I’m starting on another “refresh” of my workspace at home: this is becoming a distressingly regular (annual?) activity that I’m hoping to put an end to soon. The objective this year is pretty much a total rebirth: minimizing/reducing, painting, and possibly re-flooring and new furniture. The first step was to excise a bunch of “stuff” from this rather small room, and to get ready for the painting which I intend to do myself.
A week ago I mentioned that I had purchased a lamp that simulates a sunrise. I promised at the time that I would provide some kind of a review after a week or two of use, and I think I’ve experienced enough with this lamp to offer some reasonable impressions. The results are good: waking up to ersatz sunlight helps make my day a bit better.
I have been contemplating acquisition of a “sunrise simulator” lamp for a while, and finally got one yesterday. The NatureBright Per3 is more or less a bright LED lamp with a clock attached. A bit modern looking…but not too garish:
After a single day of use, I can’t really offer a review, but I can say this: I’m awake, and probably in a better mood than I normally am at this time of day.
I have been going through the “blahs” lately. Some of it is rather deep-seated stuff that I’ve been struggling to understand. One thing I realized was that I’ve felt for years like I cheated myself by never completing a university degree. For the last four or five years I’ve subconsciously come to realize that it is too late- short of a massive life change like winning a million dollars, it is simply not feasible to take four or five years off to go and get a degree.
Today, though, as I contemplated the universe and my very limited place within it, I decided that what I really wanted was knowledge, not the piece of paper- although there are plenty of times I wish I had the paper as well, it isn’t my main regret. And so I’ve decided to take some more specific steps to educate myself. And of course, given my nature, that means a healthy dose of gadgetry.
It is Christmas day. We are still “snowed in” here, with another 20 – 30 cm since last night piling up. The snow is beginning to slow down, and may be turning to rain soon.
Irene got her main Christmas present a few weeks ago: Coco, who makes cat #7 in our house: you can click on Coco to see the rest of our Christmas pictures.
The deck construction is almost finished. Almost… a slippery word, that can often mean “never”. Since the last posting on this topic, here is what has been completed:
It looks pretty good, actually, and is “done enough” that the things remaining feel rather minor. The roof has turned out really nicely: Solariumsplus did the work, and I’m really pleased with what Pete, Curtis and Randy put together for us. Some pictures…
We just had another power outage exceeding an hour in duration here at our house. That makes about six this year here after perhaps one per year of that duration during the seven previous years. You could argue, I guess, that I live in a suburb, and so perhaps the occasional power outage is to be expected. However, at my workplace in the heart of the corporate district in Burnaby, with BCIT on one side of the road and Telus/IBM/etc on the other, there have been three multi-hour outages this year as well. I know it is an exaggeration bordering on the insensitive, but I’m beginning to feel like BC Hydro has degraded lower mainland British Columbia into a third world power district.
My elbow, or more accurately the area just on the forearm outward side of the elbow, has been sore lately. If I pick something up it twinges, or if I hold the arm straight and make a fist it hurts.
It has been painful, but not debilitating- like a lot of things that happen with my joints since I turned thirty, I more or less just have been living with it. After some poking around on the internet, I found some references to tennis elbow and concluded that this was the most likely culprit. I decided to give it a couple of weeks and, if treating it like tennis elbow with cold packs and compression improved it, to assume I was on the right track.
It took a bit longer than planned due to some delays with the arrival of the composite decking material, but now our deck surface is complete!
Here is what the framing looked like:
