SitRep

Ah, yes. Here we are, again.

I’ve made the move to the new headquarters- it’s still chaos, with boxes and stuff strewn all about, but there’s progress being made. Nearly all the stuff has made it’s way here, and the stuff that hasn’t is scheduled to come soon, so that’s good (insofar as it means I’ll have all the pieces to this particular puzzle- even if the puzzle isn’t finished, so to speak).

I’m behind on the newsletter. There’s just not much time right now to dig through the web to find the nuggets that are worth sharing. Indeed, I’d rather send nothing than send a lame/half-assed edition. These should be back soon.

The (new) house presents a number of projects/problems to solve:

  • I’ve cut the cord on our cable subscriptions- we have high speed internet only. That means I’ve had to do some work to build a system that will allow us to continue to enjoy watching tv with as little trouble as possible. Right now, I’m running a Plex server (which, if you’re unfamiliar with, is totally awesome). That server holds our movies and archived tv shows, and makes them available to any of our devices, regardless of their physical location. So that’s good. I’ve also installed a plugin that allows for watching live tv via the same interface- it uses a ip-enabled set of digital tv tuners. There’s some software in the works to allow that to function as a DVR for network television- so that will solve the time-shift problem, and I’ve begun exploring running Rasplex on some Raspberry Pi Zero’s to turn some old monitors into smart tv’s. That’s a neat prospect, especially given a Pi Zero costs $5. The control of that device is the current sticking point- I’m unwilling to have a keyboard/mouse connected. It needs to be something much more remote-like. Still $5!
  • The internal house network also has taken some work- the house, despite only being a couple of years old, wasn’t wired for data. At all. Sure, they ran hard phone lines and coax all over the place, but no data. The phones lines were even run in old-school four conductor wire- not eight (which is what data needs, really). Stupid. And I loath the prospect of snaking wires, so I’ve picked up a powerline data system- I’m wary, but the reviews are good, and if it works, it solves my problem without me cutting into walls.
  • The house has a number of heating and cooling zones- but it has the oldest kind of thermostats, ever. Remember those round ones that you turn the ring on? Yeah. Those. Totally unacceptable. So I’m looking at moving to smart thermostats (Nest 3.0’s, if you want to be specific about it…) but they’re $250 each, and that’s a pile of loot all together. So I’ll likely do one on the first floor (where we spend a lot of time), and then expand over time as well. I’ve got a Nest Protect around here somewhere too- I should get that installed.
  • Storage in the garage is a horror show. It’s a two car garage, but there’s a ton of my junk in it- and combined with the rider mower we now have, there’s no room for my car. So: much shelving- and it can’t rest on the floor. So wall mounted or ceiling hung- those are my choices. And bike winches. Lots of bike winches.

That’s house stuff. Other projects include:

  • Finishing a tiny backpack for a 2 year old
  • Building a new studio space
  • Video essay progress
  • Rooftop fly rod transport
  • Further car modifications (re: aux lighting)
  • Custom rubber stamp procurement
  • Physical archive project (this will expand over time, but I’ve already created and had made a full archive of all my tweets between 08/18/2012 and 12/09/2015. I’ll need to figure out a way to go back further than that, and this should also expand to video and photos, too).
  • My new computer rig- this is a post-christmas project. Looking like a 27″ Retina iMac of some sort- with lots of storage and whatnot.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s it for now.