Erin Lawrence from http://techgadgetscanada.com joins us this week as we take a good hands on look a the LG Gram laptop and the

LG V60 ThinQ™ and LG Dual Screen™ that she has for review purposes. We also look at some of the tools she is using to improve her office lighting as well as using a iPad as second monitor via and Apple Sidecar. Finally we look at the new Sparkel water carbonator and compare it to the Sodastream and she talks about the difference in how they work. We wrap the show with a quick look at the Gillette Heated Razor and her hands on (or legs on) review of it. 

I think you will enjoy the show.

Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg442

Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #442 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.

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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, Erin Lawrence, LG Gram, LG V60, Home Office Improvements, Philips Hue, Apple Side Car, Sparkel, Sodastream

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LG Gram laptop review

https://techgadgetscanada.com/lg-gram-laptop-review/

LG V20 Dual Screen Smartphone – https://www.lg.com/us/mobile-phones/v60-thinq-dual-screen

I *just* got my hands on it, and it’s pretty sweet! I’m surprised at how much I’m liking it.

1. · How it’s built
2. · Weight, size form factor
3. · What it can do
4. · Appeal/ who it’s for

Home Office lighting improvements including smart lighting

https://techgadgetscanada.com/how-to-upgrade-your-home-office-with-smart-lights-new-fixtures/

How to use tech to improve productivity (including new Apple Sidecar!)

https://techgadgetscanada.com/make-working-from-home-easier-tech-gadgets-to-help-your-home-office/

Recent reviews:

New Sparkel water carbonator:

It doesn’t use CO tanks, it uses powders! How else it’s different from Sodastream…

https://techgadgetscanada.com/review-sparkle-sparkling-water-seltzer-machine/

Does a man need the Gillette HEATED Razor?

I didn’t think so… at least not at this price!

https://techgadgetscanada.com/gillette-heated-razor-review/

Jim Collison  [0:00] 
This is The Average Guy Network and you found Home Gadget Geeks show number 442 recorded on April 23 2020. Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews, product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy. I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here and Mike I beautiful, beautiful Bellevue Nebraska. can’t ask for any better deck weather right have you been getting outside?

Mike Wieger  [0:40] 
Oh yeah, we’ve been like, especially when you have the kids home. You need to keep them entertained during this time. You have been outside all day every day. It’s been fun of watching my son, my oldest he has a Strider bike. It’s a bike essentially with no pedals. They can just you know, but two wheels only no training wheels and is just rip run around the circle bound given as much Little bit of a heart attack some time. So it’s been

Jim Collison  [1:02] 
Yeah, we’re having a good time. Erin Lawrence is with us, Erin as the warm weather come to Canada. Are you guys up there getting any nice stuff yet?

Erin Lawrence  [1:10] 
Just in the last week, we finally got rid of the snow. I would say we had snow 20 out of the last 25 days up until last week. And it’s finally mostly just gone. So spring feels like it’s finally here. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

Jim Collison  [1:25] 
Yeah, it’s spring time our friends in the south have been dealing with tornadoes and in severe thunderstorms and sort of thinking about you guys down south of course. Yeah, April 23 2020. Stay in the United States. Almost all of us are still in lockdown. But we’ll post a show with World Class show notes for us. A lot of the world hasn’t changed. And of course, well, we will post those at The Average Guy. TV. Don’t forget you can join us live on our mobile app. If we ever get out of the house again. The best way to listen to Home Gadget Geeks on the road is through the mobile app. So HomeGadgetgeeks.com. You can download that for Android iPhone, many of you found other ways to do it, but a great way to start went live HomeGadgetgeeks.com and now you can forget big announcement you can now follow the show schedule I’ve got it working guys I’m committed to keeping it up to date at least for now.

Jim Collison  [2:11] 
And it’s the the next three shows are out there if you go to the average guy dot Eventbrite, calm, just write that down. Go to it, save it whenever you ever want to know because before the show, I always get a bunch of emails. Hey, who’s on the show tonight? You never have to guess anymore. The average guy.eventbrite.com we are using that to help us keep track of the shows. And so if you want to know what’s coming up next week, a big ed tech how has this COVID-19 situation changed technology? We have three Daniels coming on Chris Nessie is coming on. Brian Freelander is coming on. Talk about how how all the technology has changed for the schools. So that should be super interesting in a roundtable

Jim Collison  [2:48] 
and then Dave McCabe on the week after that he’s coming back to talk about lawn care and and that should be great as well. And so follow us The Average Guy TV Eventbrite, if you follow me there, by the way, you’ll get a notification whenever I post posting something new so you can do that as well. And then down there in YouTube subscribe hit the subscribe button if you haven’t done that already. That way, you know when we go live and if you hit the like button, it helps with the discovery process. Big thanks to mark Robson who joined us last week, Mike, I did a roasted chicken on Sunday, based on what you guys said and then we pulled that apart and

Mike Wieger  [3:21] 
put it in some chicken noodle soup and that was dynamite. We took some of the meat make case ideas on Tuesday with it. Like the The girls are already like, make another one of those. Have you done any grilling since our show last week? Well first off, let me say I saw that on Twitter and I’m Alistar to Waterloo and then the soup was such a good idea to put that then into the chicken noodle soup soup good. Yeah, we have been grilling just as much as we were last week leading up to that show. I think we are just ran out of our pork so hands like a cat like the chicken right? firepower. Pulled Pork this weekend, do another pork shoulder. But Hannah’s gonna do the same thing case it is with the pulled pork.

Mike Wieger  [3:57] 
Oh, yeah. Really, really good. Did I do that? I love that chicken pulled pork even make a million different recipes so leftovers solid.

Jim Collison  [4:05] 
Erin, have you been getting out in the van and if you’ve been doing any grilling that’s the catch up we want to do with you How are those two I know it’s been super cold so probably not in the van but in but you can grill in cold weather Have you been doing either?

Erin Lawrence  [4:17] 
We can we charcoal grill more than anything so it’s not that easy to stand out in minus 20 minus 15 and minus 10 weather and you know 10 to your charcoal. So we have not actually grilled although just I guess it was just yesterday. I got the new bio light camp stove kit delivered and the camp stove is this little almost like a tin can size and shape stove that’s got a grill top on it that you can add and you can grill on it as the name would indicate. So we fired that up last night on our front porch and made burgers so that was the first barbecuing we’ve done this season and it actually turned out great. It made me realize how much this good barbecue Oh so

Jim Collison  [5:00] 
good What’s the name of it again?

Erin Lawrence  [5:03] 
It’s called the bio light camp stove and grill. Okay actually reviewed a bunch of violates IR and they do a lot of like kind of off grid camper stuff backpacker kind of gear. That’s really cool. Really cool. All all posted over at techgadgetscanada.com is that is that where folks it is? In fact, you can go the camp stove I reviewed their original camp stove a couple years ago that’s up there. It’s also on the YouTube channel. And the What else did they put out. They’ve got a bunch of cool like retractable lighting options as well for camping and our being and then this new camp stove kit with the grill. Also comes with a they call it a kettle pot, but it’s basically a kettle that you can use either as a kettle or a pot when you’re camping or cooking. So I’m going to try that bundle out hopefully as soon as we get enough mix whether to go camping or out in the camper Finn.

Jim Collison  [5:57] 
How do you with this current situation? That’s going Can you guys go camping or campsites open? Can you go out and get some of that done? or what have you? Have you looked into it?

Erin Lawrence  [6:07] 
No, we’ve looked into it and everything is basically closed right now they shut down our national parks here in Canada and our provincial parks, which is just as well, because we’ve been pretty slow on our van build our van conversion, thanks to the minus 20 minus 30. Weather up until the last week, so we haven’t had a chance to get much done. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [6:27] 
Well, you’ll you will do that. We’re getting some questions in the chat room. What’s the fuel on that on that stove? How does it How does it feel?

Erin Lawrence  [6:36] 
Great question. So it’s meant to use sort of just found fuel that you would have at a campsite wherever you are. So you started with dry leaves, twigs, and sticks, and then you can put in gradually sort of larger pieces of wood. The stove itself is really only like almost kind of the size of two fists put together. So I mean, it’s not huge, and it’s this little cylinder so you do content Still, he kind of have to feed it. But it’s got a power pack that is attached to the side. So the power pack will actually take the energy from the fire. Turn on a fan so that fuels the fire to keep things going. And then that extra energy that it’s storing up in the power pack naturally you can use to charge up your smartphone, your camera battery, whatever, whatever you need using a USB plug. You can plug it right in.

Jim Collison  [7:27] 
Hmm, that sounds totally nerdy.

Erin Lawrence  [7:31] 
It’s for the nerdy camper for Yeah. Is it?

Jim Collison  [7:34] 
Is it like a rocket stove then in the sense where they’re trying to draw the or it’s trying to draw kind of the heat through it and push it out and use that heat? Are you do you try rocket stoves they a couple years ago they were super popular. You ever try the rocket stove concept?

Erin Lawrence  [7:49] 
No, I haven’t. It sounds like it’s the thing similar though.

