Birthday Gifts

I promise to get to all your tags and wonderful replies, I just struggle on keeping up with em on weekends :sob:

Pro2 Day 68: Birthday Gifts

Gifts are great, they show how much you care about a person. Problem is, my parents are getting old. They already have everything that they need and have very little want for anything else outside of quality family time, so my sisters always harangue me into selecting gifts since I talk to them the most. Sheesh, you can talk to them too, you just choose not to…

My dad is a tricky case because he has an almost child-like tendency to want the new and hottest technology, but quickly forgets about it a week after acquisition because he realized he never needed it in the first place (shoutout to Alexa, you were completely worthless). In a lazy effort to satiate this curiosity, I began investing in DIY smarthome technology. And for a while, it seemed like an effective plan. Several years later and reading up on the continuous horrors of the never-ending privacy invasions by the technologies we purchase (shoutout to @assia.k and @philkastelic, you two are doing amazing work in this space), I think I might just burn the house down and start over.

The turn for me here was realizing what it cost to maintain our “smart” home. Pictured below is our RING Doorbell and an ugly patch of front lawn. That ugly patch of front lawn… used to be one of two bushes welcoming vistors into our humble abode. My dad chainsawed them apart so the RING Doorbell would have a better viewing angle of the dangers not present in our neighborhood. In fact, the only thing this RING Doorbell does is get my sister verbal lashings over be caught on camera lying about how late she returns home :joy:

Maybe some problems don’t need technology solutions. Maybe technological solutions we don’t understand shouldn’t be gifts. Maybe the only gifts that are worth giving is our time with others, something we can never return in an Amazon cardboard box once we’re dissatisfied with our purchase.

(Unless Jeff Bezos invents eternal youth. Not out of the realm of possibility :thinking: )

@sabweld @michellebasey @athenakatsaros @Chen @leighannkittell
@wildcat @dragon @homeroom11