Drunken Owls and Other Delights

 It came a day earlier than expected but after I came home from work, so I was here to sign for it. Yay! Setting it up will be my project for my day off tomorrow, as today I will be doing the usual 'copy everything important to an external/to Dropbox and write down all the software I know I'll need to download' and all the fun stuff that comes with setting up a new PC...and somehow still get some of the blogs and whatnot updated! Noted, this may also help me reroute some of the wires so there's not as much loose spaghetti under the desk, heh.

I've had this Lenovo for over three years now and it's the one PC I've had the longest with the least amount of issues. It hasn't failed catastrophically (yet), nor has it had major processing issues...until lately. It's not significant, as things are still running fine. It's just small weird things, like the File Explorer lagging for a few seconds every time I use it, or the fact that the Plex Media Server would disconnect for no reason. 

*sigh* Maybe this PC is finally starting to show its age?

Today I've done a bit of fiddling with the settings and while it's working better now, it's focusing on Performance rather than Appearance so the fonts are looking a bit weird and spindly. I might need to tweak it a little bit more at some point, probably on Thursday when I have a day off and have time for it. Amusingly all the text kind of looks like it's reverted back to Ye Olde Windows 98 Dayes which, y'know, not pretty to look at but at least it's behaving.

If anything, though, if I'm going to have to buy another PC at some point in the future, I'm thinking I'll get another Lenovo because this warhorse has been the best PC I've had in years!

I mentioned this a little bit on yesterday's Welcome to Bridgetown, in which we're shifting many things around on the pretense of getting a cat (!!) -- moving potential cat toys that shouldn't be such to higher shelves, moving plants elsewhere so they're not eaten or knocked over, and so on. We do not have said cat as of yet, but the adoption application has been sent in (the agency's name is Fuzzy Butt Rescue, heh) and we are awaiting a response at this time. Yay for potential cat!!

I have also just inherited a second monitor for Spare Oom from A, which is a first. I never had one here mainly due to lack of space during my Work From Home years. My main monitor has always been, and still is, parked at an angle at the left corner of the desk, mainly to give myself a bit of normal non-PC workspace and keep the wall behind it open for my whiteboard schedule and other things. The only real problem was maybe a bit of shoulder and elbow ache from using the mouse in a slightly elevated and odd position.

Now that I have the monitor plugged in, however, I'm suddenly noticing what I've been missing. Repositioning the speakers further apart and facing them straight on instead of at the 2:00 position is finally letting me properly listen to music, and I can tell the difference. Weird but true! My posture is also so much better, sitting normally in a chair instead of leaning to the right. I've lowered the chair armrests so my shoulders aren't hunching. And yes, I've enlarged the browser to 125% so I can read from a decent distance. 

So what's the new layout? Well, the original monitor is still in the same place. The mouse and pad is now to the right of the new monitor, next to the small legal pad. I've moved my pen holder to that spot behind it that's always been empty (A does the same thing, she says, because her pen holder is a mug and has had many a pen-in-coffee incident). The speakers are now at the edges of the second monitor and slightly angled towards my position. The Media Monkey platform will stay on the older monitor alongside some of the other media things, but the internet browsers and MS Word are now front and center on the new one. So much room to work with!

There are still a few adjustments to be made. The word-a-day calendar will need a new spot somewhere, the whiteboard schedule will need to be shifted up at least a foot, and a few of the wall decorations will need moving, but those are easy changes. I'm thinking maybe even getting a cheap foot rest like the one A has so I'm not putting my feet in weird positions like I am now.

Yeah, I know, silly thing to get excited about, right? Heh.

These first couple of days of the year always feel like a prologue when they start on a weekend like this. We had New Year's Eve and Day off in addition to the weekend so it's an extended vacation in a way. I used to love it when school semesters started like this. It gave me that extra day or so to work on anything I left to the last minute (which, being me, was almost sure to happen). We did quite a bit of walking over those few days, usually to work off all the holiday feasts we'd had! Heh. And today we headed down the other end of the neighborhood for a bit of shopping. I bought a new wireless keyboard because the one that came with my PC is seriously starting to stick, even though I've cleaned it numerous times. Now I just need to make sure I don't get any crumbs in it!

Meanwhile, I put the Christmas tree away yesterday, but with it being a new and much taller fake tree, I had to figure out where to put it as it would definitely not fit under the bed. This meant emptying out Spare Oom closet and reorganizing a good portion of it. It took a lot of sweat and a few hours of creative Jenga, but it's a lot more accessible now. I moved all of A's stuff (yarn stash and canning items) to the side where she can get at it much easier, and I took out the three big boxes that contain the remains of my CD and cassette collection.

