Your projects, what are you working on in your free time? Options

[Decrepit]

Status report on project to return to sleeping in bed rather than on the sofa and also to resume back sleep rather than side sleep. Roughly one and a half weeks into the project there are my observations:

In general, this is my most successful attempt to return to my old sleeping practices since the onset of posterior (and eventually other) problems forced me to begin sleeping on my side and ultimately on the couch (due to it being softer than the bed mattress and thus better for side sleep). I seem to have hit on a decent combo of mattress toppers, with relatively minor drawbacks mentioned later.

Posterior pain:
This has pretty much faded over the years so that it isn't as much of a concern as it once was. Lying abed on my back does not trigger posterior pain, as it once did.

Lower back pain:
The new topper arrangement seems rather neutral in this regard. It has not yet triggered a return to lower back pain when lying on my back, but is not "restorative" as was my beloved waterbed mattress before it went belly up. I'll settle for neutral. (The sofa use to be the clear winner here. No longer.)

Upper back / shoulder blade:
I still get occasional mild to moderate pain in this region lying on my back in bed. I do NOT get this pain lying on my side on the sofa, or rather not often.

Rear of neck:
I still get minor discomfort and occasionally pain in this region, more so than on the couch. But the couch isn't perfect here either.

Sides of neck:
Minor, largely ignoreable side of neck discomfort and occasional pain in bed on my back. This is the sofa's weak area. I tend to get pretty bad neck pain on whichever side I sleep on on the sofa, pain that bugs me much of the day. After sleeping in bed on my back the sides of my neck tend to feel stiff and a little sore throughout the day but no worse. Bed wins out.

Drawbacks to bed sleep:
As currently configured, several of my stacked mattress toppers cover only the middle portion of the bed so that my arms don't rest as naturally as I'd prefer when positioned at angles away from my body rather than straight to the sides. Too, four extra inches of topping on an already high mattress make getting into bed a bit awkward. (The bed continues to utilize my old waterbed frame due to its many below-mattress storage compartments. But that does place the mattress higher off the floor than a conventional frame.)

[mirocu]

Perhaps one of those foamy mattresses could help you, Decrepit? Guess they are a bit spensive though...



No real project of mine to report on. Well, other than my Japanese learning but there it's business as usual at Duolingo. More Kanji now so I guess I could mention that. For some reason I cannot fathom, I read most Kanji taught well and good, but suddenly have trouble with Hiragana where I have to stop and think which ones there are. Pretty amazing considering I love the Hiragana characters, they were the first thing I learned and I did it one year ago...!

[Decrepit]

My main project yesterday turned out to be waiting for phone/interest service to be restored. It cut out sometime during my mid-morning grocery run and lasted until part way through supper. The forced switch to U-verse makes these outages harder to endure since I no longer have a working landline phone to report line problems and check on status updates. Mid afternoon I finally had the sense to drive to "city" hall and ask if this was a known issue. They'd heard nothing of it, but kindly called AT&T for me. Found out that yes, it was known and being worked on.

My "bed sleep on back" project has had a setback. Night before last and yesterday night I experienced neck and shoulder blade pain. Gonna experiment with head-pillowing and see if I can find a solution that alleviates or at least lessens it. I've been this route before with no success, but ya never know.

ADDENEDUM:
Forgot to mention that once internet was working again I went online intent on paying my electricity bill. Turns out I was wrong. Entergy DOES add on a fee for doing it that way. Back to conventional paper checks and snail mail I went.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 6 2018, 04:26 PM

[Decrepit]

Odd time for me in that a number of "projects" hit all at once.

First, spent a day waiting for Kingdom Come: Deliverance to download. Took from 0400 until just after supper. Was too mentally exhausted from hours of Mashinky to do much with KCD that evening. Spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to set up its large number of controls to my liking. Finally decided to exit the game, find a site that has the defaults spelled out, write it all down on paper, and take time to figure out what hopefully works for me. Didn't finish that until sometime next day. Also needed to bump graphics quality way up from what the game defaulted me to, which was rather mediocre.

