Ramblings, rumblings, grumblings, and rambling grumbly rumblings.

The Breville has died. Long live the Breville.

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 15:38:49 GMT

The Breville had a good run. The first one I had was bought for me for my birthday by my mother-in-law. Shortly after bringing it home it needed a repair so I sent it to the company and instead of fixing it, they sent me the next version up. It lasted ten years or so - I don't remember exactly - and I've been nursing it along. That's about 3,650 lattés, give or take, a good run.

It finally died yesterday: a clog in the pump, I think, and Brevilles are desgined to not be user serviceable. I took off the back panel but there wasn't anything I could reach without a major tear down and nothing obviously wrong. Repairs must be done by a Breville approved service center, and (I know from experience) are more expensive than just buying a new unit.

Routine is vital for me. It's how I'm wired. I know it probably sounds weird, but a latté has become a part of my morning routine and it takes me much longer to come up to speed without it. It's not the caffeine, it's the ritual of making the thing: the sounds, the smells, the activity. It's especially important now that I work from home: it takes the place of the drive to the office. And I'm definitely one of those "Don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" kind of people. Mornings suck.

So when I came upstairs from my workbench dragging my repair failure like the train on the British royal robes, Michelle immediately insisted I order a new one. I was going to let it ride, spend a long time shopping on Marketplace or Craigslist and she's all, "No. I have to deal with you in the mornings. Order it. Now."

I still managed to be somewhat frugal. I ordered a better machine than the one I'm replacing, but bought used so got it for less than the cost of the first, cheaper unit. Well, "used", I think it was a demo unit, an open box thing.

I can't make these kind of purchases every day, but I'm grateful to be at a place where I can do it once in a while.

In the meantime, I brought up an old Mr. Coffee, $40 "espresso" machine. Those machines have a particular smell to them as they work, and it brought back some memories of mornings long past. It makes acceptable, very strong coffee that is at least better than Scooters or Dutch Brothers.

I'm going to give the Breville to Kate to take apart. The new machine should be here this weekend. It's a definite upgrade and I'm looking forward to it.

comments

A long walk.

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:06:00 GMT

So many changes, so many steps to take.

Back in April, Michelle and I finally admitted to ourselves and everyone else that we have more going out every month than is coming in. In terms of income vs. outgo, we were about $200 a week in the hole and that this situation was unlikely to change in time to be of any help, so we made to decision of declare bankruptcy and be done. The highest hurdle was just admitting to ourselves that it was okay to do so, and we've gotten a lot of support since, most of it prefaced with the question, "What took you so long?"

Short answer: pride. Simple pride. We hope to have the whole process in motion before the end of September, everything formalized by Christmas, and the whole discharged in a few years.

As a part of this process we have a new accountant; we'll call him "TaxGuy." Turns out our old accountant "Bart" was just a numbers man with no deep understanding of tax law, and we've been screwing ourselves for years. "TaxGuy" is an expert at playing the numbers and the laws.

For instance, we once asked "Bart" if we should incorporate Seamlyne. Oh no!, he said, too much hassle, not enough benefit.

TaxGuy's first action was to incorporate so we could take advantage of the deductions. As a partner at Seritas, I had to pay almost of third of my income, which wasn't just the weekly check: gross pay + the value of my benefits pkg. With Map's Edge Media now a corporation, I'm still a partner, but will no longer be paid as one (in tax terms). Instead, I'll be employed by my own corporation a fraction of what Seritas was paying me: Seritas will merely by contracting me through Map's Edge effectively cutting my tax burden by two-thirds, and making everything I do related to Seritas deductible: mileage, home office, etc.

Stunning. I want to go find Bart and make him pay the attorney's and new accountant's fees.

comments

Home after a road trip

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:16:11 GMT

We just got home from a five day road trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the annual regional Irish dance competition Oireachtas (pronounced Oh - rock - tuhz). It's pretty much like any feis, only bigger, and the level of competition is much higher than usual. If you medal at Oireachtas, the next step is Nationals (held in Canada), then Worlds (held in London.) That's much simplified, and to be honest I'm not really sure how the process works.

The field of competition was quite large - the under 12 team competition had thirty-seven teams, and there were about four thousand dancers overall. The Driscoll school placed at twenty-ninth, which for a first Oireachtas is respectable. I would have been shocked if they'd been in the top third, had they qualified for Nationals I'm not sure I would have survived the trauma. Jami competed with an individual dance; he didn't place, but we're not worried about it. With more than a hundred other people around his age, we wanted him to dance and be comfortable with it. He's a natural on the stage, completely at ease. Katie competed against eighty-seven other people. I'm proud of them both.

I'll admit to being relieved at where they landed. Just getting to Oireachtas was expensive enough - even with help, we'll be a while recovering from that - Nationals or Worlds would bankrupt us.

We stayed at the Amway Grand, which is connected to several other buildings by Skywalk. It's a huge facility, about a half mile from the hotel to the venue, so we did lots of walking. My legs and feet still sore.

Because it's Amway, the founders' pictures and names are everywhere in Grand Rapids, and particularly in the hotel and arena. Because I got burned by Amway in the early 90's (more info here, here, and here, if you're interested), it felt a little like settling down in enemy territory. I concentrated on getting through the event, which was work enough.

I like to travel with my family. I get tired of driving, to be sure, but we try hard to find "joy in the journey." I'll pull off onto some side road if something catches my eye and we'll explore if we have time. We found Sterling Price in Keytesville, and a pair of the smallest "I" houses I've ever seen - only one room wide - in some town whose name I can't remember. We try to avoid interstate highways. One of our side-trips kept us within just a few hundred feet of Lake Michigan for nearly ten miles. Joy in the journey.

