How’s everybody holding up?

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And ask yourself, “do I really need to go?” It’s your choice, no right or wrong answers, it’ll depend on your community’s transmission levels, your own risk aversion preferences, and your state of health and age and vaccination status.

But the risk isn’t yours alone; if you get infected, then there’s some degree of risk to any family, friends, and associates you are with starting from about two days before the onset of symptoms. So bear that in mind as well.

Personally I wouldn’t go to an indoor concert in my area right now. I did go to a movie early in March, during the very brief time my county got down to Low community level, but it’s looking like Doctor Strange is going to have to get along without me.

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Our autistic adult daughter is on a high. We used some of the money from selling her old house to commission a really lovely 3m x 7m extension to the family house (technically the extension is known as an orangery, and yes, she is considering putting potted orange trees in there. We’re at 55 North, it’s basically Norway for most of the year, but what the hell.) It’s accessed through her downstairs bedroom and she has complete control. She has acquired a small parrot, a baby conure called Andrew, and they’re already firm friends. With the cat and the ferret restricted to the rest of the house, Andrew has the freedom of the orangery and he and my daughter often sit together watching television. Parrots are much more visual than humans, they have excellent eyesight and they love motion, colour and sound so Andrew and my daughter watch a lot of animation on Disney+ together.

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Andrew the parrot sounds like a cool guy. Happy for y’all! Having one’s own space near support is a great situation.

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And it’s not just having support nearby. We live in a really lovely neighbourhood where the kind of bullying my daughter faced in her old place would never be tolerated.

She got into an argument with some people who lived in a nearby cul de sac because their dogs would get upset and bark when she walked by with her cat on a leash. After a confrontation she found particularly upsetting, at her suggestion I walked down the street and introduced myself to them with an apology for the incident. The couple explained that they themselves felt under pressure from their next door neighbours because of the barking. I promised that I would explain this to her, and was able to come back and tell her that they were really nice, reasonable people who accepted her apology. She’s autistic, not stupid, so when I told her what nice people they are she stopped the problematic behaviour. The cul de sac people have my mobile number and know they can call me if they ever need my help. They also know that our daughter is a valued member of the family and we look after her.

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Yes, so now we have an actual potted orange tree in our orangery.

This probably makes me sound like one of Lord Fauntleroy’s snootier relatives. I get that, but actually I’m just a working class guy who blundered into London, bought a house I couldn’t afford in a cheap area of London, then hung on by the skin of my teeth (despite numerous county court judgements) until the area was being gentrified and property prices were three times the sum we couldn’t afford in the first place. Then we sold up, and moved back to one of the poorest areas in England with some money to spare.

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Yesterday, after 6 months of fixing up the new house and moving stuff, I was finally able to set up my workbench again. I’ve been really anxious to get back into building and designing again. Ideas have been piling up in the old brain, but without a place to work on them it felt quite frustrating. Hopefully I’ll be more active on here again soon!

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Ahh the virgin workbench…

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No time for building modules at all, was travelling a bit lately. Last week Muscat/Oman for work and before that I was on vacation (more kitesurfing lessons) at this wonderful place:

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Thought i’d post an update about the job situation:

I didn’t get hired at the electronics company. Sad but not a very big deal, other opportunities will come up :slight_smile:

I did get hired at a contracting company. It’s a lot of agricultural and industrial work and also landscaping and gardening. It’s a lot of different things but it’s quite nice. I’m about 6 weeks in now.

First week i’ve been painting some mobile offices and containers at a gravel quarry.

Second week a coworker and i had to help the maintenance crew at a silicate factory with changing the rollers of a massive rotating drum. We were wearing chemical suits and cleaning old grease and product buildup with putty knives, hammer and chisel, a crow bar and a LOT of brake cleaner and rags.

Third week i did some brush cutting and started a very nice job for the regional water council. They are a government body that manage all the surface water.

Last year Germany, Belgium and my part of the Netherlands have been struck with floods after a long dry period and then massive rainfall. The ground could not absorb the water in time and there was a lot of damage, a lot of people lost their house.

We had to clean out some of the rivers, bypasses, overflow channels and water buffers of any blockages and debris. We picked plastic, wood, furniture, tyres, clothes, anything out and disposed it properly. Also we cleaned out branches and trees with a chainsaw and a very long hay fork. I was wearing wade suit in the 30°c temperatures carrying the chainsaw above my head a lot of times.
It was a cool adventure though, and it was nice to be part in cleaning the area where i live, and hopefully also preventing flood damage in the future :slight_smile:

Last friday, heavy weather conditions occured again. There were heavy rain and lightning and there has even been a F0-F1 tornado, which is very rare here.
Again there was damage, but not to as many people as last year.
My coworker and i had to be ready to supply a certain area of sand bags, but they were not needed.

I’m thankful that i didn’t get struck in either, and it was cool to be involved in this way :slight_smile:
I’m excited to see what my new job will bring tomorrow, just not about waking up at 6 in the morning :sweat_smile:

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Good luck with it, I often wish I was doing something more hands on that being stuck behind a desk all day :frowning:

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I’m a little tired with my current job after 16 years so I applied for a new one that sounds super interesting. However I’m not sure if I want to give up a safe and good salary. Had no Interview either yet, let’s see. But I had to apply, otherwise I would have regretted it. If I go for it and get the job you will be amazed.

In other news, our house has fiber internet now :grinning:

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I moved from a 15.5 year job , that was 9 years ago… Was a big leap but seems to be worth it… Moving towards the telling not doing side of the job which I am sad about but my interest in the “technology” is not what it was 25 years ago and guiding the yunguns is more productive…

Couple of years and hard planning will have the mortgage paid off 10 years early and I can relax, maybe quit and follow a dream.

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ahhh fibre ,

we are on DOCSIS3 cable, does not really bother me on internet speed 5-7mbps probably servers us all ok, so the 100mbps we have is wasted.

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Our daughter smashed up my stuff again. Lots of power cords were cut. It will be a while before I know what serious damage has been done but for now it’s all cut cords.

She also cut the high strings (D and G) on my new bass guitar. I’m pretty stuck on this. How can I do anything under the instant threat that my kit will need to be repaired?

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Oh Mate, I’m gutted to hear your news. Was it just cables or has any equipment been damaged?
All the best

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I’m sleeping on it. I’ll check the damage tomorrow.

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flexible metallic conduit maybe?
image

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Aside from the tragedy of this event… You don’t want to leave the bass without two of its strings for too long. The uneven tension might warp the neck. Either add new strings, or release the other two as well.

Good luck dealing with this…

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Max Cavalera 4 strings guitar heavily disagree with this statement. :metal::metal:

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Good tip. I removed the E and A strings from the nut in the course of unwinding the tuners a little. New bass strings are on the way.

Other damage seems to be limited to snipped USB, MIDI and HDMI cables. I haven’t fully checked the synths for sound but I don’t expect any nasty surprises.

Later: when I finally got around to turning on the 27" monitor, there came a major disappointment. The screen has been unsalvagably ruined. Everything else suffered only minor damage. Even the Miniak is happy.

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