Dean – CasaAnolis

Modernizing the Condo/So Many Links

When we came down in November we brought with us a 14TB drive filled with copies of our Movie and TV Show libraries to have a local copy for convenience. That drive was full and would not allow additional content so I started thinking how I could add a NAS cheaply. I ordered a Raspberry PI and installed OpenMediaVault on it with three 8 TB drives (one for parity). It seemed easy enough but I quickly found out It was not working the way I needed it to and I could not figure out how to fix it.

All of my drives are USB3 drives and I didn’t want to shuck them and put them in a case. I do have experience with UnRaid and I found a cute little Beelink AMD Ryzen mini pc with and NVME, RAM and Win10Pro license on sale on Amazon for just over $300. I couldn’t build a similar computer for even close to that. It was a no-brainer purchase. After spending days waiting for the parity to build and adding a a 4th 8TB drive. I’m finally copying the Plex content onto it.

While all of this was happening, I installed Pihole in a VM on my computer, which meant my main desktop now had to be on all the time. I will be migrating that to a docker on the unraid box, which is another factor in the decision to splurge for the Ryzen box.

I also decided to install HomeAssistant in a VM on my computer. That turned out to be super easy and it turned out I could then easily automate the turning on AND off of the rear speakers for the TV/home theater in sync with the TV. I’ll be migrating that to a docker on the unraid box too, another factor in the decision to buy it.

Next I decided to add a wifi security camera for peace of mind. I installed iSpy on my computer and configured it to record HD videos anytime there’s motion and it integrates with HomeAsistant to give me a constant SD stream that I can access with my phone. It too will be migrated to the docker which will finally let me allow my power-hungry desktop to sleep again.

3.5 yrs later

Where to begin… We did the Irish Wedding trip, It was amazing. Photos can be found here. For 2019 we did the long stretch in PR in Feb/March. Photos can be found here. During the summer we decided it was finally time to move to PR and we’d do it in December. I decided I’d take that opportunity to go to Oregon one last time, and so in August/Sept I did 3 weeks in there, 2 weeks vacation wrapped around a working week, photos. We spent the next few months getting ready for the move, getting the cat’s paperwork, booking flights and planning the trip.

December 9th was my flight day, with Robert, Kati and the cats arriving on the 11th. Gave me a day to get cat and people supplies before they arrive. Dec 2nd I had a huge IT disaster happen that suddenly had me working 16 hr days during a time I was going to finish packing and getting rid of stuff to other people and the garbage. December sucked for me.

Jan 2020 as work was finally starting to settle down a hair, The earthquake hits and kills power and internet for over a day. At the end of Feb some family came to visit and Robert decided to go back north, to get his lower back worked on, as the family. By March, work had calmed down to semi-normal so I chose to do a road trip around the island and photograph a bunch of it. On the 2nd day of the road-trip I had an incident where I thought I was going to be mugged and then after spending 5 hrs. driving to my next destination and the booking falling through I headed home for a depressing staycation ending. Then the Covid Lock Down happened.

Kati and I were in PR and Robert was up in NJ for the first 6 months of the pandemic. I stressed out because I was still not fully setup to work from home if there were to be power/electricity/internet outages and I couldnt go anywhere to get what I needed. Robert killed time by shopping for a boat. After 6 months things had calmed down a bit and I flew up to help Robert close on the boat and get it ready to come down to PR. A couple of weeks or months, turned into a year as he and I bounced back and forth from the boat in Wilmington NC to the house in NJ several times. Covid and all it entailed is not making this fast or easy.

2022, It’s now early Feb and we’ve been back in PR since November. We got some much needed new furniture and restocked on supplies and repairs and are continuing to flush out the condo with niceties.

Mom’s first trip to PR

We’re heading back down in April. This time we’re bringing my Mother and her husband Mike. Mom’s never been off the continent, let alone any place tropical. Can’t wait to show her what the island has to offer and see her face when she gets in warm ocean water for the first time. The hard part is coming up with an itinerary that sees enough of the island without exhausting everyone. I know, such first world problems, sigh. Continue reading “Mom’s first trip to PR”

Your Sunscreen is killing the planet

Please read this and buy a responsible sunscreen

http://gizmodo.com/your-sunscreen-is-killing-earths-coral-reefs-1737717948

Working on my Burgers

Last week I made Burgers for dinner.

Farm-stand fresh asparagus, tomato, basil and fresh mozzarella salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The mess on the left is a cheeseburger patty smothered in caramelized onions and topped with crimini mushrooms sauteed in butter and Madeira. Continue reading “Working on my Burgers”