FAUX LFL RE-SURFACED

 According to my son, my faux little free library went out of commission in April this year.  I cannot seem to remember these little things.  It was held up by two keyring hooks attached to an I.V. pole.  My Mother one time had a nurse come to the house to administer some fluid injection and when the work was done we were left with two I.V. poles, one of which became the support for my faux lfl.  I think one time I had too many books in the milk crate and the wind was strong, the hooks, or at least one, got twisted out of shape.  Somehow I never have the time to fix it, until recently, some four months later.  This time I use zip ties and so far the lfl is holding up.  Come patronize, take a book, share a book.  On Bay 40th Street in Brooklyn NY, near 86th Street.  I still have the cello-shaped magazine rack that also serves as an lfl.  It is chained to the fence with a lock but this past weekend I found it laying face down, luckily still chained.  Someone either wanted to take it for their use, or just want a piece of metal to sell to some junkyard.  Sad, that is why we cannot have nice things.

NHS '85 40TH REUNION - SEPT 4 DEADLINE

The 40th Reunion of Class of 1985 at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens NY now has a deadline of September 4, 2025.  That's one month ahead of the actual reunion date of October 4, 2025.  The event will be at the Marriott LaGuardia Airport, 7 P.M. to midnight.  Payment of $150 per person is to be done through BillHighway.com .  Contact me at linusly@mac.com to have your BillHighway account created.  I believe we already reached all interested parties and some are just waiting for a deadline to act, so now you have the deadline.  Event is open to all 1980s so bring friends and families!

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

I used to carry a small pouch to hold coins.  One after another became unuseable so after a while I don't carry coins any more.  But I get coins when I pay for things with cash.  Slowly the coins built up.  I thought of using one of those coin machines but they charge a fee.  Or you get a gift card but it's not the same as cash.  When you buy something, your money is already de-valued.  My son came up with the wonderful idea of paying for train rides with coins.  In New York City, subway and buses take MetroCard, a thin plastic that one swipes at the turnstile to get into the transit system.  I normally pay for it with a credit card, occasionally with bills, but never thought of using coins.  I recently put the idea to work, even though it was for the MetroCard's replacement, OMNY card, comes January 1, 2026.  It was a bit of a hassle, but I was able to spend $3.00+ to get an OMNY card.  It costs $1.00 to get the card, probably just to discourage people from just throwing empty ones away.  Yeah, humans suck, that's why we cannot have nice things.  I recall when the MetroCard didn't cost $1.00 to buy, spent ones were littered all over the subway station.  Anyway, back to the OMNY card, the coins had to be dropped just right in order for them to be registered.  If not done right, they travel down some separate path and come out in the tray where the cards would come out.  Still, it's the best way to use coins.

HAVING ECLAIRS AND VERY SHY

The ColdPlay couple, there are so many re-enactments but the audio stayed the same.  Over and over I heard "They either are having an affair or they are very shy..."  My punny mind twisted it to say "They are having eclairs and they are very shy" and came up with the drawing.  By hand, on a dry-erase board.  Not a work of AI, which I poked fun at by drawing extra arms on the people in the picture.  Maybe AI will be perfect in the future but for now it cannot handle fingers and appendages.  Most humans have only  five fingers, two arms, and two legs, but AI often gives them extra fingers, or longish fingers, or feet where hands should be.

I LOVE ICE

Tuesday, July 15, 2025, new fridge arrived and installed.  While my early childhood took place in some small town in Saigon, without luxuries like refrigerator, I don't remember much of that.  I do remember living on the third floor of a big building, with a refrigerator.  What a luxury!  Ever since living in the U.S., I appreciate refrigerators even more.  I just love cold drinks.  For a few years, my anemia caused me to have nasty bouts of sneezing whenever I didn't have enough sleep.  The day would start with frequent sneezes then by the end of the day the headache would come.  I just had to drop everything and go straight to bed, then the next day I was good again.  Tried a few doctors, one was a Chinese herbal doctor and he told me I would have to give up drinking cold stuff.  Good thing I decided to get to do more physical exercises, namely long-distance running, and continued to drink cold stuff.  What a sacrifice in life that would be, no cold drinks.  When the previous refrigerator was installed, we decided not to bother to have ice made.  Drinks were still cold, if left in the fridge long enough, but at times I sorely missed having ice ready made.  With the new fridge, I made sure they hooked up the water hose, voila, ice available all the time.  After the few days without a decent fridge, I love my ice.  Yes, the real ice, not those January 6th thugs who go around kidnapping people, no accountability, probably already promised by King Rump that whatever they do they would be pardoned again.  Go, South Park!