Jim Collison  [7:52] 
Well, it’s a little bit similar and maybe different in the sense it’s like a one to three sizing. So if you have a foot opening for You’re for the fuel that’s going in, you need a two foot box at the bottom for the fuel box and then you have a three foot tall chimney and it creates a draft that pulls that air in and makes a really efficient use of any fuel when you said you don’t need a lot of fuel right and this is one of those rocket stove is where you kind of don’t need sticks and twigs that will do just fine right you get started and then you can kind of run this thing super efficient and it will heat up water or beans or whatever, like whatever you’d have at the campsite.

Jim Collison  [8:31] 
Right It would do. I don’t know if I cook burgers on it. I guess that’d be pretty big. But you can take some bricks and make kind of like a makeshift rocket stove wherever you go. Kind of designed, kind of designed or thought about for third world countries because they have such trouble smoke with smoke coming out and the the one you know the lung damage that does this rocket stove because of the design, very little smoke. It kind of maximizes the heat and it doesn’t smoke a lot and so if you go on YouTube, listen, there’s a rabbit hole for you. If you go on YouTube and put a rocket stove in, you’ll spend all weekend on all these different kinds of rocket stoves that that folks have built. So well, we want to go with some of the things that you have tonight and you change websites since the last time we hear you. You had tech gadgets, Canada, but you also had your own but I noticed that all those moves are you are you full time on tech tech gadgets Canada,

Erin Lawrence  [9:25] 
I finally made a huge move. Actually I was anybody that has a website or domain. I’m not going to get too deep into this because it’s also very nerdy. But I started a website A long time ago, which was Erinlyyc. And that was sort of meant to be my final blog. And then when I moved more into doing more tech stuff, I rebranded it with tech gadgets Canada, but because they could never figure out how to properly transition the old domain to the new domain. I just had the new domain pointing at the old domain. So for years and like I was afraid of losing my You know, ranking in Google and losing all my traffic so finally just in the last week I got some good help doing the changeover and moving migrating the whole site over and then my traffic promptly just crashed into into the garbage it had to be done so yeah, a bunch of back end work as well. So

Jim Collison  [10:19] 
well the only reason I noticed is because I installed a WordPress plugin to kind of monitor broken links and of course I have tons I had tons of your links on the old links on my site and of course they all came up broken and I was like, what’s going on you know, the site go down and so then I saw you redirected though so I spent a little bit of time updating so I did my part of updating all my all your links, all your old links to get those over to the new site, but I’m It looks good. I know same content, and I was like, Oh, she must have completely moved. So again, if you want to catch up with Erin and all the work that she’s doing, you should follow her over at techgadgets.canada.com follow her on her YouTube page as well. I do that or subscribe, I guess is the right word. I do And you put out a video every other day, it seems like something like that pretty manageable watch, and some great, some great content. What’s your goal on that? What would be best case scenario for you on on YouTube production?

Erin Lawrence  [11:14] 
Man, every time I set a new goal for myself, I get there kind of sooner than I think it was just a couple of years ago, I thought, Wow, man, if I had 1000 subscribers, I would feel really good about myself. And I hit 1000 I was like, well, what’s the next milestone? I was like, 2000. And then when I hit that, I was like, Okay, Let’s aim bigger, you know? 510 20 so I’m just under 30,000 right now, which I’m really proud of. But now I figure like now I’ve got to set something that’s that’s really big. So maybe maybe I’ll go for 100,000 subscribers. That’s where that’s that’s me.

Jim Collison  [11:52] 
Yeah. 100,000 is good. that’s a that’s a good number to shoot for. I think I’m at 12 or 1300 here at The Average Guy TV and and i Have a live channel and a edited channel, which just isn’t confusing at all. So you know, whatever the things that we do, right let’s talk a little bit about what you’re reviewing. You got a hold of this LG gram laptop, you didn’t get to keep it, unfortunately, it sounded like it was a short term review for you. What’s interesting and the reason I wanted to lead off with this is kind of PCs had kind of like nobody was talking about PCs for the most part anymore. We we always work because we’re nerds that way. But the general market had and maybe you sense this, but when everybody went home, PCs are back, like, PC sales have skyrocketed. They’re sold out in some places like everybody had to buy a computer or that or an extra one. They may have had one. It’s them in them spouse at home. Did you have you noticed since you did this review, have the Heather been folks coming out of the woodwork kind of looking for this now that PCs are hot again, at least for the short term?

Erin Lawrence  [12:54] 
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of interest and I think you’re right. I think it’s a lot of people working from home. A lot of people need that actually. Extra laptop for you know, their kids if they’re doing school over laptop. And yeah, getting a lot of interest and my main reason for wanting to do that review, I don’t generally review a lot of laptops or computers just because, I mean, you can be so specialized about this and no so much detail and that is not me. But I have a Dell PC that I use for some other work that I do. And it’s this tank, it’s fat, it’s heavy, it’s ugly, it’s a workhorse. And I just thought, you know, it works fine. But what more is out there like the screen is okay. You know, it’s heavy. So I was really interested in trying out the gram because the proposition of the LG gram laptop is that it’s ultra lightweight. It’s got this massive 17 inch screen, the screen supposed to be super vibrant. And I just thought like come on, how how much greater Could it really be than the PC laptop I’m using now? It’s a lot greater. It’s very nice. So I got my hands on it for a couple weeks and got to play around with it. And the screen is amazing. You know, it’s like the first time you see 4k TV or something, you just sort of it pops for you. And the colors are amazingly vibrant and it’s so thin and it’s lightweight and you know, you can carry with two fingers. And so, so many great things about it just from a basic consumer average user perspective,

Jim Collison  [14:29] 
they kind of from the review that I watched, it kind of puts the best of two worlds together if you’re a big screen person if you like that kind of screen real estate. And then if you like the, you know, feel like kind of a light something you can carry around with you. And this may make a great laptop both now and later. As far as once we start moving around again. Do you feel like is this one you’d close the lid and maybe take kind of carry with you sometimes our laptops have gotten? Well, I’m just gonna plug it in leaving home it’s kind of in a desktop we plug it into a couple monitors. It doesn’t go very far. Do you Feel like you take this one with you.

Erin Lawrence  [15:02] 
Hundred percent and I travel both short distance and if I’m going you know somewhere much more distant, I usually have a laptop with me. And I mean this one is so light, I could pack it as a second laptop if I needed for different work along with the with the MacBook that I usually travel with. But I mean the screen size, you’re enjoying the screen size and just if you want that sort of big screen experience, I think a lot of people have those smaller laptops, because they want them to be more affordable and a little lighter weight. But with this one you don’t have to compromise I mean, you can still have that giant size but it’s because it’s so thin and light. You get the best of both worlds.

Jim Collison  [15:44] 
You on your on the screen there you go back to it. It’s kind of finger finger finger. Okay, now the beard is kicking in. And that’s a fingerprint reader. There we go. built right into the power. I haven’t seen that before. I’m sure they’ve been out there but done. At work is it convenient Windows has some things you know, you’re a Mac person, it was fun to watch your review from a Mac perspective because there’s all these new things in Windows you’re like oh, it’ll do this. It’ll do that and we on the windows side of kind of used to that you know, but it was fun to watch you to do that. Does that do that? Did that work fairly well for

Erin Lawrence  [16:19] 
I’ll turn that right back around on you has a MacBook Pro that I have has a fingerprint scanner in it so I’m used to using it that way. And it did work really well. I would say sort of you just touch it down to to open it up and power it on. Okay, and it’s pretty lightning fast. I mean, by the time you’ve lifted your finger off the key it’s ready go so super speedy. And that reminds me before I send it back I should move my fingerprint from it so they can actually get back into it. Yeah, yeah. No yourself.

Jim Collison  [16:48] 
Did you try Windows Hello also has the ability to for facial recognition where you can log in with your with a face ID Did you try that at all when you were in Windows?

Erin Lawrence  [16:57] 
No, I actually didn’t notice if this one has It

Jim Collison  [17:01] 
yeah not all cameras supported most of the new ones do so we just kind of just kind of wondered if you’d give that a try it’s a pretty How did you feel about the the processor that came with it just from a? You don’t you know you don’t dig into the specs on it but how did it feel? Is it pretty Zippy? Did it work pretty well for you

Erin Lawrence  [17:18] 
seem to I mean, that’s the thing with a new laptop. I’ve set this one up just as a new laptop, I didn’t pull over a lot of data. Normally I have a lot of video and a ton of photos on on my laptop. So I mean for me it damn well better be fast at that rate. It would be interesting to see what it was like if I pulled over everything that’s on my MacBook and put it on and then tried to use it so but I you know shared laptops and loaner laptops you don’t really want all your personal information floating around the internet so right

Jim Collison  [17:49] 
right. Yeah, did you battery life Did you get it long enough to kind of let you still have it did you feel like it they always advertised you know like Oh get 100 hours of battery life and yeah Get 50 did you did you feel nobody’s gotten 50 but do you feel like it was like it? It would work like all day for you.

Erin Lawrence  [18:08] 
It did. I mean, I had it sort of playing with it on and off over like, pretty detailed over the course of about a week and I didn’t have it plugged in at all. So every time I’d sort of open it use it for a little while. Close it up, put it back. I don’t think I charged it all week. So I didn’t try and run it down. I think the battery life they say is supposed to be about 17 hours. I didn’t try and test that out. But I mean off and on for a week without the need for charging was was pretty good to me.

