Author: Matt

Went over to storage, and picked up my dolly, and loaded it into the car, ready for sculpture bumpout on Tuesday. Also picked up some new steelcap boots.

Tuesday, the sculpture came home – and we didn’t even use the dolly, so that adds to the list of proper indusrial equipment I own that sits in storage.

However, the sculpture is now successfully entombed at storage, and a major thing is ticked off my list for things to do this year.

I also got my 2022-2023 tax return submitted to the accountant.

I concluded my Day And Night series of images on Mastodon – 85 days in a row of posting an image every day. I started figuring out the next series of images, and I think it’s going to be re-examining my Fish Noir images. So, I built a new Capture One library, imported the images, and started trying to recreate the Aperture look.

Ended the week visiting Brisbane – I haven’t had to lock up an empty house for years.

Had the car serviced, and continued to work on tidying the house. I heard back from the producer at Channel 7 to explain that my email had gone to their spam filter. I don’t think they’re going to interview me. I did however email the law firm running the case to ask if they wanted to chat about a tangental thing – the issue about Apple not making spare parts available for Mac Pros.

I did a bit of doodling in Sketchbook on my iPad, for the first time in ages. It was fun.

Sunday I went to storage and assembled my new panel dolly, which we’re going to use to move C45C4D3 out of the library.

So I purchased a panel dolly…

…in the hope it would make it easier for me to bump out my sculpture from the Library’s Makerspace. It’s annoying I have to do this, and it will no doubt add to the collection of industrial equipment I own, pay to store, and don’t use, BUT it’s necessary.

Unfortunately, trying to organise a timeframe to get access to the library to remove the work is proving more difficult than I would have hoped.

Strange thing that happened Wednesday – a producer from Channel 7 Brisbane got in touch with me, asking if I’d like to be interviewed & filmed, to present comment about a new class action lawsuit being launched against Apple, on behalf of consumers over app prices being raised due to a lack of competition in payment processing. They wanted to film me “working” to go with my interview question answers.

It was odd, but didn’t end up going ahead, I suspect because the issue was more complex than they’d originally believed it to be.

Thursday my mother left for several months caravanning, so I am on my blissful lonesome, which makes things a bit easier if I want to do any work etc.

Having trouble finding an art mover for my sculpture at the library.

Spent the beginning of the week getting ready for a power outage on Tuesday night. It all went OK, though it required some futzing around resetting the air conditioner at three in the morning.

I had a realisation that I’ve been posting an image from my Japan trip to Mastodon every day, without fail, for over 60 days. It feels good to be working on a project, and getting progress done.

I also built out a mindmap flowchart of all the ideas I’ve had for the tentative Life of Flies, a Surfing The Deathline prequel / side-story, focussing on The Dealer, and the MI which created The Line.

Some final tidying at storage, and a colossal mess made at home in trying to find a camera plate. But, it was finally located, and some blankets I don’t need at home are now in vacuum bags to go back to storage.

I sent the library a detailed assessment of what is going wrong with the sculpture as a result of the way it’s been hung.

I submitted an application to the Horizon festival to see if I could get my rope sculpture exhibited.

Spent a fair bit of time tidying and relocating stuff to small plastic boxes at home.

Some major reorganisation at storage, as I prepare to bring C45C4D3 home for rest and recuperation, and hopefully repair.

Went down to Bunnings at Maroochydore, and picked up a circular saw so I could cut up my old desk top, so that it can be carted out to the tip. If I need another big desk, I’ll go for something nicer than melamine chipboard.

Also, I managed to check out the (correct) camera at the camera store around the corner from Bunnings while I was there. It was in very nice condition, and coincidently, a 20% off sale for secondhand gear had started since I was there last. So, I picked up the camera, & a 2 year warranty / protection plan, all for a couple of hundred less than I’d been planning on spending for the camera in the first place.

Once I got it home, I realised it’s shutter count is a couple of hundred fewer than mine, so it’s likely been relatively lightly used. So huzzah all around.

I eventually sawed up my old desk – yet another thing I hauled from Sydney to here, and never used. To the tip it went.

Then, I managed to make a mess of my newly cleaned storage, looking for a tripod adapter plate for my camera. I tore a bunch of storage boxes apart, and my bedroom drawers, before finally finding it folded inside something else, in the first place I’d looked. So, by Sunday, I was cleaning up storage again.

Well, that’s been a week.

I shaved my beard off. I’m not happy about it, but it became necessary, given the amount of things I had to do this week.

I went over to the library makerspace to check on my sculpture, it’s going to have to be removed from display, because the way it’s hung is damaging it.

I went down to Maroochydore to check out a secondhand camera that had been sent up from the Gold Coast, but they sent the wrong one, so now the other one has to be sent up.

I went to storage on Saturday & Sunday, and moved a bunch of stuff about, to start making space for the sculpture to come back from the library.

Came to the hard decision this week, that I’m going to shave off my beard. It’s been ten years or so, and the beard just isn’t compatible with continuing to have a life in a world where masking isn’t going away.

The weight loss and gaunt face look I have now kind of makes me ok with it – I usually make a style evolution every seven years or so. Doing this will be a significant quality of life improvement, despite having to re-learn shaving.

In conjunction with this, I ordered a mask from an American company, that is a silicone mask, with a disposable filter. It doesn’t have an exhaust vent, which should make it better usable if mask mandates come back in.

I decided on a camera upgrade, so I’ve ordered a secondhand D810, the model after my current one, which has a bunch of small upgrades. It has a warranty, and is a price I can handle. It’s in stock down on the Gold Coast, but can be sent up to Maroochydore for me to have a look at it.

I made some progress on updating my virtualised Adobe environment for working on old Surfing The Deathline books.