Well, today has been strange. I woke up at 5AM to the sound of intense wind. There were two brownouts between 5 and 7AM, then a 40 minute blackout at 9-ish.
I took the time without power to connect a uninterruptible power supply that has been sitting in my junk pile, organize the rat’s nest of power cables behind my desk, and wipe down the floor. There were a ton of dust bunnies, and I found more than a few spider nests attacked to the underside of AC/DC wall warts.
I drove two screws into the wall, on which I mounted one of my power strips. It’s looking a lot cleaner, and the floor in that area is now clear.
I have another power strip, which I would like to mount as well. Maybe if the power goes out again, that’ll be what I work on.
Something is up with my internet connection. I might have hit some sort of soft cap, but I think there’s a more likely scenario.
My parent’s home internet is down, which leads me to believe that it’s not just them. I think this wind has knocked out a lot of internet infrastructure, and people are jumping on their phones instead.
I’m feeling guilty about something. I tried to cancel my attendance at today’s game group, because my internet is super slow right now. The scheduling staff forwarded my call to the wrong clinician, so I hung up and gave up.
So I haven’t really cancelled. I tried, but I didn’t get through… So I almost cancelled.
Goddamnit!
ok hold on, I want to fix that and get it off my mind.
Ok I called again, and got a different scheduling person. They said it was a common situation today for people to call and cancel due to weather issues.
Well my internet isn’t down, so I kinda lied by saying that my internet is down. It’s just super fucking slow..
Ah shit, Nyanners is streaming right now. There’s too much to fucking do! Too many streams to fucking see! I haven’t even caught up with Ironmouse’s 7 hour birthday stream yet. I just finally caught up with Vshojo’s first Final Fantasy stream.. But I didn’t even get to see it all. Ironmouse had to end her stream because she was feeling sick, but apparently she kept playing and went voice-only. I hope I can catch the VOD of that stream via one of the other Vshojo girl’s channels.
I had to put my phone by my far window in order to get a signal. My phone is usually my pomodoro timer, so I’m looking for an alternative.
Oh shit, I found gnone-shell-pomodoro which is super nicely designed! This might just be my new timer. I’ll give it a shot.
I made an impulse purchase. I bought a used 3D Printer, filament, and M5 25mm bolts. This wedding assignment has got me all sorts of hyped up. I am going to make phone mounts for all the phones and/or GoPro cameras that I’m planning on using.
Check this shit out. It’s a GoPro compatible collection of parts which can be used to mount cameras and phones and whatever else!
It uses mostly 3D printed parts, with the exception of the joints which are M5 bolts and nuts. I found a recommended bolt and nut and bought 50 of each. It’s ~$17 before shipping. The company I bought from has a terrible website. https://www.mcmaster.com/
It’s like it was designed in the 90’s and never updated since then. User input means nothing to the website about 75% of the time. The 25% of the time that user input does actually get through to the website, there is no visual indication that the input has caused any sort of effect. I bet it’s riddled with insecurities. Like ew, totally ew!
It’s surprising that a company that has branches all over the USA has such bad tech. Eh, honestly, it’s not surprising. They’ve probably got a few major corporate contracts with clients that fax their orders in, and don’t even use the website. It’s the only reason I can see that a website is that bad at this point in time.
I’m stoked. I’ve got so many ideas and implementation plans and I’m really excited to have the opportunity to do a livestream that people will actually watch.
Sure, I could livestream to Twitch right now, but I’d likely see 1 viewer every 5 hours.
Also the internet issue. I might as well name the stream, “Welcome to Bufferville!”
Ok so I want to talk about the wedding because that’s on my mind and my obsession with it right now is overwhelming.
To solve the problem of internet bandwidth at the rural venue, I found Speedify. It’s an app that runs on just about every mainstream platform out there, even Linux! I’ll probably run it on my sister’s iPad or something like that. Speedify sets up a channel bonding VPN, which is a way of combining two or more internet connections into a single connection, which is rock solid, and redundant.
I could do that sort of thing myself, but that would take a lot more time and research. Speedify is $9.99 a month for their 1 month subscription, which is completely reasonable for a one day wedding event.