I've found the more expensive a hotel is, the more uncomfortable I become. I don't like having people do things for me, and I very quickly grow tired of tipping. We avoided letting any member of the staff do anything we could do for ourselves. When we left, I took a half dozen, 1/4 mile trips to the parking garage to load the van without a cart: getting a cart would have meant having it delivered by a bellman, and I didn't want to lay out one more tip just to pay the guy for showing up.

We made the trip out in three days of light driving, the trip home in one. As far as my office knew I was on the road yesterday (Monday), so I took the day off. Later this week the weather is supposed to turn unpleasant, so I took advantage of the fine weather to give some long-overdue attention around the property: the yard has been cleaned of leaves and debris; gutters blown out (leaf blower ftw!); chicken coop mucked out; the oil in the van is changed; and both vehicles have winter wiper blades on.

On the trip, I also grew desperately tired of restaurant food. I measure the success of a restaurant meal by one simple criteria: is it better than what I can make for myself at home? Ninety percent of the time, I'd say, the answer is "no." (Major exception: Indian food. Haven't yet mastered the curry.) The most expensive restaurant we went to - Michelle and I decided to treat ourselves - was a major disappointment. Not only not better than what I could do, but much worse. I didn't say so at the time, but I wanted to go back in the kitchen, slap him in the head, and show him how to make his dish. (Pro-tip: calling it a "garlic aeoli" implies something more than mixing pre-minced garlic into Hellman's.)

Last night, with me cooking: Kansas City strip, seasoned simply, for me and Michelle; chicken marinated in a balsamic/orange vinaigrette for the kids; over roasted new potatoes with herbs, kosher salt, and olive oil. Take that, expensive-restaurant asshole-chef.

With a strong desire to Do Things after five days of (mostly) sitting, I also did four dye jobs so that I can fill a tights order this week.

Next weekend, I'll spend the time I'm not working on videos for the schools on expanding the chicken run. We can't let them out all day anymore: they wander and one of our neighbors is just asshole enough to call the city about it. If we give them a few hours in the afternoon until sunset they stay in the yard, but that means they're in the run the rest of the time. Small as it is, that's not terrifically healthy for them. They get irritable and bored and take it out on each other: once a chicken draws blood, the victim is further bullied, sometimes to death. A little more room would help alleviate some of that tension.

(By the way, the little cross-posting blurb says to comment over on Dreamwidth, but I check both accounts, so comment anywhere you want.)

comments

State of the Bill

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 15:30:18 GMT

It is not often that I have a weekend like the one that just passed, and I'm grateful. Put in about eight hours sewing on Saturday, and twelve on Sunday. A prisoner of my costume shop, my time was spent catching up on orders that had fallen behind. With Labor Day and Kansas City Irish Fest coming up, it's hectic and insanely stressful around the Morris' house.

Dresses

We've taken on the job of making the dance dresses for the Driscoll School of Irish Dance where the kids attend. Dancers are accustomed to paying real money for their stuff and thus don't blink when you throw out a number that sounds reasonable, so you would think that would be lucrative, but you'd be wrong. At least so far. When you factor in driving to fittings, alterations, and the simple fact that these dresses take a long time to build in the first place, we're making barely minimum wage. (For the record, on shirts and tights, it's comfortably more than that.)

It's not that the dresses are complicated, but there's a lot of pieces. The skirts alone have eighteen pieces (including the lining), all put together with straight seams, but each seam has to be bound, the pattern adjusted on the fly for each dancer. What started out as a, "All you have to do is assemble the pieces" kind of job (and was bid as such) has turned into custom tailoring for each one. Twelve hours for any garment is too long, especially at these prices.

For a variety of reasons I won't write publicly, we can't just walk away from the dresses. As such, I can't market Seamlyne as heavily as I want to, pushing products I know I can make a living on. Michelle says she'll take over the "heavy lifting" on the dresses so all I have to do is set the zipper and attach the bodice and rhinestone trim. I hope she's right.

comments

Columbus. Like he was special.

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 18:40:21 GMT

Just for the record: I'm getting really sick of the anti-Columbus stuff that goes around this time every year. I'm not saying that what has been done to Native peoples isn't reprehensible, but Europeans did not invent slavery, expansionism, chemical warfare (a.k.a. disease), etc. To suggest that native tribes were living in the Americas all peaceful and idyllic in this White-free utopia is asinine. You can say, "Man, I sure wish those Spaniards hadn't come over and destroyed their way of life and stolen their lands and put our people into slavery" all you like, but you're ignoring the fact that those same natives had reason to say the same thing about other tribes in the region long before the Europeans showed up.

White guilt. I don't has it.

comments

Update, Wednesday state of the Bill

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:51:34 GMT

Michelle's birthday was yesterday, the "big four-oh", and (no surprise) it was no big deal. Forty is supposed to be the big number, but like me it came with sort of a "yeah, ok, whatever. Is there cake?" kind of attitude. I got her a silk(ish) scarf in deep blues woven with celtic knotwork. I picked it up at the KC feis while she was otherwise occupied. I hid it in the van and just left it there, so she's been driving around with her gift eight feet away for weeks. For herself she got a Mylander torte, a layer-cake sort of confection of marzipan, raspberry jam and Kirsch brandy from Andrés. I don't care for them, but she loves them and, well, there you go.

The drought almost completely destroyed ten years worth of maintenance on both yards, reducing any area not shaded by the sun to dead ground and weeds. I finally mowed the back last weekend after not touching it since May, and most of what I trimmed was mulberry, creeping charlie, carpet weed and something I've always called "tassel grass" for want of a better name. Those latter two don't really mow, they just bend over and bind the lawn mower blade. It was slow going.

The margin of the driveway is obscured by a strip of carpet weed a foot wide, and is now damaged enough that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and budget to replace at least the first twenty feet before the next summer is over. I know how to do a slab, but I've never actually done it before, so yet one more challenge to overcome.

