Category: General

I mentioned before that I’ve recently been abusing my poor piano horribly. Unlike previous abuse (storing in an unheated garage; standing in a flood; causing an anglepoise lamp to drop onto the keyboard; attempting to apply french polish to the front; leaving it untuned for years and years) this is through the medium of me attempting to play.

I am, in fact, attempting to locate some kind of musicality that is perhaps latent in my soul. Well, it’s doubtful that it’s latent musicality; because as a child despite reaching the heady heights of Grade 5 on the piano, and occasionally even getting the excitement of a merit or distinction in such exams, Grade 5 (well after grade 5, according to my teacher) is generally the point where you either have to have talent, or work hard, and I did neither.

At grade 5 I accepted my terrible inability to practice as simply being something that is and gave up. I could kind-of-play stuff that I wanted to; and imagined that without the necessity to practice I’d simply play when I wanted to and that would be sufficient to keep up my skills. Of course, soon after I: did my A-levels; spent my time going out with the newly made friends; and then went to Uni where I had no piano.

When the piano finally arrived in our house, I plunked myself down at the keyboard of its hideously mistuned and poorly adjusted self and discovered that I can’t really play anymore. Quelle Surprise! However, my vague attempts to bring back practice as an adult have been not entirely unsuccessful. It’s hardly a daily occurrence, but the frequency with which I assault the keyboard with my presence has increased somewhat. And occasionally something vaguely resembling music comes out.

But the whole thing is quite interesting, comparatively, because at the same time as I’m doing this, Kathryn bought me Guitar-Teaching-Software; and so I’m trying to learn a new instrument* too. But the experience of trying to do something new on an instrument that requires all my concentration to produce anything resembling, well, at the moment, a chromatic scale, compared to the muscle-memory-being-dragged-out-and-used of my playing the piano is quite fascinating. I can sit down at the piano with a piece of music I played a couple of decades ago (oh, there’s a scary phrase) and despite the years of neglect my fingers sort-of know where to go. Not exactly, but sort of. To an extent that when I’m sight-reading (which is somewhat like going ‘right, so that’s an F…so that must be a C? [plink] Oh errr, no…D. Yes’; anything that’s off the stave takes me quite some time to find) I can let the fingers do the work. They know where on the keyboard they need to be. The reading-bit is hideously brain intensive, but the actual playing, whilst it’s not terribly accurate (at least in terms of timing) is pretty reasonable.

But playing the guitar involves all of my brain, muscles and nerves in a fight of extreme multitasking concentration. There is no muscle memory. Despite me cycling to work with my left arm out in the air trying to practice my fingering. Despite the several abortive attempts at guitar playing. The whole thing has to be done with no automation and it’s a real struggle. If I’m looking in the wrong place I sometimes pluck the wrong string, and if I’m looking at my plucking hand then suddenly I find my fingers are wandering off on their own little explorations of the neck.

Anyhow, I’m basically posting this because I want to give myself a little pat on the back for actually practicing. I realise that I’m (allegedly) an adult and thus should be perfectly capable of practicing an instrument (or any other skill) but; well; frankly I’m not very good at such things and I’m quite pleased with myself for doing so. Yes. Well, that and I do actually find the whole experience of learning vs re-learning quite interesting. So there y’go.

* For, err, 10 year old definition of ‘New’. Yes, I’ve had a guitar 10 years and still can’t play it. I’m aware that I suck at this stuff.

Today I finally tried out ‘New Kintsugi’ (which means ‘epoxy resin and gold dust’ rather than whatever the traditional substance was). I’ve been meaning to try it for a while; we’ve broken enough objects that have ended up going in the bin, but the lid to a jar and the rather nice possibly Victorian bowl being broken was a cause of disappointment; and so, when I came across the New Kintusgi stuff I thought ‘hey, it’s worth a try’.

So these are the preliminary results:

The glue needs to be allowed to dry properly, then you’re meant to ‘sponge off’ the extraneous gold dust (which is very dusty; incidentally). It’s not really a patch on proper kintsugi, but it might mean that I feel happy to return them to service in some form or another. The lid of the jar has a gap in it, which I need to fill with some sort of filly-gunk that they’ve supplied, but you’re meant to do that after the glue’s dried, which’ll be a tomorrow-at-least job.

