I've gotten a lot done this week, at work but mostly at the house. We have a truck coming Wednesday to haul away the pile of junk that's been sitting in the back yard getting water-damaged since last year when we sorted through the stuff in the garage. This week I've been adding to it, and especially yesterday when I disassembled the pile of wood sitting on top of the old blue workbench. The latter, and most of the wood, were in sorry shape. It hurt a lot to see how bad they'd gotten. I did manage to save most of the hardwood and vertical-grain Douglas fir, so it wasn't a total loss, but close.

Well, we didn't really have room for the workbench, anyway.

I've also been through a couple of the boxes behind my desk. Including the one labeled "tiny computers". It seems that, over the years, I've spent an inordinate amount of money on small Linux-based devices that I mostly haven't taken the time to get working. There's a list in the notes, under 0611. And then there are the laptops (all but one of which have been recently upgraded to the latest Ubuntu, so that's good), the two Linux boxes in tower cases that are still perfectly functional, but I don't need them, the old Android tablets, ...

*sigh*

I've found other "treasures", too. I'm not sure nostalgia is good for me. Too many reminders of things I haven't done, or started but abandoned. It's easy to blame depression, and I do, but that doesn't make it any easier. Or less depressing.

I think it says something -- damned if I know what it says -- that while I noticed last Sunday that I had put in a good day's work and accomplished a lot, I didn't connect that fact with a feeling of accomplishment, or any other emotion. (If "accomplishment" even counts as an emotion. I think it does, but I'm not sure. That probably says something, too.)

Music note (see 0611 -- yesterday was busy, too): At the suggestion of the guy who sits next to me at work, I looked up the Demoscene and watched a couple of videos, and a documentary, on YouTube. Mind-blowing. Especially when you consider that, say, "Chaos Theory" by Conspiracy -- the whole thing, music and video -- was entirely generated by a 64K program in real time.

The demoscene reminds me a lot of the filk community, and it makes me want to see what could be done for World Inside the Crystal that way.

I hadn't realized just how comforting petting a cat can be. Our cats are wonderful. Especially Curio, who spends most of every night in my room.

Lots of puttering around the house over the last couple of weeks -- that's largely because other things are something of a trainwreck. In particular, Colleen's situation. Our insurance stops paying for her nursing home stay at the end of next week. We'd been told weeks ago, but at the time 10 weeks seemed like plenty of time. At her appointment last week, though, she was told that she could only put 10% of her weight on it. Gleep!

Most of the obvious options are out -- it's unlikely she could get the level of care she apparently needs at a group home or assisted living place. Which would be close to $6K for a month's stay, in any case.

We may be able to have her at home. If she can handle a commode, and transfers in and out of a wheelchair, it'll work. We will almost certainly need to have someone come in in the daytime to care for her, but between me, Emmy, and Naomi we can probably handle night-time. Hopefully.

I haven't been doing all that well. I don't really register stress, but it's there. Between that and depression (even with drugs), and a general low energy level, I'm probably pretty close to the edge. Can't be helped. The feeling of helplessness doesn't help, either. Help?

Hmm. Another ok day. Lots of puttering, a mostly-successful shopping trip, and I made a tasty dinner. On the other hand, only one of the weekend's three planned carpentry projects got done, and that one (fixing the door on the upstairs bedroom) was only because Og did most of the work. Still...

On the gripping hand, I verified that the MicPort Pro works with Audacity on Barnard (the netbook), and that it will share its little black pouch with one of my C2's (though I'd really prefer a better mic for putting down tracks, and a portable mic stand is still very much an open question). And took the keyboard, stand, and bench up to the guest room from the living room. Since our next guests are likely to be the other 2/3 of Tempered Glass...

I looked at a Hercules folding music stand at Guitar Showcase, but even folded it looks too long (32") for my suitcase. So still looking. I really want a sturdy music stand, with a full-sized rectangular tray, because it turns out that Plink hangs very nicely from one.

Turns out that the Starving Musician will be moving, opening on August 8th in what used to be the Hummer dealership on Stevens Creek. Which is conveniently closer to home. Which might not be all that good a thing. But anyway...

It also turns out that there's a new law that just went into effect in California requiring CO detectors in houses that use gas for heating or cooking. And since the smoke detector downstairs recently died, I took advantage of the opportunity to get a combo unit.

So I'm going to rate the day as productive, even though I didn't take a walk or get everything done that I wanted to. As for whether it was good... *shrugs*. Kinda neutral.

Links, as usual.

Hmm. A pretty decent day, though with a lot of scrambling around the new DSL line. It turns out that the stupid DSL router really insists on having exactly one IP address on each port, and the one that it puts into "super-dmz" mode really has to be DHCP-controled. Otherwise all hell breaks loose, including the set-top boxes not working. Gaak!

A little work on music, but not as much as I really needed to have done. A good walk (see step count), and I made a good one-pot dinner of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.