I’m not sure of the details yet, but I’m going to find some volunteer family members to loan me their phones or pay for a wifi hotspot. I’ll combine my phone, and at least two other phones and we should have enough bandwidth for a stable livestream. IDK what sort of resolution I’ll be able to achieve yet. If it’s at least 720p, I’ll be happy with that. 1080p would be icing on the cake, but we can figure out that detail later on when I can put together a wet rehearsal.
Ok so the next thing is video. IDK if I talked about this in my journal yet. I remember listing the categories
- Internet
- Video
- Power
- Audio
I’ve since changed those categories to
- Internet
- Video/Audio
- Power
- Production
As far as Video/Audio, I’ve canned the idea of using HDMI cameras like the Canon VIXIA series. Nothing wrong with HDMI, but I’m going for wireless cameras in this case.
I want to rent 2 GoPro Hero 8 cameras. They have good video, decent enough audio, and they can stream to any RTMP server. I saw rental prices for these cameras at $40 for 7 days (each), but I could probably search around for a better deal somewhere. There might even be somewhere local which could… No I change my mind on that. I doubt there is anyplace local that does camera rental, because that is way too niche for Spokane.
Next is to use spare cellphones as cameras. I have two extra OnePlus One phones which I got set up yesterday for live streaming with IP Webcam app.
I’m diggin’ this Pomodoro app. It automatically starts the work period, at the moment I touch my mouse or keyboard following a break period. That’s going to keep me accountable, and force me to really pay attention to what I’m spending my time doing on the computer.
My mom stopped by and gave me some hummus and tortilla chips. Yum! She also gave me a red painted wooden gift box which will be great for storing inventory.
I mounted my other power strip to my wall, to the right rear of my desk. It’s looking super nice back there! Now I just need a longer USB cable to run to my Silhouette Cameo 3, and I’d have easy access to that corner of my room. As it stands, the cable is draped across the gap between my computer desk and my dresser where my Cameo 3 is at.
I have no idea where I’m going to put my Creality Ender 3. There might be enough room atop my dresser, to the right of where my Cameo 3 is at. But that’ll displace a stack of storage boxes which are up there right now. I could use another inventory shelf. I really like the one that’s in the center of my apartment.
That shelf has empty space, but I really want that shelf to stay dedicated to items that are for sale on eBay.
Speaking of items for sale on ebay, I pulled a USB phone power adapter from invetory so I could keep my phone topped up while it acts as my hotspot in it’s area over by my south window.
I wonder if there’s an electrical interference caused by my moving my left power strip. I could see those cheap wall warts emitting EMF and interfering with my phone.
The timing is just too difficult to say either way. There was disruption to various internet services, that is certain. My parent’s wifi didn’t have any internet this morning, and I heard one gentleman via amateur radio comment on how his cable internet was out. It makes sense that people in the area are using their phones as a failover.
Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up for now.
I’m grateful for electricity. While the electricity was out for 40 minutes today, I had flashbacks to the time in 2015(?) 2016(?) when we had a massive windstorm that left us without power for 7 days. I’m glad that this windy day did not result in a repeat of that situation, and I’m glad that my workflow was only interrupted for about 40 minutes.
I could have kept working on battery power. My laptop would have lasted for 1.5 to 2 hours, and I had internet throughout via my cell phone… The only thing I really lost temporarily were my 2 external monitors.
Anyway, I took a break when that happened, and I’m grateful that I did, because now I have better cable organization, and a decluttered floor.
I’m grateful for my mom, who checks in with me every now and again, and gives me food. She always goes out of her way to make something that I can eat when we have family dinners on the weekends. She’s a kind and caring person and I really appreciate her.
I’m grateful for tea. I have started drinking herbal teas pretty regularly, and I enjoy having a bit of flavor, with a lot of warmth. Note to self, don’t buy Kroger brand decaf black tea– it tastes like fish. Unlucky for me, I bought a big container of it. Being frugal like I am, I’m going to drink it all, but that’ll be the last time I buy Kroger tea!
Ahhhg, I’m supposed to be expressing gratitude right now, but I’m expressing distaste!
Ah well, I am me, and that’s what I thought about. I’m grateful to live in such a peaceful place to where such little issues like the unsatisfactory flavor of tea is my greatest concern of the moment.
Excelsior!
44. Self care is really important to me. Today I will be kind to myself.
34. I am thankful for…
33. The answer is right before me, even if I do not see it now.
