This summer has been hot and we've had the air conditioning running a lot. That's a pretty normal thing in Florida, but I've also switched to working from home for four out of five work days, so I need it cool so my brain doesn't bake. With the extra cooling, came an unfortunate incident where the condensation pan of my HVAC unit filled and overflowed. The result was water spillage that took a few days to dry out. The root cause was the drain line to the outside world got clogged with calcification. Subsequently, the leak detector in the pan (the one that comes with the A/C unit) didn't work and didn't shut off the unit. So, double-fail. I cleared the line with my Shop-Vac and replaced the PVC "S"-shaped trap on the outside of the house, which was easily re-built with new components. But, along with buying an IoT...
Author: Chewbode
Hot dogs!
New Section: Projects
For quite some time, I've been running a website on my internal LAN where I document all sorts of projects I'm working on. Since I'm the only one who sees it (my wife can too, but she has no interest), I feel like I've been curating this as more of a personal diary than anything else. Today, the Projects section of the chewbode.com site goes live. I'll be posting everything I'm working on. My goal with this is two-fold: To hopefully inspire and motivate others, and also add more frequent content to this site. I update the internal site pretty regularly, and that steals energy away from blogging here. Why should I spend all this time documenting and posting internal blog entries then turn around and do it all again on the public website? So, I don't. Or, I haven't. By moving projects to here, I can consolidate this energy.
Re-Organizing the Organizers
Oh, how good it feels to have a few days off. In addition to the long Labor Day weekend, I took two additional days off, today and tomorrow. So, if you count Friday night, that's five and one quarter days to relax and enjoy myself. In such situations, someone might watch a movie (at home or in the theater, I don't judge), get lost in a good book, touch base with friends, or just get out into the quiet bliss of nature by hiking or fishing. I think most people want something that derails their mind and calms it; makes it so they don't have to think of things they might normally consider responsibilities. Me? Nope. I come up with another project and hyper-focus on it "while I have the free time to get it done." Of course it's around the subject of organizing things. Or rather, re-organizing things. Over...
Rethought This
Let’s continue forward with the discussion of whether or not writing for this blog makes sense. I’ve spent some offline time thinking, and even today I was talking to my friend, Carl King, about it. I feel like I’ve settled on a direction. The thought of writing a blog is an ill-defined, long-term task. You never really get to the end; you never really finish. Even when you’re about to die, there’s a good chance that you won’t have the time, or possibly even the inclination, to “wrap up your life story in the blog”. It’s like an open-ended MMO video game. Never complete. Always grinding. That all sounds daunting, doesn’t it? Yeah, I guess it does. So, if it’s that bad, then why do it? Well, that’s the profound question I’m asking myself, especially when viewing it as writing for the sake of writing. But I’ve come to realize...
Rethinking This
Once again, months have slipped by since I've last blogged. And there's no good reason I haven't posted. As I sit here typing this, I'm thinking in real-time why it is that I don't do this more often. You see, I have a Saturday morning reminder in my phone that pops up every week, but I end up placing it at the very bottom of my priority list in my mind. So, by the time Sunday slips away and the week rolls around, I see it as an annoying, undone task and I ultimately mark it as Completed just to declutter my list. I'm not sure why I do this. Part of me likes the idea of spending a little time each week to document my life, if for no other reason than for posterity. I envision that the posts will be informative and paint a picture of my day-to-day...
Comics Overload and a Splash of Retro
I finally got my main Atari 1040STE ("Jules") set up with STiNG 1.26 (TCPIP stack) and CAB 2.8e (Crystal Atari Browser). Browsing the web on a computer that was created 10 years before the web was is a pretty rough experience. I expect the real endgame will be to realy get a decent two-way transfer system set up like FTP (SMB is not an option without considering MultiTOS or something like that). I've been slowly assembling a nice collection of popular and useful utilities, applications, and even a few games. The main focus, however, will be to use Jules to archive the large stack of in-box games I got last year. I also ended up jailbreaking my Sony PS Vita 1000 handheld console and have been enjoying playing some games on it here and there. Moving away from retro computers and on to retro comics (back issues), I've been on...
The Consistency Challenge
For some time now, I've been aware that I have a problem staying consistent. This affects several areas of my life and, although not causing me and my family any real degree of pain, it is making the days that go by feel less and less fulfilling. What am I lacking? What do I feel I could be doing better? Where is my time not being optimized? All of these questions (plus others) plague me from time to time. In the context of consistency, I've realized that I'm "floating" through a lot of things in my life. Again, this isn't necessarily a negative thing, but it's also not helping me obtain some goals. And, yeah, I know, this is a retrospective of the year gone by, compiled during the last few days before a new year is upon us. Cliche, but the holidays are one of my most nostalgic times...
Prepping for the 4th
I've been spending the weekend getting some minor projects around the house completed along with buying the groceries for our little July 4th party. There will only be eight of us for the day, but it should be a lot of fun. Along with food, we'll likely play some board games, possibly watch a movie and play some video games. I'd guess there'll be a lot of sitting around and talking too. More DeLorean parts came in as well. I received Issues 156, 157, and 158 (which is the final issue). And there was also a surprise in the box: a movie poster for the documentary OUTATIME: Saving the DeLorean Time Machine. Items Added to the Library Movies: A Fistful of Dollars (1964) Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Moonfall (2022) Stillwater (2021) Tesla (2020) Comics: Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent Vol. 1 #4 The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 #27 (Legacy Vol....
Rebuilding
A good friend of mine, Dale Lewis, has been going through a tough spell medically, so me and some friends are trying to raise some money to get him a mobility scooter through GoFundMe. Please take a moment to read Dale’s story and donate if you can. If you can’t donate, please help us spread the word. Thank you! Over the past several months, I’ve gotten back into buying and reading comic books. One of the roadblocks that I had before was time. And that was two-fold as it takes time every week to get in the car, drive over to the local comic book store and pick up your subscriptions, then haul it all back home. As much as I want to support local businesses, I found that Midtown Comics in New York was able to ship out subscriptions monthly. So, I started getting my books through them and...
Lux
Carl has been back in the groove of podcasting and he recently offered me a spot where I could write a short story and he'd read it. I'm publishing the story here today, but you can listen to it on The Carl King Podcast: Lux, Part I : The Carl King Podcast Episode 23Lux, Part II: The Carl King Podcast Episode 24Lux, Part III: The Carl King Podcast Episode 27 Part I There was no way his eyes would adjust anymore. After standing in one spot for what seemed to be an eternity, Cantau realized that the darkness in the tunnel was all-consuming. It was surely created by magic, and he was confident that if he cast any spell now, it would dissipate instantly, and he would have wasted what little energy he had left. He steadied his breathing. Even though he could see nothing, he closed his eyes to...