So. I have the intention of making a nice little video for the Electric Minor Project. This occupies me on that front since I’m currently in an internal pickle about whether to go down the route of sponsorship (having gone to all the bother of producing a nice brochure), or to say “it’s only $5000 for second hand leaf batteries, I could avoid sponsorship and just do it”. Just over £3k seems much more attainable than £8000.

Anyhow, whilst I’m dinking in my head, I’ve been putting my hands to adequate use. You may have noticed a flurry of fisheye, wide angle and macro lens shots in my flickr. This is because I bought a bunch of very cheap lenses on ebay; these have a magnetic mount to the iphone (via a really dreadful metal ring you stick to the phone that’s sliding about and accruing a quantity of filth). The advantage of this particular design is that it will (hopefully) fit whatever phone I get to replace the iPhone*. Anyhow, having got them I realised I needed a way to transport them. I also got a (probably knock-off) sidekic (I’m not sure if it’s original, it came with packaging that looks right, but it was cheap and doesn’t grip the phone as well as I’d expect). So having pondered small tobacco tins, I was talking to my best beloved about the problem and she offered me a mint tin. I had thought it’d be a little small but actually it’s excellent.

The ‘foam’ is hacked up bits of a torch case, supplied also by my best beloved. It’s not the neatest thing in the world, but I did knock it up just before I went on nights, which meant that after my last night I could do this:

Which was quite fun.

I also, today, knocked up a camera stabiliser (following the concepts I’d seen in a tutorial like this one). It’s really intended to be a DSLR stabiliser, but with the addition of the sidekic (and an elastic band, because the sidekic doesn’t hold my phone well enough) it should work okay for my iPhone 4.

I’m also pondering whether to add something like DollyCam. I think I’ll have a play with the free version of that tomorrow; maybe; and with my new camera stabiliser, and we’ll see how it goes. Yes.

Anyhow, that’s been my entertainment (beyond working nights).

* which appears to have decided to become as irritatingly unresponsive as possible, and has decided to intermittently not to have internet access (switching it off and on again seems to fix this, but is mightily annoying).

So, the last time we cleaned our Dyson hit spectacular levels of unsuckage. Despite new filters it wasn’t really doing its stuff. Indeed, in all honesty it hasn’t really been terribly effective for a long time. I spent a while dinking on the internet searching for servicing info, in the process realising that it has likely passed its 20th birthday*, but pretty much everything said ‘change the filters, check for obstructions and ‘ta-da’.

I did. I checked. And yes, as usual the soleplate was full of crap, but that doesn’t explain the piddly level of suction from the hose. Eventually I found an old post describing how to strip the cyclone.

You’re actually meant** to cut away the glue-seal around some valves and lever the plastic apart. I started, but the ABS casing just started to disintegrate, so instead I spent some time wiggling and jiggling and using heat and managed to just get the cyclone bit off the bottom – leaving part of it inside the casing which will, no doubt, be hilariously entertaining to get back on.

Still, replacements for them are around a tenner. Of course, if I break it reassembling I won’t know if it works any better, at which point, is it worth the bother of getting a new one? Feh.

Anyhow, it’s sat drying out, hopefully it’ll be reassembleable. And maybe it’ll actually suck, in the good way.

I’ve also been having a play with the new lenses I bought. I’d been looking at getting an olloclip type affair for the phone, but since I’d rather replace the iPhone as soon as I get the chance than continue using it forever more, I’m trying to avoid anything that’s totally tied to it. Which includes the olloclip. However, on ebay there are the delights of cheap-magnetic lens knock-offs. So I ordered a few of them, a tripod mount, and sat back. Not all of ’em are here yet, but the wide angle / macro and the fisheye arrived; and they’re… well, about what I expected really :)

You’ll have to excuse the fact they were all shot in very low light, and you can’t use the flash with them because they obscure it.

Fisheye:

Wide-Angle:

Macro:

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the quality’s about what I’d hoped for, so go e-bay knockoffs.

In other, other news, we’ve been referred to the baby-making clinic that we’re hoping will be a better experience than the other baby-making clinic.

* And virtually all the spares are discontinued. We’re going to have trouble if any bits break. Though if this has fixed the naff-all suction issue I might fork out the £4 for a second hand filter cover.
** For quite limited values of meant

A lot of my time at work is spent looking after people who don’t need to be there. People who’s GPs were closed, who didn’t want to wait for a GP appointment, who can’t go directly to a ward because the ward is full but aren’t actually so unwell as to really warrant an ED trolley, people for whom we’re performing ass-covering medicine, because no-one wants to get sued.

