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"Quick" nap

Today after I had finished my dinner I felt a vit tired. I decided to lay down on the couch and close my eyes for a moment.

After what felt like 15 - maybe 30 minutes max I opened my eyes. I felt a bit disoriented, thought I must have fallen a sleep for a moment - until I checked the clock: quarter past nine! I had slept for almost three hours.

Doing your research

We had our annual board meeting of our housing cooperative yesterday where we decided to start planning the renovation of our water piping. After the meeting I started doing some research on the subject, specially about the material of the pipes.

While there are a couple of options to reuse the existing pipes with different techniques I think the better option is to get completely new pipes. For that there is also a couple of options, mainly whether having them made of copper or plastic.

It's winter again

We've had a couple of "springs" already this year only to be set back to the winter again. The first one was unexpected and came early. I'm sure nobody thought of that as the final one at the time.

The second time looked a bit more promising. It was late enough that it could have very well bean real, uet early spring. As with the first one this one too felt a little too good to be true. It was more than probable that we would still get a set back before the real spring would arrive.

Building a spaceship is hard work

Making something that go into space is the actual rocket science. Sure someday there will be other methods to get there but I'm pretty sure that will require something much harder than that.

Building just a fake spaceship takes a lot of effort too, even if you don't have to solve the real hard questions. We are trying to make a school look and feel like a starship! Definitely not an easy task.

Back to the deep end

Today, after work we will once again have our psychological safety groups organized "deep talk" evening. Last time the event was fantastic and I stayed with a few fellow colleagues until the wee hours discussing various things.

When I saw the invite for this second session I was immediately in. Really looking forward for more of these discussions. Unfortunately I have a relative early morning tomorrow as I need to leave for our upcoming larp project's prep event so this time I can't hang out for too long (and need to skip the wine as well).

Trip wire

I was quite bummed yesterday when I got my new freezer in place and saw how much it protruded out from the cabinets. Even with my prior knowledge of the size difference I wasn't expecting it to stick out that far. I already considered returning the appliances and continue my search for more fitting ones.

I however decided to continue and installed the fridge in place today. To my shock it went all the way back and indeed only left the door (which is still quite thick) sticking out from the cabinet line. Were they different sized?

Deep freezer

I knew this already before, while I was doing my research on the new freezer (and fridge) I noticed that all the new models were deeper in dimensions than the old ones. Only the integrated kind had a bit less depth, but I assume even those would have the same problem: the freezer sticks out from the surrounding cabinets!

Picturing music

After discovering the joy, and should I say magic of making music with the help of an A.I. I also wanted to understand it better. I've always been curious of what makes things work as they do and this wasn't any different.

Model number chaos

After a thorough investigation of different brands and models of freezers and refrigerators I was able to narrow down my choices to two manufacturers. It was not an easy taks and I thought the final decision between these two would be that much more effort. How wrong I was!

 

There were almost as many different models from these two makers tham there was different manufacturers. Choosing a price range helped a little, but still too many options remained. Also the variations between different models made it hard to compare between brands.

Cost of things

My freezer was once again starting to melt. The same thing that happened last summer. This time it lasted less than a year and I don't know how long it would last if I'd still have given it another try as it might have still worked for a while. So I decided to order new one.

Those things aren't cheap. Especially if you want to invest a bit in quality. In the end I chose a brand well known for their high quality and longevity, but which was still on the reasonable price range.

Weird noises

Hearing weird noises around the house can be scary. Especially at night when you are alone. There is usually a natural explanation to all those noises, but it can still make your imagination run wild.

Living with cats for over two decades have gotten me used to hearing such noises all the time. I bet there could be anything happening outside my bedroom door and I wouldn't even bat an eye for those sounds, accounting them for the cats. They are often having zoomies during the night, tipping over stuff and dropping things from the shelves etc.

I should be sleeping already

This wasn't in any way a hard day, or week. Yet still I'm feeling really tired. I didn't even sleep badly last night although I woke up what some people might consider early - at six o'clock.

Yet I've just veen staying up. It's only half past ten, felt too early to go to sleep any earlier on a Friday evening. But I don't really have a schedule, at least bow during the weekend. I could go to sleep early, wake up early.

End of neverending story, part 1

Our current DnD campaign has been going on for just a bit over 5 years now. There has been several occasions when it was already supposed to end. Yet here we are, still playing the same campaign.

This time it's different. We are actually going ro get a closure for the story and move on to the next campaign soon. The last session was supposed to be already this week, but we didn't manage to complete the final battle in time so we still need to continue that for yet another session. That should be the real end.

Internal recruitment

It's quite different going through an interview with a colleague I have worked for years than somebody completely new. There is no need for introductions or telling about the company. In many cases I also know very well how capable they would bee in the new role

A single like

As I've picked the art of creating music with the help of A.I. I have shared some of my songs with my colleagues in our company's Slack. We have a community channel for discussing music there and as many of my songs draw themes from the IT world I assume they would resonate with them if not by the music itself, but at least with the lyrics the tell about their daily work.

Neck pain

I woke up at 3 am this morning due to massive pain in my neck. Didn't sleep much since then despite taking pain killers and doing some stretches. Haven't had such pain for a while.

I remember I used to have sore neck and shoulders years ago almost weekly. Sitting long days in front of the screen can be quite straining to that area of the body.

After a lot of effort in getting in shape, paying attention to my work ergonomics and forming a habit of regular stretching the pain was only a memory. Mostly.

Almost, but not quite right

Doing music with the assistance of A.I. is fun and the results can be surprisingly good. At least if you just want some generic genre (or mix of genres) music. Just put in the lyrics and describe the generic isea what you want. If the results don't satisfy, just hit "generate more" to get another version until you are satisfied.

Light upgrade

Another home convenience upgrade I have done recently was finally bringing my living room/dining area lights part of my smart home system. I originally installed the lights directly to the remote control partly due my philosophy of keeping all my smart things as dump as possible and part because they were one of the first smart devices I got and didn't have the control hub yet.

Verified artist

I was only joking when I first suggested putting my own music up to Spotify for easier listening. But the idea stuck and I had to at least find out what would it take to get my music there.

The first result wasn't encouraging. Spotify has nice instructions for artists on how to get their music on their service. The first thing on the list was basically: have a distributor, we only accept music from qualified distributors.

Quality of life improvements

Small things can make a bog difference. Even though some things can be small annoyances we tend to get uses to them and don't think much of them after we have accepted them as the norm.

The challenge is to identify auch things. There is almost always ways to fix or improve those things. Afterwards it makes me wonder how did I even tolerate those things before.

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