Getting Started again

Happy New Year! So this is my first post after I finally got this thing deployed, and so far, so good. I've actually been doing several things recently.

New office setup

I'm typing this on my new keyboard, that is super nice (Logitech MX Master Keys). It's the newest addition to my work from home setup. Since this setup is going to be a more permanent situation, I wanted to make sure it was functionally as powerful as I could make it. I started with a new work table that has a crank adjustment. I got it from Home Depot and has been working great. I actually use it sitting on a stool, so it's more of a counter height. I added a secondary mini PC to my station that is running my camera and OBS. This isn't the best setup, but I wanted to build my setup around my work machine, rather than installing a bunch of software on it.

The biggest problems I've had were dealing with the general darkness of the basement (pretty easy) and getting the audio working (little tricker). The audio problem happened when I added a second connection between the 2 PCs (first being the capture card) and caused a hum between the two. The solution occured to me at some point watching John Darko and Hans Beekhuyzen's Audiophile channels (not exactly sure who gets the credit). The revalation was that optical cables such as toslink can't hum! So a $30 soundcard with an optical connection later and everything was fixed.

I still have some things to sort out. First, my desk still has a bunch of little boxes, so I need a little shelf or some velco or something to hide some of it. For that matter, I have some major cable management to do, but as I've been experimenting to get everything to work I haven't bothered to fix it yet. Second, while my light solution works, it's ugly and not very solid. I'm going to work on that in the coming months. Third, while my audio solution works, I'm probably going to try and build it out a bit more. I've always wanted an audio interface and a good set of monitors. I'm never going to be a recording musican or anything, but I would like a good enough setup that if I ever wanted to record something for someone I have the capability to do so.

Zettelkasten reboot

So the thing I haven't dealt with yet is my plans around building a new data system. I've had some good thoughts on how to make that work, but honestly I've been procrastinating on trying to make it work. I don't have a justification. I almost think I should drop the idea and move on, but I have this feeling I can't drop that it would solve some long term problems I've had. I had hoped to spend some time over the holidays trying to figure out my hurdle, but as today is the last day I don't think that's going to happen. I hope soon I'll have an inspired idea that kicks off my efforts.

Thankfully, all the notes I took last year around building out a system last year easily transferred to this site, though the links in blog posts are probably broken. I mentioned in the previous post that I've come up with some workflow ideas, so I don't feel like I'm at square one - which may be part of the problem. I'm really excited about my ideas to make this work and so the middle bit that I need to solve needs to fit neatly within the components of the system I've already decided on.

I tried out a few markdown based solutions, but they all felt like they were getting in my way. I don't want something that strays too far from the idea of zettelkasten. I also don't want something that adds too much automation, so I think I'm stuck figuring out on my own. I've been reading about other people's workflows trying to draw inspiration, but nothing has "sparked joy" with me yet.

I think I've written enough in this initial post. Hopefully I'll have good news in the near future. I don't want to procrastinate about this too long, so at some point I'm probably going to just try and force it for a bit and see what happens. Thankfully, I've had other priorities that it was easy to put off, but that excuse only lasts so long.