But some days you get a run of people who are ill, who need the ED, and just occasionally you save a life.

Recently, I had a shift where someone arrived who was so sick that the crew had applied the defibrillator pads, had telephones us with a ‘pre-alert’ and were looking fairly worried when they arrived. And rightly so, the person on the trolley, to use a technical term ‘looked like shit’. He was pale, his breathing was shallow, rapid, and ineffectual. The crew were using a bag-valve-mask to push air in on his intakes of breath as a basic form of assisted ventilation.

For once all the training, all the experience, it all actually was useful. It was not used to explain to someone exactly why we wouldn’t be able to magic up the cure to their 2 year old problem that was suddenly urgent at 2am. The pre-alert had given us time to get drugs out ready, and the machine to assist with his breathing out of the store room and next to the bed. The drugs and equipment he needed were up and on, and indeed in him in minutes.

The best bit of my recent shifts was laughing and joking with this really delightful chap as I took him to the ward. A chap who’d been maybe minutes from stopping breathing just from sheer exhaustion a few hours earlier who stood up and got himself across to the hospital bed. The transformation was stunning.

It takes its place within my mind with other moments I treasure. Helping the terminally ill patient get on the plane to see their family one last time, sorting an older woman out with a proper stick, not the half-assed chunk of wood she’d borrowed from a friend. There are little moments in this job that are utterly fantastic, and shaking his hand and walking back to the ED is quite definitely one of them.

So, I had a friend a while back who was going through IVF treatment. She’d had trouble having kids, and I understand now from a distance of many miles and little contact that eventually it was successful. It always seemed like an incredibly fraught process, one with infinite possibilities to make one suffer and a required the provision of a cornucopia of hugs from friends and colleagues.

But as we start out down this pathway to child-having, I am in awe of how quickly we have entered the phase of emotions swinging from wildly positive to wildly negative.

We went, tonight, to an open evening at a Fertility Clinic. Whyfor? We’ve already been to another clinic, indeed have handed over piles of cash to them. Well, when we first turned up we were already set on the most basic course of treatment we can get in the UK, and we were upsold, as it were, to a low-drug-dose form of IVI. On Monday we’d girded our loins, and prepared ourselves for the ‘big moment’ (phone) appointment, with a phone call to say “Yes, that’s what we’d like to do”. My card was prepped for payment, just in case, and we were all set for action.

And before it started it went downhill. Yet again, they were late ringing us, and failed to tell us that they’d be late. The person we spoke to when we rang them didn’t apologise. Bear in mind that last time they forgot to ring us at all, and failed to apologise at all for not ringing us. This time, however, they said ‘Oh, she’s been on another call, and is just about to ring you’. 15 minutes later they rang us back. Well, okay… but our notes are not so long and complicated as to take 15 minutes to read. So, not an ideal note to start on. I mean, it’s stressful, right? This whole experience is actually stressful. ‘Just about to ring’ and ’15 minutes’ are not the same thing. Especially not when I’ve woken up early from sleeping for a night shift to be awake for this call, and now, with us being about 35 minutes behind where we should have been I’m going to spend the entire call clock-watching because I need to shower/eat/dress/go. Definitely not ideal.

Then the doctor informs us that the previous doctor shouldn’t have suggested low-dose IVF treatment, because she doesn’t think it’s what they would recommend. Well, actually, they artfully avoid specifically stating we should be doing full IVF, going on about ‘slightly higher dose’ until finally Kathryn manages to get them to understand the question ‘is that full dose IVF?’ And not get back the answer ‘Well, they’re both IVF’. We gathered that, thanks. The hint’s in the name. And it turns out that yes, it’s not some odd-mid-way point they don’t mention in their literature. ‘Slightly higher dose’ means ‘pay the full whack for full-dose’.

However, we have done all our sums, based all of our calculations, prepared everything for this sum of money that you recommended. Now you’re saying it’ll be £2k extra, thanks, and you’re probably still going to suck in terms of your ‘bedside manner’.

Riiight.

