On Thursday morning the ground was covered in ice from the stuff that fell from the sky. Sarah’s car got stuck so I used my steel-toed REI Kilimanjaro climbing boots to knock the ice from under her wheels. Afterwards I wandered around the corner to look for some ice melt to help get my car clear and to get the ice in her spot to melt. What I found was a large supply of day old marked down Valentine’s day candy and a new set of more expensive Easter candy. I did not find any ice melting substances. I then went to Stop and Shop and had the same experience. So my conclusion was that someone should make “Ice melting Valentine’s day candy” or the local venues should stock things that are useful in winter despite the predictions of tropical weather and parrots flying through the Boston rain forest until they actually see a passion fruit plant growing in Boston Commons.

On Saturday morning I watched “Good Morning America” since I was already up for three or four hours from the earlier showing that Madeline put on to demonstrate that she was bored at 4 AM that included readying some exciting board books, testing a new farm music CD, munching on blue berries, and playing pick-up quarters from the floor. On the show they featured a guy who had invented a robo-plow out of an old golf cart frame. It was actually not robotic but instead a remote control device that he could either control by looking out his window or control from his television using the cameras and lights mounted on the front of the plow.

That was the interesting thing to me. Maybe the true application of telepresence is to outsource common household tasks like lawn mowing, driveway maintenance, and vacuum cleaning to people living in countries where they can use fast internet access to control household appliances in other countries. I can imagine saying that we outsource our vacuum cleaning to India and our lawn to Africa at some point in 2015. The key is for the manufacturers of these pieces of equipment like Toro and Electrolux or some smart Japanese manufacturers to figure it out and start making these appliances and the service contracts now. They have outsourced the person who takes your order at McDonalds over that intercom so the time is near. Maybe it’s time to get a patent on the whole business model for remote controlled outsourcing of household chores before it is too late. But what will the neighbor’s kids do for cash?