After work today I wandered Costco for a bit. I had made an appointment to get my tires rotated, but I also had recently received a member rewards rebate certificate for my spending over the past year. Since it had to be spent on something in the warehouse (as opposed to through the website) I figured I’d spend my time waiting for the tire techs to do their thing by window shopping and seeing what I wanted to buy to treat myself. I did go in with a few thoughts of what I’d probably want to buy but some are more boring than others. Coming in at #1 on the boring scale:
A new thermostat!
I had replaced my apartment’s thermostat with a Nest not that long after I first moved in 12 or so years ago; the previous tenant had smoked inside and when I’d come back home from being away for just a day or two my unit smelled like stale air with a whiff of cigarettes, so I bought the Nest for its automatic fan feature where it would run the HVAC fan for 10 minutes of every hour if it hadn’t run for at least that long already. I later added a remote sensor to it and put that in my bedroom, but I haven’t been too thrilled with the sensor setup. If I could say “at 11 PM use the bedroom sensor to determine the temperature, and at 5 PM switch to the thermostat, but if it’s a weekend then use the thermostat starting at 9 AM”, it’d be perfect, but I can’t. I can only tell it “use the thermostat in the living room to determine the temperature between 4 PM and 9 PM each day, and the bedroom sensor at all other times”. It’s not so bad when I’m working from home at my desk in my bedroom, or if I’m in the living room from 5 to 9 PM, but from 9 PM until I go to bed I start having to fight with the thermostat to get a comfortable temperature in my living room and having to strain to hear the TV over the HVAC fan running frequently is starting to get a bit old. You wouldn’t think there’d be much variation in such a small apartment but it’s amazing how much of a temperature differential there is between my hallway where the thermostat is and my bedroom! So, I considered changing the thermostat to an Ecobee. Apparently the Costco package comes with two sensors that detect motion as well as temperature, and it has a “follow-me” setting where it uses the room you’re in to determine which sensor to use for temperature sensing. Imagine that! I was eager to buy it and found it in stock at the store, but after walking a few laps of the warehouse and texting with the ladyfriend I decided to hold off on it for now at least, as it’s not something “for me” and I don’t own my unit, and I was wanting to find something that felt more like a treat for myself. Which brings me to #2 on the boring scale:
A new trashcan!
After doing some renovations to my apartment (new paint job, fixing some damaged walls, taking care of other odds and ends that have bugged me over the years), I thought it’d be nice to have a more aesthetically-pleasing trash can and had been eying the SimpleHuman dual trash-and-recycling bin. Unfortunately while I saw it online I didn’t see it in my warehouse, so no luck buying that today.
A few other things that I had considered were a new AppleTV for its Thread capabilities as my HomePod mini sometimes occasionally has issues with controlling my Thread-enabled outlets and I hoped that something with a hard-wired internet connection would be more responsive to Siri requests, or if not that then perhaps a pair of new AirPods Pro; though I’m happy with my existing pair, as I drove to the store I was listening to Accidental Tech Podcast, and I heard Casey say that’s how he spent his free money. Unfortunately neither was in stock at my warehouse, so oh well.
Since I’m in no rush I’ll just have to wait for another day to see if something catches my eye, but at least my tires are rotated and I got some grocery shopping done. Even though using my rewards to pay for groceries would be the most practical thing to do, I think doing that’s even more boring than a new thermostat!