Since my last entry two months ago, much has happened. Usually, I have to reach to come up with something to babble about, even if I leave writing an entry for a long time. This time, there is much to draw upon.
At the beginning of February, our room mate was felled by an apparently long standing but thereto undiagnosed medical condition. I’ll leave out the details as they are really nobody’s business. The result was that we found ourselves in a bit of a tight spot as we watched her two kids for a day or so until the family deigned to do make arrangements. There was something of a fight over how much rent was due and why and, sadly, it got as far as threats of legal proceedings. The situation did get resolved in what seems to be a relatively amicable fashion. The room mate is recovering at last report. This did cause something of an upheaval, though, since during her convalescence, she really can’t deal with a place with a lot of stairs which meant she could no longer stay with us.
That leads into the next item. We have been looking for new room mates to make ends meet more easily. It’s not as easy as it sounds to get room mates, however. You can put as much information as you want out there, but if nobody is willing to buy what you’re selling, you simply don’t get anywhere. I’m optimistic that we will have takers, though, so it’s not causing me all that much stress. I do admit I’ve been enjoying the quiet around here since the two rugrats left.
As many folks will know, I’ve also been working on publishing a book of poetry written by people in the family. There is a lot of detail work involved in doing so when you are a contributor. There is even more work when you are the editor, typesetter, and publisher, too. I did manage to release an electronic edition at the beginning of January but the print edition required more work. Once I was in discussions with the printer, I realized I had to redo the typesetting some, partly due to bad decisions in the first place and partly because I changed my mind some about just how I wanted things to look. I am told by the printer that I should have the 100 copies by the end of the month which will just leave a few details required by law and actually selling the copies to interested parties. (Drop me a line if you’re interested.)
Pretty much exactly zero progress has occurred on the book cataloguing program in the intervening time due in part to the book publishing and other events. But that’s not everything I’ve been up to. I’ve been ripping the Doctor Who DVDs I have. While I’ve had good results for the most part with the software I’ve been using, I have decided that I need more study to determine just what works best. I’ve come to the conclusion that the clunky command line method is about the best way to go since it will allow me to queue up a whole lot of processes and then start them going, say overnight. It will also give me better control over the results and now that I understand the terminology and technology better, the manual method is not near so daunting.
Well, I think that’s enough babbling for now. I now return you to your regularly scheduled goofing off.