Cleaning up and organizing the studio has been a high priority this weekend. It's started with some smaller projects like going through the literally cleaning, week's mail, going over finances, and ripping movies. It's now progressed into making forward movement on some small projects and looking at the space here and organizing. I heard Adam Savage recently reiterate a saying has: "drawers are where things go to die." And I would agree. But he reminded me that there's a particularly interesting way to organize drawers to prevent that, which is to build an insert with custom dividers out of foam-core. With that in mind, I started looking at all the drawers in the studio and now have it on the docket to properly organize, and subsequently clean out, the drawers. This will include organizing some items, such as spare external and internal hard drives, into caddies, which I currently have...
Category: General
Time Management
It's Saturday again. I've spent my morning doing some usual things like updating my financial portfolio and scheduling bills to be paid, cleaning my desk (i.e., going through the week's mail) and ripping Blu-rays for the video library. I've been struggling with productivity the last month mainly due to having to devote so much extra time to my day job. I was meticulously planning my time for a short while. And while this helped keep me moving forward on things, it was hard to constantly be scheduling that. But, since I can't seem to be productive without that tool, I need to figure out a better way to manage the time. On Thursday I started Keto in an effort to loose weight. Today is #KetoDay003. The last time I did this was about 10 years ago, so it'll be interesting to see how my body responds now that I'm older....
Getting Back In The Groove
As I mentioned before, things have been hectic over the past couple of weeks. Today, I'm finally getting a chance to sit at the computer and knock some overdue tasks out. What's coming up soon: 8 Issues of the DeLorean arrived and need to be added to the model.Clean up my desk (what a damned mess).Write some scripts for Carl.Read a bunch of backlogged magazines.Write some code. I'm currently in the process of upgrading one of the four hard drives in my primary NAS. Disk four was upgraded last month; doing disk three now.
Tough Week
Last week found me putting over 60 hours in at work, leaving me no time to really get any of my projects done. That was mainly due to the fact I had an employee resign and also had an employee on PTO, so we were very short-handed. I'm currently developing a schedule for this coming week for my personal time, and hope to be more effective.
Closing Out the Time Off
Well, day 10 is coming to a close and I feel like I truly was able to rest and also be productive over this break. Today I completed several small tasks/projects around the house. I wrote some code and a couple of short scripts. Now it’s time to stop thinking while I sit and watch Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
New Equipment, Continued Building
As I was building out some electronics over the past few days, I realized that my setup was lacking, so I ordered some new tools. I started off getting a Hakko FA-400 fume extractor to remove the solder smoke. For some reason I've never had an extractor, and I decided this week I needed one. I researched the cost and time it would take to 3D print and build my own, and the effort just wasn't worth it to me. Next up is the Kaisi Silicone Repair Mat. These things are great as it prevents parts from rolling off the workbench onto the floor and from getting mixed together with its built-in trays. Also, since it's silicone, the parts that you place on it don't slide around a lot. Lastly is a two-piece system. I saw a great review on the QuadHands Workbench Mount over at The Makers Workbench YouTube...
All Taped Up
This morning I finished capturing all of the DV tapes. In total there was about 17.5 hours of footage. The next step will be to figure out how to also capture the roughly ten or so 8mm/Hi-8 tapes, of which I don't have a camcorder or deck for that format. I've ordered a capture card and need to get my hands on a playback device. Next up is doing some work around the house. Going to go apply fertilizer to the lawn and then I need to fix one of the vertical blind blades. Added to the movie library today: Capote
Archiving In Progress
Yesterday I was able to capture and archive 11 DV tapes. There are 29 tapes in total. Some are full, some aren't, but in either case capturing the video is tedious as I have to capture in realtime (a 45 minute tape takes 45 minutes to capture). Lucikly, the new computer was powerful enough to also let me archive a slew of old video game CD-ROMs and DVDs, some old software on disc, and an archive of old projects. These, plus some personal tapes were additional archives I decided to create to elimiate the possibility of loosing the data due to tape and disc degradation. Today, I continue to archive. I'm hoping everything will be finished by end of day tomorrow. I'm also going to start researching how to properly insulate the garage doors today, which is the next house project.
Some Rest and Some Fun Work
Tonight I begin a 10-day time off stretch. I need the downtime from the craziness of the day job this year. I bunch of rest is in store for me over the next few days but that doesn't mean I'm doing nothing. Tonight I installed an inexpensive Vantec Firewire 400/800 card in the new computer and hauled the old Panasonic PV-GS150 out of retirement so I can re-capture a ton of old footage back onto the computer. The project in question was shot in 2005 and 2006 and, if I recall correctly, was about 12 total hours of footage. I mainly want to recapture so I can make sure that all of the tapes are in a digital format in case they deteriorate, etc.
Making and Catching Up
Yesterday I spent three hours cleaning up and organizing in the garage. A lot of the worked centered around putting away all of the spare aquarium supplies and equipment back into their proper places on the shelves. Then, I took the time to finally break down a ton of cardboard boxes and put them into the recycling bin in preparation for next Monday. Because of COVID challenges, Hillsborough county has moved our recycling pickup to every other week for now. That means all cans and plastic containers need to be smashed down flat and all cardboard needs to be cut up to smaller pieces so we get efficient, compact usage of the bin. Anyway, I also put away and re-organized several tools and finally did a big cleanup of the workbench area. One of the little organization things I've been wanting to do is to get my drill bits into...
