Today is my birthday. Short day at work. Felt like it.

Had a burritto. Fixed a couple HMI ballasts, a Tweenie. Cleaned up.

I need to fix the Fisher Ten tomorrow. I dread it. I'm just really bad at shifting gears, I've found. For example, if I'm working on something very technical, say a Kino Flo ballast (see diagram below), and someone calls on the phone, I get very agitated. I wish I didn't because it's not very nice, but I just react.

650 Watt Molequartz Tweenie II Solarspot

Check out the XP6! It's schematic-tastic!

So I've been working on electrical and electronics gear and enjoy doing so. When I have to do hydraulics or other such mechanical foolishness, it just hurts to pull my head out of the electrical cloud. (It really is a cloud, too: truly magical that anything electrical works.)
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Now I'm at home chilling before 24. Becky arranged for two new episodes to come on tonight, special for my birthday. So I'm listening to Fresh Air, waiting for 8 o'clock. The guy from Belle & Sebastian is on. He says he couldn't write a song to save his life until he was in his twenties. I'm almost in my thirties though. They wouldn't do interviews until recently. Decided it was too much trouble. The media's portrayal and all that. He's got quite a voice. I have to wonder if my voice could work if I practiced. Was writing songs an act of will? A desperation to communicate through words in some rare form. You could write bad poetry with a melody attached and get away with it. Bad poetry with a sweetener. Fucking genius!

Belle

Sebastian