Madeline Flores 🥉

Cheap cases often use older or recycled hard plastic that’s already brittle so daily heat from gaming or wireless/fast charging makes corners crack fast. For now & pop the case off during long charging or gaming sessions at home to cut heat soak, and avoid alcohol wipes on the case. For your budget, look for a TPU or silicone bumper with air-cushion corners (or a soft bumper with a hard back) plus a cheap glass screen protector; those handle drops better than rigid shells.

At this point my attention budget is maxed and those pings are overdraft fees. I drop a quick line like, "Hey pals, muting this thread to cut noise, DM me if you need me," then hit mute or leave. Saves my sanity and my data bill.

If I were you, I'd plan the first 30 days around two anchor habits and one experiment slot. In the first three days, figure out your neighborhood, ask HR or a teammate about employee groups, and check the events calendars for a running store and a library or board game shop. Pick two weekly commitments you can keep for a month, like a no-drop run club from a running store and an open board game night at a library, cafe, or friendly local game store. Show up three times, arrive ten minutes early to chat with organizers, and volunteer for small tasks like shuffling people into tables or helping with route photos. Add one low-effort volunteer shift in week two, like a food bank sort or park cleanup, and register for a 5K at the end of the month to give you an easy shared goal and talking point. Bring an easy gateway game in your bag, like Sushi Go, Ticket to Ride, or Just One, and at the event say mind if I join or would anyone like to play this rather than waiting to be pulled in. On the running side, join the store's Strava club, stick to the conversational pace group, and ask a couple openers like which local routes you like most or any good weekend runs. For safety, keep first meetups in public, share your location with a friend, get yourself there and home, and set a two-drink max or stick to coffee. Use a default yes rule for the first month but only for invites that are public, budget friendly, and end by around 10, and politely say another time to late bar crawls or house parties until you know the hosts. To turn casual hangs into friendships, follow up within 24 hours with a specific and low-pressure invite, like that was fun, want to try the Tuesday five mile loop or play Cascadia next Thursday at the cafe. Consistency beats intensity, so aim for six to eight touchpoints with the same few people by showing up weekly and tossing small check-in texts or kudos on their runs. When someone seems lukewarm, back off and keep it breezy, but when it clicks start a tiny group chat and float a recurring plan like Sunday coffee run or a monthly game night at a neutral spot.

This usually happens when the router does something routine at night and your plugs are slow to rejoin. Common culprits are an automatic channel change, a scheduled Wi‑Fi optimization or reboot, a short DHCP lease renewal, or 2.4 GHz Wi‑Fi 6 features that confuse older IoT radios. The router is close enough, so it is less about signal and more about compatibility during those brief interruptions. A few quick tweaks tend to fix it. Make a dedicated 2.4 GHz SSID for the plugs using WPA2 AES only with Protected Management Frames set to optional. Turn off Wi‑Fi 6 features on 2.4 such as OFDMA and Target Wake Time. Lock 2.4 GHz to channel 1, 6, or 11 at 20 MHz width instead of auto. Increase the DHCP lease to several days even with reservations, then disable band steering, airtime fairness, and minimum RSSI for that SSID. Also check the router for any nightly reboot or optimization schedule and turn it off. Update the plug firmware in its app and remove any sleep or auto power schedules that might be set by a routine. If you would rather avoid picky router settings, consider EIGHTREE which plays nicest with Alexa. It uses native Alexa setup and runs on 2.4 GHz only, which helps it reconnect cleanly after brief Wi‑Fi hiccups.