Jacob is good at certain things like chess and not as good at other things like team sports. That’s not a normative statement, nor a complaint, just a note that he won’t be joining a lot of obvious group activities that a lot of kids do and that are easily part of elementary and high school. He enjoys them, but not so much for competition. Finding activities that he likes to do more frequently, beyond board games with the parents, will always be a work in progress for him, as it has been for his parents.
For Jacob, I have tried to encourage his writing, but since he doesn’t seem have a natural outlet or desire for his stories, it goes in spurts. I suggested that perhaps he could do book reviews, however brief, since he loves reading so much, and to be candid, I wish I had a record of everything I have read in my life. Obviously we won’t capture J’s early years very accurately, but he started a list this year and I think he is over 100 so far. Not a bad start. I’m thinking of doing it up as some sort of certificate or something he can put on his wall, but it too is a work in progress.
He likes designing board games, and has done two camps for it, and I need to get back to helping him actually create a solid quality prototype (we did one a few years ago called Jacob’s neighbourhood that we all enjoy playing now and again, mostly for some of the humour we put in it but it was rudimentary compared to a couple of his other games). I’m hoping to nail some stuff in the next few weeks and give him a version for Christmas somehow “secretly”.
So those are two areas that I would like to build on. He’s assembled some stuff, he’s done a few crafts with Andrea, a few courses here and there.
But a few months ago, he got a new iPhone for his birthday, and I’ve encouraged him to take some photos with it. He is willing to do some on his telescope at some point, which will be an interesting outlet for him, I hope, yet I was pleasantly surprised when he was at the cottage recently that he took some good shots of sunsets. No prompting from me, he just took some decent shots and sent them to us by text.
So, we’ve been chatting here and there about what to do with his photos, in part to encourage him, and in part just to display them, and tonight we doubled down together, sorted some 100+ photos by date, and then upon review, chose 4 that he quite liked. We uploaded them to CostCo, chose one for high-end canvas printing to see how it turns out, and three more as prints, and sent them off. The canvas one will take just over a week, maybe ten days; the prints are ready tomorrow afternoon. And he wants the prints as soon as they are ready (actually, I suspect he wants to take the prints with us to the cottage to show to people). Are they the BEST SHOTS EVER? Hardly. But they’re decent and HE took them himself.
I need to tweak some of the settings on his phone for higher-end images if he’s going to be enlarging some of them, but they were decent first starts. I’m hoping the tangible prints will encourage his ongoing interest. I would LOVE to see Jacob take a strong interest in photography over the next few years, even if only a hobby for the future. If he chooses not to, no problem, but in the meantime, I’ll reward his budding interest with some printing costs to help encourage him along the way.
Today I choose to encourage my son’s creativity for photography.
Famous last words could be added to that title — “…for the last time…”. When I upgraded and revamped my whole site awhile ago, and converted everything over to the latest version of WordPress which includes blocks, one of the pieces that I left unresolved was what to do about the gallery layout for my photo gallery. Thousands of photos are in the database and on the site, and I’m not editing any of those.
No, what was on the block for possible editing was the actual pages for individual galleries. I’ve been slowly converting from an old site running Piwigo over to WordPress anyway. The old site had 2005-2013 or so; the new site conversion had made it through 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 (general), and most of my wedding photos (with the honeymoon still outstanding). A huge whack of files to be sure, but again, only about 12-15 gallery pages per year for 4 years. Call it 50-60 pages.
The problem is that the new site config did not work very well with my old pages (the first 50-60). I had dumped a specific video plugin that wasn’t loading consistently correctly, and I wasn’t even sure I liked the various layouts and colours for the pages. Not to mention that there’s an upgrade to the individual galleries themselves to make them more WordPress v5.5 compatible.
The “right” solution is to bite the bullet, fix the 50 pages and move on. And since I truly mean for this to be the last time I go back and revamp any design stuff, at least not by myself (I could pay someone someday, I suppose, if I did a major overhaul), I want it done right.
So while I run the site and do all the work for the photo gallery, I like to pretend that I am sharing it with my wife and son. Which means — lucky wife that she is — she gets to have views on the layout and how it looks for those pages.
I did a quick layout, sent it to her about 3 weeks ago, and silence. She was busy at the time, forgot about it, finally remembered it and sent me views about a week ago. Today, I took the time to go back, open a page, review her comments (bigger, more prominent prose) and make the changes. I then tested it on a couple of pages, designed a reusable block so that I can make all the pages look the same going forward, found an easy way to make a tweak to an existing layout so I don’t have to reset a whole bunch of stuff, and saved it. Andrea approved, I’m ready for future production.
