Grav may fit your needs.

that’s pretty funny and equally embarrassing. thank you for sharing. i admit, I don’t pay much attention to traditional lunch times becsuse i mainly meet with network ops folks who have no concept of time or work-life balance. 24/7 or bust. i have a beard so foods like ribs, and tacos that fall apart are my kryptonite. i feel like i need to take a face shower after a meal at times. And honestly after the quarantine period of covid i felt like i had to learn how to interact with society again. cheers.

I’m not familiar with Amazon blink cameras. I use a reoLink and a Raspberry Pi for two cameras that go to a dedicated Zone Minder NVR server which is firewalled off from any internet access or access to other networks within my house.
reolink was pretty easy, blocking all wan traffic is very important - I’m sure like any store-bought solution. the raspberry pi is low quality and obviosuly a diy solution, but is ok. zoneminder is one of a handful of open source nvr softwares. It’s not great in my opinion. I don’t think it uses resources efficiently and it’s a bit of a pain to set up initially. But from what i read all of these opensource nvr apps have their quirks.

i read good things about amcrest cameras

curious, why aren’t you able to self-host your blink cameras; are they ip cameras and is there an rtp stream you can capture?

I’m interested in seeing what you come up with.

Does something like podHoarder fit the bill?

without a ton of thought, and other than my current house:

• travel, in general. recently a trip to sail out of svalbard down to norway. it’s another world up there

• an inexpensive handtruck is one of the most useful tools i have

• a ‘prosumer’ grade espresso machine and a grinder is used and loved every single day

actually, hunter-gatherer communities ‘work’ significantly less time than we do in our corporate jobs. farming is a different story: here’s one study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm

unfortunately the insanity cycle doesn’t want to end. maybe we have to destroy ourselves before we can break it.

i have watched my dad get completely scammed by the process of entering a retirement community over the past three years. nothing illegal, but taking every penny from retired folks is big business! our family is notoriously stubborn and nothing i said or did seemed to make a difference.

Try to ensure, if they won’t listen to you, that they at least have a lawyer present when signing away their life savings. and several years before that even happens work with an advisor (who is actually looking out for customers’ interests…shop around fire the advisors until you find one who isn’t a con-man) to shelter as much money as possible. i failed at getting him to do either of those things.