The house remains front porch-less. I made the mistake of destroying the porch without first purchasing the materials to replace it, and during the destruction two things happened: my Lowes card didn't get paid down as fast as I anticipated and the weather turned unmanageably hot. Now the temperatures have cooled and we have a different source of funding for the materials, the plan is to have a porch we can use (just a deck with steps) by Halloween, and a completed porch (with railings and lights) by Thanksgiving. Once renaissance festival is over and the Seamlyne queue is cleared, that's quite doable. I should be able to have "Phase 1" done in a weekend, and "Phase 2" in two or three. If I can somehow find an air-powered framing nailer, it will go really really fast.

Many difficulties with Katie just now that I plan to write about in our family blog, The Road Less Ordinary. Having to think long term, but the short term is a minefield.

comments

A mixed bag, but aren't they all?

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:05:28 GMT

If a single day can make up for a long, unpleasant week, I would say that Saturday, 7/28, did that. It was probably the hardest day of physical labor I've put in in a long while. I tried to type this that evening and nodded off in my chair.

( Read more... )

comments

Wednesday 7/25 State of the Bill

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:27:06 GMT

Need the heat to break. I hate to whine about it, but it's starting to affect my overall attitude. I'm fatalistic by nature, and the constant, unrelenting heat and dry is adding a measure of apathy that is really dangerous. It's started to bleed into my overall attitude - home and work. Not good.

I discovered last weekend that the dry conditions have exacerbated all the problems in our foundation: the blocks on the North end of the house are literally being shifted apart from one another. There are gaps in some places wide enough to stick a pencil into. I'm not panicked about it: it's on a gable end, thus non-load bearing, and there is a second foundation (actually a first foundation, to be technical) just three feet inside it, so having the outer foundation crumbling won't cause the house to collapse, but it's just One More Thing.

The yard is dead - I don't think it's just dormant. I've never seen it as dry as it is; even the crabgrass couldn't survive. The only things living are the carpet weed and scraggly mulberry bushes trying to gain a foothold. We've kept the vegetable garden and the herbs watered, but other than that I am content to let the lawn languish. I've put a lot of work into the lawn over the last several years, but...as I said, apathy.

Seamlyne has more paid orders in its queue at this moment that it has ever had in its history, and most of them came in within a few days of each other, and a variety of regions are represented. The only scary part is that several of them have deadlines within a few days or weeks of each other, so keeping up with them will be a challenge. We can do it, though, I've no doubt of that.

The day job hasn't changed much. For one of our projects - adding a data push from our system to a third party - I am at the mercy of the third party, and they are notoriously slow and unhelpful. A fair chunk of money depends upon the completion of the project, and I've no confidence that it will happen in a timely fashion.

Several weeks ago I committed to some fence repair for a friend who is putting her present home on the market. I'm replacing about a hundred pickets. I made this commitment while the temperatures were still reasonable and like an idiot put off the work, little reckoning that the temps would rise and stay above a hundred degrees. I'm about half done, working last Saturday and Sunday morning. The fence is in shade and it wasn't actually that bad.

It has been a while since I put that kind of effort into that kind of activity, and my hands - even now, three days later - are sore and don't want to make a fist. I feel the strain deep into my wrists and forearms. It's a good ache, because it means that I did something.

comments

The heat got me.

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:20:35 GMT

I'm not a person who loves the heat, as I've said many times. This prolonged heat wave, lacking even the respite of an occasional rain shower, is getting to me. I can't get cool no matter what I try, even in my basement shop which typically hovers around seventy degrees. It's almost like my operating temperature has risen to match my environment. It's only at night, after I've showered and gone to bed still damp, laying under the ceiling fan, that I start to feel better. Autumn can't come soon enough.

On the bright side, if there is one, I am becoming somewhat acclimated to the temperatures which makes venturing out the heat a little easier - as long as I stay out of the sun. I committed a long while back to doing some fence maintenance for a friend, and I've managed to get the hours of work in while the fence is in shade, though I'm sure her neighbors don't think much of the early morning noise. (Sunday, I stayed out a little longer than I should have, and I have a very mild sunburn, my first of the season.) I've got about four more hours worth of work to do.

I've begun to think that a move to more temperate climes - the Pacific Northwest, for instance - should be a serious consideration for my family. Katie deals with the heat little better than I do despite the resiliency of her young age, and if we are to assume that climate change will continue as predicted, summers in Missouri are only going to get hotter.

comments

Monday 7/16

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:39:36 GMT

That was an unexpectedly emotional start to my day.

Let me introduce you to my brother, Mike.

( Read more... )

comments

Ready for something different.

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:50:19 GMT

For the last several weeks, I've been in "production mode." In general terms, this means that I've been focused on a particular project or two that isn't necessarily creative but nonetheless needs to get done. This has been the case at both my day job and Seamlyne.

As a result, my creative side is going out of its mind. I've got a project in mind, an animated short film, and I've found a software package that will allow me to create it (AnimeStudio, if you're interested). I set myself to an hour a day working through the tutorials and it looks awesome; the learning curve isn't terribly steep, but as usually happens something came up. Several somethings, actually. Many tights orders and a huge project at work. So much for learning time.

On the subject of Seamlyne, I've grown increasingly frustrated there. It's making next to no money, and what money it is bringing in is being pulled out for personal bills. That's its purpose, I know, but there's nothing left in the business account to actually, you know, run the friggin' business. I've twice had to put the "sorry, long turnaround time" message on the website knowing that, should an order actually come in, we'd have to wait for the deposit to clear to buy the fabric for it. Seamlyne's only line of credit is burned up, too.

Frustrating.

Tax season is officially behind us, but we only filed last week, and it's a tax bill we can't pay. We'll have to apply to have this year's taxes rolled into the payment plan from last year. Lowe's won't get their payment until late, and it's getting later every month. Yes, our money situation sucks mightily. We're more behind than we have been, and it isn't likely to get better soon, if at all.