One page down, 50+ to go. I’ve also figured out a way to correct a bunch of other photo issues I was having, so even the workflow is improved. Nice.
Today I choose to revise my gallery layout, ready for replication for other months / galleries.
I’ve been working on my basement redesign for a good part of the summer in varying forms and degrees of engagement. In particular, I’ve gone hard on the setup and redesign in the last five days, with a complete revamp, new wiring for internet connections, design hacking of Ikea designs, and even taking a jigsaw to literally hack three desks for cord management notches (thanks to Andrea for the inspiration!).
And while I’ve enjoyed the success of the new layout so far, there is still lots to do. I had hoped to finish this weekend, but that is looking unlikely at this point. Maybe by the end of next week. I was very happy to see three large pieces of furniture vacate the premises today — two large coffee tables that Jacob used to use for train setups and the old TV stand that I replaced recently. Again, thanks to Andrea.
But I’m getting close to “reorg-ed” out. I really just wanted to play with something simple tonight. I needed a palate cleanser. Something mildly interesting yet still productive.
Cleansing the palate
I checked my never-ending to do list, and Apple Music jumped out at me.
I blogged not too long ago about the fact that I uploaded all of my music to Apple Music, and I have to say, it was a complete sh** show by Apple Music. Oh, sure, the files UPLOADED. All of them, which is more than other hosting agents did (I’m glaring at you, YouTube Music!).
But the resulting library was TERRIBLE for organization. Tons of files got moved around, album information was lost, it was “mucho meh”. And totally unusable. The resulting library in Apple Music looked like file storage created by monkeys on typewriters trying for the works of Shakespeare. Heck, they might have been writing 50 Shades of Gray and got a little too excited, I don’t know, but it was messy.
So, tonight, just for fun amongst the file nerds, I reverted the uploads i.e. I deleted all of it from the iTunes upload. Sure, I kept a bunch of playlists and anything I’ve purchased directly, but the rest? Gone. I’m starting over with my separate music library, and rather than upload all of the songs at once, I’ll do a bit at a time over the next year. If your memory of earlier posts is good, you’ll recall that I do not let Apple manage my whole music library, no matter how much they promise they won’t mess it up. Instead, I keep a folder of my Music Masters that is totally separate from whatever Apple and iTunes insist on doing.
Just to get me started, I pulled up a simple Christmas Collection by Bing Crosby. All of the songs are by Bing, there is ONE song on it that includes Danny Kaye. When I uploaded the collection the first time, it separated it into four different folders. One folder under Bing’s name with about 7 songs in it, one folder under Various with about 3 songs in it, one folder under Danny Kaye (it overrode Bing) for just their one shared song, and another folder for about 5 songs where it decided the artist was White Christmas, there was no album name, and the years etc. for all of them were different.
Now, in fairness to Apple Music, I know WHY it did it. Because it isn’t a real album. It’s a collection I got from someone at some point, or maybe Andrea did, I don’t know, and it has 16 songs by Bing. About 10 of them overlap with the White Christmas soundtrack, so Apple liked matching to that album. Even for songs that WEREN’T on the soundtrack. The one with Danny Kaye was partially right. And it was perhaps random guessing on the rest.
Can I stop it from guessing? Sure. I just have to fix all the metadata fields BEFORE I upload it into the library.
Which I did. And then Apple Music decided that “Christmas Collection” was REALLY “The Christmas Collection”, an album by the same name, relabelled everything to Various Artists at the album level, kept everything at the song level to be Bing as the individual artist, and basically filed it in weird ways so that I will never find it. Grrr…again, maybe not all Apple Music’s fault. I didn’t fix ALL of the metadata first.
Okay, so I need to work the bugs out of the workflow. I deleted it from iTunes, went back to my Music Masters, opened up ALL the meta data in one box, assigned and tweaked it for the full collection of 16 songs, recopied it over to Apple’s intake folder, let Apple’s algorithm have wild monkey sex with the files, and voila, one collection safely ensconced in Apple Music. Just in time for Christmas.
Now that I know the “secret” process to do, many of the others will be able to be done in bulk. Still, a bit annoying. On the other hand, all my metadata will get cleaned up, as well it should be, right? Or at least so says the archivist in me as it rattles its cage and whispers for freedom, food and unlimited tags.
In the meantime, I wanted to also see how well things worked for downloads. I’ll have to be a bit vague or opaque here as I am not entirely sure that what I did was completely legit. There are a few extra steps involved, a few clicks here and there, and a couple of new pieces of software to help me manage the collections better, but it all worked reasonably well enough.
