Dare I say “warm” today? It was 69F when I went to bed and that is arguably “warm”. So lets go with that- warm and wet today. Overcast and rain possible. Yesterday was “warm” and certainly damp. Overcast and mixed clouds until dusk then misty drizzle for a while. Yuck.
Did some pickups, won some items, dropped off about 30 pounds of lego at the auctioneer. I put it in gallon ziplok bags, each about 1 pound. I tried for a mix of small pieces, minifigs, and bigger plates. I also tried to keep stuff that should be together as a kit together. Since I scooped it out of surplus bins, that last part is kind of hit or miss. 🙂 I’m hoping to do better than just the bulk rate of about $8/pound. If it sells well, I’ll package another 30-50 pounds for the next auction.
One of the pickups was an equatorial mount for a telescope. It’s a bit smaller than I thought, but seems nice enough. It’s sturdy and the ‘scopes are light. The limits are probably going to be whatever kind of mounting plate I figure out, and how sturdy the tripod ends up being. Tripod is definitely a deficiency with the cheap chinese ‘scopes, every one I’ve seen was very flimsy. Fortunately I’ve got a dozen surveyor type tripods that are very sturdy and I think I can figure a way to mod one of them into something suitable. Oh, and the mount has a little motor drive that is optional (it’s essentially a friction drive for the knob) and eventually it would be nice to figure out how to power and control that. Projects. I just can’t help myself.
For that matter, it would be nice to find the computer control for the little table top Meade ‘scope, then we could use that to “steer” us to an object, and look at it through the bigger ‘scope… or maybe that’s all too much fussing. Dunno. Very new to the whole thing. We’ll figure it out.
Today, I need to keep knocking some stuff off the list. I really haven’t been feeling it, but sometimes you just have to power through. Getting a bit more sleep will help. Actually getting stuff done helps with a virtuous feedback loop.
There’s an old saying that if you want something done, give the job to a busy man. That only works to a point though. The trick is staying under the saturation point. Prepping is like that. When you do it, and it works, you want to do more… but sometimes you just can’t muster the effort. It’s ok. It happens. Move on, get back to it, and stack some stuff.
nick