Author: timcalvin

Holy smokes, I’m trying to do these again at a somewhat more meaningful pace.

• I rented a huge machine, and with it I laid waste to the invasive Knotweed in the yard (only for now- it’ll bounce back), augered holes for fence posts, and I’ve got 2/3rds of the posts cemented in currently. Another 8 posts to go, and then it’s time to build three gates, stretch a couple hundred feet of fence, and pound in a scary number of t-posts. But then the back yard will be fenced, so that’s good.
• Cold weather crops have been out for a few weeks, but they’re going slow. I dunno- some of my stuff always feels like it takes forever to get going outside. The purple BokChoy is looking good, but I dunno, man.
• I’m trying to ride more, again. It’s been a pretty rough spring around here- family being sick and whatnot- and I’m on the back foot. Still: I got some rides in recently, and I’m looking to build on that.
• Trying to get back into taking photos and video.
• Getting a trail cam for the backyard. We’ve seen a Fisher Cat several times recently, and some neighbors down the street got pictures of a Black Bear. Fingers crossed we get something good!
• Heading into what might be my busiest summer in a long time- between work, family trips, conferences, and home projects, there’s a lot to get done.
• I’ve occasionally been putting on podcasts by https://www.sleepbaseball.com, where they publish audio of baseball games commentary- so-and-so steps to the plate, high and outside for ball one type of thing. There’s a little crowd noise, and the vocal track is a little low-fi. But there are no commercials or volume spikes, so they’re really relaxing to have on in the background. And the kicker? The games are entirely made up. Fake teams, fake players, fake locations- all of it.

Is it Spring yet? No? Sorta?

• I’ve started work on the garden/yard for the year- pruning the pear tree heavily, setting some spring bulbs in the ground, and cleaning up the crab apple tree and others.
• I’m almost done with the planning of the new garden enclosure- I’m moving the fence and gate(s) to enclose the orchard area, too, and I’m using the opportunity to create some structure around a patio for outdoor cooking and whatnot.
• The new camera rig is together. Some old parts (a Canon EOS M at the heart of the thing, with some very old Konica lenses in use), some new parts (a cage and nato-railed handle, modern HDMI out, and a solid-mounted tripod plate), and it’s a pretty cohesive thing to use. I’m just starting to shoot new videos.
• I finally cleaned the gunk out of the pots on my NAD receiver, and what-do-you-know it sounds nicer.
• I found an old set of instructions for a DIY low-budget pizza oven, which seems like a good place to start to see if we’d use such a thing enough to justify a larger and more costly solution.

Here’s where things stand:

• School vacation was last week, and so most of my time was put towards cleaning and providing stimulation for the littles. Historic tours, athletic outings, elaborate dinners, etc.
• Finished a couple of novels (currently trying to burn through the Slow Horse books). Working on Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act.
• One of those go-back-to-go-forward sort of times- lots of resetting the house to make it ready for the next push forward. Studio rack, art finally getting hung, more book storage, etc etc etc.
• Starting to bring in Spring supplies- gardening pots, clothing, travel supplies.
• Building out a camera rig to get back to shooting video again.
• Investigating a bike rack for my car.

This is me trying to carry though on doing these posts more often.

• I’m still on my move towards “old school” internet- less of the big-company managed mess, and more of the ‘ol home grown and home cooked. I’ve not hopped on the Shuttlecraft train just yet- I’m going to need for that to get a bit more mature- but I’ve got my eye on it.
• My latest (v3!) experiment into a tamper-proof adhesive seal has apparently gone well. I’ve applied it for testing’s sake, and I’ll keep an eye on how it wears/ages. So far so good, though?
• Deep down the rabbit hole for researching fruit-bearing bushes that I can add to the yard. We already have raspberry, blackberry, strawberry (not a bush, but whatever), and blueberry. I’m for-sure adding more blueberry this year, but I’m also looking at adding honey berry. All this drives the following question: if I’m building an orchard (and I am), should I be planting fruit-bearing bushes interspersed in it? (I think I should)
• I’m starting to think about modifying the landscape around the house here- adding a Gingko tree (maybe? I’m worried about the allergen load, there), mountain laurel bushes, maybe some crabapple trees, and now I’m seeing golden (and black!) stemmed bamboo, and that seems pretty good (and useful, too).
• I’m looking at studio upgrades- the new Mac mini M2’s are getting pretty rave reviews, and I’m thinking about replacing both of my aging mini’s with one. That said… I think that should maybe be my reward for building the new gear rack down here and populating it? Maybe that’ll give me the motivation to get that project over the line?
• I’m increasingly fixated (?) on the idea of quadracycles. They’re kinda Europe’s answer to Kei cars (they have maximum dimensions, weight, power, and speed), and they’re totally not road-legal here. Anyway, they’re really all the car I’d want/need for most of my uses, and they’re just… so fucking practical. I don’t need 5000lbs of car to drive 10 miles to a train station at 35mph. I don’t need 300 miles of electric range and I don’t need autopilot or whatever. Right this minute, the Kilow La Bagnole (https://kilow.com) is tickling my fancy.

It’s been a long time. I’d say I’m sorry (I’m not, really), but given the last three years or so, I think it’s reasonable to say that I didn’t have the bandwidth to devote to these. Maybe I do now, but the only way I’ll know is to start. So here we go.

• Work: Crazy busy. Lots and lots of new projects (some that have been visible over the horizon, others not so much). Getting the allocation of resources sorted has been a lot of work.
• Playing: I’ve been toying with alternate-internet-protocols. Some of it new (Mastodon, find me @nothingfuture@mastodon.social) some of it very, very old (finger nothingfuture@happynetbox.com), some of it weird (ActivityPub lets you follow people on Mastodon but also follow people on PixelFed and maybe Tumblr and Flickr soon and it all shows up in one unified feed?) I’m looking into Shuttlecraft next.
• Bikes: Have been slow for the last couple months. Some of that is weather, but most of that is work being too busy and kids being home a lot more than normal. I’ve made some gear updates and whatnot, but what I really need to do is find a bit of time to get back out there.
• Making: Has been slow as well, but I’m at least having some progress there. I’ve been playing a bit with Kydex (a thermoplastic mostly used for making knife sheaths and whatnot). I also got a teeny bit obsessed with a tamper-proof seal that I saw on a piece of Tom Sachs’ work (here: https://www.instagram.com/avantarteinsiders/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=892cc317-345a-46fd-ba09-219537435c62) that I’ve begun trying to make a version of. Building back to doing new sewing project.
• Video: I haven’t shot video in a year. I want to, on general principle, but… again, time? And also, I haven’t had much time to think about what I’d like to talk about there- I suppose the most obvious is to respond to what’s going on in that space, but… I dunno. I’m not sure I’m ready for that approach, yet.
• Food: We’re making an effort as a family to explore new food- we, like lots of other people, tend to make the same ~8 recipes over and over and over, so we sat down with a stack of cookbooks and flagged anything that looked good- again, as a family. We’ve been doing about three new meals/week right now (though I’m sure we won’t sustain that pace), and we’ve found some serious winners. The Sichuan Pork Ragu from the Lucky Peach cookbook is a winner, as was the “Dollar Dumplings” recipe.

Anyway. That’ll do for now, I think.