Day two

What, you thought I was gonna chronicle everyday that I’m living in an apartment?

The only major thing to report at this point is that a tech came by to try to install broadband internet but for some reason my phone lines(!) are screwed up and they couldn’t hook me up.

So now I’m currently running my phone as a wifi hotspot.  Which really isn’t good enough to watch TV, but good enough for web browsing.

So it looks like I’m going to get AT&T fiber (shudder) which I decided to get instead of Xfinity.

Because of scheduling I won’t get hooked up until Monday morning.  Ack.

In other news, I brought some of my sports games over and intend to resume play soon.

Also, the shower water pressure kinda sucks.

Change

Something that everyone is frightened of, to some degree.

I’m moving to an apartment.

This is the single biggest change for me, having spent my infancy/childhood/teen/young adult/adult/etc. years in the same house, for my entire life up to now.

It’s a bit scary, yes, but I think I have most of it under some control, at this point.

I have to downsize my stuff, which at first sounded like a lot (it is) but it’s more manageable once I started moving stuff to my offsite storage unit.

Over the course of the next few months or so I’m planning to offload most everything that I’m putting in storage.

Which means donating/trashing or gifting to people.

Which means I might be asking for people’s addresses and shipping off random boxes of stuff out.

Kinda like Loot Crate, I suppose.

I did this maybe 10-15 years ago, and I’m sure some of the stuff I sent off ended up in the trash anyways.

But hey, some of the stuff I need to get rid of may be of some use to someone.

I may start a new blog as a result of all of this, too.

I guess we’ll see.

Ack

  • I’m backing out of my garage and then an Uber/Lyft driver stops right behind me, turning on his blinkers.  I walked over where he could see me, pointed at my car, he rolled the window down and said, “Are you pulling out?”  WTAF?
  • Minutes later, driving to work and realizing that I forgot my phone.  Drove back to get it.  Groundhog’s Day.
  • Driving on the freeway and it must be ‘Don’t Use Blinkers Day’ or something, worse than usual.
  • Dropping off an outgoing shipment to the mailroom, asked a ‘simple question’ that I can’t simply answer, for something that the questioner should open a call for.
  • Order lunch for pickup, and they’re so busy I wait an additional 15 minutes after I get to the restaurant for my order.

Tool Epilogue

Tuesday I went to work and went past the cubicle where I thought I had left and lost my Leatherman.  Didn’t see it there.

I walked over to the office where I brought the box I opened with the Leatherman, in the hopes I brought it with me.  Didn’t see it there.

I went to my cube and saw a piece of paper, a letter from Dell, and it triggered a memory about opening a box before I left on the previous Thursday.  I lifted the letter.

Yeah, I’m an idiot.  I left it under the paper over the weekend.

So now I have two.

I so glad to see that I hadn’t lost my original.

I almost felt like I should have had Green Lantern Oath thing to say when I found it.

Tool Update

Apparently I had a Leatherman Model PST II.

And I found one on eBay for less than the price of the new one.

Should be here next week.

Tool

Lost an old friend yesterday, and it was my own damn fault.

I was opening a box at work, and after checking the contents, I walked away with the box, and left my Leatherman.

Third time I left this laying around the office, but this time it was out in the open, where it may have been picked up by janitorial or security staff.  Who knows if they’ll turn it in or I’ll ever see it again.

I feel bummed out because I’ve had this, literally, by my side for about 25 years, when I got my first ‘real’ network admin job back at Onizuka Air Station.

One of the guys there had one, and suggested that I get one for myself, so I picked one up at the nearby Fry’s Electronics store.

It turned out to be real handy over the years, initially because the flathead screwdriver was a perfect fit for the hex screws that Compaq used on their desktops and servers at the time.

I’d used it almost a couple times a week, if only to open a box from Amazon, or cut something with the scissors or knife, take apart a laptop, pry open paint cans, and a myriad of other tasks.

Most recently it was used to help clean up prints from my 3D printer.

Unless it turns up in the next couple of days at work, it’s probably gone forever.

And Leatherman doesn’t make that particular “original” model anymore.  They make bigger and smaller ones, with different tools, so I’m getting this one as a replacement.

It’s about as close to the original that I could find on their site, aside from the out-of-stock limited edition anniversary “Heritage” model, which was being sold for $275.

The one I ordered is about $50.

I hate that it comes with a nylon sheath.  I hope it fits in my empty leather sheath.

Farewell, original Leatherman PST.  Thanks for your service for 25 years.

Film to Digital

As if I didn’t have enough hobbies/projects in my spare time…

Since a little after my Mom passed away, I had this idea of converting any and all Super 8mm film that I could find into digital video files.

The cost of offsite conversion concerned me, along with the idea of shipping these memories elsewhere.

After Dad passed away, I started looking into getting a home system to do this, but again, the price was a bit high.

Recently I checked pricing on these units again, they had dropped to an affordable price point, and decided to pick one up.

It seems to do the job well, having digitized about a dozen and a half 3-minute reels of film (at a rate of around 30 minutes per reel) and I’m pretty satisfied with the output.

For example: from about 45 years ago, Christmas 75.

Watching these films reminded me of another reason I didn’t convert them right away, it was still painful to see home movies of ones who have moved on, but age has made it a bit… less painful to watch.

It’s also fun to watch my niece, reacting to movies of her mother (my sister) as a baby.

Gotta say that’s it’s oddly satisfying and emotional to do this, seeing memories from over 40 years ago, and preserving them.

Pause

After this next print job is done on my 3D printer, I’m going to try to take a break from printing anything in order to work on the stuff that I HAVE printed already, mainly Poe’s blaster.

And then I’ll work on the Darksaber, which still needs to be reprinted.

3D Tales

*reads up on 3D printer’s mini-USB port*

Oh.

*deletes order for USB to mini-USB adapter cable*

Not needed.  The port is for connecting the PC directly into the printer, not thumb drives.

*3D prints housing for SD to microSD adapter*

Now that, I can use.

Update?

What a month, amirite?

Aside from working at the office every Tuesday, I’ve been working from home every weekday.  The Tuesdays feel the most ‘normal’ since I’m at the office, though it’s weird walking the floors wearing a mask, with hardly any employees around.

I’m not quite back to playing my sports replay projects regularly, though I have played a game here and there.

I’m doing my best in utilizing home delivery for necessities instead of going out shopping myself.

I dove into yet another new hobby, 3D printing, and so far I seem to be enjoying it, stumbling my way through frustrations and successes.

I got to see my sister and niece when I dropped off a gift for my sister’s birthday.  I had also seen them when I picked up some cookie dough from the now-defunct Specialties Café.

I really miss baseball.

A crewed commercial spacecraft launched from American soil for the first time, and a first for a crewed spacecraft since the last shuttle mission in 2011.  I cried tears of joy.

June is here.

Everyone stay safe until next time, okay?  Love you all.