Next day I was notified that my Mutual Fund tax reporting forms are finally available online. Did my Fed and State Tax returns in TurboTax. Alas, I'm getting much less back this year. Much much less. Sometime like a thousand dollars less back from the Feds, and two hundred less from the state. So far as I can tell its all due to far less of my Social Security income being tax exempt this year. (Almost none of it is, where last year most all of it was.)

Early this week I broke down and did something I've been contemplating for years, ordered one of those DNA Ancestry test kits. (23andMe had a nice sale on at the time.) It arrived today. Have my saliva tube filled and the return package ready to send out tomorrow.

During all this I've also been learning how to record Mashinky footage with OBS. Am also trying to refresh myself on how to edit raw footage in Filmora, which admittedly ain't going so well.

[Dark Reaper]

Been doing some volunteer work at my church with making videos for them. I'll present my work to them Sunday.

[Decrepit]

Sent off my saliva vile to 23andMe yesterday. Had I been 10sec faster out the door I could have handed it to the postman, who was just pulling away from my mailbox when I opened the front door. As it was, I drove to our local Post Office and dropped it off there. Gonna be weeks or months before I learn anything. While I have some expectations at to where my family came from, it matters not at all to me if results paint a vastly different picture from what little I know of our past. On dad's paternal side, it is assumed our ancestors came from the British Isles. My maternal grandfather had an English last name, which is all I know of him. My maternal grandmother had a Germanic last name, which is all I know of her. I know nothing of my paternal grandmother, though I can look up her maiden name easily enough. Thing is, both dad's parents were dead by the time he was in his teens, and mom's dad died of lingering WWI related health issues when I was but a wee lad. The only grandparent I "knew" was mom's mom, who we didn't visit much. (Dad wasn't overly fond of her, as I recall.)

Found out that Filmora is "supposed" to have a blurry editor preview screen, deliberately reducing resolution to make editing go faster. Sure enough, when I rendered a Mashinky test video the output looked just fine. I now have visuals for one Mashinky video done, including opening and closing title cards. My stumbling block is that I don't have a mic to record commentary. Well, there's the mic built into a set of headphones used on my third computer (which hasn't been turned on in months). But that mic's a piece of crap...prone to crackling so frequently it's all but useless. Don't want to spent much on a good mic, since this video creation business is likely to be a passing fancy, as it proved to be back in early 2014. (To be fair, that first time I suffered a series of unexpected setbacks that kept me from producing videos. I might have stuck with it otherwise.)

I really ought to finish up my tax return. But getting so much less back this year has robbed me of all enthusiasm for the project. No biggie. My goal is to have it done and over with by the end of February, which we're only half way through. I just need to make sure I don't forget and let it slide.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 18 2018, 01:21 AM

[mALX]

Sent off my saliva vile to 23andMe yesterday. Had I been 10sec faster out the door I could have handed it to the postman, who had just pulling away from my mailbox when I opened the front door. As it was, I drove to our local Post Office and dropped it off there. Gonna be weeks or months before I learn anything. While I have some expectations at to where my family came from, it matters not at all to me if results paint a vastly different picture from what little I know of our past. On dad's paternal side, it is assumed our ancestors came from the British Isles. My maternal grandfather had an English last name, which is all I know of him. My maternal grandmother had a Germanic last name, which is all I know of her. I know nothing of my paternal grandmother, though I can look up her maiden name easily enough. Thing is, both dad's parents were dead by the time he was in his teens, and mom's dad died of lingering WWI related health issues when I was but a wee lad. The only grandparent I "knew" was mom's mom, who we didn't visit much. (Dad wasn't overly fond of her, as I recall.)

Found out that Filmora is "supposed" to have a blurry editor preview screen, deliberately reducing resolution to make editing go faster. Sure enough, when I rendered a Mashinky test video the output looked just fine. I now have visuals for one Mashinky video done, including opening and closing title cards. My stumbling block is that I don't have a mic to record commentary. Well, there's the mic built into a set of headphones used on my third computer (which hasn't been turned on in months). But that mic's a piece of crap...prone to crackling so frequently it's all but useless. Don't want to spent much on a good mic, since this video creation business is likely to be a passing fancy, is it proved to be back in early 2014. (To be fair, that first time I suffered a series of unexpected setbacks that kept me from producing videos. I might have stuck with it otherwise.)