A FRIDGE TOO WARM

Thursday July 10th, almost end of the work day, Wife texted me if I did anything to the fridge in the kitchen.  The freezer stopped working!  I cannot remember why I wanted to do it, but I thought about moving the fridge out enough to get to the back and Swiff it.  Clean it, gather up some dust.  Not long ago Wife started stacking these plastic boxes bought from Temu or such to better organize things but I think they choke the fridge.  There just isn't enough circulation of air.  Thought I did but didn't do anything, that's why Wife asked, maybe to blame me for somehow killing the freezer.  The time has come, but alas Swiffing didn't do much.  There were some grills so I used a hand vacuum to pull out dirt bunnies.  Using a vacuum designed specifically for computer keyboards got some more bunnies, but nothing changed.  I cannot recall the exact sequence of events, but I think I unplugged the unit, unscrewed the cover, there is so much dust to remove.  Over fifteen years, the fridge was not cleaned once.  Note to self: treat the next fridge better.  Once a year it should be cleaned.  For this current fridge, while much dust was removed from the fan and it started to spin again, nothing changed.  Maybe the compressor is dead.  Sadly, it costs too much to repair, so fifteen years is a good run, we will shop for a new one on the weekend.

EARN IT OFF

I don't care much about the Apple Watch but I recently discovered that my health insurance, UnitedHealth, offers a rewards program that can get me a free Watch.  Up to $300, that is.  You need to install the UnitedHealth app and let it connect to a tracker app, such as Apple's built-in Health program, so that UH can track the number of steps you make in a given day, how many hours of sleep you have, etc.  You earn a few dollars here, 50 cents there, take a health survey, participate in some weekly challenges, basically doing healthy stuff.  Ideally, you do enough to earn $20+ a month, but if you don't then the difference will be charged to your credit card and the "free" Apple Watch isn't free any more.  So far, for the first month I have a few extra dollars earned.  They will help me pay off the watch sooner than July 2026.  Here's to healthier living!

STATEN ISLAND STRIDING

CitStrides.com is a web site that collects your walks and runs onto a map.  It's fun to look at the map and see where you have been to.  To make it even more interesting, you are ranked against other walkers and runners in the cities you have activities in, in terms of completing streets.  You can make things private and only you can see where you have been to.

When I first started using CityStrides, Brooklyn NY was my target.  Some guy named Dan was at the top of the list, I was in the top ten somewhere.  I was still an active long-distance runners and competed with a few others to maintain my spot.  All for bragging right!  On more than one occasions, I sailed past my competitor in the morning but she then inched past me, so I went out for another run, on the same day, just to beat her again.  At least temporarily.  What a silly thing to do, but it was so enjoyable.

At a past job, I traveled all over Long Island and the five boroughs of NYC.  I would either leave for work early or pull over at some strategic spot on the way home just to get a walk in, to complete a street or two.  At one point, I became the champion in Staten Island.  Years later and at another job in New Jersey, I started to cover areas in New Jersey.  Elizabeth, Rahway, Carteret, victories came with some work.  One day I happened to glance at my position in Staten Island.  What?  Since when did I get to #2?  And not just by a little, the gap was over 100 streets!  Time to regain my #1 title in Staten Island.  I don't know how long it took but around the end of June 2025 I finally made it.  I don't know what my challenger's plan is, I know I will keep widening the gap until it is over 100 streets.  Then I will re-visit the counties of New Jersey again.  I lik to see new areas, even if they are just people's home or public parks, nothing too exciting, but it's my thing.

THE LANTERN - FIVE FOR $25!

 I run the unofficial alumni association for my high school, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, NY.  One feature of the group that I am proud of is the collection of yearbooks, made available completely in the Facebook group.  Over the years, the yearbook collection is quite good, from donations by teachers and other classmates, plus purchases from eBay, which isn't cheap.  Off and on, the school had a literary magazine called The Lantern.  Until recently, I only had two copies, one donated by a former student and one I bought from eBay.  Then this past weekend I was alerted to a bundle of five Lantern magazines from around 1958.  I immediately bought the bundle, for $25, which is a very good price.  Someone mentioned that he has some copies from the 1990s, which raised the question, "When was the last issue of The Lantern?".  I hope to know the answer some day.

