping and has only used up 15% of her power. Not bad.
A little later and at 53% power left, she’s finished mapping.
It’s quite amazing. When we look at the app, she has mapped the whole main floor, with each room correctly named. How did she figure that out??
The REAL question is: can she do as great a job as I can?
9 months later:
After some time with Sara, I’ve decided that she does indeed come in handy. Especially those weeks when I don’t feel like doing anything. When you have cats, you have a lot of cat hair to keep up with.
And she cleans under my bed. Even I don’t go there.
Through the app, we can command her to vacuum even when we’re not at home. I haven’t figured out how to do that myself yet.
But. I’m superior at vacuuming. What can I say? I’ve practiced using a vacuum for years. I know every nook and cranny of my house. That’s because I have a much more advanced map of it in my brain than Sara does.
I can see when I haven’t caught that one little bit of fluff that’s still lying there. I can go over an area if I’m not quite happy with it. Sara isn’t that particular. I know, because sometimes I have to clean up after her.
I don’t need to re-charge. Well, not the way Sara does, anyway. A couple of sips of coffee will do.
And I can dust the furniture. I mean, don’t the two go hand-in-hand? When Sara can figure out how to dust too, I’ll have more respect for her.
The cats are more or less bored by her now. When they hear her little motor rev up, they just move somewhere else to catnap. And she has learned to ignore their toys.
I eagerly anticipate this type of technology becoming more advanced as we get older. A sort of Rosie meets Astro meets Sara thing who can clean the bathroom and vacuum and dust and make my bed.
Oh, and cook too! Yeah, get me one of those.
Walkers and Cycles and Scooters, Oh My!
This time of year always brings the fair weather cyclists like me out into the fresh air for a spin. Having been e-bike enthusiasts since our retirement a couple of years ago, my husband and I have enjoyed a lot of the trails and try to get out for a good ride at least once a week.
The pedestrians and dog walkers are out in big numbers at this time of year too. It’s getting crowded out there, and that leads to the occasional “situation”.
It was no surprise to me when I saw the story about an accident between a pedestrian and a cyclist on the E&N Rail Trail recently. We’ve witnessed a few incidents on the bike trails that could have lead to more serious consequences.
When my husband and I ride up behind a walker or a slower cyclist, we ring our bike bells to let them know we’re coming. Just common courtesy. When cyclists who are a lot faster than us quickly come up behind us, many of them will say “coming up on your left”, or something like that, so that we are forewarned. (I’m guessing they think bicycle bells are for babies.)
I always thank them for warning me. Although sometimes they’re going so fast, they might not hear my reply.
But then there are those who don’t have any sense of courtesy. Or even common sense.
I have a rear view mirror on my bike and I do keep my eye on it. But sometimes I’m coming around a bend and can’t possibly see them approaching from behind.
I’ve been startled a few times. How do they know I won’t suddenly swerve to miss a pot hole or a branch or something else? Or lose control of my bike? I’m not exactly 20 any more. Or even 30.
The truth is that they don’t know. They just carry on at their unbelievable speeds, heads down, elbows back, eyes straight ahead, trying to outdo themselves or something. I’d like to have some kind of radar unit to measure exactly how fast they’re going.
Their exercise apps might love them for their speed, but I don’t. As the cliché goes, it’s an accident waiting to happen. And of course, it has.
I also like to walk twice a day 4 or 5 days a week, and have experienced not only speeding cyclists but also scurrying scooterists (is that a word?) whizzing past me. Stand up scooters, called LSM’s, are supposed to be licensed but sometimes I wonder if they are. Some models are capable of reaching speeds of up to 145kmh.
They seem to be mostly driven by young males with the need for speed. And no helmet. What drives me nuts is when I see them riding on the sidewalk, trying to skirt traffic.
Then there are those electric unicycles. They’re not as common as the other modes of transport, but they go insanely fast. There used to be a fellow in my neighbourhood who I regularly saw riding an electric unicycle. He didn’t have a helmet on, which didn’t surprise me. But one day I saw him carrying his little girl in his arms while riding it. She didn’t have a helmet either.
That should be an absolute no-no.
One of the trickiest parts of being a cyclist can be interacting with vehicles. I would say that MOST drivers are careful and courteous, but every now and then…
I’m a driver too, so I know how difficult it can be to navigate around cyclists in some places. The new rule is that there should be at least 1.5 meters between us, but if a cyclist decides to ride in the middle of a lane, then it can get contentious.
Let’s face it, we all have to find ways to live with and respect each other on the roads and trails. In July a campaign begins where park rangers, bylaw officers and police will be out in force on the trails keeping an eye out. I’ll be happy to see them.
Otherwise, forget lions and tigers and bears…it’s walkers and cycles and scooters we’ve got to worry about. Okay, maybe a couple of bears.
There’s Nothing Wrong With “One And Done”
“One And Done”, for those of you who don’t know, is the new catch phrase for couples deciding to have only one child and that’s it, that’s all.
I can certainly understand what is behind it for a lot of young people. These days, the cost of raising a child to the age of 17 is estimated to be anywhere from $230,000 to $360,000. I hope that’s not in U.S. dollars.
I know of one young family who were spending more than $200 a month just on specialized baby formula.
Add to that the cost of living – rent, mortgage, gas, groceries – all of these have skyrocketed in the last year or two. My husband and I’ve had one of our adult children move back home to save money, as I’m sure many people of our age have.
Young people who have families or friends to take them in are lucky. Their only other choice these days seems to be living in a tent.
Some couples are deciding not to have any children at all, and I don’t blame them either. It’s hard to be positive about the future with climate change and wars and…well, let’s not go down that rabbit hole.
Oddly enough, there has been a little bit of backlash to this idea of One And Done. Some say it’s not a complete family with only one child. It’s not healthy. There are still stereotypes about only children being spoiled or lonely or having “only child syndrome”.
What’s that? you might ask. “Only Child Syndrome” means being unable to share, becoming annoying, entitled, weird or peculiar. I was pretty sure someone made that up, but there was apparently some research done in 1896 (!) that came to that conclusion. When I find the study, I’ll let you know.
I have experienced first had what it’s like to be an only child. And yes, over the years I’ve been told I must be spoiled or lonely, or both. But maybe I was lucky, or maybe it didn’t matter, because I had a great childhood.
It was pretty rare growing up in the 60’s to be an only child. Contraception was in its infancy (pun intended) and most families had at least two children. Everyone I knew had a brother or sister or both. My husband came from a family of six kids.
But my parents were a little different from most of the other parents I saw. They were in their late 30’s when I was born. My mother was 37, and that was pretty unusual for a first time Mom back then. When I started school, most of the other Moms I saw were in their mid-to-late 20s.
My Dad never called it One And Done; he referred to it as “Started Late and Finished Early.”
There were great advantages to not having any brothers and sisters. Christmas presents were ALL FOR ME. I almost always had my parents’ complete attention. I didn’t have to share a bedroom or wait in line for the bathroom.
The only thing I can think of that I didn’t like about being an only child was being all alone in the back seat of the car. I kid you not (sorry, another pun).
Brothers and sisters? I had plenty of friends – neighbourhood friends, school friends and even my cousins. And sometimes we fought like siblings, but we also had great adventures together. As far as I was concerned, these were my brothers and sisters. And many of us still keep in touch.
In conclusion I would just like to say that I have met a few people who grew up with siblings and who definitely acted entitled or weird, or who were certainly lonely. So there goes that old research.
If you want one and then want to be done, all the power to you.
That’s one lucky kid!