Jim Collison  [18:39] 
Okay, yeah. So that lived up to it. And then of course it’s in a typical windows, laptop fashion. It’s got a headphone jack, which would have been handy tonight. You should we should have made you podcast on that tonight. That would have been Oh, we could have I should have thought of that. Darn it.

Erin Lawrence  [18:54] 
Well, we’re getting two camera angles going.

Jim Collison  [18:56] 
Yeah, a couple couple USB ports in there. If you Could you use this long term you know you’re a Mac person but if this was something you were going to go with could you see yourself using this long term?

Erin Lawrence  [19:08] 
Well, I used to be a PC user I would say up until about probably six years ago six or seven years ago so and I do use a PC and some other work life So yeah, I mean definitely I would I would love to upgrade from the the doll that I have the tank recourse of Adele that I have to something like this The LG gram but I’m not ready. I’m not ready to switch from MAC yet. All all of my life, all of my video, all of my devices, everything is integrated across the apple ecosystem. And I just feel like it would be terrifying to try and migrate everything back over to PC.

Jim Collison  [19:48] 
Yeah, Mike. Mike has made the jump in fact, he’s configuring his windows box. As we’re speaking right now, Mike so it can be done right Mike? You can you can make the jump to Windows, right.

Mike Wieger  [19:59] 
Yeah, and you know, I’ve run I run both systems. We have a MacBook Pro upstairs mainly that’s become my wife’s computer for teaching. And I’ve gone all windows down here there are a few things I miss like iMessage and some built in features that ran with my iPhone really well but the jumps not terrible wasn’t as bad as I thought it did take Jim How many years have I been in the gym? Five years now podcasting with you to make the jump so stick around long enough Erin and I buy kombucha?

Erin Lawrence  [20:25] 
Well, if I had to. The other thing I was playing with recently was the LG V 60. dual screen smartphone. So trying that along with the laptop. It was like wow, do I have to send the phone back because this is pretty amazing.

Jim Collison  [20:42] 
Now let’s take a look at this thing. Let me let me bring this up and you tell me if I’ve got the right says the right thing.

Erin Lawrence  [20:50] 
Is that what is the one? Yes. Is that what we’re talking about? g v 60 q 5g dual screen.

Jim Collison  [20:58] 
That sounds pretty fancy. What you want Would you think Tell me tell me a little bit about how you like it.

Erin Lawrence  [21:03] 
I really, really like it. Um, I’ll pop it up here. I don’t know how well you can see it. Let me hold on. Let me get

Jim Collison  [21:11] 
it. Let me get you full screen. Oh, sure.

Erin Lawrence  [21:13] 
Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah. So I mean, it’s huge. I’ll pop that charger. It’s, it’s huge, but it’s not. It’s not as big and obtrusive, as you might think. It’s also not as thick as you might think. So I mean, by the time you’ve had a case on your average smartphone, I mean, where’s my iPhone? Yeah, like, for those of you who can’t see the video, they’re basically about the same thickness. So the LG phone over here has two screens attached to it and it’s pretty much the same as same thickness as the iPhone. So it’s pretty amazing though the the way that you can multitask on a phone with two screens. So this one essentially opens up like a book and you can put one window onto one side screen and a different window onto the other so I mean if you want to have your social media feeds on one side while you’re watching YouTube while they’re watching this podcast for example, you can do that. It’s also got different gaming apps and things built into it. So you can get you know you can use it horizontally you can get a gaming controller on one side and you know your game on the top. So there’s all kinds of really cool things that you can do with this phone and I mean the screen is just it’s super hot. It’s so clear, so sharp, so colorful, so vibrant. I mean, you know, I’ve only had this phone I would say for maybe not even a week and I’m playing with kind of off and on. But I love it. Like I love this you screen thing. It’s so fun.

Jim Collison  [22:49] 
How do you find the hard part on those dual screens has been the the the hinge. That is kind of what’s tripped everybody up right and i think Samsung made a run at a single screen. That folded that didn’t that didn’t work. I think they’re finding sometimes that on those dual screens that that dust or dirt is getting between the two screens and then grinding a little bit in there as you like, you know, you think you close it. Now it’s screen to screen. Is there something in there to kind of stop that from happening? So you’re not rubbing two screens together when you close it? Or

Erin Lawrence  [23:25] 
I would say yes, they’ve got kind of a little bit of a bezel and the way so the way you operate the second screen is the one phone is basically just a phone. And you slide it here, maybe I can actually show you guys a display slide into this case. Yeah. So the second screen is actually part of a case. So that lets you there. So the screen one main phone looks like

Jim Collison  [23:51] 
a no. That’s like notes. Yes, that’s right. That’s a big note. Basically, yeah.

Erin Lawrence  [23:56] 
Big and big and tall, super wide screen right. So you Got the phone and then the second screen comes in. I mean this is just like a plastic case essentially with the second screen built in and it’s attached and it’s got the hinge in it like you say, it’s not really an open hinge it’s quite well sealed I guess. And it’s like 360 degrees so you can open it all the way open, or all the way closed. Yeah. And then if you want to add that second screen, you just pop the phone into the case. And then usually takes just a second for it to load up. And then the second screen will connect to it. So I mean, easy to use one screen if you want. us both switch them around

Jim Collison  [24:46] 
8k 8k video recording, I can’t how’s the battery life been on that thing? So AK, you said dual 6.8 inch o led by detachable two screen design 5000 milliamp I know that’s not what that is. But that no battery Have you found Have you found the battery? Is it an all day? What lasts all day?

Erin Lawrence  [25:08] 
I haven’t used it enough to know, like what the sort of day to day battery life is. But again, this is another one that I’ve been playing with on and off and I haven’t had to recharge it. I just set it down. I would say it was about 30%. Before we started and I set it down on the charging mat. It also has free charging. And it’s 100% already. So

Jim Collison  [25:27] 
does it have a finger fingerprint reader? Sorry, mic, but does have a fingerprint reader on there. For

Erin Lawrence  [25:32] 
Yeah, there’s one embedded under the screen.

Mike Wieger  [25:34] 
Okay, good mic. Yeah. Did I miss it? So how does the second screen get charged?

Erin Lawrence  [25:39] 
So it charges off the main phone

Mike Wieger  [25:42] 
as soon as it enters. Okay, so that case connects it’s not just sitting in the case. There’s a connector between the case and the phone.

Erin Lawrence  [25:48] 
Yeah, there’s there’s a little knob in the bottom that like if you’ve ever had a charging case, right? You know how you sort of slide those in and they connect and it powers up. So that’s when it’s caught.

Mike Wieger  [25:57] 
That makes sense.

Jim Collison  [25:58] 
Okay, so screen not touching then Erin, when you close that, did you got do they touch? Do you think in there or

Erin Lawrence  [26:06] 
they don’t seem to because there’s enough of a little, there’s enough of a little I don’t know a little show up a little tiny bezel that, you know, maybe there’s a millimeter or two. Probably not that much between them but I mean I can see a little bit of daylight sort of between them here so I don’t feel like the rubbing if anything, I feel like it’s just the bezels that have closed on each other.

Jim Collison  [26:29] 
Okay. Okay. Because that has been the complaint, right? So you fold it if anything gets stuck in between those and then you put that in your pocket you now have a hinge point on the screen that I’m assuming they’re offering or the there’s a there’s maybe some screen covers that you could put on this as well I’d be and I would be hard pressed to close that thing and put it in my pocket. I would be super, super afraid that that somebody asked in the chat room, the gram the laptop gram that we that we were just talking About flimsy or not. And that seems very, very stable. Was the gram flimsy? Or was that pretty stable? For you?

Erin Lawrence  [27:07] 
Great question. It actually, I debated whether I felt like it felt cheap. Because when I would sometimes pull up the top of the laptop, it did have a bit of flex to it. So, you know, if you kind of lift it by one corner instead of at the middle, it would sort of pull the corner up before it would catch the rest of it to open. So I was a little concerned about that. So I was reading up a bit more about, you know, the specs of it because I thought, Man, like if this hits the floor once it’s toast, but they ran it through a whole bunch of military testing, and it passed, I don’t know, like something like seven or eight different military grade tests for durability. So because it has to go back. It’s not mine. I don’t I don’t want the responsibility to have to buy this laptop back. I didn’t test it. I didn’t pass it in the bathtub. I didn’t try and you know, break the screen. or any of that

Jim Collison  [28:00] 
burn it right behind the car run over it. You didn’t do any of those things right? Yeah, no,

Erin Lawrence  [28:05] 
but it’s it sounds like it’s passed those tests so it does have that lighter, more flexible design but I’m gonna trust that LGs you know that it’s gonna still be

Jim Collison  [28:17] 
yeah does that does that hinge on the phone then so laptop? I saw that in the video seemed a little flimsy but laptop power. I mean the the phone How does that feel?

Erin Lawrence  [28:29] 
It actually feels pretty substantial. And I think it has a lot to do with the case that you’re kind of forced to take along with this. If you get this second screen. I mean that the case feels pretty durable when it’s on and the bezels that sort of wrapped all the way around the bezel so it actually does feel pretty secure. pretty solid.

