Mitt liv som Tobin

Last night I started working on the x0xb0x, the Roland TB-303 Sequencer/Synthesizer clone that I am building from a kit. I remembered soldering as being tedious and stressful, but now I find it a relaxing and satisfying diversion. Reminds me of when Daniel at LHO told me, "Anyone can feel good about themselves when soldering!" Unlike so many other activities at school, you make guaranteed progress towards a goal, and it doesn't require much thinking. Anyway, I finished building and testing the power supply and am ready to move on to the voltage controlled oscillator.

In the last 24 hours:

• Assembled and tested x0xb0x power supply, in the Secret Underground Laboratory
• Slept a lot
• Made Norwegian waffles for breakfast
• Received a shipment of books from Duffy Littlejohn
• Scoped out the Rochester and Southern rail yard
• Fraternized with vyncentvega
• Looked at my TA evaluations. They were very positive except the students say I grade homework too slowly.
• Bought stock in the company that owns Rochester and Southern, just for the hell of it
• Ate some more waffles
• Rented a truck from home depot to move some more gravel to finish our hot tub foundation
• Got this truck stuck in mud
• Hired tow truck to get Home Depot truck out of mud

So, now I am drinking strongly spiked hot chocolate. Somewhere in the above process I lost my car keys again. Boo.

four and I made, if I dare say so, an incredible dinner tonight. French onion soup, fresh bread, baked asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice, mashed potatoes, salad, another soup for the vegans, wine. It was quite good, anyway. The bread in particular was a snap to make, about 45 seconds in the food processor to make the dough, and especially delicious smothered in butter.

I received an email today from ladyada saying that my name has come up on the x0xb0x waiting list. hot! i'm pretty tempted to get the thing, a kit for a clone of the original roland sequencer. I happened upon one when shephi was taking probablevacancy and I through a tour of the wondrous MIT dorms, and it is a thing of beauty.

this afternoon i attended a lecture on nucleosynthesis, i.e., the first three minutes of the history of the universe, in which things cool down enough to make some hydrogen and helium.

i am daydreaming about my and bree's future trip to california and maybe mexico. i hope i can get to california in time to attend little one's graduation from berkeley.

four's banjo is a thing of beauty too. i haven't seen him play it yet, but bree is amazing on it.

on sunday i am retrieving and installing my hot tub, with a little help from my friends. (I have been bugging people incessantly to help with the move; it does, after all, weigh 836 lbs.)

hypostatization and i may be forming a partnership to rent out a spectacular loft space we recently discovered. it's current occupant is an amazing guy but tragically he's moving out west next month, and we can't bear to see his space slip away. we have no concrete need or use for the space, but the place is so amazing it seems a moral imperative to sieze upon it. our own l0pht will be formed here in rachacha.