So much catch-up

So in no particular order:
I spent a chunk of the last week working on the Yamaha. The story goes on forever, so I've moved it to my blog here: http://www.dragonflydiy.com/2024/12/yamaha-valve-adjustment-horror.html

Yesterday I went to the public Messiah sing in Ann Arbor, which was fun. I saw a couple of people from Out Loud, and it turns out the president of the group is an Out Loud alumni from way back.

I've been working on my old 3D printer for a couple of months.

I let the pond waterfall pump go too long, at least twice, and paid for it yesterday when I had to hook up a hose to the water heater, pull it out to the pond and use it to melt through several inches of ice to get the pump out before it froze and broke.

I got around to fixing the shower door a few days ago. One of the glass clips had a bunch of corrosion under it and it rust jacked the clip to where it was hitting other hardware, and broke the clip. I 3D printed a replacement clip, then had to excise a bunch of corrosion and rotten metal under where the clip was, and replace that with JB Kwik epoxy. One of the spring rollers was rusted solid and the other was very stiff. I got those both freed up, cleaned and dumped a bunch of silicone grease inside to try to stave off corrosion in the future.

I've come to the conclusion that I really will not ever be carrying an SLR around in the future. My purpose for photography is saving memories, and I can do that just fine with a phone or point and shoot camera. When I get back from the upcoming trip I'm going to start parting out my SLR gear. I also have some other stuff that I need to move - a Fender amp/speaker and some other stuff. I MIGHT get a new point and shoot camera; I was reasonably happy with Jenn's that I borrowed for the UK trip but it's 10 years old and the output shows it, particularly in the video recordings.

I really need to start cranking on memorization of the pieces for the Out Loud concert coming up. Especially the pieces that include choreography.