Jim Collison  [28:49] 
Does it come with the second screen automatically or do you have to buy that? So the phone is 1000 by the way that LG gram retails about 1800 I think it starts at 1800. So It’s it’s ultra, it’s in the ultra category there. This starts at 950 950. us is do you have to add the the screen honors that come with it? Do you know,

Erin Lawrence  [29:11] 
from what I understand the second screen is optional. So you can get the I guess it would be the V 60. And then you can add the second screen to it. But I’m not 100% sure I haven’t gone through yet and looked at the pricing or availability.

Jim Collison  [29:25] 
Let’s look at the acessories really fast and see if they have those cases. And they do have cases, screen protectors, all the things you would expect to have for the phone already. There you go. There’s been some comments in the chat room. Joe had mentioned that he had a b 20. And it was good phone. Tony said he saw I’m assuming he’s talking about the gram I saw when it Costco felt a little flimsy and cheap. Which you said that in your video by the way you were you were very open about that that Yeah, kinda you know, kind of China LG Sit makes great Joe says LG makes great phones. Not so great with their updates. Yeah, and Tony does say with or without a second screen. Oh wait, hold on. What’s he saying other? Oh, they love another podcast I listened to love this phone with or without the second screen. So something to look at. I mean if it’s a grand that’s actually not to that far these days right iPhones, right? It’s it’s kind of almost like a Mac, not a MacBook iPad mini size like right I mean, what’s the iPad Mini and how big is an iPad Mini Mike Do you know off the top of your head? See I totally converted you and you have I don’t even know the specs.

Mike Wieger  [30:45] 
But I would get seven inches.

Jim Collison  [30:47] 
Yeah, yeah. And that’s 6.8 so it’s that’s a good size like that’s a big that’s a big old honkin phone for grand. You know that’s not bad for actually the way phone prices are going right now.

Erin Lawrence  [31:00] 
Average the things that the new pixel phones are around the same price. Right? So

Jim Collison  [31:03] 
yeah, yeah, no, I think they are indeed. So here’s the question, would you buy it?

Erin Lawrence  [31:10] 
Yes. Because I, honestly just for the second screen alone, leaving aside, you know, me, me and my apple world. But the screens amazing. I love the functionality of it. I mean, for me as a as a blogger, as a YouTuber, as someone who is constantly on their phone, you know, for work and play. This would do so much for me. And, yeah, I love it. I am going to be crushed when I have to send it back.

Jim Collison  [31:41] 
Well, you’ll have to just buy it when it comes out. I imagine you could then table 10th that so put it that with the camera and make it and then set it on the table in front of you either in landscape or portrait right to have it that way. Yeah. Yeah, that make a nice little for video conferencing a lot. A lot of folks are doing that. Now I took my first work Hole ever from the deck today? Yeah, there you go. So is there? Is there a camera on the second screen at all, then was only on the first screen?

Erin Lawrence  [32:10] 
So that’s a good question because I don’t see it here. I haven’t dug that deep into it. Jimmy, you’re asking me You’re asking me questions now. In the write up?

Jim Collison  [32:22] 
Yeah, good question. Oh, yeah, include those in it’s, um, this is I’ve done a bunch of work. I’ve done like some happy hour we’re doing a bunch of virtual happy hours where I work so, you know, four o’clock on a Friday or whatever. bunch of us jump on a zoom call or teams or whatever, whatever we’re on and enjoy a beverage or in some cases, I’m meeting with some guys for cigars. The and so we’ve done I’ve done a ton of those out on the deck but I haven’t done an actual meeting from the deck yet. And today, today was the day it was so beautiful out there. I just went out and held my phone and in chatted with somebody. The difference was, I think, eight weeks ago people Like seriously, like you’re out on your deck kind of taking calls today to like, cool your deck. Like is everybody I should say. Lots of folks are in the same boat. Mike, have you done anything outside yet?

Mike Wieger  [33:12] 
Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot outside the guy across the street. He set up his whole Husker like tailgate set up and underneath his tent, he has his computer and monitors, he’s just out in his driveway. Now he’s doing it because he’s, they’re redoing his basement. But I’m like, it’s a pretty smart idea. Just come outside, pop up your tent.

Jim Collison  [33:29] 
Yeah. Erin, how have you guys handled Do you? But do you guys both work at home there in your household all the time. And so you guys have figured out how to do this. That seems to be besides the dogs, that that seems to be the hardest thing as I’m running into people, or talking to people, both spouse coming out, you know about both coming home at the same time, kind of seem to be the grind. If that’s the case, you’ve been doing this for a long time. And if that’s the case, how do you guys handle that knowing your taking calls and your case you’re shooting video, you kind of need to be to be quiet right from time to time. How do you guys handle that? How do you make that work?

Erin Lawrence  [34:08] 
Honestly, we, we have a meeting in the morning where we talk about sort of what’s on the agenda, you know, usually over coffee and the morning news. But we’ll sort of set out you know, what have you got on the go today, here’s what I’ve got on the go. You know, I’d love to get down in the studio at some point this afternoon. Great. I’ll take my calls out on the deck. So we usually just you know, with our host is big enough that my office is upstairs, his downstairs, my studio is downstairs and now the rest of the bedroom and all the other stuff is upstairs. So it’s easy enough for us to sort of say, you know, I need to go use the studio so he’ll come and work in the dining room for example. You do a lot of it’s just it’s a meeting.

Jim Collison  [34:52] 
Well, that’s not actually a great idea actually, that’s I’m gonna steal that advice. Because you know, it’s you got you get you kind of have a daily project. induction meeting. It’s like, Hey, here’s the things coming up. Here’s what we need to walk through. I don’t know we do that work all the time. I don’t know if I would have thought to just take that extra step and do Do you know, half an hour and kind of coordinate some things during the day. You don’t have children around but you got dogs. How do you handle the pets? That that you because you know, you’re again, you’re trying to shoot, you got cameras rolling that kind of stuff. How do you handle that?

Erin Lawrence  [35:27] 
Well, the dogs usually ended up in my videos in one way, shape, or form. not usually by my choice and usually trying to like push them out of the shot. And they’re like, Nope, I was doing some yoga today. After after work, all the winners after work, really. And neither of them like they’re both on the yoga mat. They’re like, wow, this is fun. You’re down in our space, we’ll come hang out with you. But for us like that, that part’s been really fun is that we take the dogs for a walk first thing in the morning kind of before the day gets underway. And then We’ll take them for another walk towards the end of the day and then we’ve got a backyard where they can go out during the day but it’s nice because it gets us up and out and moving and gets us an exercise you know it’s good for dogs it’s good for the humans

Jim Collison  [36:13] 
yeah yeah there’s a lots of memes going on right now the dogs hiding like I can’t take another walk do Mikey take PDF

Mike Wieger  [36:22] 
at all and he is loving it he is first of all we’re home t enjoys and then him and Harrison my youngest are just best friends and so they have been outside with them all day PD is just the dogs I feel like across the world are just in heaven right now.

Jim Collison  [36:36] 
Yeah, it’s the best time ever. The cat’s not so much though the cat Why? Why are you still here? Don’t you why somewhere else? So that’s been pretty funny. A couple comments from the chat room. Tony thinks that the 10 the note 10 Plus is 6.4. In that duel was six eight. I think is is what we Is that right? I think so. So a little bit so Dennis says he’d be hard pressed, he’d be hard pressed to leave his iPhone. He says he’s getting the new iPhone 11 Pro that’s coming up. So, so good free. So, yeah, and I’m kind of, I kind of locked down the big purchases at the moment, kind of like, well, let’s just kind of see where the economy goes before I start rolling into into new purchases, minus reviews, you know, of course, so you’re able to get those as individuals and families have come home and they’ve had to set up home offices. Lighting has been a big deal. And I don’t think people realize how spoiled they are at work. Like work buildings, in most cases are built for lighting, right? They’re lit Well, you never think about turning that thing on or off. It just is on all the time. You know, you generally don’t struggle but we came home and we had trouble with lighting. You spent a little bit of time looking at that. What have you found? What have you looked at? Are you finding To people are kind of like oh my god I need to I need now I need to do something about lighting in my office

Erin Lawrence  [38:06] 
yeah I’m I’m as I think you guys would know I’m a big lighting person anyway I love the Smart Lighting I love color lighting I you know I worked for a lot of years in a TV environment where you’re literally in a small dark room for you know, three or four hours at a time. So I love the sunlight. I like being near a window I want as much light as possible when I’m trying to work. Evening wine downtime. I’m cool with being in the dark, but when I’m working I want I want to see what I’m doing want to be awake. I don’t want anything that’s gonna make me feel kind of sleepy and tired. So I’m a big advocate for the proper lighting. So I did actually just before the whole COVID lockdown happened, I did a home office makeover. I thought it was fine. So I made a bunch of upgrades. I changed the overhead fixture in my home office from sort of the builder standard Basic one bulb fixture to a really cool Starburst fixture that I absolutely love. And it was only a couple hundred bucks, I installed it myself super easy three wires to deal with. It makes such a difference. Now it’s on a dimmer switch so I can sort of control the level of light through the day. We had, I mean, just just that, yeah, there are LEDs. And just that alone like makes me so happy when I come in and look at it. What else do I added some task lighting, so I added a desk lamp and put a smart Philips Hue bulb into it. And then I’ve sort of got some ambient lighting, which is actually you can’t really see it, but it’s kind of on behind me. And what I’ll do is you know if it’s cloudy and gray outside, I’ll turn the lights you know pink or orange or something just to brighten the office up. If it’s stinking hot outside, which hasn’t happened yet, by the way. You know, you can turn them you can turn them Green or purple and it sort of cools off the room feel worse I’ve

Jim Collison  [40:06] 
What do you have behind there? What’s what is that the hue light that that you had that changes colors?