Hurts to type those words. I've never said it "out loud" before. Signs of the times, I guess.

Victim to this also is the Front Porch Project. I've got everything but the wood, which I had planned to buy at Lowes, but we haven't made a payment there so the account is closed for business. Yet another hole in the house, and though this one at least doesn't let the bugs in, it is right in front where it is plainly visible and unattractive. I imagine we'll have to save (if we can) and buy our lumber at The ReStore. It won't be treated lumber, but porches were built with untreated lumber for centuries.

Let's see...I don't want to keep whining about money, but that's what I've got just now. I need to get to work, so we'll just let it go for now.

comments

Friday State of the Bill

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 19:13:42 GMT

I think that just once I'd like to have a journal entry that I wouldn't be justified in starting with, "It was an interesting last several days."

My arms don't hurt much now. Last weekend they got quite a workout, destroying a 50 year old concrete-slab porch. I have to admit it was kind of fun, swinging the sledgehammer, watching the crack grow until a piece fell. It wasn't fun when shards, blown out of the impact like bullets, would tear across my shins, or a chunk would land on my ankle, but such happenings were rare.

The only thing left of the slab now is a couple of foot long piece sitting atop the front edge of concrete block foundation. The blocks below absorb the blow and distribute the force of it so it's slow work; however, it's a pretty small piece, relatively speaking, so I can slip a stick or something underneath it to provide a breaking point. Every day I fill a couple of five gallon buckets with rubble and discard them along an unused stretch of side-road on the way to work. It's not my favorite solution, but I haven't found anywhere to dump the stuff that doesn't want money to do so.

I want all the debris moved before I start building the porch, but if I wait till it's all gone the porch will never be built, so I've taken the "carpet" that the porch was covered in and dragged to a bare spot in the yard, and I'm moving the rubble there. It's slow going, and I'm okay with that.

Starting to face the idea that Seamlyne isn't making any money. The cost of fabric + the cost of labor makes the tights business no longer worth it. It takes about 4-1/2 hours to make one pair of tights, from cutting to laundering to dyeing to laundering again. After expenses it comes to just about $5 an hour. I haven't been able to find a reliable supplier of good pre-dyed fabric.

As a consequence, I've started to look at other things I can do as a sideline, and I may have landed on something that would work well. I do a lot of graphics when I make a DVD, for the kids school for instance. Menu backgrounds, the disc printing, DVD case and insert, all bits of the branding that go into the complete package, and - even if I do say so myself - I'm good at it.

I know that such libraries are on offer - Sony offers a complete catalog of menu backgrounds with their Vegas video editing and DVD creation software - and I've started working out how I might position myself and a product to take advantage of the market. I have a pretty good idea how it would work.

For the December Nights, December Lights video the menus used a blue background with snow falling, and last night I spent some time reacquainting myself with the software. Animating snow is pretty easy. Animating snow when you have about a hundred snowflakes to keep track of? That's hard. Thankfully, all I have to is specify start point (outside the frame, top) and end point (outside the frame, bottom) and the amount of "wander" and the software does the rest.

I'll admit, it's more fun than sewing.

comments

DIY Update

Mon, 14 May 2012 21:31:23 GMT

It turned out to be quite the weekend. We got a lot of gardening done, in spite of a persistent migraine for Michelle. In the garden now we have cucumber; zucchini; bell peppers, poblano chilis; two tomato plants (couldn't tell you what kind, those are all Michelle's). Left to plant are garlic (which we won't harvest for a year and a half), bush beans, and potatoes.

It looks like the shed I hoped to finally build is going to have to wait yet another season. Our front porch, which has been cracking for many years but has remained basically whole has started to crumble: the bottom step lost a corner, the other steps are showing cracks, and it will only get worse from there. Time to pull out the sledgehammers.

The gas meter and line to the house is inches from the porch, so the plan is to demolish the porch - a reinforced concrete slab on a foundation of cinder blocks - a little at a time, starting at the meter and working back from it. I'll take the rubble a bucket at a time and find a place to dump it on some back country road between home and work. The slab will go first, then I'll take down the cinder blocks, taking care to preserve them for future use.

The new porch will be long and narrow, about 5' x 15', and extend from the South edge of the existing porch to under the double-window in the living room. It will have a railing of turned spindles.

To that end, this weekend I installed a new storm door on the door to the side porch, and we'll use that entrance from now on, until the new porch is safe to use.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Random thought: it's been several years since I took out the wall between the living room and the dining room, creating the arch and opening up the space. Late at night, though, I still mentally go for the light switch where the wall used to be.

comments

April State of the Bill

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:25:09 GMT

It was a good weekend. Let's start there.

Back in early March, I saw a truck with a chipper on the back parked at one of our neighbors' houses. I called the guy over to chat with him about the two large brush piles in our front yard, one by the fence (the remains of a redbud tree) and one under the maple tree (misc branches, including several from the maple itself.) He quoted me a price, and we set the date for the last week of March. I set that date so that we'd have time to save up the money to pay him.

Between that day and the last week of March, he called or stopped by a few times to see if he could do the work. No, I told him, last week of March - unless you like working for free. One of his calls came as I was walking into the doctor's office to have my vasectomy!

...and I started to get angry.

( Courtesy snip... )

comments

A much different weekend.

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:57:14 GMT

It was very busy, and very productive, and, for the first time in many weeks, something close to normal.

Technical Matters

Saturday we went out as a family. I had some electronics from work to drop off at The Surplus Exchange for e-cycling, ultimately deciding to keep the two PCs - I'll convert one of them for my own personal use. Nothing wrong with them that a little TLC (read: not being used by DataGuy) wouldn't cure. I've been pointed to Zorin as a possible alternative OS to Windows, and I'm going to give it a shot. Frank pointed me to a DAW* called Reaper - if I can make a go of that on the new OS, then I'll be able to jettison Windows on the downstairs (shop/studio) PC.

