(CNN) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has turned down an offer from the United States of evacuation from the capital city Kyiv, the Ukraine embassy in Britain said Saturday on Twitter.
"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride," Zelensky told the US, according to the embassy.
"Ukrainians are proud of their President," the tweet adds.
Well according to the calculations by automotive journalist Lauren Fix, if it is the financial calculation that triggers your decision, you might want to hold off a little on buying that new EV … even with tax incentives.
A few years back while learning a little more about iPhone photography, I downloaded and tinkered with the Focos app. At the time, I liked it,but for some reason forgot about using it or that I even had it on my phone. In updating to Apple’s iOS 15.3.1 (security issues I assume), I figured it was time to free up some space and remove unwanted apps.
When Focos appeared, I looked at it again and remembered that it was an excellent app for the bokeh effect or what we would call “selective focus” back in my photography days. Apple calls this Depth Control but it is really improved by using Focos … so I think I’ll keep the app for now.
Russia, lead by the wicked Vladimir Putin, has invaded and attacked their neighbor on February 24th after massing their military around Ukraine this past year. They started the invasion with missiles and air strikes to all but eliminate Ukraine’s air defenses and are currently crossing borders from all directions with overwhelming military force. For students of history, it triggered thoughts of 1939 history as Nazi Germany expanded their footprint in Europe … as world leaders at the time bloviated and watched. We all too often discount and forget the past and as the Winston Churchill axiom goes, “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
The questions facing the west at this point is … “if sanctions and talks don’t work, will NATO, lead by the United States, be required to mount a military deterrent?” And … (more…)
Last week I was talking to an online friend from Alaska about outdoor cold-weather activities who shared a winter camping photo. He was complaining about the freezing rain and less than ideal weather this year on his 20 mile snowmobile trip, so he cut it short and drove to Wasilla to watch the start of the Iron Dog.
The conversation shifted to the the correct verbiage: snowmobile vs snowmachine … and which term to use. He commented that once you get to the Arctic, they call it a SnoGo.
The chat had me remembering growing up and enjoying winters on Lake Erie and only knowing them as a Ski-doo … which was the popular brand at the time (and may still be?) We enjoyed riding ours “with permission” on farm fields, the snow covered roads in our rural area of NW Ohio … and even on Lake Erie in front of our house (winters were obviously colder, the ice on the lake was thicker and it probably snowed more). Here is a Throwback Thursday #TBT photo “taken by MomC” of DadC, my brother Ron, our dog Skippy and me for the blog archive. Good memories.
Interesting tidbit: According to a post on social media (take that for what it is worth), “the average person lives in 11 homes in there lifetime.” It doesn’t detail if a college dorm is considering a “home,” but if I eliminate them … I’m up to EIGHT that I call “a residence.” In pondering my future (it said “lifetime”) … I’m estimating there are 2-4 moves yet to make. Gulp. It surprised me that I was even at 8 … and that ALL were in Ohio?
This has me wondering about my friends who have moved constantly due to job changes or from a life in the military (like my friends Mark and Dar who move more often that I change clothes – humor). They obviously punch up the averages.
For years now we have been satisfied with the bulky (and older)Canary Cams for added security at home. The first Canary continues to work flawlessly “inside” our house and thankfully just perches quietly in our great room and is suppose to trigger when motion is detected “when we are not home.”The plan was to use it without the monthly monitoring costs associated with adding a camera to our normal windows/doors/fire/etc home security setup.
Being early to the game, we added a second one for the detached poolhouse garage, but since then added a low-cost Wyze Cam and have been pointing the older 2nd Canary out the window to monitor the driveway. It works great during the day when the glass reflection is low and the bugs and birds stay away.
Unfortunately the cam switches to infrared mode at night and does not work very well through a window. I’ve contacted Canary.is to see if there is a away to switch off the night-mode, but after going through their re-calibration and trying everything their customer support offered … there is not.
So … I’ve added a new Wyze Cam3 (outdoor safe) driveway camera to the Wyze side of my accounts and am currently paying their “lower-cost” PLUS service which offers more cloud storage and AI to detect people, vehicles, packages, etc. The product I opted for this time was their Socket Cam that plugs into a garage light and offers a sunset-to-sunrise feature for the outdoor garage light. This is controllable on their app, but better yet is that it feeds power to the Cam3. The shipment arrived and unfortunately would not powerup … but giving me the chance to test the Wyze customer service. I was far better than Canary and they quickly sent me a new camera (testing it below) to plug into the socket. So far it has been flawless. Stay tuned as I’ll soon be testing the new Wyze Cam Floodlight for our HOA’s pool as mentioned last month for a Tech Friday post.
