mdlbear | Done recently (20160425Mo

Um... yeah. Been a while. I'd originally planned to post Monday after last weekend's house con, Rainbow Con 1. But I didn't. I'll post an actual con report later; for now I'll just say that it was amazingly wonderful. We had around 30 people, and everybody had a great time.

Work has been rough. Things are falling through cracks at an increasing rate. I should leave. I can't afford to, but it'll probably kill me if I don't. If someone dropped half a million dollars in my lap, I could pay off most of the house and get by on social security and pensions. As it is, ... It's a constant reminder of how much the situation is of my own making.

Notes & links:

0425Mo
* up 5:10; W=196.6; laundry, dishes
* Reasonably productive day
* We now have filkers in the house. Tim and Annie are crashed out, being far out of
their timezone.
% Somehow I managed to forget to post yesterday. Might be able to do it today; it would
only be a day late.
% Also haven't put March away! And made a cut-and-paste mess of things trying to post
while distracted. And haven't done a commit since Friday. :P
* ok. Fixed.
: N showing off pretties. Box. Eggs.

0426Tu
* up 6:05; W=195.8; laundry, dishes
: Barnard (my old Dell mini 9) has an apparently-dead battery. The computer "can't
recognize" it. :P Works fine on mains power.
: N bought a new djembe at Dusty Strings. I'm now in the GR listening to Tim and Annie
practice. And sipping my gin.
* practicing: N and Rebel (the above-mentioned drum) Toolmakers, Kitchen Heroes, The
Fox, QV. Nailed the round in KH, after a couple of run-throughs. The instrumental in
QV fell apart badly -- we'll have to work on that.

0427We
* up 5:30; W=194.6; laundry, dishes
* Music in the evening. Helped Kat print lyrics with chords for her new song. After
the con we'll work on websites.

0428Th
* up 4:30; W=195.4;
* productive at work, though it may have included more work than I needed to do. Still,
it's cleaner now so I'm not going to complain. Much.
% skritching Ticia and closing my eyes is one of the most calming things ever.
@ Linux at 25: Why It Flourished While Others Fizzled - IEEE Spectrum
Linux at 25: Q&A With Linus Torvalds - IEEE Spectrum
* Rebuilt dzen2 from github source on my work machine -- dead easy, so now I have
clickable workspace names in xmonad.
@ Rainbow Con I

0429Fr-0501Su RainbowCon 1

0429Fr
* Up 6ish; W=194.4; laundry, dishes
* Brought out Snuggles for Tim and Annie to try. They seem kind of awestruck.
* Maypole up, in plenty of time.
* The house has been full of music most of the time.
: 6ish I think we were only around 20-25 at the end of the introductory circle.
Hopefully we'll get more before Dave's concert.
Seating for 35ish; 28 people on site by Dara's count.
* We fit. Dave gave a kick-ass concert. My stupid damned video recorder spent the
entire hour trying to format its SD card -- probably hung. Got it on my phone's voice
recorder.
% Back hurts.

0430Sa
* up 6:30; W=194.4; laundry
* Updated the RC schedule and re-organized the website to add an Events directory.
: Not only was the stupid Tascam video recorder apparently incapable of even recognizing
a 64G card, it used up the batteries not formatting it. It formatted a 32G card in
seconds. :P
& g taught me _her_ family recipe for matzoh brei -- one egg per sheet; no other liquid;
onion, garlic, mushrooms (we used a large shallot); scramble in the pan. Yum.
* Dara's kitting out cheap panel. Fun, and pretty useful, even as many times as I've
heard it. Missed the games, but as N said we'll probably be playing them at home.
* Dave and Tim's Stan Rogers sing-along. Couldn't figure out how to make the tascam
record video, but that's ok -- it's recording audio and I don't have to try to adjust
or babysit it.
* 15min: config file hacking, mostly for xmonad. Added M-left, M-right to cycle
through workspaces.
: Tascam ended the Walkers' set with a "low battery" screen and probably not recording.
I'll probably get rid of the damned thing.
: The ball of twine circle quickly deteriorated into chaos.

