@Summitt Dweller’s Personal Blog - McFate

Tama County Celebrates

Mark McFate — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 06:33:16 -0500

Farewell Facebook Friends

Mark McFate — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 08:33:16 -0500

I find myself at a crossroads. Those of you who know me well are probably aware that I have never been a fan, advocate, or avid user of Facebook, or social media in general.

I do like FB Marketplace though. I’ve had some wonderful experiences buying or selling things there. Sure, there have been some unpleasant Marketplace experiences, too, but the good far outweighs the bad, so I will probably stick with it.

The same goes for FB Messenger. I prefer using email or text messaging for online communication, but for my Marketplace communications, and especially for staying in touch with all my distant friends, Messenger is a must. Not all the time, but often enough that I will probably stick with using Messenger, too.

Research tells me that I can’t leave Facebook without also losing Marketplace and Messenger. Well, crap.

That research also shows me that lots of other people would like to do the same, disengage from social media, but keep the positive and useful things in play. This is not a paid endorsement, but my research did also lead me to an app called SocialFocus. If you are interested, please check it out: https://socialfocus.app/.

I’ll try not to get long-winded here, but I wanted to share one other thing from my research…

This morning as I was browsing in Marketplace, something popped into my Facebook feed and I opened it, perhaps for the last time. I came across a photo (https://www.tamatoledonews.com/news/local-news/2025/09/19/stc-announces-2025-homecoming-court/) posted by TamaToledoNews. I don’t know most of the kids at STC any more, so it wasn’t the group of smiling young faces that caught my attention, although I wish them all the best. It was the setting of this photo that brought a tear to my eye. If I am given permission, I will add a copy of the image in this blog because you never know how long Facebook will last, and you certainly never know who might not be able to open Facebook now, or in the future. I know I won’t.

I can’t verify this, because that would almost certainly require more interaction with FB, but I believe that the photo was taken beneath a willow tree planted on October 8, 2012, the day my son was buried, by members of the Iowa Geocachers Organization board of directors, and friends. One of those folks, Liz, became a good friend and the tears I shed this morning are for Ian, and for Liz as she celebrates her first heavenly birthday.

It’s postings from Liz, and many others like her, that I will miss the most.

When Ian passed I was moved by the outpouring of love and support we received. I still am to this day. But, I was also moved in a very different manner by all the hateful speculation and vitriol that I found online. In spite of the positives, I choose to pull back from social media in 2012, and was glad that I had when the 2016 election cycle rolled around. In years since I’ve gradually drifted back into social media, largely driven by connections with young people and distant friends who had no other simple means of keeping in touch.

But the vitriol is back, so I’m done.

In the absence of social media I’ve no doubt that I will find comfort in actual things, like Ian’s tree(s), and the good people in my life who occasionally visit in-person, or know me well enough to share an update via text message, email, or a phone call (yes, Mary reminds me that you can still do that with your phone) at times. If I sent you a link to this post, via whatever means available, then you’ll know you are one of the people I will miss and I hope you will find a way to keep in touch.

Alexa Notes

Mark McFate — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 18:43:21 -0600

Connecting Ceiling Fan Control to Alexa

How to Setup the “Smart Life” App

Step 1: Connect your phone to the 2.4G WIFI network (must be 2.4G).

Step 2: Open your “Smart life” APP， and add your device.

Step 3: Click “Smart Home Appliance” then click the “fan”.

Step 5: Choose Confirm indicator rapidly blink, then click “Next”.

Step 6: Waiting for connection.

Step 7: Connection succeeded.

How do I connect to Alexa?

The following is an example using Amazon Echo

Complete product networking configuration in the Smart Life App

Complete the device’s networking configuration according to the prompts in the App

Note: In the App, change the name of the device to an easily identifiable name such as Alexa; names are usually in English, such as “bedroom light”

Configure the Amazon Echo device

(If you have already configured Amazon Echo, you can skip this step. The following instructions are based on the iOS client)

Make sure your Amazon Echo device is powered on and connected to a Wi-Fi network.
Open the Alexa app on your phone. After successful login, tap on the menu in the upper left corner of the Home page, select “Settings” and tap “Set Up A New Device” to set up the Amazon Echo.
Choose your Amazon Echo device type and language for connecting. Press and hold the small dot on the device until the light turns yellow. Then tap “Continue” to connect to the hotspot.

