Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1500
Chores chores chores so many weekend chores. Unifi cameras, DIY shop filters, gardening, studio build work.
Good morning, good morning. Wow, issue #1,500. Some kind of milestone, I guess. What’s it been? Five years? Well, thank you, dear GMHHAY readers. You are a special bunch. Keep me sane.
Did you have a nice holiday weekend? I hope you had a nice holiday weekend. I did. Lovely chores, chores, chores, just the best.
I somehow still managed to feel anxious and depressed about the world yesterday, a Monday. Seems that the sheen of a holiday could not completely wipe away the stench of a Monday under fascism, I guess. We saw some friends of ours and their kids this Sunday, and I was standing at the playground with my friend Tom, just talking about it like it’s a disease. “Well, you know, most of the time I feel okay, but then I remember or learn about some new horror or atrocity and feel sick to my stomach and ill. And then I sort of suffer that for a few days until I realize I need to live my life and I can’t spend all my time like this, then I force myself to get over it, and that sort of works for a few days, until the guilt sets in or a new atrocity arises.”
The depressing thing, of course, is that any one of us could be saying this to anyone, and Tom is just like “yep, yep, I know it well.”
But enough of that let’s talk about other things.
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We are listening to Caroline Spence this morning, country artist, her recent(ish) album Spades and Roses, a recommendation by GMHHAY reader Keith who proclaimed her “the best female country singer” after reading about my current foray into current female country singers. He isn’t completely off the mark. She is pretty great. A voice sorta like Margot Price, more moody music, and, you know, being a depressive, I like moody music.
But I know what you’re hear for, maaan. You want to hear about the chores.
Friday I focused on trying to get this air filter thingy made. Back when I first started working up in the attic, I brought Jane up there and her little pink workbench and she kept me company and it was so great. But after a day of that I realized that the sawdust in the air was a problem and a) I should wear a mask, and b) I shouldn’t expose my daughter to this. So I started doing research on the best shop air filter, and it lead me to this DIY kit. Why, yes, I would like 3X better than the Powermatic shop filter or 7X better than the Wen one for only $200 of parts. Small business? Check! Download the plans from the internet, no shipping? Great! Sold.
But then I realized how complicated the cut list was for the thing. And the plans, fan, filters, and little kit of hardware I got from the website, well, they all just sat there. For, like, six months. I realized it would need a whole day dedicated to it. But I didn’t want to take away from the studio build time. Eventually I decided the solution was to do it on a long weekend.
The whole process involved buying a sheet of special plywood, lugging it home (I kept forgetting to ever add it to my weekly Lowe’s delivery order), then cutting it into six pieces, then carving each piece with my router, jigsaw, multitool, and circular saw, each side according to a blueprint:
And then once you get all six sides cut up, you assemble the thing and then you seal it up with silicone caulking. And I could only do, like, part of the seal job each day, and so it took three days to caulk and seal.
BUT I am finally done with the cube. I’m not done with the whole filter, I still gotta paint it, add the fan, the filters, the hardware, mount the switch, probably 3D print a plate to mount the switch cuz the one that comes with the kit is outdated. Total pain.
I mean, is it worth it? I dunno, man. $200 of parts is on par with the cost of most of the shop filters on Amazon. Hard I just bought a filter, I would have had this thing up and running six months ago. I love a DIY project, but the DIY projects I like to do either a) cannot be bought at all, therefore you’re solving a problem the only way it can be solved, or b) save a lot of money. This was neither, and I would have had clean air up there for, like, six months now had I just bought one.
Hrm it seems I forgot to take a picture of the cube as it is currently assembled. Sorry about that.
Took the better part of a day, and I didn’t even finish. Though I did also manage that day to get all the ceramic tile moved. The old owner of Chore House kept all the spare tile in the attic and it was sitting right where I needed to pull up the floor, so I lugged that shit downstairs and then down into the crawlspace my god tile is so heavy.
Saturday I did my gardening in the morning. I harvested the garlic finally, not as good as last year’s crop but solid. It is now drying in the garage and the whole garage smells like garlic and I kinda like it. I refreshed that bed and planted it with peppers. I planted some more mesclin, harvested the last of the winter carrots and refreshed that bed. I planted one of each of all the remaining types of basil I had. I set up the irrigation in the old garlic bed. Total pain, got a chigger bite. I found some probably-too-old plants hiding in the greenhouse that I had forgotten to plant: a grape vine, a raspberry bush. I planted them, though I don’t have high hopes for them, though it is gonna rain all week so whoe knows. One time I kept an apple tree in a bag in the garage for nine months, planted it and it thrived. Plants can last a long time without water. Sometimes.