Erin Lawrence  [40:12] 
Yeah, so that one’s the Philips Hue go lamp Philips Hue has a couple of just small lamps. The hue gold lamp is actually a portable lamp so you can charge it up and then take it with you. This one just lives sort of on an AC plug here with me but I’ve got it sort of tucked under a table so it just sort of fills the area behind the table with some ambient light so it’s not sort of direct but it just just makes the room look nice.

Jim Collison  [40:40] 
Ya know? That I love that that you and that’s an area I don’t think about at all and Mike I don’t know about you but I don’t think about how the the color the actual colors can affect our mood. Have you ever thought about I know you’ve got some adjustable lights down in your studio there right you can you can change some colors of that stuff but here

Mike Wieger  [41:00] 
From the need to start eliminating stress by changing their mood around here somewhere but it’s only it’s only this strip of lights right above here. No I hear people say all the time I’ve just never I’ve never tried it to be honest does it mean doesn’t work? Is it feel any different?

Erin Lawrence  [41:16] 
I find that it does I find I think you can change the whole feel of a room with the light. And in the wintertime when it’s really cold outside. I mean, you can ask your light to turn everything to candlelight for example. And it just it just warms the room it just makes you feel warmer. I love it. I find it has I mean maybe maybe it’s just me right maybe I want to to feel the effects of that light. So you know we would say that the placebo effect or something. But I like it I find that it does make me feel warmer or cooler. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [41:54] 
It’s an I think it’s something Do you have Do you have any mood lighting in your kitchen Have you have you installed color lights in there or you can reach me because I think that’s maybe one of the better spots to use that kind of lighting depending upon what you’re cooking or what time of the day it is. Do you find that to be true?

Erin Lawrence  [42:12] 
Yeah, I think we’ve got Smart Lighting in what we’ve got in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the home office and our theater. So I mean you’re absolutely right. You know you want to dim the lights and kind of wind the day down Put on some fun colored lighting. You know, we were using red and green at Christmas. We were doing orange lights at Halloween. You know, it can really it can really set the tone or set the mood for whatever you’ve got going on. I mean, if we’re having dinner, the dining or lights I’ll get turned to candlelight setting. And I mean that that’s way better than laying out a whole bunch of candles and turning the rest of the lights off.

Jim Collison  [42:50] 
Can you have it set to your assistant to say, Hey lady a go to candlelight does it does it do that for you?

Erin Lawrence  [42:57] 
I do. I’ve got here in the home office. I’ve got them all. connected to google google home. So I can just come in in the morning and tell Google to turn my lights on hopefully that didn’t just trigger everyone’s assistant. I tried

Jim Collison  [43:11] 
not to do that. But you went there.

Erin Lawrence  [43:13] 
I noticed you did. I didn’t I did not the Hey,

Jim Collison  [43:18] 
No, you didn’t need it. And I think you’ll I think you’ll be okay. I really do.

Erin Lawrence  [43:23] 
So some people have a good sense of humor about that but some people on my YouTube channel do now I can’t really make it a I get angry comments about people saying you need to learn how to speak to your assistant so that you don’t trigger everyone else’s and then I get other comments that say Haha, that’s so funny in it. I think they feel like they’re playing along with me that their lights change when I asked for it to change or, or whenever

Jim Collison  [43:45] 
I was speaking of like, so you think about coming home and some different mood light settings you can set during the day. If you’ve been in an office, you know, I’m down here in the basement all day and I actually set up a webcam to my front door that’s got a picture of the neighborhood. So I kind of knew it was meant to be the, we call it the the delivery cam or the box cam, right? That’s the one that kind of it used to be where they would put, you know, when they put packages down, that’s where we monitor it. So nobody steal it right? It’s actually become my window to the world. And so as I’m down here in the basement all day, I’ve got this up all it’s run inside home. So it’s up all day. And I can kind of look out there, see what’s going on. And I do get out from time to time, but it is nice to have that light can replace that right in the thing in the sense that you can do some things with your lighting during the day. And there’s all kinds of home automation to be able to set those different moods for the day, including changing the colors to be a little more soothing towards the end of the day. Like just kind of settle those things down. One of the things I was really surprised about when we sent all our employees home, you know, six weeks ago, I heard from a few who are like, Oh, I didn’t bring a second monitor home, right? I didn’t like didn’t do that. And now I’m Hold on, I got to get the scene right here. Hold on, I’m really messing this up. There we go. So it’s like, what do I do now with with just one screen? I kind of thought because of our, our network here and all the guys that I hang out with. And we’ve actually in our discord group over the last couple days have been everybody’s kind of been taking pictures of their setup at home. And it’s ridiculous the number of monitors that I see guys with, but that’s not, that’s not normal.

Jim Collison  [45:32] 
Erin, you spent a little bit of time on that post talking about adding a second kind of adding a second screen. Do you get feedback from your listeners that like this is a new thing for some folks where they pretty much just a laptop only?

Erin Lawrence  [45:46] 
Yeah, I do. I do get the feedback. And I have heard the same thing that people who are used to having two monitors in their workplace are just, you know, crying because they can’t dive Yeah. And I think I hear that for sure. So again, can conveniently I guess Apple launched its new operating system with a feature called sidecar. So for those users who have like a MacBook Pro, what sidecar allows you to do is add a second monitor, that’s an iPad. So if you’re like me and you’re in the apple ecosystem, you can take the iPad you already have with the MacBook you already have set them up side by side, and it provides you that extra second monitor. So once you’ve got them connected, you can you know, drag and drop windows across to the to, you know, open up your social feed in one if I’m doing video editing and I want to keep an eye on something, you know, I’ve got that second monitor open. super convenient. And I think it solves the second monitor problem for a lot of people. You know, that already have some of these gadgets in their home.

Mike Wieger  [46:58] 
Yeah, I agree. I left the Mac ecosystem when that update came out and I’ve been super curious, like, Is it pretty rock solid when you go to use it pretty because you know, there have always been those third party apps or that that tried to use the iPads I’m wondering, they weren’t the best they were okay but I’ve now that Apple has kind of brought it in house is it better?

Erin Lawrence  [47:17] 
It’s brilliant. So it will stay connected like as long as the laptop is sort of on and running. It stays it’s rock solid I you know, moving windows back and forth is pretty seamless. If I do too disconnected at the simple click another click to reconnect it. Yeah, I mean, I find it works really well. I’ve pretty much got this as my setup now permanently, and I love it. And I, you know, it’s it’s really hard if I ever, you know, have to take a laptop out into another room to go do something. It’s like, Oh, where’s the iPad? I need to bring the iPad to get used to it. Yeah. Fortunately, everything is portable now. So

Jim Collison  [47:56] 
I actually I have a 34 inch widescreen curved Monitor from work that they that I got this, I don’t know, maybe six months ago in it when when this thing when they first sent us home, I was like, I don’t know if I want to take that thing home like because I was I literally thought we were going to be home for a couple weeks, three, maybe four at the most. And then after a week at home, I was like, I gotta have that. So I had to contact I contacted the office and said, Hey, I’m coming in, we were controlling the number of people who could be in the office at a time. So they’re like, hey, it’d be better if you came in after hours and I went and picked up the thing and man am I glad that I did there has been I don’t even use the laptop screen I change the settings so that the lock laptop can stay closed. It actually sits in the back. It’s basically just a PC for the most part. And then I run everything off that 34 inch, and then I have a 24 inch touchscreen above it that’s connected to it as well. So I kind of have that instead of having side by side. I have two on the bottom and one on top and all the teams and all the zoom calls and all those things. All that’s up top, and then all the work is down below and man, I can’t imagine and i think i think i’m going to be home for the rest of the year. Like, I don’t know if I’m going back Oh, wow. They’ve kind of said, Hey, you know, even when people are allowed to go back, we’re going to we’re going to be real generous about working from home. And I was like, Well, okay, I got, I have all my stuff and I really like the setup. So I think that second monitor By the way, I run on PCs and a run on monitors. And there’s never been a better time to buy a monitor. They are cheap. Like even even with a little bit of a run on a mic. You just picked up a new one. What did you get? So I got a 27 inch 10 ADP, beautiful, like pretty much zero bezel around the edges. It’s an Acer branded monitor 144 hertz refresh rate for 197.

Mike Wieger  [49:52] 
Yeah, it’s for 27 inch that you couldn’t get it especially with the high refresh rate. So and even even if you wanted 1440 P which for work purposes you don’t need but if you’re gaming or watching media content on it, but Jim it’s so funny that you say that you’re gonna stay home and that you’re liking it. You were such a big proponent you were the crew that even on snow days like no I’m getting, I’m gonna be there.