I really ought to finish up my tax return. But getting so much less back this year has robbed me of all enthusiasm for the project. No biggie. My goal is to have it done and over with by the end of February, which we're only half way through. I just need to make sure I don't forget and let it slide.

If you find out that we are related; I'll let you loan me your PC while you fix mine; relative!!!

[Decrepit]

If you find out that we are related; I'll let you loan me your PC while you fix mine; relative!!!

Hmmm...well, we do hail from the same broad general region, and I've a number of relatives in your state. Go back far enough...say the Neanderthal era...and there might well be some vague familial connection. (BTW, 23andMe reports our percentage of Neanderthal ancestry, if any.)

Your PC went bad? Have you mentioned this before? What is it doing, or not doing? Symptoms? Possible cause(es)?

[mALX]

If you find out that we are related; I'll let you loan me your PC while you fix mine; relative!!!

Hmmm...well, we do hail from the same broad general region, and I've a number of relatives in your state. Go back far enough...say the Neanderthal era...and there might well be some vague familial connection. (BTW, 23andMe reports our percentage of Neanderthal ancestry, if any.)

Your PC went bad? Have you mentioned this before? What is it doing, or not doing? Symptoms? Possible cause(es)?

I was just teasing around, I actually don't hail from this area. It actually amazes me how much you do know about your roots; your history. I don't have anywhere near that much info.

[Decrepit]

If you find out that we are related; I'll let you loan me your PC while you fix mine; relative!!!

Hmmm...well, we do hail from the same broad general region, and I've a number of relatives in your state. Go back far enough...say the Neanderthal era...and there might well be some vague familial connection. (BTW, 23andMe reports our percentage of Neanderthal ancestry, if any.)

Your PC went bad? Have you mentioned this before? What is it doing, or not doing? Symptoms? Possible cause(es)?

I was just teasing around, I actually don't hail from this area. It actually amazes me how much you do know about your roots; your history. I don't have anywhere near that much info.

We can trace ourselves back to a 1790 US census but no further. (Don't know much of anything about those Revolutionary era people other than that they are almost certainly direct ancestors. So far as I know there is no known provable link to our pre US roots, at least on dad's side. I used to Google my last name every now and then and at one time found a farm in England bearing our name, but later searches couldn't find it. Likewise I've found those with our last name spelling in some British census reports and other records, but nothing to prove a definitely connection. Uncommon as my last name is, there's some chance of at least a remote family relationship. (Again, this all refers to dad's paternal side of the family.)

I don't expect 23andMe results to shed much light in this regard. Unless others with similar ancestral results happened to allow their info to be added the knowledge pool. But who knows? Maybe I have an ancestor of renown, as if that matters. More likely, our family's greatest historic accomplishment is more along the lines of "Third runner up in Yorkshire County's village-idiot drooling competition for the-month for April 1285."

Addendum:
Well poot. This is supposed to be errand day. Groceries of course. Also, I decided to at long last take the plunge and buy a mic for the computer. Know what I want, or rather what I can afford that's half way decent. Best Buy carries it, so I printed out an Amazon page for price matching and headed out. First stop, gas the car. Pulling in to the pumps I heard a loud ka-chunk as the car came to a stop. Hoping it was something else I went about my business...then drove a block to our Post Office to test the breaks. Ka-chunk. Drove to our local mechanic. Left the car with them. It'll be late afternoon at the earliest before they can tell me what's up. So much for errands and a PC mic. Hopefully whatever's wrong will be simple and cheap to fix. I've enough food in the house to hold out today and tomorrow but not much past then.

I've two Mashinky rail excursion videos "in the can," lacking only commentary (thus the need for a PC mic). They've gotta be the ideal cure for insomnia. Even I fall asleep watching 'em.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 19 2018, 09:20 PM

[Decrepit]

Still in a holding pattern awaiting car repair. Called the shoppe after supper yesterday. The only person present didn't know exactly what was going on, other than it was something to do with the breaks and that the car "should" be ready sometime today (Tuesday). Hope so. Gonna start running low on food soon. Plus, this is our last half way decent weather day for some time. Storms and rain are predicted beginning tomorrow. (Today too, but not many and not when I need to be out and about.