PLAYED TOURIST - AMSTER YARD ETC

I recently took a day off to play tourist in my own home town.  First, I took the subway from near Coney Island all the way to Elmhurst, Queens, to visit my high school, Newtown High School, to pick up gym shirts I ordered for my alumni group on Facebook.  I miss the buskers on the subway and there was one in the tunnel connecting the Sixth Avenue train line (B/D/F) to the 7, but he wasn't that good.  I think he was singing some Whitney Houston song but I didn't catch it right away.  I actually got off the R train a station early to do some CityStriding.  I don't go to Queens often so every little bit helps.  By the time I was done it was lunch time.  Stopped by Phở Bằng, near Broadway and Elmhurst Avenue, for lunch.  I didn't enjoy sharing a big round table with two other lone diners.  Next time, maybe I will try Phở Bắc, further in in that same strip mall.

First stop in Manhattan was a re-visit to Amster Yard on East 49th Street.  It's a courtyard garden for a private Spanish library, Instituto Cervantes.  Without reading about it I wouldn't venture past the gate on 49th Street.  But it's open to the public, I used to go there regularly when I worked in the area, indirectly for TIAA-CREF, or whatever their name is now.  It's nice to be there and not hear the noise of the city outside.

Next stop was the "rooftop garden" of the re-built NYPL Midtown Manhattan Library.  I know, it's now known as the Niarchos Foundation Library, but old habits die hard.  I read about the "rooftop garden" but haven't had a chance to visit.  It's actually referred to as a "rooftop terrace".  My fault really, I like "rooftop gardens" so that was my expectation.  Lots of sitting area but very little greenery.  There was some area under construction, hopefully that will add some plants etc to the terrace.

Lastly, I visited the "new" Moynahan Train Terminal, which is where the Main Post Office used to be.  The post office windows were still there, perhaps preserved for historical purpose, but behind them toward Ninth Avenue there is a large area with skylight, shops etc.  I heard much about the Moynahan Extension of the High Line.  I expected it to be a part of the Moynahan building but it turned out it's an avenue over, on the block across Ninth Avenue, an area called Manhattan West.  The nice thing is where the Moynahan Extension ended is a plaza a few floors above the street.  Such plazas were popular in Hong Kong, the last time I visited the "island nation".  "Sky bridges" would connect a few such plazas so people can travel from one part of town to another without ever being on street level.  I love walking and enjoyed such walk very much, no need to deal with vehicular traffic.  I traveled the entire Moynahan Extension, past the giant pigeon sculpture, back to the High Line near Hudson Yard, back toward 23rd Street.  Took the C downtown to transfer to the D and got off at Grant Street station - Chinatown.  I love Vietnamese heros - bánh mì - so it was necessary to stop by Saigon Bakery to get some.  I also got some nem for my mother, from Tân Tín Hưng grocery store.  Another long subway ride home and that was my day being a tourist in Manhattan.

'85 REUNION ANNOUNCED ON SCHOOL WEBSITE

It is official - Newtown High School (Elmhurst) Class of 1985's 40th Reunion is announced via the school website.

https://www.newtownhighschool.org/apps/pages/reunion

The promo flyer went through a few changes, things were too quiet after I submitted it to the school, but eventually it was up.  Hopefully this will fetch the reunion a few more paid attendees.

The promo flyer is repeated below for even more exposure.  The QR code is a nice touch.  It brings up the texting app on a smartphone, my phone number already entered.  Got to make it easy for people who are interested.  I already receive regular junk text and phone calls, I suppose it won't get any worse.

While it is marketed as a 1985 reunion, alumni from other '80 years are welcomed.  We already have people from '84, '86, and '87, maybe ten total.  Reach out if you are interested!

FREE COMPOST ETC

 The best thing in life is free.  Really.  Especially when the free stuff aligns with your belief.  In particular, I am talking about recycling.  New York City recently made a big push to get more organic recycling to happen.  For a brief time, it became mandatory, fine would be issued if houses have no compost bin out for collection.  Sadly, people complained loudly and now there is no fine, I am sure some people just take that as a sign not to bother participating.  I really like that after separating out paper, metal, plastic, and now organic stuff, there is little left of garbage.  The City pays a lot of money for garbage to leave town, on trains destined for some neighboring or faraway states.