This ties in with my next non-writing project:

--Go through the items that were in the two wooden storage boxes (mostly personal crap). Throw away/recycle stuff I don't want/need and keep the remainder in small storage boxes (the fewer the better)
--Go through the cds and cassettes that I no longer want and set them aside for bringing to Amoeba for store credit or Goodwill donation. Put them in some semblance of order while I'm at it. [Side note: I know I have a few cds that have dvds attached, so I may rip those as well.)
--Put the remaining cds in the wooden storage boxes, with the remaining cassettes (mostly all personal mixtapes, natch) on top.
--Donate any leftover clothes/books/etc to Goodwill

...and of course, keep that corner of the room clean, because that area frequently builds up with "to be mailed/donated/traded in" items. I need to keep on top of that more often. But yeah, that was a major step I wanted to hit. The issue was that I had so many other steps to take beforehand (mailing out Christmas packages, book/clothing/etc donations, throwing away extraneous crap).

SO! As for the writing...

I'll be continuing the blogging, journaling and daily words as normal, and get myself immersed in the new fiction projects I want to tackle. I can't really say I have a block, because I know how to work past the issues I've had the last few weeks on them, but...it's the actual work that I need to get stuck in. And as always, "just STFU and DO it" tends to work well for me.


Hope everyone has a wonderful 2021!

I'm finally on the back end of the first part of the Great KonMari Tidying Up of Spare Oom...I've made my way through so many manila folders of documents related to my writing, sorting them out, getting them in some semblance of order (or barring that, getting them in one place in plastic pocket folders), and putting them in binders. Early writing and trunked projects are now on the bottom shelf of the Formerly Forgotten Bookshelf, with the journals and poetry notebooks on the top shelf. The Mendaihu Universe documents are getting their own shelf on the Big Black Bookshelf (there's a ton of it, considering it dates back to the early 90s!), as does the artwork. 

All that's left is two piles of manila folders of the rest of the Mendaihu Universe stuff to sort through. Revision printouts, notes, maps, reference material, outtakes, and everything in between. If I'm going to be a packrat with one element of my writing, it'll be that!  They're currently sitting on the ottoman, waiting to be sorted and bound.  

I've also emptied out my desk drawers and the two upper filing cabinet drawers, and have everything divvied out in three separate Ikea boxes: electronics (plugs, headphones, patch cords, etc), Extraneous writing-related things (index card outlines from finished projects, etc), and Other Crap That I'm Probably Going to Toss Eventually.

After that?  Well, good question. I think it's going to be the Big Honking Boxes in the back closet here. I've tons of CDs that I can get rid of. I've got more Other Crap that I could toss, or at least get into one smaller box. I also have all those cassette tapes!  I know I should probably go through those eventually and get those ripped to mp3 if they're still listenable.

What's the endgame here, you ask?  Well, part of it is to get a cleaner Spare Oom, but it's also to achieve that KonMari goal of Having My Shit Under Control. You can laugh, sure, but her housecleaning ideas make a hell of a lot of sense and I've opened up a lot of space back here in the last few months!  Anyhoo...it also keeps me busy and away from wasting time faffing about on social media for too long.

ALSO FINISHED: The Read-Through Revision of Diwa & Kaffi!  Woohoo!  Not nearly as much major work to do this time out, not like the issues I had with In My Blue World... just some grammar and pacing issues to iron out, and that one chapter to write. And once that's done, then I'll do yet another reread, and decide where it's going to go next. Next month I'll start doing some serious research on agents and publishers to submit to.

It's actually kind of a weird feeling to be this close to a finished project and not have anything on deck...it's oddly comforting, which I'm not used to. Not having anything coming up like that used to freak me out, now it's like 'ah, a nice mental vacation for a bit...' heh.

Not too much to report here, other than that I've gotten to a few Very Important Plot Points in Diwa and Kaffi and I'm having a lot of fun making sure they work as well as I need them to work. I'm having a lot of fun editing and revising this one...it feels great to put this much dedication and emotion into a story I feel so strongly about. Did I already mention I'm looking forward to submitting this one to an agent and/or a publisher?  Because yeah, I think it has that much potential. I think I might actually have a chance with this one.

Anyway! The Grand Project of Tidying Up Spare Oom continues slowly but consistently. I made a stop at Office Depot today to buy a new shredder as our old one predates our moving into this present apartment (which is coming up on ten years this October...!) and is no longer working properly. I also bought some more of the cardstock report binders and other things to help me with the sorting and filing away. My plan is to start going through a few piles at a time and creating binders that I can build as necessary. (You know, instead of pulling it all out and creating several piles of crap that I'll shuffle around and then put back without organization.) But yeah, it's moving in the right direction and I'm quite happy about that.

OH! At this point next week I will be in Los Angeles! (queenoftheskies , if you happen to be in the area between 5/18 and 5/22 (or in an area I can drive to), let me know, we can meet up!)  I can't wait, as this is going to be my first solo vacation without A, and my schedule is pretty much wide open for me to get in trouble at various museums, record stores and book stores. And maybe a stroll on one or two beaches...? We shall see. Still, I'm looking forward to it, should be fun!

And after that, literally the day after i return, will be a four-day run at BayCon down in San Mateo. I'm looking forward to that as well, as I'm running three panels that should be quite a lot of fun. More on that soon!

Okay! Back to the email inboxes...I'm days behind on clearing that thing out and lord knows I hate a cluttered inbox... :)

 Yeah, that one in the picture, next to the New Chair. I realized the only way I'm going to tackle this Spare Oom Overhaul smoothly and successfully is if I go one section at a time, and the same goes with this little thing. 

