I feel tired out after a non-stop week, a non-stop year, yet I feel like I'm hardly doing anything or getting anywhere. This month has largely been one of consolidation and organisation; filing.
Today I've posted two Christmas presents away, and wrapped the ones I've prepared. I've fixed a photo frame which had a broken 'tail' stand, and completed a job for mum: adding postcodes to the house address book; a book of distant family and friends (many of which we've met once-per-lifetime, or never at all) mostly used for festive cards - my father excels at this annual ritual.
Then I enhanced the new air fryer. It had dark-grey on black numbers, so I had to make them all lighter. I used vinyl stickers and sliced them into tiny (about 1x5mm) strips, sticking them on with tweezers (after wiping it all with alcohol). I painted numbers, and filled in the knob's 'dot', with white acrylic paint:
I could have bought some white Letraset-style numbers if I wanted a neater job, but this does the job without the £10 fee. The whole machine only cost £17, so £10 for white letters may be extreme!
I've updated Argus and Frameculator, so some fixes there too, and neatened up 'Two Parents Of A Child'. The sine waves 'fizz' a little. This appears to be a consequence of all sine waves which fade rapidly, even my MODX does this (though some older analogue synths didn't; not even sure if the SY-85 did, and pretty sure the Ensoniq ESQ-1 didn't). Well, the solution is to add a low-pass-filter, but that (as you expect) makes the low notes louder than the high ones, so a scalar amplitude modulator is needed too. It's done now, and this song sounds smoother than ever before.
So little seems to have been finished since my manic Sunday. I have my frame to saw and make, and still the Fall in Green vocals to add. I checked my bank account with horror; 2025, as the phrase goes, can only get better.
I must keep battling, pushing to complete the projects in plan. I need 12 music videos for The Dusty Mirror; to complete the mastering; to complete the Fall in Green album, and single of My Tambourine Man; to complete the frame for 'She Was Always Asleep As School'. Plus several Christmas duties. Time off is for me a relatively recent phenomenon. Before I met Deb, Christmas was another day, yet with annoying national closures (not that I ever cried 'humbug'). Now I must stop for a few days each December, which affects productivity, and yet doesn't exactly refresh.
Well, the battle goes on. Let us charge again with new vigour and joy.