0501Su
* up 6:30ish; W=196.8; laundry
* overloaded trying to get copies made for the harmony workshop. Couldn't use the
Workforce 600's copy mode because clogged jets; had trouble getting xsane working;
eventually got a phone-camera scan from Josh.
* The Maypole dance came off *beautifully* -- nice pattern except for a bit at the top.
For next time: only make 16 ribbons, and use a rubber band or something to spread
them out at the top.
* Dinner expedition to 13 Coins. Colleen had the scallops; I had veal scaloppini.
Which as far as I know are not related.
: 10:40 - very drifty.

0502Mo
* up 5:15; W=197.8; laundry, dishes
& upgrading Purple
something broken in the Ubuntu software updater -- apt still works fine. Worked after
a couple of rounds of apt-get.
& Colleen's lift chair wouldn't lift. After getting her out using a stool under the
footrest (that's getting to be A Thing) I went into the back and found that the 15-pin
D connector to the control had partially pulled out. And the nuts that the
connector's hold-downs screw into had sheared off their bolts. Both of them. So it
will undoubtedly happen again. Grump.

0503Tu
* Up 5:30; W=197.2; laundry
: Predictably, the upgrade of Purple failed.
reboot; dpkg --reconfigure -a; apt-get dist-upgrade
% ordered a new battery for Barnard
: Purple required more reboots than one might have thought necessary, but it is now
working. The last piece to fall into place was dpkg-reconfigure lightdm to select the
window manager. gdm is broken. I may wait a while before upgrading to 16.04
% I note that I have not yet made my weekly post. Sunday was a bit busy, but it's
Tuesday already.

0504We
* up 5:30ish; W=197.0; laundry
~ pay * Wells, * Amex, Sound. * Probably utilities, too.
* Bookshelf puttering
: "Growlery" - a place to go when one feels grumpy or wants to be alone for some other
reason. The upstairs spare bedroom probably falls into that category.

0505Th
* Up 5:15; W=195.4; Shower, laundry, dishes
* pay Sound Credit Union
: Team lunch today, at an Italian restaurant. Eggplant Parmiggiano, and tiramisu for
desert. Yum.
% I've been having trouble prioritizing, and I have a tendency to go chasing down rabbit
holes. And not getting to stuff that needs doing.
* 3pm Anita Brown (phone) Suggested a few minutes/day of music.
: Waited over an hour for a bus home. And that was starting at 7:30. Made it home
around 9:30.
% 11pm and I'm drifting off

0506Fr
* up 5:30; W=195.4; laundry, dishes
* Successfully tested my patch; it will no doubt go in sometime next week.
% Had a couple of good conversations at work.

0507Sa
* Up 5:15; W=196.6; laundry
~ furniture glides for klickklacks - they already have plastic glides on their feet.
: The missing drill had been in Kat+Rabbit's room, which I had kind of expected.
* 15min: bookshelf puttering. Woodworking and craft books, illustrated/graphic novels,
etc. Fun but one can't really call it productive.
* 15min: also music stands and other gear from RC1. Tracked down the one milk-crate
that the casters went with, and swapped contents with the mic-stand etc. crate.
Hardly anything of what's in the small-instrument crate actually fits.
* shopping: cat litter, litter box mats, large catfood can lid; ice cream, gin
switches, bulbs if available, screen door wheels
* Replaced the sconce lights upstairs with LEDs. The sconces are made of _actual
alabaster_. Wild. "To preserve its natural beauty, keep the bulb as far away from
the stone as possible."
@ Meanwhile, a con report: Rainbowcon - Eggs and Endorphins
* workshop time with N. Measuring and planning.
* Decided that shop time is 3-5 Saturday, and music time is 3-5 Sunday.
* located the box of shelf-hanging supplies, the drill, and the hammer in the closet.
Moved them into the shop, so that I know where they are.
* Brought up the correlle dishes to make room in the cabinets for shop stuff.
* ticket work