Jim Collison  [50:13] 
WFW bab I am working from work.

Mike Wieger  [50:19] 
That was your phrase that was your go to and now you’re a convert how you like,

Jim Collison  [50:22] 
I kind of am I Erin I’m, I’m with you and it healthcare. And so she’s out. She’s still going out and with the public and working in that space. But my daughter’s home and I don’t know, I just I kind of like it. It’s it’s she’s home. Some of the mornings and we get a little bit of time together. We don’t have to have a production meeting to get it done. Maybe we should I may steal that I have that idea from you. But yeah, I’m kind of liking it. One of the things Erin that has that we’ve seen though is our food consumption has changed our habits and maybe because you’re homeless All the time that you didn’t notice this but we’re cooking a little bit different we’re using a little bit different. Like what we buy it’s a little bit different and one of the things I noticed and you reviewed this as well, one of the things I noticed there’s some gadgets that’s that are making their way into the home now stuff people could buy at work or they’re used to drinking or whatever or just a little bit of a just a nice thing to have at home. These caught me off guard but these kind of sparkling water or seltzer machines are right that makes kind of fizzy water for you have gotten super popular. I’ve had three co workers say you got to get this thing. I haven’t yet but should I mean you’ve got one and reviewed it. What do you like about it?

Erin Lawrence  [51:42] 
Yeah, you’re talking about the sparkle sparkling water maker. And I mean, this is it’s a really different gadget. Those would be familiar with something like a SodaStream know that. It comes with the carbon dioxide tank and you install it and you know, that’s what carbonates the water. The sparkle is fun though it doesn’t use those carbon dioxide tanks, I keep wanting to call it carbon monoxide. So if I slip of the tongue, please do not use carbon monoxide in your water machine. No. But what this does is it uses essentially powders it uses baking soda and citric acid in these little sachets that you get from sparkle, and you dump the sachets into the back of the machine and then it adds water so you’ve got kind of a little water tank in the back. When you’re ready to go. It gets a little bit of water in amongst the powder. The powder foams up and creates carbon dioxide and that’s what bubbles the water essentially. So it does take a bit longer you sort of put the bottle into the machine. You know you start your carbonation process, I would say it takes probably about three or four minutes, but it’s much quieter than a SodaStream I find the water table A little bit different to not not canned, not so metallic, maybe a touch. citrusy thanks to that citric acid, but not unpleasant. I mean, if I put the water side by side and had you guys taste it, I doubt you’d be able to pick out which was wet. But yeah, there’s sort of subtle differences that when you’re tasting these things side by side, you know, which is wet. You’re like, Oh, yeah, so to detect a hint

Jim Collison  [53:31] 
we are that way. That’s the that’s, you know, we do beer tasting. So we’re good at those kinds of those. Yeah, there

Erin Lawrence  [53:37] 
you go. Maybe I’ll send you guys bottled water from the sparkle and the soda stream and we’ll do a water tasting might be easier to get.

Jim Collison  [53:43] 
I like the beer test. Yeah, don’t get us wrong. Don’t get us wrong. Send us beer. That’s the better No, you had Do you have both then soda stream and the sparkle do both?

Erin Lawrence  [53:54] 
I do I do. I owned a SodaStream for several years before hearing about the sparkle. And then got my hands on one of those so about a month or two ago. The other really cool thing about sparkle is that with a SodaStream anyway, at least the one I have you can’t carbonate anything but water and you can’t like you couldn’t do juice. You couldn’t do tea with the soap or with the sparkle machine. You can put tea in there. You can put fruit juice in there. You can put liquor or wine in there if you want and then you run the carbonation process through it and you’ve got sort of a sparkling cocktail. Yeah, so I did I did tea sparkling tea is actually really great. Um, we didn’t do any juices. And then we did I did some red wine. I made a sparkling red wine, which was surprisingly good, okay,

Jim Collison  [54:51] 
surprisingly good chilled or room temperature.

Erin Lawrence  [54:55] 
That one was room temperature. I will definitely chill it next time before drinking it. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [55:00] 
well even like a zen, you know, or something like that it’d be it would be Oh, yeah, yeah, those those kinds of sweeter ones would would maybe lend themselves to that.

Erin Lawrence  [55:08] 
Or any white I should have. I should do a white Actually, I haven’t tried us. No, no, that would be a lot like a Prosecco, right.

Jim Collison  [55:14] 
Or even a Riesling would would spawn really would do that really, really nicely. Right? There’s some of those. Yeah, no, that’s an interesting difference because you can’t get the other one. And with this one you can and that that kind of lends to some more, some more options. Mike now that you guys are home, have you gone to any kitchen gadgets that are different or are you using any of them that you had more than you were before? I’m cranking through Nespresso pods I didn’t know you were an espresso guy.

Mike Wieger  [55:43] 
Oh, we are Yeah. Time my wife got one and we’ve been all a number Smith presto. But no, it’s not using new gadgets is actually getting or using the ones you’ve had for a while you’ve just never had the time to write like we’ve had the milk frother for the Nespresso and I I’ve never been one to use it. I’m usually a black coffee drinker. I tell you, I’ve been doing a lot of frost milk in the Nespresso and and it’s just delicious. So that just all those things you just never had time to use and like, Hey, you know, make some bread and the bread maker, things like that right there. You just have a bunch of time at home.

Jim Collison  [56:17] 
Yeah, Erin, Have you made any bride yet? Have you gotten on the bread craze, the sourdough bread craze?

Erin Lawrence  [56:24] 
I haven’t tried the sourdough yet. But I started making breads almost when this started like I love baking anyway, but I’ve never made bread. I’ve always felt intimidated by it. So a friend of mine who is actually a really good bread Baker. She’s like, you don’t need to need bread. You know, there’s this really simple recipe you can do it it’s this No need bread. So she sent me this recipe and I tried it. And wow, it was so easy. So good. So little work. You basically mix it up kind of like at night before you go to bed. let it rise overnight, you get up in the morning, you fold it over once, put it into a bowl, and then heat up the oven, let it sit for another like hour or two, and then toss it in the oven. No needing like it was so easy and it’s so good. So so good. So then I’ve been trying other other breads actually made a video about the No need bread, you know, it’s a good way

Jim Collison  [57:25] 
to do that. Yeah, that was a good one.

Erin Lawrence  [57:27] 
It was so like nothing. I mean, people come to my YouTube channel for tech and technology. But at that time, I was just like this is all I’m interested in right now is just you know, making my own food so people seem to like it though. A bunch of people tried it instead it worked out really well.

Jim Collison  [57:43] 
Yeah, you in the whole world like my daughter. Yeah. Hey, we’re starting our own sourdough, right and so because yeast was nowhere to be found, like we ran out of toilet paper first and then everybody went for the yeast second, I don’t know why those two went together. But then I think it was kind of a secret like nobody knew yeast was selling out so you couldn’t get yeast? Well, you can take regular flour, you have to get good quality stuff and you can make you got to spend a week. But you can turn you can make that you could turn that yeast on in the in the, you know, in the fire and get sourdough bread. So my dad

Erin Lawrence  [58:16] 
worked for you.

Mike Wieger  [58:18] 
It did. Okay, we baked,

Erin Lawrence  [58:20] 
it failed miserably for me. So I want to hear this.

Jim Collison  [58:22] 
Yeah, well, she followed a YouTuber that had the instructions on how to do it. And it’s it’s a little complicated to get started. It’s a little math like it you need. First of all, we had to get a digital. We bought a digital weighing weighing thing. Scale. Thank you. So we got a digital scale, which is super cool. So she bought that and we waited for it to come in. We were worried because Amazon was all backed up. So it finally got here. And then you start it with that and then every day, you have to take some out, add some stuff back in, let it sit, take it out, add some stuff, right? you’re feeding it. Take Get away feeding it taking away we call our Susan the sourdough. Right so it’s Susie. So she’s got a name and she followed this YouTube I’ll, I’ll get that YouTube link and put it in the show notes for the show as well so you guys can watch it. It’s super funny. So they basically podcast the baking of this sourdough and I’ll get that over to you and I think you’ll probably appreciate it. And so this weekend she made her first her first batch now we use the Dutch oven. So we took the we actually took the insert out of an old crock pot. So you know you get the crock pot and you have that kind of ceramic insert sheet which we also try to cast iron pot to do it at first and that was sticky and it just was kind of messy but that that kind of the the ceramic insert that went into the crock pot work perfectly in the glass dome that goes on top is perfect for it. So she you know, you gotta you don’t have to need it so much but you kind of put it together, let it arise, put it together and she threw it in there and striped it and we put it on Super delicious like it was Yeah, it actually works so we’re going to do soup in bread bowls with it because that’s like we love that it’ll make a perfect little yeah no it’ll make perfect little I saw that video come across when you when you first did it I was like Erin’s making bread?

Erin Lawrence  [1:00:18] 
doing yeah

Jim Collison  [1:00:20] 
this is actually not long after you publish that Sammy said we she had been she’d gotten the scale and we were going to try our own sourdough. sourdough of course has gotten real popular because you invent you make the yeast come out of the out of the flour as opposed to having to have the yeast kind of an advance the the first batch of the No need bread you made you I saw you eating it. Was it really as good as you as you thought it was on?

