A Flurry of Updates

There's quite a bit of news since my last posting, long ago and far away in Kentucky. The old homestead has been shut down, and I hauled a Wells-Cargo trailer full of eBayables back home to Camano Island. (Photos and details of the truck/trailer rig are over here).

The main thrust at the moment is acquiring and outfitting a ship of live-aboard scale, and the quest has had some bizarre twists... so many that the ship to be named Nomadness now has its own blog. At this writing, that is all about Gypsy Spirit, a 53' steel pilothouse cutter that I now think of as a very close call. The other blog tracks the strange tale, but basically it was an object lesson in how easily one can fall in love with a boat, only to realize with reluctance, after over $3K in surveys and expert opinions, that regardless of a sexy workboat patina it would involve an epic project and a scary amount of money to be truly ready for offshore voyaging. I'm now back on the quest, somewhat poorer, but considerably wiser regarding the wiles of brokers, the seductive allure of a geeky ship, and the hidden dangers of Very Old Steel.

During all this, I haven't been entirely idle here in the Microship/Shacktopus lab. One of the recurring irritants that is doubtless familiar to anyone who hauls around a bag of indispensable gadgets is the sloppy layer of related power supplies and interface widgets that ends up cluttering the space around your computer. I finally got so tired of this (especially after taking a trip with bags of tangled wall-warts and USB docking ports) that I built a docking pack. That link gives the how-to details; here's the end result:


It works beautifully, although it is by no means optimized (switching all chargers together can be thought of as Phantom Loads Writ Large; that will change as soon as a I take the time to make a proper switch-box). Still, it has gone a long way toward decluttering my desk and streamlining a quick departure.

In other news, I've been going through the audio-recording learning curve and tool-acquisition, and am about to podcast (for free) the full text of Computing Across America, chronicling the first 10,000 miles of my adventures as a "high-tech nomad" back in the '80s. This will not only help unshackle the book from its long imprisonment as an obscure and out-of-print dead-tree edition, but also get me comfortable with the audio publishing process without having to go through the painful and self-referential phase of podcasting about podcasting that seems so common these days. ("OK, I am now switching over to the condenser mic, and turning on the compressor VST plug in... this should give us a cleaner sound...").

Speaking of which, I'm using the excellent MXL 990 Condenser Microphone with Shockmountalong with the M-Audio MobilePre USB Mobile Preamp and Audio Interfaceto make the connection to the Mac. I seem to have the best luck recording in Audacity; for some reason it's noisy in Garage Band. I am really enjoying Podcasting Hacksby Jack Herrington, one of the great "Hacks" series from O'Reilly. It's current enough that all the links still work, and is really helping with the initial podcasting learning curve. Should have a first book chapter to announce Real Soon Now.

Finally, I'm ramping up the tonnage-reduction, since dormant possessions around here are like a million tiny anchors that, like that image in Gulliver's Travels, collectively keep me rooted to this spot (not to mention the considerable brain-clutter of knowing where all this stuff is). The latest tool for this is the new Microship General Store on eBay, which seems to be working much better than the old electronic garage sale on this website. Lots of stuff there. Want some?

Cheers!
Steve