For some reason, I thought I would start with the album called Best of Sass Jordan. I’ve been listening to Alannah Myles’ self-titled album, and Apple Music thought I might enjoy BoSJ. I thought, “Probably not”, as my musical tastes are, umm, eclectic at best (or as my wife says, non-existent), but I actually quite like it. I wouldn’t have thought she’d have a full album of material that I would like, I’m often more about individual songs than an artist, but I can listen to it quite easily while working on other things. If anything, it is too short! I’ll have to expand my Sass Jordan repertoire.
Resetting my brain
While the above likely seems really nerdy, or anal-retentive and time consuming, it actually wasn’t. I was doing other stuff while some of the files were processing, like playing some turn-based word games with Jacob and Andrea, finishing laundry, etc. But I wanted a small puzzle to solve to just clear the cognitive pipeline and fixing my Apple Music setup was just the thing.
I even risked going down a rabbit hole to try adding some customized artwork for personal collections as I have some templates in Powerpoint that I am using for another purpose that would work great here, and Apple let me use my OWN artwork quite easily. Two clicks, done. Sweet.
Today I choose to cleanse the palate with a small puzzle to be solved to take my mind off the basement re-org that I’ve been working on for awhile.
I have been fighting a bug for a few days, a bit of congestion, a bit of a headache, a sore throat and the gastro issues I self-inflicted on Sunday messed up my sleep last night. I have been super active in the last few days, so I should have slept like a log according to the logic of my mother. I can even hear her voice saying it.
Instead, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. Tossed and turned, tried to go to the washroom without success, back to bed, another 90 minutes of staring at the ceiling metaphorically, back to the washroom with success, and finally crashed back to sleep around 6:00 I guess.
Woke up at 9:00 feeling like a zombie. Things have improved generally over the weekend, and my sore throat was mostly gone but my digestive issues were going batty, my congestion was back, and my CPAP machine gave me an air pressure headache to start the day. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t COVID-serious, just an annoying bug of some kind. But I decided to crash and take the day.
Andrea might have the same bug as of late tonight. Hopefully, she’ll do her normal great job of kicking it quickly. I have a bunch of stuff tomorrow for work, so I’ll definitely be “back”, but I might push a few meetings to later in the week and focus on the core duties.
No African safari, no trip to Antarctica. No climbing a mountain. I was going for the extreme adventure today. I went to Ikea.
For those who have heard from those who have braved Ikea during the pandemic, you might have heard that the overall store is indeed open, but if you are going for Click and Collect, you were apparently taking your life into your hands. Reports over the last few months have been that it ranged from an outright sh**-show to chaos made real.
But I’m working on my dream office setup, the desktops came from Ikea originally, I finally found the leg / bases I wanted in another part of the website (spoiler alert: they were NOT listed with “legs”). I already had two desks set up, one with the proper base I like (an inverted I so that the leg is basically in the middle of the side of the desk rather than a leg out at the front to whack my knee on) and one with four annoying legs. I have another use for those, but I had a top with no legs at all, so I splurged and bought two sets of the legs I want.
I ordered them online late last night, and I was thinking I might have them delivered. No, apparently that wasn’t an option for me in “white” legs. They weren’t available locally. Now, this is where I’m confused. If they are IN STOCK at my local store, I don’t really need to have them delivered, I can go pick them up. If they are NOT in stock locally, that seems like an ideal scenario for where delivery might be needed. Or, just taking a flyer here, maybe they could DELIVER them to the local store and I could pick them up there?
Ah, no. Apparently it’s a binary world. If they are at the store, I can have them delivered. If they are at other stores, I can’t. Huh?
Moving on. I notice that they have the same legs in black in stock. Okay, fine, I’ll take those. I do some weird mental math that makes me think I need three sets for awhile before I force my brain to function and note that I already have ONE set. Soooo, for those playing along at home, that’s THREE sets needed minus ONE set I already have. What does that leave us Trigger? One stomp, two stomps. Ah, yes, Two more sets. Very good.
So I ordered them and it asks for my credit card, no problem. Then it says, “Hey we’d like to verify you can use that MC that is IN YOUR NAME, so we want to send a text from PC Financial to your phone”. Umm, okay. Except PC Financial doesn’t HAVE my mobile number. I think they sent it to my home VOIP-line-disguised-as-a-landline. Sigh.
Fine, I’ll pay with PayPal. Same card, no problem. Dolts.
Okay, it’s IN the system. And I’m going for CLICK and COLLECT. I know, I know, I heard the horror stories! But I don’t want to wander around the store collecting boxes!
And they send me an immediate confirmation for 2:00-4:00 Sunday. Hmm…that’s interesting. No place did it ask me when I would like to come. What if I was busy Sunday? What if I was busy 2-4? No matter, who are we kidding, I have no life. But they warn me, “don’t come until we confirm your order is ready!”. Great.