Anyway, what's the use of collecting all that organic waste and not making use of the end product?  Free compost!  It's a bit of a challenge to sign up for these events.  You need to check in regularly, the dates are open for registration for like two weeks ahead.  I managed to snatch a ticket for this past Saturday May 31, from the NYC Department of Sanitation depot up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn North.  It's a long drive but for ten 40-pound compost, it's worthwhile.  I like that it was in the morning, traffic was low and I was home by ten or so, still time to do other things.  I plan to share my loot with members of my local Buy Nothing Group, in Bath Beach/Gravesend.

While waiting for the depot to open, I happened to discover the Kingsland Avenue entrance of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk.  I first discovered the Walk's Paidge Avenue entrance but I was in the area for something else and didn't have time to actually visit it.  It was a few years ago, I vaguely recall it was Phase I of the Walk.  It is a great idea.  All these waste treatment plants are already all over the area.  Instead of fighting them, the Walk just meanders alongside them.  Granted there are walls to keep the Walk away from the facilities, some tanks are so huge you cannot avoid seeing them.  Along the Walk, there are trees, bushes, benches, waterside seats, and more.  Look out the water and far away you would see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, plus a few in bustling Long Island City.  I only walked a few steps in from the Kingsland entrance because I didn't want to miss the queue of cars quickly forming outside the DOS Depot.  After I got my freebies, I made a leisurely visit to traverse the entire Walk and back.  The sky looked like it would bust open any minute so I didn't take the chance of making a big loop south to Greenpoint Avenue and back.

Free walk, free compost, wait, it got better!  By chance, in the afternoon, I happened to notice a freebie event at the Latino church near my house.  From far away, I thought it was a fund-raising event for the church, perhaps the items were offered at low price.  No, they were totally free!  Clothes, shoes, some packaged food, some toys, and dear and near to my heart, music CDs!  Call me old school if you must, but I still like to play music from CDs.  I do have a collection on my phone, but it's a nice feeling to just pop a CD into a player, and play the music loudly in the living room.  Or in the car.  I have a portable DVD player that can handle music CDs just fine.  I got a stack of music CDs, mostly from the 80s.  It was a great weekend.

THE JOY OF GARDENING

This is the blog post that was supposed to be written the weekend of Saturday May 24 and Sunday May 25.  Life got in the way.  The days leading up to the weekend were plagued with rain and generally lousy weather.  It felt like winter had returned.  Then came Memorial Day weekend, weather was nice.  Sunny, not too hot, great time to work in the backyard garden, what little there is.  I live in Brooklyn, New York after all.

I am no gardening expert but I do enjoy weeding, sweeping things up and adding the stuff to one of my compost containers.  Two of the containers were pickle barrels, something left behind at a house that a friend of mine was selling, as a real estate agent.  The third one is a spare garbage bin.  Nothing fancy, no tumbling mechanism, other than the occasional rolling around I give to the barrels.  I enjoy smashing the stuff inside, either with an ice-breaker, or with a shovel.  I also use a trident to turn things over, occasionally.  In general, I just let things rot.  If heavy rain is expected, I would open the containers' lids and let them help catch some rain water.  It happened once that the rain came down so fast and so heavy that water got into basement.  The French drains could only absorb so much.

Besides fiddling the compost bins, I also cleared out the so-called lattice I created for the chayote vines to climb last spring and summer.  To make room for a loquat tree that my wife has kept in a pot in the backyard.  The plan is to cover it up during the winter.  We will see how that goes.

The final thing I did in the garden for the long weekend was to empty out one of the compost bin.  I like to think of it as compost cash-in.  I don't think the stuff was as good as it could have.  Probably too much of the same stuff, namely dead leaves, vines, etc.  I saw maybe only one or two worms.  Oh well, hopefully with the weather gets better in June I will spend more time tending to the compost bins.

NEWTOWN HS CLASS OF '85 - 40TH REUNION - INCENTIVE

 Newtown High School of Elmhurst, Queens NY Class of 1985 40th Reunion just got a boost it badly needs!  While the reunion is still a few months away, on October 4, 2025, we will soon have to pay deposits for the DJ, photographer, etc.  As an incentive for buying admission tickets, each 1985 alumni will get a chance to win a vacation package from Holiday Inn Express in Cambridge, MA.

