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Gotta scrub my language. Too clean and lab-grade; out here, it tags you as the wrong kind of strange. Locals listen for that stuff – the sterile edges, the precision. Does you no good. Gets you flagged before you even know they’re listening.
So I killed the morning reading Neuromancer, by someone named William Gibson. He must have had a hard life. Feels less like reading and more like being rewired by a stranger’s dream. Still, it gave me a good download on more casual speech. Unfortunately, now I need to use it consistently, otherwise, I’ll suddenly sound weird.
Couple of good reasons to fix up this place. First, the neighbors would expect it, and they tend to drop by a lot. Very friendly, especially if you keep iced tea and cookies. I can do that. And they love inspecting the work and offering advice. Free instruction in local customs and lore. Not to mention they loan tools and heavy equipment for the price of a good meal. I’ll take it.
Second? Equipment needs power, mine will need more than most. Chose this place because of the six-hundred amp service, three two-hundred amp feeds. One for the house, one for the heat pump, and one that just sits in a box, unconnected. Handy.
No hurry. Inside, there are two very light circuits (each with just a small LED light on it), and one that isn’t even used yet. Not ramping up that fast. Simple enough to equip the two light circuits with plugs, three each, spread out under the cabinets. Little flat project boxes with modular plugs; romex buried in cable conduit in the back of the cabinets. “For my mixer and crock pots.” Made sure to buy those first and leave them out on display. These six plugs should keep my lab running for at least a year. Nice to have plenty of spare capacity, though.
Nearly finished them today. They need painting, the plugs are black, everything else is white. Don’t need sore thumbs. Takes a while for the paint to dry, and I only have enough masking material for one at a time. Don’t want to insulate the inside with spray paint.
Debated on whether I should copy the locals (“chewing gum and baling wire,” they say), or continue to keep kosher on my training, precise, clean, neat, measured, etc. Decided to stick with old habits, but fuzz it up just a bit, so it’s not perfect. Out here, that would be suspicious. As it is, I’m just a guy that “pays a lot of attention to detail and cares about his work.” Not doing cabinets, though, unless it pays really well. Hate sawdust.
Glanced out last night to see the northern lights. No bouncing particles, but Alnilam was a little off; I don’t have my CNAV kit, but it seems like it should be a few degrees further east. Odd, but I was in a hurry to make the jump before I was floating in space with no functioning equipment. Maybe I’ll take a look later, but no need for notes.
Farmhouse hill is really weird, though. Weather station I built predicted rain, and it did rain, but not on the hill. Clouds parted and went right around it. Mentioned it to somebody today, and they just laughed. “That’s what you get for living on Birdie’s Hill.” Smiled and nodded. No clue; gimme a while, I’ll sort it out.
Last two weeks have been survival mode. Cleared that now, so planning’s in order. Claimed several “websites” for semi-anonymous notice and capital. Nothing there yet. First, emacs.
Emacs is an anomaly on this planet. Nothing else really like it. Defies description. Latent AI? Check. Application platform? Check. Toolbox? Check; very flexible at that. Plain text editor? Check, though the key sequences are sometimes insane.
Need to learn it, configure it, get it up and running. A simple MarVal scheduler, journal, and mesh network…er…Internet communication node. Maybe that is the plan for now.