📁 03-23

Still waiting for Google to crawl this site and finish the webpage indexing. Added a Hugo entry in the Web category that includes the steps I took to link this Github page with Google Search Console. It’s really not that complicated. And I’d be lying if I said thinking about my recently borked Thinkpad didn’t sting my psyche a little. On the plus side, I might step into the world of Apple for a little while and see how the water feels. Maybe I’ll splash around a bit and see what happens.

I’m not Jim Halpert, but still.. the job interview process..

Updated 🔗 FFmpeg to include how to batch crop images with 🔗 XnConvert. I guess my current situation is better than hunting for jobs on a strict diet of baked potatoes.

They say you reap what you sow–not sure paying half the rent/utilities from the couch for eight months or all the rent/utilities for a year entitled me to a strict diet of potatoes (pre-2013 ‘karma’). Thankfully I’ll never have to go through that again. Perhaps it’s time to learn how to tie a tie.

Kev has Jim’s back yo

I posted a song by Ratatat called Seventeen Years in 🔗 Music Blog for March 2023. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, because I’ve been an adult since 2003, but I didn’t write the song Seventeen Years. The music was created by Ratatat (lyrics by Young Churf). The video was created by a bunch of talented artists. The premise of the video is about rainforest deforestation, habitation destruction, and the effects it has on the planet. Raccoons seem to be globally recognized creatures, so it makes sense they were used in the video instead of Toucan Sam or King Kong.

I guess I have another story to tell after all. When I was ten I helped Dad build a fenced in area for a garden. Which sounds normal right? Wild animals eat unprotected produce all the time. So, I chopped down all the small crab apple trees required (by myself) with a normal sized axe, cut the trees to length, and then we assembled the fence. I wanted to cut down more trees, because that’s fun right? No access to 90s cable TV type boredom. I guess I was posturing during a conversation, so Dad bet me that I couldn’t cut down a medium sized oak tree that was way to close to the house. Just a prideful bet.

Naturally, I woke up early the next morning and spent six hours chopping into that oak tree. Did I mention it was close to the house? What happened next was like a scene out of that show the Beverly Hillbillies. The tree nearly took out the bay window on the side of our double wide mobile home. We lived within biking distance of a pond, and Dad couldn’t drive anymore due to reasons, so that was cool.

The town was so tiny that the middle school was also a high school (grades 6-12..). The magnet program for that school was agricultural, which included real life cows. Not at a nearby pasture, there was a literal cow pasture attached to the side of the high school. Like, people showed up to class in literal cowboy boots (lots of rattlesnakes in Hawthorne, FL). Instead of this example of a morning announcement: “the owner of the blue Corolla left their lights on”, morning announcements where more like: “the owner of the blue chevy left a shotgun in their gun rack”. I went to both types of schools, and the same inflection was used for either announcement.

What’s my point? I don’t have one. Also, I never developed a fear for dentists. That’s not it.

Those darn kids!

Magnesia Springs was a strange place in the early 90s..

I can’t see myself shilling out this website on Reddit or Imgur. I’m not even sure I could pull off a post that ends in positive numbers on those websites. My social media presence as a whole is statuesque at best.

If it wasn’t for a mixture of insanity and a love for this quirky thing known as Linux, I wouldn’t have themed out this site and wrote all these gosh darn notes.

With all that said, not one single click from Google searches. I guess my SEO skills are on par with my social media skills.

I like to build things, cut wood into smaller pieces, and design trinkets for 3D printing. I recently sketched out an existing porch in Blender 3D. The porch steps need handrails, so ah, that’ll be fun.

Sharks of Scranton, PA

About a week ago I traded my busted Thinkpad for a packet of magic legumes. A few days ago a neck tie and a Logitech Streamcam grew out of those very fine legumes. Now if I could only rock the square toed dress shoe that John Krasinski wears in The Office (S07E19 - Garage Sale). I’d be the talk of every virtual meeting. Don’t worry about me, I won’t be handing out all my millions though. I learned as a kid that I should only give my money to those in need (or at least someone I’m acquainted with IRL), and I’ve stuck to that principle ever since. Also social media comments. Can’t be giving away all that comment gold right?

Anyway, I just recently developed a very serious addiction to Skyrim, so I added a 🔗 note about fixing input lag (keyboard/mouse). Speaking of input lag, there’s an Xbox One controller on this desk, but I’ll leave the controller input lag testing to the controller experts. I use this controller for sports games like skateboarding, fishing, & racing–oh and I guess indie games too. I’ll also leave the game play and walkthrough details to the very kind and very capable PC/console game Tubers.

Oh, and one more thing. I guess I should include the porch sketch I made via CGI software with a namesake of a certain kitchen appliance. Toaster 3D. The sketch was made just to illustrate what was in my head. Let’s call it a project approval sketch (not my porch). I had to relearn the software, so it took about five hours. I’m new to pocket holes, Japanese pull saws, and Japanese wood rasps, so this’ll be interesting. I won’t be posting photos due to privacy concerns. And if the steps have any lateral wiggle, I’ll ask a neighbor for a cup of hammer drill and Tapcons to help screw it down. That’s what people do right? They ask neighbors for random stuff? When I built the steps I placed pavers under the steps to prevent any Z axis slippage. So if needed I can anchor the steps to the concrete pavers.

I use to use Tapcon anchors to secure residential A/C condensers to precast concrete pads when I was an HVAC mechanic. And I built a lot of aluminum boxes. Lots of box making in that job. Good god, those tin snipes they showed in The Office (S08E09 - Mrs. California) would have been extremely helpful. Precast leveling, copper brazing, wading through fiberglass, strapping, flex ducts, building fiberglass boxes, building PVC drain pipes, and trying not to catch the customer(s) on fire with the oxyacetylene torch. Some customers couldn’t figure out that a torch hot enough to weld silver to copper is dangerous. My acting role was HVAC Mechanic, but I guess that’s not my typecast. For some reason there’s a LOT of typecasting here in North Central Florida.