Family and Health

That done, I took my family out for a late lunch/early dinner to Ghengis Khan, the original mongolian barbecue. Miraculously, the kids both ate well: they loved the flavors, and watching the guys cook their food on the large (large? gigantic) flat-top grill was just too cool. (Ironically, I can make the same sort of food with the same flavor profiles at home and they turn their noses up at it.) Jami flirted shamelessly with our waitress, a curvy, pretty blonde girl with some beautiful tattoo work. Apple don't fall far from the tree, I guess.

That was all fun, but the best part was just being out. Michelle didn't have a migraine and we were able to function normally - or close enough that it doesn't matter - for the first time in a long time. It was wonderful. She is making progress every week, and while some days are better than others the trend is toward the good.

She has expressed an interest in walking/exercising again, so to that end I moved the treadmill from the garage to the dining room, a job that I should probably have had help with but just did anyway. It's a pro-sumer levelI'm guessing the thing weighs about 150 pounds and is large and unwieldy to boot. My hand-cart is one of the small variety, good for moving the odd stack of boxes, and I pushed it and my thigh muscles to the limit of their operational specs, but by god I got the thing done.

It was a stupid thing to do. Had I lost control of it I could have easily destroyed the treadmill, or a nearby piece or furniture, one or all of the pets, or me, or some combination of all of that. My back and legs are both reminding me of the folly of pride.

Music

My birthday is tomorrow. I'll be 46, and I'm trying not to do the mental countdown to 54 (the age at which my dad died). We don't have anything planned, and I'm totally okay with that. (It's amazing how one's priorities change when one's health - or the health of one's spouse - goes to shit.) I did splurge for a birthday present for myself, though.

I've always wanted a phrase recorder/looper. It's a device that goes between your guitar and amp, about the size of a kid's lunchbox with two foot pedals on the face, one for "record/playback", one for "stop." It records what you play and plays it back: the performer just taps the appropriate button with his foot as he goes (I've heard it called a "stomp box" for that reason.) Because it's foot controlled, you can create and use phrases on the fly, and add a lot of depth to your performance. I've experimented some already, and the results are encouraging.

Michelle's grandmother Ruby actually made it possible. I'd gotten a small amount of money from her mom that I figured to use as seed money for the "looper fund". It was the check from Ruby that made it immediately possible, and, cannily, she sent two checks. I'm just guessing here, but I think she knew with just one, my birthday money would probably just go to pay bills, and she didn't want that, so she sent a second, larger check for the household. ...aaaaaand off to Guitar Center I went.

I've wanted one of these things for a long time, at least two years, when we saw Tim Thompson use one. Using his (same model as mine, I think - it's not like there's twenty different brands) he was able to deliver a really complex performance, just him alone on stage. It was impressive as hell and I decided then I wanted one. Just took me this long to do it. You can read about it here if you care to.

Home Improvement

With the treadmill out of the way (it had been in the garage) I suddenly had enough free space to do something toward the house. A month or so ago I purchased a cabinet for the kitchen to complete what I call the "coffee wall" - the length of counter space where I keep my coffee maker. Tossing on another 30" (plus a planned foot of additional counter) will complete the "L" of cabinets, and I've started forming a plan as to how to make the countertop.

I pulled the cabinet out of mothballs, so to speak, and started the finishing process. First: 75/25 mineral spirits/polyurethane as a grain sealer, then Golden Oak stain. It was completely dry this morning, but I didn't get up early enough to put on the first coat of poly. I'll do that this evening. In doing the finishing, I found the cabinet was more damaged than I thought (I knew it was damaged, but failed to note how badly...the discount was worth it, though). A back corner at the bottom is completely gone so I'll have to put a new bottom in it, possibly a portion of the back.

So, that was my weekend. Long, busy, tiring, productive. Mostly normal.

* digital audio workstation.

comments

Quite the wild ride

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:23:40 GMT

Michelle fought the good fight, treating her migraine with all the weapons in her pharmaceutical arsenal. Finally, after two weeks, she called her neurologist. At the Thursday appointment, the doctor said, heavily paraphrased of course, "You've had your shot. Now it's my turn," and put her in the hospital. There she was treated with several doses of a drug so powerful you can't take it at home until you've had it under the care of a full nursing staff to make sure your body can tolerate it (read: make sure it doesn't kill you.) It took about six, maybe eight, doses, but it did finally break the cycle, and she came home on Saturday.

She brought with her the home-use version of the medication - it differs only in the delivery method. $1000 for eight days worth, of which insurance covered about 80% and, thank god, her parents covered the rest.

With all of our other financial considerations - a massive debt load and four pay cuts in the last two years - we have talked about bankruptcy, and I must admit with this hospital stay I was seeing lawyers' phone numbers in my head. Again, we are quite grateful to her parents as it seems they intend to help us with the bills. I don't know how we'll ever pay them back unless and until the day-job hits pay dirt.

If Audrey Hepburn had a younger, librarian sister, that would be Michelle's neurologist. Young, slender, a little taller than average, very pretty but with enough small flaws - a little bit of an overbite, nose a little too prominent - to keep her from being striking and aloof, she is soft-spoken and very very kind. We both like her a great deal. She was, nevertheless, very firm when it came to killing this migraine.

Well done, Doctor B., and thank you.

It is my hope that the migraines will be controllable now, and that Michelle can continue her recovery from Summer 2011's adventures.

It's funny. I nearly died from neglect as a toddler, and was sick quite a bit as a child. Given my stress level since our children were born, you would think I'd be the one who was sick all the time, but I just keep forging - sometimes trudging - along.

