Thursday, 23rd January, 2025

Had a nice hike yesterday with Fraser. Worked a half day, and will work the other half tomorrow. Given there’s a storm coming I’ll be fine staying in. Interesting, as there was zero wind on the summit for us.

De-risk when you have enough. You will give up return, but you will sleep easier. –Ermine

I often wonder about overpaying the mortgage and paying it off sooner vs. not. The spreadsheet says it’s financially better to not pay it off sooner, but there’s a big emotional benefit and sense of security from paying it off. Perhaps we should…

I should make the GM/ES club site and finish off those two little web apps I made. I’ve debated about trying to migrate them to javascript or maybe running my own server of sorts to make them run but I don’t think anyone cares if I left them as streamlit apps and embed them in an iframe. Perhaps once they’re done I can look to redo them (but I won’t) with something else. Like vue.js … 🤢 Yeah, never going to happen…too many other things to think about and not do.

I should install Linux on the laptop that only I use. The fan is spinning so loudly on it and it’s cooking my leg, why? Because windows file indexer is running. Whereas I know updatedb on linux takes about 10 seconds max.

After the hike, Fraser invited me back to his house for lunch. He lives in this lovely wee cottage in a village in the sticks. The house is small, nothing wrong with it, but I just noticed it. However, there is only two of them and the cat, so it’s perfectly sized. We had a lovely lunch and then came into the lounge, where the log burner was on and the cat was all sleepy. I became sleepy too. Things I noticed included: no TV, only a record player with a big shelf of records, nice art work of the cairngorms, a shelf of whisky, a kettle on the burner, loads of books. It was lovely. He also has about 5 land rovers of various types in the drive. They do have a TV, it’s just in a little bothy in the garden in a cosy room. I also think his only computer is a raspberry pi which he sometimes uses for digital modes on the radio. Maybe he has a tablet or laptop somewhere but possibly not, and just uses his phone.

I wanted to take some photos but that would’ve been a bit weird. I really want to clear out some of the radio junk I’ve accumulated, but it involves doing stuff before selling it and I haven’t managed to motivate myself to do that. Also because I should really buy a 2m power meter to check the stuff is working before selling it. a) I’ll get more for it and b) it feels wrong to sell it otherwise (even though I bought it without knowing if it works). Perhaps I should do some of the easy things first, like sell the regular radio…although is that a good idea? I suppose listing it can’t hurt and if no-one buys it then so what.

Unsurprisingly, I already have a list of things I want to get once I sell those. Mostly for SOTA radioing so they’ll get used. Also the other portable radio I want to get would work as a home station radio up to 100W. Maybe not as good as the one I have but I won’t notice (as I never use it anyway) but also not sure what I’d really be doing at home other than chasing locals on 40m. I do also think I’d rather have a remotely operated station but no interest in it now, however, having a 100W radio is handy. Oh yes, so many reasons why I need to buy another radio…

Trying to decide what to do on my half day off tomorrow…I should do some antenna work or junk clear up etc.