Captured a bunch more Mashinky footage. Hope to have two or maybe three videos ready to add commentary to by the time my car is ready. (No PC mic until I can drive into town.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 21 2018, 10:06 PM

[Decrepit]

Called the auto repair shoppe around 1000 yesterday. Was told to call back at 1400. Did so. Was told my car had been returned and was parked in my driveway. Doh! Drove to the repair shoppe and paid my bill, thankfully only $141 for rear brake work. Drove to Best Buy Bought a PC mic. Paid more than intended. They were out of all Blue Yeti's except for one cobalt blue. My price match printouts were for black and silver, those being Amazon's cheapest color variants. Thing it, Cobalt Blue was the color I liked best when examining all Yeti's at Amazon. As Blue cost no less at Amazon than Best Buy, I ruled it out. Once in Best Buy I thought and thought and finally decided, to heck with it, I'll go blue. Might come to regret it, but when all is said and done the price difference is only $15-20, depending on whether had I settled for black or silver.

Drove to Walmart for Groceries. This week's food bill, circa $38.

Drove home. Arrived right at suppertime.

After supper I logged the day's expenses in my PC account ledger. Unboxed the Yeti. Connected it to my PC. Attempt to add voice narrative to one of my shorter Mashinky videos. What a disaster! I soon realized it was hopeless. Unplugged the Yeti. Spent rest of my evening online (along with a short amount of Mashinky play).

Woke this morning knowing that yesterday's failure was due in large part to me trying to wing it. I am not and have never been a naturally gifted speaker. Extemporizing narrative on the fly isn't my thing. I knew I'd need to do as I did with my old Oblivion episodes...write out scripts and read 'em aloud into the mic. Even that's a challenge, the end results sub par, but at least I'm able to provide usable narration of a sort. Working the entire morning on it, I've maybe half that short video voiced. Gonna try and crank out the rest by day's end, Nine give me strength.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 21 2018, 07:37 PM

[mirocu]

Sounds like we're two apples in an orchard with regards to speaking-witty-on-the-fly abilities, Decrepit

[Decrepit]

I narrated my first finalized Mashinky video uploaded it to YouTube yesterday evening. I'll not link it here as I've already done so in our "Now Watching" sub-forum. It won't win any awards for scripting and narrative delivery, but I'm more satisfied with the results than I expected to be (My expectations were admittedly low.) Unlike my old Oblivion episodes, visual quality is quite nice when viewed full-screen at 1080p.

I'm already at work narrating a second Mashinky video. This one is over twice as long as my rather short first upload. It's proving hard to think up things to say to fill so much time. Then again there's no great hurry. I doubt these vids are destined to make me the next breakthrough YouTube "star." (Other than possibly some of you guys I suspect they'll get no views at all.)

As preparing the upload consumed almost the whole of yesterday I've nothing else to report, project wise.

Oh yeah, I remember to curb my trash this morning.

[Decrepit]

Got email from 23andMe this morning saying my saliva sample arrived. Still 6-8 weeks before I get results, according to them.

Worked off and on yesterday voicing another Mashinky video. Not overly pleased with this one so far. It's hard to fill a circa 13min clip with entertaining narrative when you have only about two minutes of interesting info to relate. Too, this journey isn't nearly as visually appealing as the first was, in my opinion. Thankfully, the next Mashinky video I have in the can for voicing is quite short and more visually interesting. That won't help me think up something worthwhile to say, but it's something.

ADDENDUM:
Now evening, I got further than expected voicing my second Mashinky excursion video, then hit a brick wall not far from the trip's final station and can't for the life of me come up with anything worthwhile to say. Gonna call it quits for the day on that project and hope something comes to me tomorrow or the day after.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 24 2018, 02:54 AM

[Decrepit]

Finished up tax returns after lunch. Started afresh (though I was all but done first time I tackled 'em) due to getting so much less back. Wanted to make sure I hadn't done something wrong earlier. But no, same results...very little back this year. I suspect I'll owe EXTRA next year, as the Gov has decided to take out less taxes from my Military Pension. I'll probably modify that so more is deducted again. Course if my mutual funds don't do well this year (they did VERY well last year) it's all beside the point. Well, maybe it is or isn't, depending on how the new tax scam affects me.