Erin Lawrence  [1:00:48] 
I am not even kidding. Maybe it’s because I Well, I mean, my one friend who is a baker will occasionally drop off a low for us and it’s always great. But I’ve never made my own bread. So I don’t know if it’s Just because, you know, I’m so used to store bought bread that I didn’t know how good bread actually was or how simple it could be. But I last weekend I made something called Japanese milk bread, which is, you’ve, I’m sure you’ve seen this. It’s like the softest pillow earliest, like Tinder, it’s bread that you can make. It’s almost like the most pristine loaf of like white bread. But like with just a hint of sweetness, and like, I can’t even describe how good this thing is. So another guy know, from Instagram. He has sort of a cooking, cooking feed cooking penalties on YouTube as well. But he said he made it and I saw his pictures and I was like, oh, I’ve got to get that recipe. So he sent it to me. And I tried it out and again, surprisingly easy. This one had a little a few more steps and a little bit of kneading. But after Starting with the No need bread, this felt like it was easy enough to sort of be the next step in the progression of making bread and making another loaf of of the Japanese milk bread this weekend because it is seriously delicious.

Jim Collison  [1:02:15] 
It’s good to have on hand like making your own bread. There’s something about it Mike, have you guys tried doing bread and you do that very often? No, no, we have not. We’re trying

Mike Wieger  [1:02:24] 
well, kids would love it. I know they would you know my wife has come from she was never someone who cooked I was the same way My wife has gotten amazing at it. But we have not delved into bread or anything too complicated.

Jim Collison  [1:02:39] 
I wonder what smoked bread would taste like if you

Mike Wieger  [1:02:42] 
were reading my mind I was like I wonder actually it’s like an oven right? You can cook everything on a smoker he said the temperature you in there cook pizzas on the smell you know bread?

Jim Collison  [1:02:52] 
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we’re no

Erin Lawrence  [1:02:54] 
need bread you cook in a pot with a lid like you just get either a cast iron or a pop And put it on it and goes in the oven. Right? So you could totally put that on a barbecue or on a smoker.

Jim Collison  [1:03:05] 
Yeah. What did you use for your bread? What did what what was the content? Do you cast iron for yours? For your video? I

Erin Lawrence  [1:03:11] 
just used a regular pot I guess aluminum or whatever. Metal ceramic?

Unknown Speaker  [1:03:17] 
no fancy. Yeah, just regular.

Erin Lawrence  [1:03:19] 
No, not a ceramic one. No.

Jim Collison  [1:03:21] 
We found that I that I have

Erin Lawrence  [1:03:25] 
I just spray I lie. I did do a smaller one and one of the ceramic ones too. But they I found they worked kind of equally as well.

Jim Collison  [1:03:32] 
David McCabe says in the chat room, he says we we made something that I think came from a soldier around the war. World War Two era. Not good. It’s a great time to practice. I think some of these recipes you know, you can families together. They’re interesting. We have definitely amped up our cooking. And I mentioned earlier that you know the chicken turned out the smoke chicken from last week’s show turned out so good. The ladies are like can you do that again? Now that chicken Was $6 like you and we got two meals out of it maybe three when you think about all the all the stuff I we probably had dinner and a couple lunches out of that chicken noodle soup. And then I just finished it up today and then we use that chicken for case idea. So I think there’s some great ways and it’s just it’s a fun time to be kind of do some alternative kind of cooking speaking of alternative as we think kind of the last thing we’re going to talk with you Erin about, you know, US gentleman, you ladies probably aren’t struggling but us gentlemen are struggling a little bit with maybe the personal grooming now the haircuts are one thing but I’ve never seen this before, but apparently, Gillette is making a heated razor. Is that right?

Erin Lawrence  [1:04:47] 
They are I saw this for the first time at CES at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. And I was like what the heck and they had a couple models out there. So you could try it and you know, I was pressing it to the back of my hand. And sure enough, it feels warm. And I just thought like, wow, I need to get my hands on try it. So Gillette was kind enough to send me one to test out. And yeah, it’s it heats up. So it comes with this little stand that charges up the razor. And I guess there’s sort of a heating bar in the blade or sort of behind where the blade is. And that’s what warms the blade up. So it’s got couple different things I can’t remember off the top my head if it’s two or three, but you can sort of adjust the warmth of it. And I found the hottest setting, I shouldn’t say hot, it’s not like searingly hot but it is really warm. really warm. So the hottest setting was kind of too warm for me. And I gave it to my husband to try cuz I was like, No, I’m trying it on my legs but I think it was lost on me a little bit, you know, using it on the legs. Yeah, so I had my husband shave with it a few times and and asked for his feedback. And he was kind of like, Yeah. Hey, and I was like, What do you What don’t you like him? But I like it. It gets hot. And he’s like, Yeah, but it can heat up my razor under the hot running water anyway, so, you know, do do I really need a razor to heat up on its own? Yeah. This kind of less than thrilled with it.

Jim Collison  [1:06:26] 
about it. Mike, you’re cutting your hair. You’re Mike, you’re cutting your own hair. Hannah, why shouldn’t say you’re doing and I’m doing it for you. Right? How are you? It’s a week later. I think you cut it last week, right?

Mike Wieger  [1:06:39] 
Yeah, you’re gonna do it again. So she has now not only cut my hair, she’s got the boys hair. So we have the Philips norelco it hasn’t turned dial. And so you can adjust the height of it. It’s not really the height of the guard. Right? Yeah, the height of the guard. It’s meant for facial hair. So it’s a facial hair trimmer. So it’s not the full width of the hair. One but she uses that for the side using our boys hair. It’s worked really well now she has not had to cut the top and I’m really worried. So this is getting super long up here. Because that’s the hard girl

Erin Lawrence  [1:07:10] 
with a Pompadour.

Mike Wieger  [1:07:11] 
Yeah, I might have to just start I don’t know I talked about it. Have you guys watched Peaky Blinders at all? Wow. Okay. Okay, I’m thinking like, maybe the Arthur style where if it gets really pulled straight back, right, and

Jim Collison  [1:07:26] 
we embrace this thing like, like, should I agree a time when you don’t get to try these kinds of hairstyles and ever? Yeah, you know, mine is finally kind of just grown out to her. I’m thinking like, maybe I’ll keep it this length. You know, when I’ve done you know, I need I need some cleanup back here. And just some, you know, kind of just a little bit of maintenance, but as kind of like, when it’s short, it’s really gray. And now that it’s kind of grown out. It’s kind of like the gray. I’m not saying the gray is gone away, but it’s a little less subdued. Or it’s a little more subdued, and I’m like, maybe I’m gonna keep my hair long, Erin. Certainly we don’t have to worry about Got all the stuff that you do? How are you handling this crisis this hair crisis

Erin Lawrence  [1:08:05] 
personal grooming? Yeah, I my my timing was impeccable. Again, I got a ton of hair cut off right before lockdown. I thought I’d lighten things up for the summer. So I cut I think it was seven inches off my hair. And so I feel like yeah, great could shut down until the end of the year. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna have a problem. My hair is pretty easy to manage. So that’s sort of been the least of my of my worries. I do miss getting a massage though. I sit at a desk as you know, probably a lot of other people do for many hours a day. So you end up getting that hunch and just everything is sore. So I really miss you know, being able to go get a massage and just relax that way. But you know, Sephora delivers. So I’ve been having fun on the Sephora website. What else I’ve been doing right now. new products on Amazon so nothing too bad. I was there was that I would say the few weeks first two weeks probably of the lockdown. I was full pajamas, you know, no nothing happening with the hair, no makeup. It was just like yeah, whatever, no problem. And then my hair’s gone crazy. Yeah, but after about the third week, it started to feel weird. And I just you know, I’d kind of go into my home office and sit down but because I wasn’t having that part of the morning routine where it’s like, get up, shower, get ready, do your hair makeup, you know, get dressed it it started to feel weird. So I thought you know what, I’m just gonna go back to the routines. I’ve kind of been going through my full morning routine. I really only see my husband but I’ve got you know, hair done makeup on clothes on. And I feel better about it.

Jim Collison  [1:09:50] 
I bet he appreciates that. Well, maybe not the clothes on part but I’m sure you appreciate. I’m sure he appreciates that. Mike, have you been I have to I’ve been following Schedule almost every day, Sunday’s would be the only time it’s really different. Mike, have you been kind of following a schedule at home? Hell you know, just don’t incriminate yourself. I don’t if your employer’s listening I don’t, you know?

Mike Wieger  [1:10:14] 
No, I’m just like morning routine right? It’s just so weird hat cuz with handle work at the hospital I’ve now got a three year old, a two year old and working all day. It’s like trying to balance that and every morning to something different. It depends on Hey, if those kids are still sleeping for some miracle when I wake up at 630 I’m gonna get down there as quick as I can and start working. Right. But if they’re in my bed already, then it’s okay. Gotta get them breakfast first. So there is no such thing as a standard morning so far. And I’ve also learned that the daycare workers do not get enough. I will say that I get Yeah, I used to think that that was like so much money. I’m like, No, they do like I just don’t know how anyone else could do it. It is. It’s been a challenge.

