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Journaling June - Day 3
Journaling June
Day 3 But first of all, I'd slept in my tent. It had been a funny evening; I was laying in my sleeping bag listening to a Darkhorse Podcast podcast and they were referring to Alex Jones' age-old claim that "they're turning the frogs gay" when my ears caught the sound of something creeping its way up the side of my tent, I looked up to see, silhouetted by the moon-lit sky, the outline of a toad making its way, gecko-like, up the side of my tend, just behind my head (on the outside). I chuckled and gently pushed my finger against the inner wall of the tent to meet with the creature's feet and tummy - boop! It didn't seem to care much and continued its way all the way up as far as it could, and then back down, me chuckling the whole time. I think it was the year before last when I had a family of young hedgehogs come snuffling past, between the inner and outer tent. That wouldn't be the end of the creatures of my garden shenanigans this night... in the early hours of the morning I was awoken by some bird, that I think was standing on the grass just behind my tent and hooting! Maybe it was my resident blackbird who I have become fond of - 'she' has white speckles on her head so I came to recognise her easily and at the end of winter when I would fill my birdfeeder she would land beside me as I scattered some extra seed; she wasn't bothered when I crouched down to her, little over a foot away. Anyway, whichever bird it was had woken me at the point in my sleep cycle where I was all but paralysed* and while I myself struggled to even make a sound, I insisted on amusing myself (and hopefully it to) by hooting back. It was hard work because of how out of it I felt. *I've been reading a book suggested to be about sleep, Matthew Walker's Why we sleep; unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. I'm not sure what time it was then, but I think it was pre-dawn and it was odd that this bird was there just hooting like that while I think all the other birds were still sleeping. Anyway, I woke proper before my alarm, even though I'd purposely left my phone in the house - it started chiming when I went inside. I'd rushed out of the tent because it had just started to rain. Back inside I made my morning cup of tea and got on with my language lessons. I then did a short round of yoga stretches - no run today due to it raining. Funny enough, after I'd collected the new frying pan from Argos, I'd sold a previous purchase on ebay; a gaming mouse they'd mistakenly given me when I'd purchased a standard mouse for a client. Seeing the value of the gaming mouse I listed it straight on ebay and bought a(nother) standard mouse from elsewhere. Years ago, back in the days of Windows 7 I'd ordered a COA version of the OS only to be sent the full retail version... I made a few quid out of that too. Anyway, I unpackaged that bubble-wrapped parcel I'd received the day before. It was a laptop I'd got cheap; weirdly packaged since it was bubble-wrapped round a box, and bubble-wrapped within it. The laptop is a Packard Bell Easynote of an Intel i3 variety originally with Windows 7 but sold to me without its hard drive. The seller said it was [otherwise] fully working. Weirdly, while the charger was included the power lead part was not. I popped in a spare SSD and set to installing Linux Mint, but I first discovered the keyboard wasn't working. This was a quick fix... it was disconnected. Then, however, the install would only get so far before the laptop would shutdown. I soon realised the reason was because the fan wasn't spinning and the laptop was overheating. I messaged the seller about these issues and then proceeded to carefully dismantle the laptop to investigate. Weirdly it was a simple issue of the fan being unplugged. The seller got back to me pretty quick but essentially asked me what I expect them to do since I'd only paid a small amount for the laptop and they'd sold it "for parts". But they'd also said "fully working" and supposedly only needing a hard drive and not an hour of my time to dismantle the thing. At least it hasn't cost me any additional parts beyond what I'd originally considered and I'll probably just leave them neutral feedback, relist it as I intended and move on. Today a couple more parcels arrived. Firstly the dock for my old Dell laptop. Disappointingly this has also arrived with issues; there is a crack to the plastic, a side (alternative) power socket has some damage, and the DVI port is a bit mashed; I can likely glue the crack and un-mash the holes on the DVI, but again, these issues weren't made apparent in the listing or could be seen in the pictures, and the item was well packaged so these things didn't occur in transit. I need to test it. The next thing is a motherboard that hopefully only needs recapping. For a moment I thought they'd sent it in its original box, which would have been a bonus, even if they had stuck the packaging label to it, but no, it's another, but nice and shiny. So back to all of the stuff that I acquired from the thrift shop...
And finally an East-German Praktica BC1 Electronic 35mm camera kit with additional lens, flash and light meter, apparently from 1984/5. Sadly, while it's all a decent bit of kit, 35mm cameras have little demand and I'm not interested into getting into that. I actually thought it was a Pentax at first as the branded strap was the first thing to notice.
Anyway, I've not got much else done today bar helping a friend out online with a social event; that should have only taken a few hours, but I've managed to lose my whole day... Additionally I've been a little flustered by a client who wants a refurbished computer for their business and I quoted them a price after having a chat, which they agreed with (verbally, because we're all locals), but I'm having to "pop in" and visit them for the third time to discuss their requirements which they've now received regarding equipment that will be attached to it. I'm going to end up adding on a "consultation fee" at this rate... That and the client I did work for yesterday and left a somewhat hefty bill to cover my time txt me this morning to say she had tried to pay me but something went wrong and she wasn't sure if it had sent or not. I checked and hour or so later and had not received it and messaged her accordingly. She's not one to mess me around, and I'm appreciative of her communication, but it's a bit of a hurdle. Right, it's getting late and I need to test this Dock, twiddle some knobs on this radio, and procrastinate some more about the laptop issues I encountered, oh and test that motherboard... maybe I wont sleep in the tent tonight.
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