Of course, when we start using phrases like “can’t” and “won’t be able to” the doctor backpedals and suggests that they could do low dose IVF… at which point we start to feel a bit like ‘are you just trying to extract every last god-damn penny from us’.

And suddenly we’re cast adrift. We don’t have £2k extra kicking around spare. I’ve checked in the piano stool, there were some french francs and a ball of fluff. That do? No? Well, maybe you should have said this earlier then.

Of course, having had an insanely stressful phonecall I then have to head off to work, leaving poor Kathryn at home with this bombshell, and me at work feeling lousy as I gradually come down with a cold.

Which brings us to today, when we tried another clinic, who based on what we said suggested that Egg Donation might well still be a possibility*, and who’s staff seemed far more genuinely concerned about us, and more that the money was a frustrating inconvenience.

Of course, it is the NHS clinic, which reminds me why the NHS is ace. And of course, we still have to pay, although the clinic team seemed fairly sympathetic to the unfairness of NHS rules which say you have to have had 10 cycles of IUI through a clinic before they’ll give you NHS-free-IVF (unless you have some documented health problem that will prevent conception). Of course, you might well not know about a documentable health problem until you’d tried to get pregnant…

…which brings us back to the endless cycle of self justification.

My general opinion on IVF is that either no-one should get it free, or everyone should. If that means everyone only gets 2 cycles instead of 3, or one and then graduated payments kick in, then so be it. But the current guidelines are unfair because getting sperm in the UK is hideously difficult, and making the process for lesbians cost in the region of £10k, when a hetrosexual couple could rock up and say ‘oh, we’ve been trying for 10 months and it hasn’t worked’ when they’d only had a few months of trying and get accepted is, well, unfair. Anyhow. Enough late-night grr. I’m having a little bout of insomnia courtesy of my cold, and was hoping this might make me feel more tired. It’s now 1am, and I still feel awake. *le-sigh*.

Not entirely sure what to do about that. P’raps go and lie in bed some more.

* And were having a handily placed lesbian open evening.

So, our media server is, hopefully, back from the brink of extinction. It was pretty close to being replaced with a pile of removable hard drives, a Pi and a USB hub. However, given the application of various sticks, the help of John and Nikki and these blog posts:

Ubuntu login takes you back to login screen
Broken .gvfs file

I’m hoping that I can log in as myself again. It seems a succession of foolish actions lead me to a path of minor disaster where my own user login was broken, although now we’ve got VNC up and running and I’ve managed to persuade it to let me boot headless we’re on the path to joy.

The guy in the shop managed to annoy me, because whilst I’m sure he’s very pleased that his fans are ‘ultra quiet’ my gentle explanation that I didn’t really need them to be as the server lives in a cupboard met a long explanation from him about how everyone else cares.

I’m supporting your shop already. I’m paying over the odds for parts to support a local business and not buying the bits on ebay. P’raps now is not the moment to make me debate whether I should say sod it and go and spend 2 quid on it on ebay for a cheaper, noiser fan, than 6 quid from you. *feh*.

Still, it’s handy having a PC shop around, for those ‘oh hell’ moments.

Although I’m increasingly realising that the server is getting a little long in the tooth. But does that warrant replacing it? Not at the moment, since it’s just had nearly 20 quids worth of low-noise fans in it. But when we go to the States, I think it’ll be time.

Oh, on ‘The States’, we’ve now got a new possibility. Astoria, OR. It looks like our kind of town, it says it’s queer friendly, so that’s all good. It’ll be a while yet, but we’ve been watching houses go past, and looking at some of the sites as a ‘we could buy that outright’ (we’ll have to build our own house on it, but hey). Anyhow. It’s a possibility.

In other news, I’ve splashed out a few quid on some crappy clip-on lenses for the iPhone, just to see how they pan out. This is because I want to do some filming for The Electric Minor Project, and thought I might want to do something with alternate camera angles. The quality will undoubtably be poor, but if I want to take really good quality video I’ve got my Micro 4/3s camera. I looked at the nicer ones, but they mostly seem to be phone specific, and since I’m hoping to trade the iPhone for something less… appley… well.

Anyhow, not much else has happened, it’s that quiet postchristmas getting back in to the year kind of time.

I did, however, walk 10.25 miles yesterday, just on a whim. None of it was particularly pleasant or exciting, but it was interesting and I saw bits of Bristol I don’t know that well, which is always interesting :)