So I got up late this morning, ran some errands with Jacob and Andrea (Jacob to Michael’s for school-like supplies for a course / online camp this week, Andrea to return some stuff in Kanata from an online order). Pita Pit for lunch, and I decided apparently that I needed a Pita Pit enema. I ordered the Western, fully knowing that eggs frequently insist on using the fastlane through my digestive system. Two hours, door to door, so to speak. And just for fun, I risk the Raging Cajun and chipotle sauces. I *expected* to tell them to go light on the sauce, but then I waited in the car with Jacob while Andrea grabbed the food since I had no customization to do, and so I wasn’t there for the admonishment to not kill me. Good news — a Western pita with sauces keeps the fun of a fastlane and adds the wonderful experience of a forest fire all along the tract! Good lord, what was I thinking?
Anyway, back home, playing games, waiting for my email to say “Come now!”. 2:00. 2:30. 3:00. 3:30. Ummm, that window is closing pretty fast. At 3:40, I phone the Ikea number and there are NO options even close to “Where the f*** is my order?” so I end up on a generic hold. At 3:45, I hop in the car and head to Ikea anyway. By 4:00, I’m talking to the woman running the collect area, note that I never received confirmation, and that I’m on hold for status. Since she can check status, I hang up and just deal with her.
Now, admittedly, I’m going in expecting the sh** show that has been heralded for months, and yet it seems strangely calm. They have a single driveway to pull in, and then a very large section of the parking lot set up for parking while you wait, with numbers on the stalls, and spaced every other stall for distancing. I wasn’t in line for the cars yet, and said that I had just parked until I knew if I should get in line. Nope, no worries, just pull around here, park over there, we’ll go get your stuff. Okay. I’m sure it won’t be that easy.
I get set up, I’m playing on my phone. Woman calls from the back of the car to let me know it’s all there. And it is. Very little waiting. In fact, they’re done so fast, I have time to run two other errands on the way home. Apparently ordering after midnight on a Saturday to get stuff end of day Sunday is a good time. I never got confirmation the order was ever ready, but they seemed super well-staffed and surprisingly chipper with still 2 hours to go.
Okay, home, unloaded, dinner, and then the fun began. I had an empty desk top and a set of legs. Should be easy enough, right? Hahaha yeah, that’s funny now to me too. Not.
I get the metal parts together no problem, that’s relatively easy, mildly annoying for one alignment. Then I go to put the metal part on to the underside of the desk and I see that they have completely changed the design from the previous version I have. THAT version was basically universal…you could line it up on ANY tabletop really, or board, and as long as it was thick enough, you could screw in your screws. Great.
This one? Noooo, that style apparently wasn’t good enough. Now they have anchors and plugs, and plastic bolts that go in. Which means the tabletop / desktop has to have HOLES in very specific places to hold the plugs. Which of course my old desk does NOT have.
Sigh.
I suppose I could go over and buy two new desktops to match the legs, but that wasn’t happening. I’d return the legs before I’d do that when I have two perfectly good desktops already. What to do, what to do.
Okay, well, if it was an anchor in a wall, you would drill a pilot hole first and then insert it. Could I drill holes for the plugs? Sure. Relatively easily I guess. I’m not handy, but I have a drill and a good set of drill bits that I inherited from my dad about 25 years ago when he was cleaning out his shed. I marked all the holes, slid the metal over, drilled six anchor holes and put it together. Great. All the anchors work. Of course, there are these other plastic plugs that are supposed to go in too, but they seem deeper than I have space for. Okay, I can get by without those.
There is also a netting thing you’re supposed to install on the bottom so you can tuck cords up out of the way, but it’s in a relatively stupid place and a terrible design, so that ain’t happening. I install four clamps that come with it to hold the wood more strongly to the metal, and with Andrea’s help, carefully invert it to regular orientation. I tested the stability and strength, seems good. We picked it up and I shook it side to side and up and down, no wiggling. It’s solid. Andrea helped me with the height of the desk, putting it at 28.75 inches for my working height (I type directly on it, so it’s a good height for me ergonomically).
One desk complete. So I installed all my computer stuff from work on it, and with a multiple-monitor stand from Amazon that arrived last week, it looks awesome for layout and setup. Way more functional than I had. I even installed my work tablet on a shelf in the middle of it and you would swear they measured it to the mm. It is a VERY encouraging start. And it all started with a decision to risk Ikea today. I’m going to do a “before and after” post later this week, and I’ll have all the photos then. For now, it’s bedtime.
Today I choose to brave the wilds of Ikea, despite all the negative press and commentary I’ve seen about their curbside services. And it was relatively painless compared to the horror stories.
