Keeping busy

I've not posted anything here since the holidays, and, well, that's partly because the holidays suck and I didn't want to belabor that. And partly because, since they do suck, and since I'm also saddled with my ever-present Black Hole of clinical depression, there's been a bit of a lag time in surfacing from the latest dip into the Black Hole's gravity well. It's almost a given that said gravity will take hold around the end of the year, and the trick is how long will it take to climb back to a stable orbit.

It's been slow going. Fits and starts. Altitude gain followed by backslides. But two weeks into the year I can sense a sort of normalcy returning.

One way to fight the pull and get closer to apogee is a project. Focus on building something. So, in addition to a client gig that I just finished today, I've had a few things in progress: More eBay stuff, improving the lighting in my living room, and solving the problem of Preventing Damage From Cat on Printer/Scanner.

Zephyr is now a grownup kitty. Took him a couple of years to fill out to his adult weight, but he's there now. Even though he's still a runt, he behaves like a more massive feline since he has all the grace and agility of Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. And whenever I'm at my desk he likes to climb up on my scanner, which is part of the reason I had to replace said scanner after the sheet feed apparatus broke and the internal mechanism relying on a belt that moves the imager back and forth became became, well, wonky and inconsistent. I'd rather not replace the new one because of more cat damage, but convincing him to stay off of it is a losing battle.

Hence, my solution. Some wood scraps screwed together into brackets, a cheap piece of OSB plywood, a hinge, a piece of leftover carpet, and some paint. This evening I have the finished product doing it's thing.

Next up will be extending the overhead track lights, for which I am awaiting parts.

And one of these days I need to fix the Cloud Five site, which has been broken for a while. In case I ever want to revive that.