TAKE CLASS, SAVE MONEY

 You have to spend money to make money, it is true.  I like to save money, or make some extra money at least, and occasionally peruse those articles on the topic.  Like many things on the Internet nowadays, some are scams, others may be real.  Scammy things to me are those that tell the reader to switch car insurance or some other service and here's a convenient link.  Then there are real things but can be a pain, like installing some survey apps and spend hours to make pennies.  Something I haven't seen that regularly, but I must have come across at some point, is taking Defensive Driving Class to get reduction on car insurance.  Yes, it is uninteresting to say the least, the verification process is a total pain, but cough up $20 to $40 to get a 10% reduction on car insurance, that is a good deal.  In case you don't know, because many people are inherently cheaters, these courses require voice verification.  You cannot just give your username and password to someone then have them take the class for you.  You have to record your voice once, then each time you resume taking the course you have to say something the computer verify you based on the voice.  You still need to sign-in.  What I absolutely hate is that they offer the ability to reset should you fail the voice test.  So they know it's a difficult test, yet they try to make money off of it.  If you are one of those people who racked up many points, the course can also help reduce them.  I was off on Friday and decided to sign up for an online class on the topic.  Eight modules and I am done with three.  I have more than 28 days left to finish but I plan to do a little everyday just to get it done with.  They already took my money, I would hate to get distracted and completely miss the chance to finish it.  You can take the class every few years, so as soon as I am done with this one, I will make a reminder in my online calendar to take the next one.  I don't remember when I last took a similar course, more likely already missed an opportunity or two.

EMMANUEL KANT, BUT DESICCANT CAN

" Your phone fell in the water, quick, put it in rice!"  So goes the popular belief.  The rice would absorb all the moisture overnight and the next day the phone would work again.  Recently, my son's Android phone showed the water droplet icon and would no longer charge.  He tried vacuuming and blowing air into the power port but nothing worked.  Before going the rice route, I read a bit about it and there were actual articles saying that it does not work.  Little bits of stuff in the rice may get into phone's port(s) and make things worse.  But packets of desiccant would make a good alternative.  I've been working in the computer industry for a while now.  New computers and computer equipments normally come with little bags of desiccant, to absorb moisture and what not during transit.  At one job, someone told me he wanted them, since we were throwing the packets away after unpacking the computers.  Ever since then, I started to save them, too.  Yeah, I save too much crap to use some rainy day.  But recently that day came!  I put a few of those desiccant bags in a rectangular food takeout container - two instances of re-use! - and then the "wet" phone.  Placed a heavy book atop the container, waited overnight.  I am not 100% sure if that did the trick, but next day my son's phone worked again.  It's been more than a week now, so far so good.  My mother had a similar problem a few weeks earlier.  I did the same for her recently but when I asked her if it helped, she just rambled on about something else and I couldn't get a word in edgewise.  I will have to see it for myself this weekend, sigh.

STAPLES REWARDS - CASHED IN

 I am proud of my knowledge about recycling but there is so much info out there it's good to have connections.  Electronics-recycling is not as easy as it should be.  I used to take stuff to the Best Buy store near me, in Caesar's Bay.  What I don't really like is they lump Recycling Desk with their Customer Service Desk and there's almost always a long line at the Customer Service Desk.  It's kinda silly, because they only do that to make sure the stuff people try to drop off are acceptable to them.  They charge for recycling TVs and computer monitors of certain sizes.  It's a good thing that a friend from my local Buy Nothing group told me about Staples' recycling program.  It takes more than just electronics stuff!  Pens and writing instruments, alkaline and recyclable batteries, inks and toners, and even TVs and computer monitors, free of charge.  Once a month, I visit the Staples store in Linden Commons to recycle whatever I gathered that time of the month.  You do have to register with Staples, so your recycled items can be tallied and points earned.  I used the points to buy a ream of paper here and there, a few times to buy pens, not stuff that I really want but hey the points may expire so why not just use them.  This past week I splurged for a webcam.  Recall that a few weeks back I thought Camo Studio was such a cool thing?  Free software to connect an old iPhone to use as a webcam, that is cool, right?  It still is, it is just that my old iPhone is, well, just too old.  The battery doesn't last and the connection to the computer, via Camo Studio, doesn't seem to last that long as well.  I still need a webcam after all, something to mount above one of the two monitors connected to the Lenovo laptop.  The laptop has a built-in webcam, but in its closed state sitting on the side, the webcam is unusable.  I got the cheapest webcam available, some LogiTech 720p/30fps model.  All the other models are priced from $100 and up.  Yike, is that the effect of tariffs or what?  Already?  Anyway, if you have a Staples store near you and you are as passionate as I am about recycling, register with them.  I am old-fashioned and still enjoy walking into a store and look around.  Maybe you are too.  If you don't want to bother with the points, i.e. you buy all your stuff on-line, then just let the points expire.  It's good to recycle.  Staples is trying to be a good corporate citizen, or maybe there is money to be made, we should support them either way.

GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT FOR MY SON

 After over two plus years from graduation with a degree in Game Design, my son finally landed a job.  I blame it partly on COVID-19.  He missed his summer intern jobs.  Even though he attended graduation ceremony in May 2022, he had to do some project that finished in August 2022.  Maybe he didn't send out enough resume, or maybe the game companies weren't hiring, he got nowhere.  He took an online web-design course with other programming classes but that didn't help either.  I got him to help me with my local Buy Nothing Swap Meet, just volunteer work but it helps to get him out of the house and meet people.  I also got him to work as a poll worker, again just for the experience.  I always think of working for the Board of Election the equivalent of serving jury duty or being in the military.  It's mostly civic duty, the pay is not much, if you don't count the tuition military people get afterward.  But now, a few weeks back, he finally landed a job, something more steady, even though it's not related to his study.  At this point, something is better than nothing.  The interesting thing is he was hired as a part-time worker, just a few hours on a few days during the week, then a block of eight hours on Saturdays.  Some other kid was hired full-time but his performance was not good enough.  He was terminated and my son became a full-time employee.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time.  It's also about who you know, since we learned about the job from a friend's daughter.  It's my hope that my son continues to work on his game and some day publish it and it becomes a killer app.  Hope for the best but dream a little, too.  Congratulations, son!

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY, GOVERNMENT!

 Ugh, another week that I need to work hard to find something positive to write about.  On the CityStrides.com web site, I have stiff competition in Staten Island, NY to regain my number one spot, but a morning walk that would get me at least five streets completed had to deleted.  I forgot to stop the Strava app when I started driving to work.  I was able to crop the route in Strava, but I already deleted the activity in CityStrides, somehow it wouldn't sync again.  Oh well, what else...?  Oh, right, the stock market crashed, rich people were cued to buy low, then President Inside Trading halted the tariffs so the market would go back up and rich people got richer, what's not to like?  Speaking of poor people get poorer, it is almost Tax Time.  This year I was diligent and dropped off my paperwork with the tax accountant almost a month before the April 15 deadline.  The person there that evening scanned the documents and gave the stack back to me.  Supposedly I only needed to answer a few simple questions in their web portal, then three weeks later the tax forms would be done.  When the time came, I called hoping to pick up the completed paperwork but some grouchy woman said they were running behind so it wasn't ready.  Another week went by and I called again, this time I asked if I would need an extension.  The woman on the phone, someone different from the one last time, said somehow there was only a Schedule C in my file.  No W-2, bank statements, the usual lot!  Luckily, she offered to take care of it first thing in the morning, a Saturday, if I can bring the documents in.  I followed through and next day by the time I had a late breakfast, all was done.  I owed some money but at least it's over, for this year.  That's the silver lining I had to dig deep to find, so sad.

CAMO STUDIO = COOL STUFF!!!

It has been a rough week.  I did not think I can find something to write a Happy Note about.  Dump and his co-President continue to wreak havoc to the U.S. government, economy, whatever they can touch.  The weather is cold again, some spring we have.  I was coughing and sneezing after dinner a few nights in a row, had to turn in early for the night.  Today, I was tasked with making use of two monitors and a set of mouse and keyboard.  Sounds like an easy task, since I do have an old Lenovo dock.  Only issue was I connected the USB-C cable to the wrong port on the dock, for a few minutes I was sad that I wouldn't be able to use the monitors etc after all.  The better news, worthy of a Happy Note, is that I was able to use an old iPhone as a webcam for the laptop that's connected to the two monitors and set of keyboard and mouse.  Laptops do come with built-in webcam but in its closed position the webcam cannot be used.  Entered Camo Studio, a little program that makes everything works together.  You need to install it on the computer first then the companion app is needed on the phone itself.  Click 'Pair A Device' and you are presented with a QR code, use the Camo app on the phone to scan that.  In the beginning, I didn't have the phone app ready and the Windows program switched to pairing by file.  Just cancel that and you will have the QR code again to scan.  It really works!  Well, I didn't actually make any video calls yet but the preview looks good.