Our RV Adventures

But A Lot Of Us Are.

We did walk this morning, a little over a mile, before having our coffee and breakfast outside. And while we were still outside, I bought Karma outside with us for awhile.

She was still kind of wild-eyed, but she didn’t keep trying to run under the rig like before. She did stay hunkered down a good bit, and would let me hold her for a while, but then she’d panic again and flip out. But it seems like she gets a little better every time.

I had planned to take a look at my rig oil leak problem, but as happens sometimes, I got detoured. And it all started with a batch of my Chicken Tortilla Soup.

The last time I made Chicken Tortilla Soup I had leftover broth that we froze, so I got that out and had it defrosting in the slow cooker, while I looked in the pantry for a can of black beans and a can of corn to go along with the rest of the chicken Jan fixed the other day.

But as I was digging back into the pantry, trying to get to get a handle on what we had, I came across a number of things that we’d both forgotten we had. And this led me down a subroutine to come up with a way to better itemize the stuff.

Jan keeps a list on the pantry door, but stuff gets moved, and stuff gets pushed to the back, so sometimes it’s a toss-up. So after I found the the beans and corn and got them in the pot, along with the chicken breasts, I thought a bit and decided this was a job for my Amazon Echo.

Although we mostly use Alexa (the name you use to access the Echo, like ‘OK Google”, or “Cortana”, or “Siri”) for music, iHeartRadio, and to answer questions, it does do more.

But as far as music, we have over 8,000 of our own songs uploaded into Amazon Music’s catalog, as well as access to over a million songs through Amazon;’s Prime Music.  And with iHeartRadio, we can easily listen to over 1500 radio stations around the country.

Yes, you can do this on other devices but not as easily. With Alexa it’s just “Alexa, play songs by Jimmy Buffet”, or “Alexa, play songs from my Oldies Playlist.” Or you can say, “Alexa, play KTRH Newsradio’, or Alexa, play Sunny 99.1”.

And as far as questions, “Alexa, what’s the weather in Houston, TX?” or “Alexa, how far is it from Houston, TX to New York City?” Or even Alexa, what 39 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius?”, or Alexa, what is 4345 times 16?” (She says it’s 69,520)

In this case I wanted to use Alexa’s list functions, i.e. shopping lists and To-Do lists. All you have to do is tell Alexa to add something to her shopping list. You can then have her print it out, or even go shopping and see your shopping list in the Alexa app on your cellphone.

But here I wanted to use Alexa to itemize the items on each shelf as I called them out to her. Normally Alexa resides up front in the rig, sitting on top of our satellite DVR, and is very good about hearing what we tell her. But to make things easier I wanted to use my Amazon Echo Remote.

About the size of a stick of butter, but only about 1/3 as thick, it allows you to communicate with Alexa outside of voice range, or in a very noisy environment. So all I have to do is press the Mic button at the top and say, “Add bottom shelf left side skyline chili 9 cans.” (If you’re using the remote, you don’t have to say Alexa first.)

Then it was just a matter going through each shelf, telling Alexa as I went. And here’s what I got for the bottom shelf.

bottom shelf right side bush’s grilling beans bourbon & brown sugar 2 cans
bottom shelf right side bush’s country style baked beans
bottom shelf left side ro-tel hot tomatoes
bottom shelf right side canned beef cooked
bottom shelf right side sliced peaches
bottom shelf right side nut cracker spaghetti sauce
bottom shelf right side steel cut oatmeal
bottom shelf left side skyline chili 9 cans
bottom shelf left side cream of mushroom soup
bottom shelf left side hunt’s tomato paste
bottom shelf left side cheese wiz

I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but so far it’s working great, and I plan on using it to inventory other areas around the coach.

Finishing up, the washer is still working fine after four loads so far, but we’ll see if it lasts past the six it did before. I’m hoping.

Thought for the Day:

“Seeing ourselves as others see us would probably confirm our worst suspicions about them.” – Franklin P. Adams

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