It’s been a moderately busy week for yours portly, so writing has fallen on the backburner a bit. Dr. Wife and I spent much of Labor Day knocking out some projects around the house, including assembling a blue bedframe that has been the bane of my existence. I finally found some screws that would work to hold the footboard to the frame (I have no idea where I packed the original screws), so the bed is safe for human use.
Yesterday, while a bit more relaxed, also feels like a bit of a blur. I set to work fairly early on writing and arranging some music for my students, including “Will’s Waltz,” the subject of yesterday’s installment of New Music Tuesday. I also arranged a piano version of the legendary Tetris theme song, available for purchase here, here, and here (or you can screenshot it, you cheapskate, and print a copy). The famous “A Theme” from Tetris is based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” which is about a peddler seducing a woman—whoa! Now we associate the theme with dropping blocks and clearing lines.
Today I’ll be installing a WiFi mesh (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchase you make through that link, at no additional cost to you—TPP). Our router from Spectrum isn’t cutting it in our house—the signal here in my office is very spotty, although my PC is connected via a dedicated Ethernet port—and my younger brother helped me find a scorching deal on the model linked above (which was almost $100 pricier the last time I checked). Our old house has plaster walls, which apparently disrupt WiFi signals terribly, so the three-point mesh should give us the coverage we crave.
I’m continuing my daily Peloton riding, varying between more intense rides and lower-impact ones. I had a twenty-plus-day streak going until I left town this past weekend to visit my older brother, but got back on it Monday morning. I’m noticing my strength is increasing in my legs, and I try to push myself by going a bit above the recommended resistance when I am able. The weight has not been sloughing off as I expected, but I’m forty-one and still have large meals (breakfast is light; lunch a bit bigger; dinner the biggest, typically), while largely cutting out snacks.
A large mat of thick, green algae has appeared on the koi pond (more on that in a future Midweek Koi Pond Update) and I’m attempting to break that up using a combination of a probiotic treatment and bubblers. The temperatures have eased up a bit here, so we’re seeing slightly more activity out of the fish, although I’m still sticking to an every-other-day feeding schedule for the time being. I did see one of the loaches the other day—he’d gotten himself trapped in the filter basket—and he was huge. What started as a three- or four-inch critter is now easily nine-inches in length, and very thick around the middle. That suggests that the pond is healthy and the fish are doing well in spite of the heat.
My beloved Brother printer has been through the paces, too. I purchased four knock-off toner cartridges after the initial cartridge ran dry, and it worked like a charm! For a fraction of the price of an official Brother toner cartridge, I got four, and these extra-large cartridges can print up to 7000 pages each (assuming you’re mostly printing text). In a couple of weeks I’ll be part of a reaccreditation team visit for a school here in South Carolina, and I decided to print up most of the documents I’ll need (I work better with physical documents than electronic ones).
The printer handled it like a champ. Anyone who has ever owned and/or operated a printer knows that they are ornery; it’s as if they each have a spirit—the literal deus ex machina—inhabiting them, and if the proper rituals and ablutions aren’t performed, the printer will refuse to work. Apparently, this printer (another Amazon Affiliate link; same disclaimer as above applies—TPP) is extremely cooperative. I probably printed 100 pages of materials yesterday, back-to-back, with little downtime between serial print jobs, and the printer never hesitated or stuttered. The only issue I had was when I ran out of paper and had to reload! Again, some printers will give up the ghost if they have to do continuous printing for more than five minutes, but my Brother DCP-L2640DW has been awesome.
Finally, I’ll be leading a couple of sessions at a teachers’ conference next week, one on teaching music lessons, another on starting a “garage band music program” from scratch. I keep dragging my feet on putting the presentations together, but I’ll get cracking on those today or Friday. Each session is forty-five minutes, and my plan is to shoot for thirty minutes of presentation followed by fifteen minutes of Q&A. I’m a big believer in finishing early so that people can have some time for relaxing, networking, pastrying, etc. Adults don’t need or, I’d wager, want to be entertained constantly. Get the relevant information, answer some questions, then go get some coffee and a cheese Danish.
What’s going on in your worlds, my blogging friends and readers? Leave a comment—and Happy Wednesday!
—TPP