In other news, I continue working to make my shop as comfortable as it can be. If last year is any indication - not quite 10k in gross sales - I'm going to be spending a great deal of 2012 there. My goal is to purchase an apartment sized washing machine sometime in the next six weeks, hack its main-board and put my own timer on it for use in dyeing fabric. Anything to keep us from being chained to a plastic bucket for and hour and a half every time someone orders a pair of tights.

MoneyGuy and DataGuy are going with one of our partners to the NADA conference this weekend. The last time we did this we got a significant (if somewhat short lived) lift from it. I'm hopeful it will be the same way this time, with longer-term results of course.

Car dealers and their ilk are shit to do business with. The dealer group we did all the ad campaigns for (which I have written about before) owes us 16k and is showing no signs of being willing to pay - in spite of the massive customer response (and presumably, profit) the campaigns generated.

comments

Update. Saturday, 1/21/2012

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:35:12 GMT

The day was productive, but not in the way I thought it would be. I had thought I'd get a dye job done and maybe assemble the tights once the fabric was dry, but I just decided to get the basement wiring project finished. That's the way things typically get done around here: I Just Decide to get something done and I work on it until, 1. the projects actually does get done; 2. I run out of money; or 3. I run out of time.

For years - decades, really - to have light in the basement where my shop is has meant pulling a cotton string attached to an ancient ceramic bulb socket, and there were four. Two of them had four-foot fluorescent lights plugged into them so there has always been plenty of light, but you had to walk through a dark basement to turn on the light farthest from the door. Kind of a pain. There was one set of lights actually controlled by a switch, but the switch was placed in a spot convenient for the way I once had the shop configured Way Back When, but not for several years since.

When we first made Seamlyne a business back in 2000 - officially, not the paying hobby it was for a decade before that - we bought two commercial sewing machines on credit. No way those could go upstairs, so I began the process of finishing the basement as well as I could. The job is about half done, having reached a point of stasis: done enough that it looks like an actual room instead of a concrete block dungeon, as long as you don't look between the shelves at the back. With carpet, pictures on the white-painted walls, a table lamp, and track lighting to supplement the harsh task lighting over the cutting table, it can be quite comfortable down here (where I happen to be writing from at this moment.) There's even a worn old loveseat, much the worse for wear, but still sittable.

If you count the spare refrigerator, a hotplate, and large plastic shop sink, there's even a rudimentary kitchen. It's got all the amenities except for a bathroom, which I simply don't have the money for - below grade, it would have to be a toilet that pumps waste up, and those are très expensive.

...except for light switches by the door. Now we have them. I divided the basement into two zones: laundry, close to the door; and shop, away from the door. The exposed ceiling is starting to look like a bowl of noodles, but I'm okay with that. It's messy but safe, and all to code, or will be after I go to Lowe's to pick up covers for the junction boxes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michelle woke without a headache for the first time in about two weeks, and so We went to the Nelson Atkins Museum, our first family outing in quite a long time. The kids loved it for about the first half hour. Jami particularly liked the Egyptian section, especially the mummy. Surprisingly, Katie liked the Asian section.

Before we left for the museum, Michelle started to feel the headache and so took a preventative dose of medicine. Before we left the museum, however, her headache spiked and we were constrained to get lunch to go and just come home. She took a percocet and retired to the family room. Since a dye job can't really be interrupted once started, and since I didn't know if we'd be making a trip to the ER for Even Heavier Meds, I came downstairs to install light switches.

I can already see what I want my next wiring project to be, though I'm in no rush - it's just a re-route and not critical. The circuit I tied into for the laundry-side lights also powers the furnace, and I want the furnace to have its own. I'll run another 15amp circuit if I must. I know how at least.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As to the tights, I'll make them tomorrow.

comments

Monday update

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:55:57 GMT

It was a very busy weekend. I didn't get everything done I wanted to, but then that's usually the case.

Congregation Beth Torah is hosting an American Library Association exhibit on Jewish influences in American popular music. Saturday night was a musical revue with narration as a kind of kick-off. I was the male narrator, a young lady named Gloria the female narrator. It was great fun, and the largest audience I have ever performed for in my life. I'm guessing about six hundred people were there. It was great fun: having to pause in the middle of your lines to let the laughter crest is very gratifying. It was Lezlie Revelle who got me involved - she wrote the male narrator part with my voice in her head.

That was most of Saturday. Since our final rehearsal was mid-afternoon with a performance in the evening, I didn't want to start any projects. I puttered around, dropped off a load of recycling, burned a couple of DVDs for my father-in-law.

I'm afraid my suit has reached its physical limits. If I gain any more weight, I'll have to buy a new one. Cheaper to lose twenty pounds.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Michelle is on day seven of a migraine. She's keeping the meds going but they help only a little, and I'm afraid this one is just going to have to run its course.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, I did start a project I've been wanting to do for some time: putting the downstairs lights on switches by the door. Right now, if you want lights in any given area, you have to pull a string on the fixture for that area. Kinda stupid in a basement I'm working to finish. The basement can be divided into two zones: the half by the door, and the other half. The Half by the Door includes the washing machine and dryer, and that would be one switch. The Other Half includes the sewing machines and cutting table. I installed that switch yesterday, which was really just moving a switch that was already there but in a really inconvenient spot. I've got another fixture to tie into that circuit - I hope to do that tonight.

For the switch by the door, I'm going to have to get creative. The ceiling area of the basement is starting to look like a bowl of noodles, but the wiring was pretty haphazard to begin with. I wish I had time for a complete rewire, but it's not really worth it even if I did.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Seamlyne has hit its slow season, and I'm grateful for the break. It's allowing me time to get other things done. I've a new kitchen cabinet to finish and install that will add another four feet of so of counter space. I've got the basement stairwell to finish. There's a shed I need to start on, and a place in the driveway that needs to be filled in with something before it becomes large enough to swallow a vehicle.

comments

Tuesday (late) update

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:35:44 GMT

I really need to get back into the habit of writing. It seems like I only write when I'm sick which, I'll admit, finally, I am. Nothing new, the usual sniffling-sneezing-aching-coughing-stuffy head-fe--- no, no fever, thankfully. Took a vicodin last night as a cough suppressant. It worked remarkably well, and while I didn't sleep better than I usually do, I rested better.

