Winter Automations
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
36F and gloomy this morning, and the bins need to go to the curb.
According to the switch log, the smart plug back here turned off at 4AM, and back on at 9AM... and now it's toasty warm back here.
I was up again before 11AM... as the school kids are still on winter break, and I'm starting work an hour earlier than normal this week.
Yesterday I cleaned and burnished hallway floors all shift, but today it's gonna be back to shampooing classroom carpets.
Lilian, who I had such high hopes for, has so far called in three days in a row... the last two days before the weekend, and again yesterday.
It's never a good look when your supposed illness or emergency just so happens to extend your weekend... especially when it was a three-day weekend to begin with, and you extended it to five days.
Basically, she ran the shampooer for one day, and hasn't been seen since.
I still don't have the energy to call BMO on this Wednesday that feels like a Tuesday, because getting up an hour earlier is exactly as taxing as in the spring, after the time shift... only it's right after the holidays.
Last January I was getting up at 10AM simply because I was in emergency mode with Dad on his death bed.
But after a solid year, I'm emergencied out!
So BMO can wait until next week, when things are truly back to normal.
But on a much happier note, I just received this, from SoundCloud, an hour ago!...
"Hi patrick_melody,
Thank you for providing information relating to the removal of your track:
231225 - 02 - Magic - Monday
soundcloud.com/patrick_melody/231225-02-magic-monday
Good news! We’ve reinstated this track to your account.
We're constantly working on making our copyright processes better, but mistakes do sometimes occur. Thank you for your patience as we looked into things, and apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Thank you,
The SoundCloud Copyright Team"
WOW!.. I was just wringing my hands about that copyright claim last night!
ChatGPT had said, false positives do happen occasionally, so it's nice to see SoundCloud admitting that this was one of those times!
Magic Monday was originally called, simply, Monday until I realized that there are too many songs already called, "Monday."
The reason it's magic, is because there was an ice storm that made all the trees look like glass.
"it was that night when sleeping branches wore silver sleeves
cuz rain had frozen in the pose
this made the light from lamps on the street become golden weave
bent into concentric circles"
It's about a night back in February of 1995, when I think I had the day off, and I drove out to Aurora Pancake House, and met this super gorgous waitress.
Nothing came of it, but... it was just one of those magical little moments in life, and I was 25, so I wrote a song about it when I got back home.
I think I did go back to the restaurant a week later, but the waitress wasn't there, and a crazy homeless lady, who was missing teeth, invited herself to sit with me in my booth and I kept her company, out of politeness... but decided not to go back again.
The song was written and recorded in what is now the studio, when that was my bedroom.
And I do miss those days when I could just hang out in that room with the doors closed, doing my thing... and know that Mom & Dad were out here looking after the pets, and keeping the utilities on.
Now it's all on me... and I don't have a wife or kids to keep me company... just a bunch of timers and bots.
Well, anyway, I'm glad SoundCloud reinstated the song, because it's a good one.
Okay, the garbage is out, and the bins are to the curb.
I noticed while programming that smart plug yesterday that it has a dusk to dawn option, so in theory I could use one for the garden lights on the north side.
In practice however... it requires 2G wifi, and I just wont have a strong enough signal down there from the little repeater in the kitchen.
Screw it!.. I just bought a $20.00 repeater on Amazon that has a 2G band.
With that down in the basement, I can not only run the garden lights dusk to dawn finally, but I can get that exhaust fan back on a smart plug down there.
And then it opens up the possibility of using other plugs or cameras in the front part of the house.
It'll be here Saturday, along with the transformer for the new lights going on the south side.
So maybe by the end of the weekend I'll have garden lights on both sides of the house, all going on at dusk and off at dawn!
I accidentally left at the normal time today, and didn't realize it until I was driving into the parking lot of the school.
Nice to have all the songs I've started so far streaming in their turn through the car speakers.
But I've got a list of notes now...
- NYC Gargoyles is too high of a pitch.
- Never Rains is too fast.
- Bed in the Suburbs is too short (missing verses).
- Live it Fast is structured wrong, and needs a third verse.
So the plan is to still get Other Friends and Miss Fortune piano rolled this weekend... but to spend MLK weekend fixing all that stuff.
When the two-day weekends resume for the long run, on SAT 20... I guess it's gonna take five weeks per instrument.
So for example if I do all the guitar lines, at the rate of one song per weekend day, it'll take five weeks to get all the guitars done.
So I won't start on a third insturment until February 24th... say piano and or violin.
So... we're talking no vocals until about May 4th, at the earliest.
And that's fine.
Ya figure May & June for vocals, then July and August for tweaking and fixing things... and test mixes would start happening through August.
So it's possible this thing could be ready by September, or October.
I can deal with the artwork and stuff like that on the week nights.
So this really will be in tune with the seasons... bare bones in the winter, then instrumentation all spring... then vocals all summer... and mixing in the fall.
Should make for an interesting and memorable year!
°¦}
