I had a lot of firsts in 2022, especially when it relates to electronics. I’m still a noob, and still working from a place of “trial and error.” I successfully soldered some header pins to a GPS component (it as my very first solder attempt), and this day builds off of that.
I’ve been trying to build a reverse geocache box for like forever. It’s slow-going, but I’m enjoying the process. I felt incredibly happy to see a lot of different phases, coming together at once. Clicking this button and seeing the GPS display/calculations was incredibly satisfying.
Liz and I are no strangers to cement pours. We thought these days were behind us, but we were wrong. This was the culmination of several weeks of work, with the two of us digging out a lot of soil/debris from under the back porch.
We started digging in early April, and finished in late May. Today was the culmination of a lot of work.
This is a weird one. I’m a pretty lazy person in general, and a good day to me is one where I’m putzing on the computer or playing video games, or watching Netflix in between naps.
This day, I fixed a long-standing problem with our leaky spigot. It was a fairly trivial fix, but I felt like a veteran cast member from Ask This Old House when I was done.
It was a hot summer day, but I felt genuinely excited to be working out in the sun. And spent the rest of the day taking care of odds and ends. Looking back, the memory I have is how good I felt sweating and working.
If I had to pick a single best day from 2022, I think this would be the day. The Ford kids visited us in Chicago, and Liz and I had an action-packed agenda for their visit.
Our visits and time with Paige, Audrey, and Sebastian are few and far between. Liz and I miss them immensely, and were overjoyed to spend the day taking them on a few adventures, in Chicago.
As part of our “staycation” this year, Liz and I spent the day visiting the Adler Planetarium. The space itself was fine, but what felt most memorable to me was our walk outside: taking our shoes off, and walking the perimeter while waves from Lake Michigan crested alongside us.
This has been a long day coming, and the culmination of the back porch dig that started back in April. Bob welded some custom mounts for our AC units, and got AC officially coming through our vents.
After many years of using window units, this was a huge milestone for our house. An awful lot of work, over a long while, allowed us to get to this point.
Warehouse Liquors: Glenrothes Tasting
Liz has been to Warehouse Liquors before for a few events (through Women Who Whiskey). But this was my first time, and I was crazy impressed at the whole event.
We had the good fortune to taste a Glenrothes 36 Year, which in and of itself would have been worth the price of admission. But we got lots of other drams (paired with cheese, meat, and nuts) on top of it.
We’ve shopped at Warehouse Liquors in the past, but I was very impressed with their upstairs space. And look forward to attending more events here.
Playing Around with a Neopixel LED strip
It’s dawning on me that I’ve really enjoyed playing around with Arduino and electronics, despite continuing to feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. The sheer delight and joy I feel, when something works, is what keeps me coming back for more.
I think there’s a formula here that works for my brain, similar to what programming does: do a thing, see a result. I like coding for this kind of feedback, and Arduino/electronics bumps it up a notch by moving away from the computer screen and into the real world.
Halloween in Hyde Park, 2022: Plinko Board
Halloween continues to be a very exciting holiday, for both me and Liz. This year, we combined our skills to make a Plink Board for all the Trick-or-Treaters who visited Hyde Park.
In a lot of ways, this project combined a lot of different skills: stuff we’ve learned while working on our house, some random Arduino skills, and some code.
Things got down to the wire, and it was super stressful at times. But the day itself was incredibly fun and super satisfying.
My favorite moment was when someone said “This is the GAME house!” after remembering our Operation Candy Dispensers from last year. Very stoked to be “those people.”
Christmas in Indy, Day 3: Hallway Painting and Mahjong
We missed Christmas with my family last year, because Covid. This year, Liz and I spent a few more days in Indy and stayed with Stacey/Shane (who’ve moved into my parents’ house, where we grew up).
We offered to help them with their house renovations, and split our time between visiting and repainting their hallway. It felt nice to catch up, and to also be productive.
If I could, I’d gather up the whole Indy visit as a single day… but today was the culmination of all our work over the holidays. And after some rough patches around learning the rules, got a good primer from my dad about how to officially play Mahjong.