I've just about lost my voice, and I hope I have it back by Friday. There's an informal gathering - what they're calling a "hootnanny" - with the regulars from Stone Bridge, a sort of pot-luck and jam session. I'd like to be able to sing, or at a bare minimum, chat. Right now I can barely make my voice function at all. I just got off the phone after three phone calls, and even though they were each shorter than five minutes my voice is just shot.

The Day Job

There has been some improvement there, at least potentially. We doing work for an "FDAF" - I don't remember what it stands for, but it's a group of Ford dealers who share ad dollars. Whenever you see a commercial on TV that isn't for one dealer in particular, it was paid for by a group of dealers pooling their money. Presently, it's for Cincinnati-South, a group of rural dealers stretching from Cincinnati, Ohio to Louisville, Kentucky. They're getting good responses to the work we're doing: sales are up 20% over last year.

On the other side, the Cincinnati-North FDAF's numbers are only up 6%. As an urban group, they usually smoke C-South and they're pissed off. They want to know why Donkey Bray Ford in Tater Wallop, Kentucky is doing better than Mr. Shiny Ford in Big City, Ohio. They're looking at us. We are happy to oblige.

C-North is one of the larger groups in the country. When they sign, it will garner some attention, attention that will hopefully be of real benefit to our bottom line.

Tights 'n' Stuff

Seamlyne is in its slow season, and neither of my attempts to drum up business have been productive. Between Black Friday weekend and a December sale we've only garnered four sales. Kinda dismal, though one of them is a rather larger order for shirts.

I would still dearly love to find a source for mill-dyed cotton-lycra. Dyeing is a very expensive process, and if we price our tights to make it truly worthwhile, we won't sell anything. My search has borne no fruit, however. I had an ally for a while, a salesman with a fabric distributor in North Carolina who, sensing an opportunity I'm sure, did some digging among all the folks he knows. Even with his industry contacts the search was a bust.

I haven't given up, yet.

Music

Because of health issues at home, I haven't played in front of an audience in many weeks, and I'm really missing it. Michelle's been through an anxiety-induced flavor of pleurisy, bronchitis/pneumonia, and now a succession of debilitating migraines. Because of the medications she takes to cope with it, she hasn't been consistently able to take part in everyday activities, so much of the running of the household has fallen to me, leaving little to no time for outside activities.

I'm going to be doing some recording over the next couple of weeks. My brother-in-law is going into hospital in Denver for a second kidney transplant. My sister will be living in a motel nearby through Christmas and I'm going to send her a CD of music for her to listen to while she's there. This suggestion came to me through a sister-in-law, who has had to listen my sister's copy of my CD many times and knows the gift will be appreciated. Another reason to want my voice back.

comments

State of The Bill, 2011-09-19

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:09:57 GMT

The children are enjoying going to public school. I think they both appreciate getting out of the house and each other's company as much as anything. (If you missed that we aren't home schooling any more, this article explains it all.) However, they are also exposed to a whole new germ pool, and Jami's been sick off and on (mostly on) for a couple of weeks. Thus, by extension, Michelle and I are also exposed.

( Courtesy snip... )

comments

An update long in coming.

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:26:45 GMT

Day Job

Well, the Big Server Move of 2011 appears to finally be done, at least from my perspective. There are still some data issues that need to be addressed but those aren't mine. DataGuy has his work cut out for him in the MS SQL transition from 2005 to 2008. Better him than me. That transition was the hardest we've ever had because we moved all the sites and data at once and immediately cancelled our previous contract, leaving us with no fallback position in case something went wrong, which of course it did. DataGuy went on vacation that week, leaving me the sole responsible party, cleaning up a mess created from a decision I never would have supported had I been consulted, which I wasn't.

I came close to quitting my job that week. If we didn't have the debt load we do, I would have. In any case, as I've already said, the company has the remainder of 2011 to improve my life, then I start shopping my resumé.

Home

Unable to stand it anymore, I mowed the front lawn on Monday. The back was already done, a tough job because of the India crabgrass, which doesn't mulch or get blown back into the bag, but binds in the mower blade and kills the engine about every fifty feet.

The front wasn't so bad, but I got it in my head to clean the end of the driveway. Our driveway is about 150' long and slopes downward to the back yard, where the gate and turf beyond form a sort of dam. There collects all the dirt, gravel, sand, and shmutz runoff when it rains, and over the years it's created a rather thick bed for weeds. I mowed them all down, then grabbed the shovel, intent upon chucking all that over the gate to the back yard where it all belongs anyway.

That was a mistake: the heat got me. I felt drunk most of yesterday, but not the pleasant, buzzy sort of drunk I can reach and maintain for hours at a party, but the one-toke-over-the-line-Sweet-Jesus kind of drunk, where every swallow of any food or drink makes me nauseous and I feel vaguely stupid...or stupidly vague, either works. I hate to cancel performances - and had only done so twice before - but I had to cancel a gig at Spin! Pizza. The thought of standing and singing for two hours in 105º of heat index made me light-headed and, frankly, a little panicky.

Upon examination, I think the problem might be better addressed by opening the gate and merely pushing the shmutz to the back yard with a snow or coal shovel, instead of lifting and throwing it over. Yeah, that ought to work. I could even do it with the garden hose, maybe even give that job to the kids to do. I like that even better.

comments

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:35:53 GMT

I broached the subject of virtualizing the office to MoneyGuy, hoping, 1. to isolate myself from the bullshit that seems to orbit this place, and 2. to save some money on gasoline, and received an answer I do not like, but understand.