The more I listen to my second finished Mashinky video the less pleased I am with its commentary. Not so much what I said, though that could stand improvement for sure, but delivery and audio quality.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 27 2018, 01:22 PM

[Decrepit]

Placed a smallish order at Amazon for cheap mic accessories first thing this morning. (Meaning cheap accessories for a mic, not accessories for a cheap mic.) Man have I cut my "spending money" allowance close this month! $18 left to see me through today and tomorrow. I have funds allotted to a "slush fund," but that's reserved for utility and other mandatory payments that come in over budget for the month, as well as unexpected emergencies like this month's car brake work. Yes, I do sometimes use it to help pay for costly "luxury" items, but try to keep that to a minimum. At any rate I should be able to vegetate at home these next two day, venturing out only to check mail, so be safe.

Normally I'd be getting a "generous" tax refund this month, so this would all be beside the point. But as mentioned, I'm getting next to nothing back this year.

My "bed sleep" project isn't panning out. Returned to the couch last night. That's not so great either, but what can ya do?

Upcoming project: replace my lawn mower's drive belt. Dread it. I'm no good at this sort of thing. (One of all too many things I'm no good at.) Bought the belt at Home Depot while running errands yesterday, taking advantage of their military discount. One step officially requires a torque wrench, which I don't have and can't afford, certainly not this month. I'm pretty sure dad, who was a talented handyman, had one. I drove to my brother's house (he inherited the family home and possessions) but couldn't find it in the carport utility room. There's an outdoor shed it might be in, but I don't have a key for that and my brother wasn't available.

[Decrepit]

Project for the day:
This evening I need to figure out how much internet purchase tax I owe the state, fill out paperwork and prepare the results for posting tomorrow.

Took my first post winter exercise walk yesterday. It went well enough, but boy did my knees remind me they ain't what they used to be. Up until this morning I assumed I wouldn't be able to walk today or tomorrow due to predicted rain. Now it looks like I "might" be able to squeeze in a walk this morning though I'll need to carry an umbrella to be on the safe side. Tomorrow afternoon has a few theoretically semi safe hours.

ADDENDUM:
After posting the above I donned walking shoes and looked out the living room window. Steady sprinkle and partially waterlogged street. So much for weather reports. Thankfully, rain stopped before too terribly long. Sky still solidly overcast. Water covering patches of street. Grabbed my umbrella and headed out. Experienced no weather related issues during walk, which went well, especially considering this was my second session after several months of inactivity.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Feb 28 2018, 03:49 PM

[mirocu]

Military discount, eh, Decrepit? And I guess you can also pull the senior citizen card? Do you even have to pay anything at all?

[Decrepit]

Military discount, eh, Decrepit? And I guess you can also pull the senior citizen card? Do you even have to pay anything at all?

Nice idea!!!!! You need to talk with the local establishments I do business with about that. Sadly, the way it seems to work is that only one discount is allowed for any one purchase. Also, only a couple of the relatively few such places I frequent have any sort of discount whatsoever. Subway Sammichs officially offers a senior discount, or did when I officially became a senior. But my local Subway said they don't honor it. Just as well. Their offerings aren't all that tasty in my opinion.

Woke too early this morning. Far too early. Used some of that time to advantage redoing some of my second Mashinky video's voicing. More needs to be redone, but the longer bits just aren't worth the effort. Nor is improvement guarantied. At any rate I've got the video rendering now. Depending on how that turns out I may upload it today or tomorrow. It's not as good as my first Mashinky upload, but considering how few will see it I suppose that's of little consequence.

Balanced Feb's PC checking and savings account ledgers yesterday afternoon.

Was able to get in an exercise walk. Had to wait until mid afternoon for my street to lose enough of its water layer to safely navigate. Today promises no such obstacle, though it's going to be colder.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Mar 2 2018, 01:52 PM