I have been sort-of wondering what to do about my strawberry bed. It is on year three so a little thin. But It is already half-full with strawberry plants, so I don’t think I should just pull up the whole bed and redo it. So I opted for a refresh, bought 3-4 Strawberry plants (and found an old one) and pulled all the old dead plants from last year and covered the soil with a couple inches of compost and planted the new plants in the empty patches in the bed. It was not a perfect job, but it’ll do, I think. I’m too lazy about picking them anyway I am old and hate getting on my knees, I should have made it a taller bed. Alas.
Oh and Jane had been learning about seeds at school and grew a pea and a sunflower from seed and we planted those into one of the beds. That was very cute. She was not as all-in on gardening with daddy this week as last week. But it was still nice.
Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday I worked on the attic studio build. I pulled up the old flooring on about a hundred square feet in front of the door, pulled out the old insulation, cleaned it out, added Safe N Sound, and added the new subfloor. Here, I’ll make a little triptych for you.
That does not look like a lot. Well, there is more over on the right, behind that HVAC register where the vocal booth was. I mean, it would have been nice to spend all four days of the holiday weekend just working on the attic, that would have been amazing. But a man has other chores.
Also I want you to know, it is important to know, that I meticulously go over every single one of those joists with my multitool, carving the incredibly hard, incredibly difficult to remove subfloor adhesive the original contractor used jesus why couldn’t they just use Advantech like everyone else. That shit comes right off. Hours of my life scraping floor joists. Maybe a hundred hours by the time this is done.
Monday I had hoped to get two large chores done: get the cameras set up outside that Emma had asked for ages ago, and to finally deal with the giant pile of stuff I got from my mom’s apartment. The stuff has been filling up the entire dining room since it all arrived from Alaska like a month ago. I need to deal with it.
I decided to start with the cameras. And they took all day. They are Unifi POE cameras, so I need to run CAT6 cable from the IT rack to where I want the cameras. One of them is the door outside Emma’s office, that one is easy (ish). The other two were very long runs that crossed both part of the lawn and a path, which meant putting the cables into wiring looms and trenching them. Also all of this cable is bare cable, so I had to add the ethernet jacks to the end, and this is not my forté: very small and delicate and hard to see. Difficult activity for a blind man with fat hands. BUT I got it done, and all three cables tested right the first time, yay me.
I actually ran out of cable about 100 feet short of the Turtle Dock. Remember the turtle dock I made? Well, it is getting a camera. But I did get the camera set up outside Emma’s door, and I got one set up pointed at our dock. I got the turtle one most of the way there, got the hard part done — out of the house, trenched across the grass, trenched across the path. Ordered more cable and an outdoor coupler and those will be here this week and I’ll get her done.
Also I got these sweet wooden camoflague cases for the cameras in the woods you can totally not see them. I should have taken a picture for you. I forgot. I really get in the zone when I am doing chores, it’s hard to remember to stop even for pictures. This is why I make a terrible youtuber. Though I am considering trying again for the studio nonetheless.
Anyway, as consolation here is a still image from the camera covering the dock:
I know, I know. Not 4K. But I can swap the camera out later when I am feeling flush. Right now using a bunch of used G3 Flexes I bought as a lot on eBay for like no money.
Also I gotta cut that branch.
Other weekend activities: Breakfast with Jane each day, lovely. Took her to the playground Sunday morning, and we hit another one with our friends in the evening after a lovely dinner. Oh shit, actually, three playgrounds: Emma and I took Jane to the posh playground with a zipline on Friday. We like going to playgrounds as a family. Jane runs around and plays with people and Emma and I actually get to talk, uninterrupted, at a time that is not too early (for her) in the morning or too late (for me) in the evening.
Also before chores on Saturday, Jane begged me to do chalk drawings with her on the driveway and even though I wanted to get started on my shitty shop fan plans, reader, I took that chalk, I hunkered my old bones down to the pavement and I drew chalk with my daughter. This is what memories are made of, right people.
Got a shoegaze playlist for you today so much shoegaze never stop shoegazing. All bands new to me, except Rocket (saw them open for Ride last year) and the Raveonettes. SO many new shoegaze bands. Oh wait I think I knew Tremors before this month. And Maria False? Maybe? Not sure, not sure.
Righty-o let’s go try and turn our brain back on to work I can do that. You can do that. We can all remember work, right? Byeee.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.