Jim Collison  [1:10:51] 
Yeah, it’s I’m hearing that a lot. I am super fortunate. I would have killed myself. 10 years ago if this would have happened us. Just with with having fun. 10 years ago, we had five at home in this house and I just do it in a completely different story, the way and this is easier for me So, but I am getting up every morning 630 same trying to do the same thing, same stuff every day. Just keep it that was some advice I read early on, like, just get really regular. And so just try to keep similar patterns. I’ve actually developed kind of a new workout plan and the way I’m doing it throughout the day. So I do little tiny workouts instead of one big workout. I’m doing a little bit at a time. And that’s just kind of helping get me out of my chair, get the steps in I’m trying to complete the rings on the Apple watch every day trying to compete with the day before to say can I do a few more than I did yesterday, which is dangerous because after six weeks you kind of reach your theoretical max. You can’t do anymore. So even though you’re saying you should do more, you can’t. A couple comments from the chat room. Joe says 2020. The year mullets make back that could be Possible Dave says Jim man been Collison that I don’t know that it’s a possibility I may I may bring that back and and then other Jim said you never see my could be stood outside a big boy. I don’t know. Mike you know the big boy is Bob’s Big Boy. I know. It’s a restaurant. Do you know do you know big boys? Erin? I do. Yeah.

Erin Lawrence  [1:12:22] 
Yeah that’s a big way they’re out there mascot has the wavy the pinky under sir.

Jim Collison  [1:12:27] 
Yeah. Okay, the big you could totally pull it off like you could do. You could do a pandemic you should you should grow out for the pandemic kind of just the way it all Yeah, yeah, you’d look. It would look it would definitely look good on you

Erin Lawrence  [1:12:43] 
could match up with that guy from ancient aliens that has the hair that

Erin Lawrence  [1:12:49] 
guy’s name.

Jim Collison  [1:12:50] 
Why Why wouldn’t you like this? We’re gonna get one. My hopefully we’ll get one shot at this to be like, it’s pandemic time. nobody really cares. I haven’t gotten a haircut. on so many. I’m on so many video calls, external, external people throughout the day, it was just internal work people. And but people are forgiving for that man. I think right now you can get away with anything.

Mike Wieger  [1:13:12] 
Yeah, it’s pretty true. Kids on conference calls.

Jim Collison  [1:13:18] 
Don’t bring the kids in, like, let the kids wave. I one of the things I found bring the kids in engage them for the first two minutes. What they really want to see is what’s happening. So if you just let them see this as boring work stuff, they’re gone. But if you try and shoo them away, they just keep coming back. And so with my coworkers, I’m just like, bring them in, put the headphones on him. And then I start asking him questions like, hey, so what are you doing today? What’s your what’s your homework? Like? Tell me what are you learning math? They’re out. Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [1:13:47] 
I don’t answer this guy.

Erin Lawrence  [1:13:50] 
That’s a good strategy.

Jim Collison  [1:13:51] 
They’re out there. How did you do that? I’m like, I just asked him how their math homework was and it gets them out. Erin, thanks for coming back again to And being part of our show for for folks who want to follow you and all those things which give us the right the right ways to kind of keep track of you and where they should subscribe.

Erin Lawrence  [1:14:10] 
For sure the website is techgadgetsCanada.com. The YouTube channel is youtube.com slash Erin Lawrence TV, and I am on Twitter and Instagram at Erinlyyc. Please like follow subscribe, share and comment. I love hearing from people.

Jim Collison  [1:14:28] 
Yeah, and you’re really you’re really good at it. And so thanks for doing that. Have you noticed an uptick in Twitter? Since the pandemic has that been any just Twitter been any different for you? It seems like for me, it’s it’s a it’s got an uptick. Have you noticed anything different?

Erin Lawrence  [1:14:43] 
I think so Twitter, I find tends to be that news resource. So anytime there is a major, you know, up until now, it’s kind of been a local event. I noticed a big uptick in it. But I guess you know, worldwide everybody still wants to get their news and their information. So I’m saying On Twitter, YouTube, I found though, dropped off substantially for me, I would say in about the last month like huge. And it’s like, just in the last couple days, it’s kind of gone up through the roof again, so I can’t explain it. I don’t know why.

Jim Collison  [1:15:18] 
Yeah, no, that is interesting. I’ve only been watching YouTube. And so it’s, it’s, I don’t watch any TV. everybody’s like, oh, have you seen the tiger thing? And I’m like, No, have you seen that great place now? I mean, I am so out of touch with network television. But I can tell you like, I have YouTube channels that I follow. You’re one of them. And and those are every day I come down, I look at the notification up there. Okay, what’s new? What have they done? You just did a new vacuum cleaner review. Right, as well. Is that if you have any one of those out? Yeah. So Rob, I think that real recent on that and so it’s kind of fun to keep up with your channel and all the things that are going on there. One of the things I have noticed is when I close tonight when I close out the video and we’re streaming there I used to wait an hour, and it was ready for me. And now it’s taking 14 or 15 hours for videos to render on YouTube. So yeah, I mean, I think that speaks to just the amount of traffic that has grown on the site. And, and it’s just a different it’s a different day. So I don’t even try I used to try and edit make some some early edit skim rendering overnight, so that Friday morning, they’d be there. I just pull that off now. I’ll be there on Friday when I get there so Erin, thanks for joining us. Hang tight for just one second here as I close things up. A couple reminders before we go don’t forget if you want to support the show. I don’t do that via YouTube like some do but we do have a Patreon page. So if you go to The Average Guy TV co slash Patreon a couple new folks have joined us and I don’t get permission to use your name so I won’t use it but thank you if you’ve been if you’ve been those jumping on the Patreon group, I always appreciate that. Join our discord group and Mike You’re doing a great job over there in Discord. So the average guy TV slash discord brand new barbecue channel brand new cigar channel the distributed computing i think is gonna peek in and go back down I think we’re all I think we’re all kind of over making these are doing these packets for for the COVID stuff with folding at home but but Mike thanks for the work that you’re doing they’re a great place to get connected anything you want to highlight they’re coming out of the discord off the discord channel.

Mike Wieger  [1:17:25] 
No just first just loving that everyone’s active and we picked up a bunch of new members I think since the Unraid show especially so if you’re not out there and you’ve listened and you for some reason you haven’t jumped out there there’s conversation about just about everything. If you head over to the discord. So keep the comments coming. Keep the pictures coming. A lot of you have been sharing news about your new builds which is like I love nerding out on other people’s builds. And I think it helps everyone else right because it helps scratch the itch of eating new hardware. Or it makes us feel like we need new hardware. Either way, keep it coming. There’s been a lot of great stuff

Jim Collison  [1:17:56] 
out there. You You jumped in feet first.

Mike Wieger  [1:18:00] 
We all joked about this too. We’re like, you know, I did that optiplex upgrade, like, I’m just gonna use old recycled hardware just give myself a little upgrade and I’m like, Yeah, that’ll last like two months. It lasted about two months.

Jim Collison  [1:18:10] 
Yeah, it didn’t last long. You’re all the way in so great conversation, The Average Guy TV slash discord, our Facebook group, The Average Guy TV slash Facebook. If you want to do that way. If you want to contact me, I always appreciate your feedback. Neil always sends me a comment. Neal, I always appreciate when you do that, Jim at The Average Guy. TV just good to hear from you guys. I’ve been sending out the newsletter is up and running again. Not only do we have a vent right working, so the average guy.eventbrite.com we have newsletters working again. So head over to The Average Guy, TV slash subscribe. I got all this time on my hands. And so I’m actually getting to the things that I should be getting to and if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, I send out just a little update on all the things that we’re doing during the week and nothing that takes more than 10 seconds to read. Then don’t forget The Average Guy TV platform powered by Maple Grove Partners get secure, reliable high speed hosting for people that you know and trust. We just had Christian back on Cyber Frontiers on Monday. That’s out in the channel right now, if you want to go grab it, but he’s doing a bang up job over there and Maple Grove Partners $10, a site gets a web and media hosting, I think $5 for email, Mike, is that right? Is that what you is that the plan that you did extra for email, if you want to do email, so 15 bucks, get you a whole bunch of stuff, Maple Grove partners.com. We appreciate if you listen to the show, and you support Christian, we appreciate that. And he’s got some extra bandwidth, he just moved into a new place and set up some new servers and has some new bandwidth. So if you want to jump on that you can, as well. And then don’t forget, last thing, I still have a whole bunch of hellofresh free week, it’s worth 70 bucks, it’ll get you two meals for four people. If you’re struggling with the cooking, now might be a good time to get some extra recipes and try some things out with hellofresh. So if you want to give it a try, let me know send me an email or just go onto the site and look at the shownotes there’s a hellofresh link there, you can sign up. That’s the $40 deal. If you contact me, you’ll get a free week at 70 And I don’t listen, I’m not trying to make anything off of them. I’m just trying to improve the quality of what you eat for God’s sakes. So if you want to do that, let me know and we’ll get you on hellofresh as well. We are live every Thursday 8pm Central nine Eastern after The Average Guy TV slash live, Mike and I’ll be suppose show maybe internal stay around for a little bit of it as well. With that, we’ll say goodbye.

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