After connecting to the Amazon Echo hotspot, return to the page. At this point, the connection is successful. Tap “Continue” to proceed to the next step. Choose a Wi-Fi network to connect to. Amazon Echo will take a few minutes to try to connect to the network.

After the network connection is successful, Tap “Continue." An introduction video will appear. After the video ends, Tap “Continue” to jump to the Alexa Home page. You have now completed the Amazon Echo’s configuration process.
Key step - link Skill
Tap on “Skills” in the Alexa app menu.
Then search for “Smart Life”. Tap “Enable” to enable the Skill.
Enter the Smart Life APP account and password, then tap “Link Now” to link your Smart Life account to enable the Skill. Now you can start your smart home journey.

Common commands

Control the device via voice commands Now you can control your smart device with Echo. You can control your device (such as your bedroom light) with the following commands:

“ALEXA,TURN on the bedroom light!”

My Grandparent's 1926 California Trip Project

Mark McFate — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 18:43:21 -0600

In October 1926 my grandparents, Clarence and Miriam Abia McFate, packed their family into what I imagine was a pickup truck with a homemade camper in the bed and embarked on a trip that grandma, Miriam, described as…

With the auto route traveling west, in a house built on a Ford with all modern convenience of camp life. Our house is equipped with a gasoline stove for cooking, a small wood heater for heating, 1 small medicine cabinet, with all necessities of a young hospital. Folding table and chairs, 1 day bed, used in day time as a seat and a place for our bed covers, when not in use. One cupboard and all cooking utensils including a pressure cooker. We fasten tent and camp cots on out side. All in all we have a very comfortable way to travel. Not to fast but just fast enough for the most enjoyable time of our lives.

Following you will find each day drive as we journey on.

By grandma’s account they traveled 2,809 miles between October 18, 1926, and November 28 of that year, a span of 42 days on-the-road.

Rootstalk Plan

A few years ago I approached the publisher and editor of Rootstalk, a print and digital publication of the Grinnell College Center for Prairie Studies, to inquire about featuring grandma’s journal in an upcoming edition of the magazine. They were very supportive, but we quickly realized that all 60+ pages of text could not possibly fit in a single issue, so a plan was made to break the journal into three annual installments with the last to publish sometime in 2026 on the 100th anniversary of the trip.

Because Rootstalk has an undetermined future, we recently decided to create a substantially condensed edition of the journal for the print issue of Rootstalk targeted for release following the Spring 2025 term. Along with the condensed print edition it is our intent to also produce an edited and augmented digital edition of the entire journal in Rootstalk’s Spring 2025 issue. There is no class of assistant editors meeting this semester so the effort will involve just the editorial staff and me, along with any assistance, and/or content, I can solicit from interested family members.

The Task at Hand

In order to get the journal published I plan to re-read the entire journal, noting those portions that I believe are worthy of inclusion in the condensed version (about 5%-10% of the journal). I also hope to write an intro piece and end reflection to accompany the journal, along with gathering some photos to help tell the story.

In the digital edition I hope to also include a timeline and a map, both helping to tell the story in a different fashion. To that end I’ve obtained a royalty-free US highway roadmap from November 1926, and have created a GitHub private repository of resources at Grandparents-Miriam-and-Clarence-McFate-California-Trip.

Starting From a PDF

Grandma’s manuscript was transcribed into a typewritten document many years ago by members of my extended family. I have since obtained a scanned text document of the typewritten transcript, and converted it into a 64+ page PDF from which my work will begin.

Step-by-Step

This section, to be expanded over time, is a step-by-step list of tasks needed to transform the PDF into something suitable for publication.

Identify and sequentially number the paragraphs.
In each numbered paragraph collect the following using automated text analysis:

a) References to the travelers
b) References to people encountered on the trip
c) References to places
d) Corresponding date or dates