It comes down to control: MoneyGuy's need to control what happens here at the office, and at least in some areas I agree with that. He wants - needs - to keep DataGuy close. At home, DG could follow any tangent he wanted to, and isn't disciplined enough to stay on the path to any long term goal. MoneyGuy also uses me as a kind of barometer: as my frustration level rises, he knows that something needs to be addressed.

On the more negative side, I also got The Lecture of how the company is costing him money, how he's giving us free labor to run the company - he talks like it's mine and DataGuy's company, and he's just a hired gun instead of a principal -- no, THE principal partner. This dance is old, and the carpet beneath our feet is worn with the number of times we've done it. I was warned - once again - that if sales don't pick up, I won't get a paycheck.

Who's the salesman? Him. Who isn't out selling stuff? Him.

So, in my head, I've set a time limit for this business. I've always been good at spotting patterns, and this pattern is familiar. Eight years ago, Data Reporting was going to make the difference. Six year ago, Contact Management was going to save the company. Four years ago, Websites were the hot ticket. Two years ago, Texting was The One. Six months ago, Texting Phase II was It.

We don't have any more products.

The clock is ticking, boys.

comments

Yes, it's Monday. How could you tell?

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:13:49 GMT

Today is one of those days that I really hate my job. I'm not frustrated with DataGuy (he's on vacation) or MoneyGuy (who hasn't said more than half a dozen words to me since arriving).

I hate it because this is one of those days when I'm made to know how unimportant and petty what I do is.

For instance:

A customer in Montana is obsessed with search engine optimization. He reads blogs on it then pours over his website looking for places where it doesn't comply with what he read. I've told him over and over that to raise his Google position, he has to have links on other, similar websites that point back to his. His response: could we put a link on our website. Yes, we could, but I don't want to. Doing so implies an endorsement (which we don't offer our other customers) and in any case it won't help him, since our two industries aren't related.

Another customer, in Detroit, complained bitterly that the logo on his mobile website is wrong. I'm not sure how that's possible, since I took it from his present website verbatim. No matter, he says, it needs to be updated and sends me a new logo. The new logo is nearly identical: there is a slight difference in the gradient on the Chevy bow-tie. It took me a full minute to spot it.

They're paying the bills, so I do it. I lay back, spread my legs, and dream of temperate weather while they fuck my corpse. Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel right now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other, less morose news...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Big Server Move of 2011 is done, more or less. Our contract with our former host is up, but they haven't shut off access yet so I'm going through the servers, grabbing off stuff that belongs to me. On the new host, there are a few features that don't quite work yet, and I'm looking for workarounds. Other than that, all seems to be well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seamlyne is doing very well, much better than I anticipated. July was a record month - over $1600 in orders. Keep 'em coming folks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The temperature at Osage was about 90º on Saturday, so I took the opportunity to do some cleanup on the yard. The goosegrass, crabgrass, plantain, purslane, and carpetweed are doing exceptionally well while the bluegrass is dormant from the heat. I took the weed trimmer out and cleaned up the fence around the gardens and along the sidewalk, and then mowed as best I could. The front was easy, since only the margins for about twelve feet were the grass and weeds tall enough to be able to see my path; I quit when I could no longer tell where I'd mowed and where I hadn't.

So, the yard looks better, though my legs certainly don't. There were chiggers in the tall grass that coated my legs as I trimmed, and in a patch from the line of my sock up about 6" my legs are covered in red, itchy spots. Covered. It looks like chicken pox - in some places the spots are so numerous and close together that they can't be individualized. Yes, it itches, but it's manageable.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the first indications that a restaurant is letting its standards slip is when the corners of the expensive leather-bound menu are held together with scotchtape.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a rare day with Jami at his grandparents' house and Katie home, so we took the opportunity to take her out to dinner. She wanted Chinese food so we went to Bo Lings. For years Bo Lings has had a reputation for up-scale food and service, a reputation that to my mind is no longer deserved. The food was pretty generic, the service was for shit. We could have eaten for a third the price and gotten food just as good, if not better, from the buffet at the end of our block.

comments

Friday morning, July 15

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:12:46 GMT

Feeling very uneasy today. Not as in, "nervous", but as in...well, how to say it? There's a whole lot I want to get done, things I want to do and work on, and I'm stuck here in an office in Liberty providing digital handjobs for clients who aren't really mine in any useful sense. It's days like today when I am painfully aware of my mortality, aware than I am wasting away in a box with only a desperately small loophole to The Outside World.

One must provide for one's family, and if I'm not here we don't buy groceries. Michelle called us "the working poor" not so long ago, and I bristled at the idea, finding the label deeply offensive and - here's the real shitter - sadly all too true.

I'll get over it. This isn't about The Day Job in particular, but about the general state of affairs. I've got it off my chest.

------------------

Incidentally, this will be the last entry I crosspost to LJ. Everything I have to say in a "journal" setting after this will be on DreamWidth, http://mapsedge.dreamwidth.org. You know where to find me, dear reader.

comments

Friday morning, July 15

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:11:05 GMT

Feeling very uneasy today. Not as in, "nervous", but as in...well, how to say it? There's a whole lot I want to get done, things I want to do and work on, and I'm stuck here in an office in Liberty providing digital handjobs for clients who aren't really mine in any useful sense. It's days like today when I am painfully aware of my mortality, aware than I am wasting away in a box with only a desperately small loophole to The Outside World.

One must provide for one's family, and if I'm not here we don't buy groceries. Michelle called us "the working poor" not so long ago, and I bristled at the idea, finding the label deeply offensive and - here's the real shitter - sadly all too true.

I'll get over it. This isn't about The Day Job in particular, but about the general state of affairs. I've got it off my chest.

------------------

Incidentally, this will be the last entry I crosspost to LJ. Everything I have to say in a "journal" setting after this will be here. You know where to find me, dear reader.

comments