Cool and clear, still not what I’d call “dry” but not drippy either. At least after the sun comes up and dries up the dew. Really nice yesterday. Really nice. I’m hoping for a few more days like that, starting with today!
Seems like I can make all the plans in the world, and something comes up to monkey wrench them. Like yesterday. I had plans. But my main ethernet switch was NFG when I woke up. The cameras, PCs, various game consoles, and other things are all on that switch. There are other switches, but this one is main…
Percussive maintenance didn’t work. Pulling its tail didn’t work. The only thing left was to replace the device. It’s an enterasys enterprise class 48 port GigE switch with PoE on every port. Quite a large switch fabric, if I’ve got the terminology correct. No longer top o the line, and available cheap on ebay, but I’ve got a pallet of them somewhere… I thought I had a couple in my ham sale stacks, but couldn’t find them. Thought I had a similar HP switch in the stacks but couldn’t find it. So I ended up going to my secondary location and digging one out of the pile o stuff… Which meant dealing with an ant infestation. And towering stacks of stuff. All in all, I spent a couple of hours moving stuff, digging through the piles, and killing ants.
I’m down to a couple of 48 port switches. I’ve got a couple dozen of the 24 port version, so if I have to I’ll just use two next time. In any case, by the time I got everything back together, and headed home, I had only enough time to grab a quick pickup that was on the way. Then it was Opening Night at the middle school auditorium.
The actors did a great job, D2 did a great job on crew, and my sound crew did a great job with wireless mics, playback, and mixing the show. My FOH mixer trusted me and held to my intentions despite heavy pressure from other kids and other people. I’m really proud of him. And it worked. The show looked and sounded good, great even, if compared to previous shows. It’s a good foundation to build from for the next show, and the next couple of years. Once this show is done, I’ll work with the district support guy and do some fixes, changes, and improvements before the next show. It’s what my wife did a couple of years ago with the lighting system, and that paid dividends for the kids and school too.
Community engagement doesn’t have to be with a neighborhood mutual defense league, or a home canning group, or the people at the farmer’s market. It can be whatever you want to do, in whatever way you can contribute. It’s all meatspace baby, and I believe it will be worth doing.
Lone wolf is not a viable path.
So stack some volunteer hours, stack some new acquaintances, share a skill, you’ll feel good about the result.
nick