HollyKing's Journal

Our first Arts & Crafts Night was a success. hollyqueen make Chicken Soup. cheesentoast finished a necklace. omg_teh_funnay sat around being a smart ass. I baked biscuits and read some supporting material for some projects I want to work on in the coming months. A low-key night but as the first one I am going to call it a success.

Preparing for posting for National Preparedness Month has reignited my interest in amateur radio. The thing that keeps knocking me off track is that I get wound up with living in an apartment so I don't have a place to install antennas or put together a large amateur radio station. So I keep reminding myself of how much fun I do have when I play and that any activity is better than no activity. There are lots of things I can do with the radio equipment I do have. So I have a list of projects that I can do now and another list of projects that I will do in the future.

The future list is waiting on saving up a bit of money to buy new gear with HF capabilities. Because there isn't much room in the apartment for radios my plan is to put together a rig that could be used while backpacking. Then I'll take that to different areas in the area and operate from islands, mountain tops, parks and whatever. I also need to learn Morse Code so that I can use some real small portable units.

Another thing I need to keep reminding myself is that "mike fright" is a common affliction of radio operators. That is a fear of pushing the button and actually talking to people over the radio. Tonight I overcame that fear and pushed the button to join some folks on the Nine O'Clock Net. I was given a nice welcome and no one pointed out the few mistakes I made. I'll have to keep chatting with these folks and get over that fear.

So the first big project on my list is getting one of the radios installed in Zero. I sit in traffic often enough, why not use some of that gear to talk to people while driving around? I have the radio, I just need an antenna, some coax and the kit to mount the radio in a different location from the control head. Oh, and finding someone with some tools and a bit of skill with installing radios in cars. ;)

Today cheesentoast signed the papers for her own apartment which will be available on Monday. So she'll be moving out next week into her own slice of the "American" dream. On one hand I'm going to miss having her close at hand. On the other our place is cramped with three people so having more breathing room will be nice. It's not like she's flying off to the wilds of southern California or another country... ;)

hollyqueen has decided to keep her desk downstairs which means I'll have the upstairs room mostly to myself. I've been thinking of what to do with the space and here are some of the things under consideration:

• Move the games and puzzles under the stairs so they are easily accessible when we are ready to host some friends.
• File all the boxes of papers into the filing cabinets.
• Move a lot of non-clothing stuff in the bedroom closets into the office closet to give hollyqueen more room.
• Setup the old PS2 with the dance pad and the alternate input on my monitor for some DDR goodness.
• Dig out some radio gear and setup a small 2-meter station.
• Rearrange the books on the shelves to sort the books by category.
• Create a small crafting/project space and organize all my projects.

Basically I want to make a space where I can spend some time working on my existing projects and hobbies instead of going out buying new ones. One key thing I want to maintain is the ability for the room to be used for guests. It would be great if people could come for a visit and we didn't have to stick them on the floor in the corner.

I'll need a name for this area. I'm thinking about the cheesentoast Memorial Research Lab. CMRL for short. ;)

Well I'm done with my contract at Intel. They escorted me out of the building at 3:30pm and I was damn glad to go. I'm amused by the stress Intel is putting on efficiency and cost cutting when I just spent two days plugging cables in and out of a machine to verify that they worked. That's something a low-paid worker in the factory should do not one of their high paid consultants. I know how much I made and can guess how much Yoh charged Intel for those hours. Not my problem anymore.

I have the weekend and two days before I drive down to California. Sounds like a lot of time right? Well in those four days I have to:

• Empty a room full of books and boxes of papers. I need to finally sort through them, file the ones I'm keeping and shred the rest. There are lots of books that will be going off to Goodwill this weekend.
• Haul a lot of broken/non-working items down to the dumpster in our complex.
• Pack for a 4-day drive to LA and back.
• Pack to move to Seattle because after I get back from the Cali trip I'll be driving up to Seattle to stay with dustin_00 until hollyqueen and I have a place of our own.
• Attend a farewell party for me Saturday night.
• Spend as much time with hollyqueen as I can since we will be away soon.

Funny thing is this I'm not very stressed about the whole thing. While I'll miss some very good friends in Portland I'm very excited about the future for the first time in a long time. Moving to Portland was a good move but there are far too many failures here for me to stay. My marriage failed (the previous one, not the one with hollyqueen), my career stalled, we lost a child, many people who I thought were friends weren't.

A lot of decisions have been on hold lately too. I couldn't commit to joining a kayak club or volunteering because we weren't where we would be in the future. Now we know so I can start implementing some plans I've had for a while. Plans such as working with a physical therapist to strengthen my ankle so I can get outside more. Finding a taiji teacher so I can start training. Taking some classes and buying a kayak to get out on the water. All kinds of things.