The house I’d getting back to normal, so it’s time to get to work. Last night, rather than doing anything useful, especially after the joy of my commute home, I played some State of Decay, decent game. The logic behind some of the mechanics is less than stellar, but it is fun.
That was last night though. Before bed I hunted down one of my electronics books, and think I finally understand how a transistor works. I think. I have an entire to-do list of projects to get on.
First order of business well probably be light. The garbage and recycling are picked up today so I’ll have room to unpack my finger optic angel, with a bit of finagling I think I might be able to make that into a viable and efficient light source. It’s still in its box right now so I’ll find out tonight. Based on age the amount of light I think I engender it putting out, I’m guessing it’s using an appliance bulb. So, figure out what’s in it, and then decide what I’ll do to bend this captured angel to my will.
Of course while working on things like this I also have work on just making my den of inequity habitable. I need to get our more recycling. I need to play more Oliver North. I need to remove more labels from me beer bottles. I actually got on that one again last night.
Public Transportation
There are days I hate this shit. Not to the level that I would want to drive in rush hour, but like I should really do something where I can telecommute our something. But without the tele-, hate talking on the phone.
Today’s evening commute started with either my bus being a no show or really early or double-dog really late. Either way in an effort to make it home faster I chose option two. Option two isn’t too bad except that it’s second leg starts up with a crap incline to the stop, has every dreg of the u-district on it, and meanders through half of Seattle. In an effort to get home earlier I text the wif my regarding predicament as, if I stay on the first bus over stop and five extra minutes I end up at the Northgate park-and-ride. Which, if she picks me up there cuts off 15 minutes to hour of my commute with 20 minutes of her efforts. Unfortunately, she didn’t get back to me until I was already off the bus and waking up to the bus stop where my bus is leaving.
But I digress, did I mention the fuck head with his vaporizer? Guy obviously didn’t get the memo that that shit isn’t cool on the bus, otherwise I’d be drinking from a hip flask and in a much better mood. And then some ass got on the bus, and despite my still, relatively, svelte frame he couldn’t shit down without half ways sitting on my leg. This guy proceeds to watch, with what I can only assume is a simpleton’s wonderment me playing sudoku. Now if he had been rich our influential and saw my mad puzzle solving skills that works have been cool, but he got off in the u-district, so I can only assume he’s an intern.
Now I’m on the 48, with practically an empty bus meandering around Greenlake, posting to a blog about first world problems.
Progress
I ground down two gallons of my apples last night in the food processor and tried to extract using a sieve. It was not fruitful. The grinding itself took far longer than I thought it should, and there was apple slurry spilling everywhere even after I remembered how to use the damnable device. When it came to putting the filth through the sieve, the only time I was getting any extraction was by using a spatula to create a small high pressure zone along the sieve. I think by next season I’ll go ahead and build a new press. I’ll build it the way I should have built this one. I’ll build it with love, or maybe some forethought.
In the next couple of weeks I’ll just buy 16 cans of concentrate of some bullshit. That’s the ticket.
So much to do
I still need to redo the theme with dynamic image handling and shit. A couple posts ago I made the mistake of doing it on my computer, I figured I would just grab the accent picture off of Instagram. Oops. I appreciate they want to make it difficult for others to grab your pictures, so I logged in. No dice. I suppose I could do a little bit of work and grab it that way, or I could share it over to my desktop. However, all of the above is a work around for the weird quasi-ownership inherent to Instagram, and the rest of social media for that matter.
Is the picture mine. I took it, however it’s only published state is after adding one of a handful of stock filters, and maybe some rudimentary attempt at cropping. Does what Instagram provides with their app create a new derivative work that dependent on the current TOS, belong to them now? I’m not trying to be all tinfoil hat, I don’t think Instagram our anyone else for that matter wants my photos. But. The dreaded but. Nothing has ever been done with malicious intent or suspect ethics except in hindsight.
More importantly, I want more. I want borders. I want photos that match the theme, even after the theme changes. I want room service!
Once I…
Get the cider going and have a chance, I need to get the cabinet at my parents. Perfect size for slapping a cannot with an airlock on the top, and easy enough to vent, insulate, or whatever. Dynomite! Look at hooking up a computer fan for increased vent flow, potentially mounts for my bucket on the top. I should look at temperature monitoring, make sure I’m staying on the sweet spot for the fermentation. I’ll probably over ferment, just because I really don’t want exploding beer/cider. Best way ever to put an end to this experiment. After I bottle… ooh! Science! Once the brew is bottled, take a temperature. From that, and the height of brew in said bottle, we can determine the gas pressure. As the natural carbonation occurs, the brew will warm with increased pressure based on the last of the great doing it’s thing. Genius. If course, I’ll need to determine the failure point of the bottles. I should email Kristi (one of my sisters). The question of the day being is increasing the temperature of a bottle to undissolve gas bubbles going to increase or decrease the pressure holding capability. It’s not like I’m going to get any where close to that pressure, but there is being sure and they is being certain.
