Wednesday, 1st November, 2023
Yesterday I kept thinking “why can’t I make a decision”. Computers, radios, cameras, it’s all the same. I go round and round and round. Maybe I make a spreadsheet of options with rankings and scorings. Sort by “best” but the truth is, there is no best. It’s always “best for x” and sometimes I do x but sometimes I do y. Or even 🚽. But I only want one, or I only want to buy one, and so then I’m stuck between options. The worse part is (or perhaps one of them) is that I invent scenarios that I need to account for. So now I have multiple situations to try and account for. I’ll then be biased into something and go “this is perfect”. Then the next morning start doubting myself.
Well, today I made a decision and ordered a Nissan Leaf EV car! We’ve been managing on one car for four years and it’s starting to get tricky. Especially as the kids are getting older and doing more things. we’re finding we’re needing to be in two places at once on opposite sides of town. There are also times when I’d like to go and do something but can’t as my wife has the car.
Work have launched a salary sacrifice EV scheme, so you pay before tax. Now you’re still buying a new car, and therefore paying for the depreciation but the tax offset mostly hides it. It’s also very convenient as it includes insurance and servicing etc. Technically I’m just renting the car for the whole time. However, I still wondered if a used IC car would be fine. Plus there are so many models and specs.
I don’t really care about cars and this was one of the cheapest and generally got a good review, so I went for it. Now why can’t I apply this decisiveness to everything else!
Probably because I care more, even though everything else is a fraction of the price that I’ve committed to with this contract. 🤷♂️
I’m currently sat at the bureau in the hallway, with a cup of tea and writing this on my ipad. I’m very much enjoying this moment. It’s also reminded me how much I like the apple ipad keyboard Smart Cover. I could use this all day. I much prefer very low profile and minimal movement keys over mechanical keys. It’s funny given I’ve probably had about 15 of them. Not had a mechanical one for a long time and I mostly just enjoyed building them vs. using them.
I was chatting on a radio discord to another guy in Scotland and he looked up my blog and things and commented on my typewriter. He then proceeded to send me a photo of his. He’s younger than me, maybe 25-ish (he finished university in the last year or so, and maybe even younger) but he’s into old stuff. The photo he sent me was an indication that he would become one of those eccentrics you see in the Tinderbox meet ups. Makes me smile.
I had a weird thought of trying to just use my ipad for everything. I think it was mostly so I can keep using this keyboard but everything else about that would be terrible.
Maybe I should look for a 12” MacBook. They had the zero mm travel keyboards.
The radio projects I want to do are becoming more and more involved. Like when you do some DIY and after 30 minutes you realise that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Makes me hesitant to start them. One such example that I want to do, is a permanent satellite operating station. This would involve two 7ft yagi antennas mounted above the roof line with a rotator that changes elevation and direction, connected to a computer controller to adjust as the satellite moves. We have a gable end that I thought “wasn’t that high and I could mount it there”. I went outside and looked at it the other day and realised that 4.5m (15ft) is actually quite high. This is just the roof line, and then the poles would extend above them with those two antenna on them. Not sure how I was thinking I would mount and access it. Or that I was imagining building it at ground level and somehow carrying this 3mx2m cross structure up a ladder and placing it on a pole attached to the house.
I really want to build it but I’m not sure I practically can. So I just do nothing and think about it. Really I should try and use satellites with the handheld antenna I bought specifically for it. I’ve yet to use it, mostly as there are about 10 things I think I need to do first in preparation. Such as buy a bag to keep all the things in for when I take it out with me up a mountain. (Creative scenario planning).
What would be more suitable would be to make a smaller satellite rotator and fix this yagi I have to it. Then just take the radio outside with the laptop (oh wait a Mac mini wouldn’t work now…) and play with it in the garden during the day. Much more cost effective and probably I’ll get bored of satellite operating, so why construct a huge thing on the side of the house? (Because I want it).
There’s also no rush. I just got licensed this year. I don’t have to do everything this year.
I mentor a young engineer at work, and we were talking about end of year performance evaluations. I was giving him advice on this. All the time thinking “I should really do this myself”. At the start of the year I suggested he keep a work journal, to help with his evaluation but also for his professional chartership. He’s actually been doing it, and that makes me feel bad as I started but by about March I’d stopped. I think because I was trying to make it too complex/smart and really I just needed to write something with a tag, and then try to summarise it at the end of the month.
I could just keep waffling on here.
