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Library Update #8: Camping

Friday I received the construction schedule from my interior designer. Fortunately, in planning the schedule with the designer, I suggested a buffer week in case I couldn’t vacate the big room in time. She was smart and gave me a week and a half. Contractors will be on site starting Thursday, September 11 and continuing through Friday, October 3.

I need this week to get through all this stuff, a little bit at a time. Yesterday, I took down my Computer System and moved the essential subset of it into my bedroom. I packed away the vanity in my bedroom and went from a 3’ x 6’ desktop to a 16" x 4’ surface.

The core system includes only:

Belldandy; 2025 Mac Studio
LG 5k Thunderbolt display (backup unit)
Homura: OWC ThunderBlade 24TB SSD RAID
Sayaka: OWC Express 1M2 8TB SSD
Norie: HP Color LaserJet Pro M283fdw

Temporary Minimum Computer Setup

( Computer Camping )

Stuff to do

Fandom Gift Basket is in its signup period. If you share any fandoms with me (and if you don't!) please consider signing up! I can never guarantee a gift or that it'll be good, but I always dig through all the baskets looking for someone I can write for. And if you don't share a fandom with me, still think about signing up. It's a very low pressure event. Signups close on the 5th.

IF Comp voting is also starting up. The more people vote the more likely the final rankings will make sense (probably). I think I'll have time to play the minimum five games as my chaos life is starting to settle down, so I'm looking forward to looking for the parser games and doing some old fashioned text based puzzles.

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art,
photos

Pen and Ink

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen and Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink

TWSBI Diamond 580AL Fountain Pen
Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Fountain Pen Ink

It might not be a good thing that I’m signed up for JetPens emails, as I can be easily tempted. Sure enough, their weekly newsletter waved an addition to their stock of TWSBI Diamond 580ALR Fountain Pens before me, and I had to go look. Up until then, I wasn’t familiar with TWSBI pens.

JetPens is a wealth of information, and of course there’s a feature: Which TWSBI Fountain Pen Should I Buy? I read the entire article. While the Diamond 580ALR pens come is all sorts of wonderful colors, I shied away from the texture on their aluminum grips. So I looked into the TWSBI Diamond 580AL model, which has a smooth aluminum grip. (Actually, it’s very faintly textured, which is what I preferred.) The drawback is that it comes in only two colors – Silver and Iceberg Blue. I decided to get the blue one.

Ink was a no-brainer. I got a nice, large (50ml) bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Murasaki-shikibu Ink. The price was pretty good, too.

I placed the order last Wednesday, and the kit arrived in the mail on Saturday. Unfortunately, I am packing up my office and workspace, so there’s no way I have the time nor place to play with the new items. Playtime will have to wait until October.

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Library Update #7: Stuff and More Stuff

Photography Studio Equipment Awaiting Teardown
August 29, 2025
Nikon Z6 • NIKKOR Z MC 50mm f/2.8
f/4 @ 50mm • 1/60s • ISO 1600

Fighting despair while sorting, packing and moving... I’m failing at emptying the big room by the end of the month. There are so many little tasks that pop up, forcing reorganization while packing. While some things are bound for trash/giveaway, there is still way too much stuff that must be moved and stored, and I don’t know where it will go.

While in the garage, I saw that I have 12 more boxes of books (mostly SF but also old classics and tech books). There is no way 70 boxes of books will fit into the new bookwall, and there will be a Grand Culling when the books are shelved. There will also be a fair amount of double-stacking on the shelves, I’m sure.

In the garage I also found several reams of specialty paper. (I had wondered where the Conqueror Lightspeck (sky blue color) went to.) I don’t think all the paper will fit into the storage cabinet currently slated to hold those items.

I also have to take down all my photography studio equipment – tripods, cameras, lights and light stands – and find some place to store the gear temporarily. There is a surprising amount. I’m tagging heads to match their legs, as I doubt I’d remember which head goes on which light stand. (They’re all different.) It will be nice at the end for all the equipment to be stored in one place, as historically they’ve been scattered and stashed in various locations around the house – wherever I could find space.

My packing and moving is currently complicated by scheduled volunteer work for my church, currently in progress, and that work continues through Saturday. This weekend, I’m making a concerted push to vacate the big room, including moving my office into my bedroom. The project remains daunting.