I also have an angel now. No, really, it’s some weird light up angel thing that my mom found to be a little off. I figure I’ll turn it into a light source art some point. After the household goes back to normal. Do we want to make it a Weeping Angel, or something out of the Styx song Come Sail Away? Maybe something different, something new. Basically it’s going to be an awesome lamp. An illuminated lamp. Hahaha!
Then there is the desk, um still not getting like it’s as sturdy as I want. I’m going have to look at beating on some more sheet metal, probably using my failed press as a fulcrum. I really need to get something going across the back to tie it all together. After that it’s just a matter of augmenting and decor.
Cider Results
The press was a failure. Before I cranked the jack through even an inch of apples it was starting to fail. There was no seal around the presser, which meant I was getting geysers of apple chunks. The frame began to splinter soon after. The cleanup was a pain, and output delivery was inefficient.
10/10 would play again.
You never realize how much mess you’re about to make til after the fact. I for reals had six inch sprays of cider chunks going up, resembling vomit more than juice. I think some splinters may have gotten in, which isn’t actually a problem as I’m going to be sieving everything anyway. Tomorrow, tonight being too late to be doing it, I’m going to rock the food processor on the remnants. Today I am only a man, tomorrow I will be the immortal embodiment of Jack LeLane. Once I get the apples blended, I’ll just pop them through a fine sieve to get rid of the bigger junks, and get fermenting. Its not like I’m not going to have to strain it all again anyway.
The Wif keeps on getting on me for being hard on myself as I describe my attempt as a failure. Its no that being hard on myself, its that I believe failure is not a problem. I keep trying to make a new quote, something like:
If you revel only in your success, you revel too little. If you revel in your failures every day is a fete.
Something like that, you know, inspirational shit.
ps. If you ever desire to read some ass quotes about failure, I recommend . Except Chis Hardwick’s, because he’s pretty much right in my opinion.
If I Only Had a Plan
Sung to “if I Only Had a Brain”
Because I’m all done with all my projects.
Ha. Hahaha. Mwuahaha! Snicker.
Because I need more stuff to do. I’m like Marine Corps hero Chesty “stupid (enemies), they’ve got us surrounded, now we can sour in any direction.” Puller. I like to have so many projects, books, and games in purges at once that no matter what I want to do, I’m making progress.
My mom has done sort patterns for me, so the next time I there is when I’m gonna to teach myself to sew (on a machine). Doubly important as all my clothes are on the backend of played out. I have to do laundry mid week just to have enough clean clothes sometimes. Once I’ve got the machine down, I think I’m gonna start augmenting. Right now I’m looking at the materials available, and thinking of what to do. Should I be making blinkies, smart clothes that keep me connected, or clothes that are more tailored to me? Using some of the fiber optic cloth, I could make a (simple) seven segment display. Our I could light a cuff on my sleeve when my phone rang using a Bluetooth module. I wonder what all I’d need to measure to get a relatively accurate imitation of someone’s blood sugar with penetration.
Oohhh. Biometric scans: pulse, conductivity, capacitance, and temperature. Probably take the readings from multiple spots. Combine that with my describing how I feel at any given point and I might be able to get a good picture. Then… hook that through some LED rhinestone action to show little Zelda style hearts. I totally should do this. Start with the logging functionality and get my data points. Probably have a hook to my Twitter to make it easier to keep everything time accurate. So clothing logs, transmits via Bluetooth to phone that posts to Twitter. Concurrently I post through the day to Twitter about what condition my condition is in, thank you Kenny Rogers.
I need to find out how to do organic equations or whatever the fuck that smart sounding stuff is. Where computers learn and stuff. That’s be cool.
Engineers Give Me a Sad Sometimes
My mother-in-law just got in to town last night, this morning while I’m taking a shower the water goes cold. I know what this is. This too well not pass, not by its volition at least.
Our townhouse has an inline water heater. Amongst the multitude of safety features on it is a low flow detector. If at any point the flow drops too far, it stops pushing water which makes sense, it’s trying to alleviate the possibility of a leak dumping water everywhere at exactly one point in the water heading process. Except that’s not it acutely does, instead any time the flow is impeded too far, by the inline filter, it craps out. Rather than throwing a beeping sound or a warning message, I had to finish my now frozen shower and fuck around in the garage this morning.
Record Broken
My entire career in the printing industry can be summed up with one goal. I don’t want to be one of those sad fucks who blows out their back. I’m not sure what all I did, but mine now feels like ass, my right hand tingles and my feet are go to sleep if I sit too long. It wasn’t in the course of battling the Daemon Lord of Print Spooling. No mere paper paper cut lay me down. A ream of 100# stuck in each hand is as nothing to me.
In my hubris, much like the Norse god Balder(sp?), where he was felled by humble mistletoe, I was vanquished by the Wif’s dirty laundry. This is not a metaphor.
The Cider Press was Totally Finished
Last night before dinner I finished building the cider press. Tonight will be it’s first run. Iv assume it’s last as well. Of course I’ll take pictures, before and after, but I think it’ll have to be rebuilt before a new batch.