There used to be a fancy lamp with a glass shade on it, but I so rarely used it (the darkness of the glass kind of defeats the purpose of illumination) so after many years of it being showy but useless, we've decided to donate it next time I head over to a Goodwill. Moving onto the top shelf, I found all sorts of dusty things: three index card file boxes of long-finished or long-trunked writing projects (with more blank cards than used), a very old pair of A's glasses, a few holiday old and probably empty notebooks, cards from a few years back, and LOTS of 3.5" floppies.  I haven't gotten to the bottom shelf yet, but I already know that's where all my old non-digital photos are, as well as picture frames I may or may not want to save.

So the plan:

-- Empty out and recycle the file boxes, bind the pertinent cards, and recycle the blank ones. (This has already been done as of yesterday.)
-- Recycle the old notebooks. They're probably at least over a decade old. If I'm not going to use them by now, they're just taking up space, and they're not in the best condition for donation.
-- Go through the floppies and transfer the files over to one of my externals. (I have an external 3.5 floppy drive that I haven't used in ages.)  Destroy and throw away the floppies. Even though these are the Original Floppies I Used To Write My Trilogy, it's not the discs themselves that I should save for posterity...it's the files themselves.
-- The photos should be sorted and perhaps whittled down. I'm sure there's some crap in there I don't need to save. I have a special box for those that I can put them in. Shred the ones I don't want/need, get the others in a semblance of order. These will be put away in the storage in the new ottoman. (See, I told you I already have plans for the chair/ottoman storage cubbies!) Decent frames will go to Goodwill, the crappy ones thrown away.

But what will I put there in its place...?

Good question. I haven't decided yet. I was thinking of perhaps moving my old writing documents over there, thus clearing up space in the black bookcase next to my desk.  (What will be put in its place is another question I haven't thought out yet.)  I was contemplating maybe putting my (much smaller) cd collection there, but it's quite close to the floor heater and that would probably not be the best of ideas.

Either way, this Major Cleaning is going in the right direction, and that's fine enough for now. :)

--Updated UPS tracking received, and it looks like it'll be in three separate boxes. Which makes sense -- one for the parts of the frame, one for the chair cushions and covers, and one for the ottoman parts.
--Multiple guitars, one bookshelf and its contents currently in the bedroom. This is so I can squeeze the love seat through the door. Hoping that I don't scratch/scar the wall like I did when I first moved the couch in. [Side note: I should ask my neighbor if he has any paint so I can do a bit of touch-up.  Or buy a small can at Lowes at some point.]
--A few of the BIR items are down in the garage next to our car -- I'll be moving them to the curb this evening once I get the love seat out and away.
--Love seat currently sitting in the middle of Spare Oom, looking kind of sad, faded and forlorn. Pillows stacked up in front of the closet; I'll be saving two of them and donating the others to Goodwill.

I find it amusing that I'm just as excited about this new furniture as I am that it's also New Music Friday.  I am such a nerd. :p

Happy Winter Solstice!  Yay for longer days ahead!  It's surprisingly clear out in the Richmond this morning, and a bit chilly.  It was in the mid-40s when I woke up this morning and it's getting ever so slightly warmer, but I've got the heat going.  All the Christmas shopping is done, the packages from friends and family have arrived, and we don't have anything else planned other than going to see Into the Spiderverse in Japantown later this morning.  Other than that, we'll just be doing a lot of relaxing.

It does feel weird to be coming into the last-week-and-change of the year.  December flew by so quickly!  I'm not exactly complaining, mind you.  I did get a lot done, prepped myself with future plans, and so on.  There's only a few things left for me to do: coast through the last few days of year for the Day Job (which I'm hoping will be deadski) and make my end of year mixtape and best-of lists.  I may even do what I've been threatening to do the last few weeks: do a bit of a book purge!  I need to clean up our bookshelves in Spare Oom as they're full to overflowing with books I haven't read in years.  (And speaking of cleaning up, I think I need to tidy up Spare Oom closet as well.  There's a lot of my crap in there I could get rid of as well.)

But yeah...lots of long term plans being put in place for 2019.  Looking forward to them.


Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!

Hey, if my local news can use that as a commercial bumper, I can use that as a subject line. ;)

I took a brief break from the evening writing sessions to put together a new filing cabinet that I got off Overstock. It's one of those Ikea-type pieces with about 93,458 pieces to it (including wood glue for the wood dowels!), so it took a bit of time and a lot of elbow grease to get it all put together. There were a few tricky moments (one dud screw and two wheel mounts with screw holes that didn't quite line up with the predrilled holes), but I got it done. Now I have a few boxes to break down, things to refile into the cabinet, and a crapton of renegade Styrofoam bits from the packaging. Guess I'll chalk up today as a cleaning day!

Also on tap: finish off the WtBT post, daily words, and maybe a bit of make-up writing and revision.

Other than that, we have all the Horsey Football games today (okay, three horse teams and a warehouse team) and some food shopping, so it does look like it's going to be an easy Sunday. Can't complain!