________  ________  ________
   2017-12-08                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   I  keep half-writing phlog  entries  then  /        _/         /         /
lose  interest, give up or forget what I was  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
writing  about.  This'll  just   be  another    /        \/        \/    /   \
rambling life-log but  y'all know by  now  I   /        _/         /_       _/
don't care to talk tech. Stay a while if you  /-        /        _/         /
like  and listen to  me talk  about  myself,  \________/\________/\___/____/
gophamily.

   Work is as demanding an unrewarding as it  has ever been, we've been thrown
under the bus a little, management doing what they do without any consultation
with us, just the assumption we're going to  wave our magic  wands.  Fuck  it,
right? That's why I'm paid to be  here. Except  I'm  really not paid enough it
feels like. Money going out twice as fast as it comes in, annual salary on the
low side of comparable roles at other organisations. Blah.

   IDK. Just  Christmas brings that shit  into sharp-focus  I guess, I want to
spoil  my partner and my nephews and our families but bills are  real, rent is
criminal and everything costs too much.

   I dunno  what else is going on,  to  be honest. All  I do is  work, eat and
sleep  it feels like. Spending  my  weekends  aimlessly  busy  to try and keep
myself distracted so depression doesn't settle  in, it gets exhausting until I
can't be  fucked  anymore and just want to slouch  in  bed and  watch trash on
YouTube.

   I'd say I  need a hobby  but  all that  up there is pretty much why I don't
have one, hahaha.

   Our Christmas tree has  lights that don't flash and  I'm thinking of trying
to fix that myself. Baby's first  electronics project. I Googled a  little and
it  seems pretty straight forward to make a circuit to turn the lights  on and
off and I got lucky with them because, in  the  display box  they had a little
"try me" button that wasn't hard  wired into the lights, it was just a second,
smaller battery pack and  a switch that plugged into the back of the lights. I
can make my circuit  to plug into that and that way I'm not having to cut into
or solder on to the original lights. Pretty handy.

   I might try it with an Arduino which is probably overkill for such a simple
thing but it gives me an excuse to try using an  Arduino. Baby's first Arduino
project?

   Stay tuned to hear me lose interest and never bring it up again.

   Speaking  of losing interest; I  was supposed  to  have  my  amateur  radio
foundation license by the end of the year  but slumped on that  too. Ugh.  I'm
honestly losing  count  of all the things I  start  and never finish. My fifth
doll has been sitting in storage, barely worked on for SEVEN YEARS.

   I'm the worst.

   These days I put  it down to space, which  while it is true that  I have no
space to spread  out  and work and that I can't leave things around so have to
unpack and pack up everything  any time I  want to work on anything, I've only
been at  this apartment for a few years. "I have no  space" doesn't excuse all
the time I wasted prior to moving.

   Maybe I have a problem with scope. Even when I do find time and motivation,
I've got so much I'd like to do that I just end up spinning in place, I should
probably  try and  sort out  what  I'm  supposed to be  working on  and pick a
handful of things to prioritise.

   That's at least somewhere to start.



EOF