Bloody hell. Neighbor driving by called me up to suggest there might be an issue.

Thank dog for good neighbors.

I shared it with a coworker and she found it funny too. It's !thelittlethings@lemmy.cafe, like finding human-recognizable acronyms in serial numbers for something that isn’t peanut butter and jelly.

Then I got ambitious and added more.

• Columbus Peppered Salami
• Citterio Hard Salami
• Wellsley Farms Castelvetrano Olives
• Wellsley Farms Kalamata Olives
• Feta Cheese
• Baby Cucumbers
• Celery
• Italian Seasoning and a little olive oil

We practised water shuttle relay operations. It was freezing cold but there was goulash soup afterwards. It was a good day.

I used the Cerakote kit. Also replaced the low beam bulbs.

Sometimes I accidentally microwave my food for one second.

Just figured out today that the dates for 1970 line up with this year. When my grandfather moved to an assisted living facility, he let his grandkids go through and pick things from his house. I chose a pinball machine, a bike, a chair, some tools, and Hilda. I love her. It makes me very happy to be able to re-use these. With 1970 being one of the earliest ones he had, I am going to be set for a while.

As I was approaching a staircase, I realized that the distance to the stairs meant I should start with my left foot. I realized it felt really wrong to start going down the stairs with my off foot. Most excitement I've had today.

TL;DR
I sold my old laptop and MacGyvered my own cardboard packaging for shipping.

Long version
I sold my old gaming laptop online and had to ship it, but the original packaging was long gone. So, I improvised with waste cardboard from other electronics, scissors, and tape. It worked! I’ve always admired how companies like Dell and HP ship their electronics. Some of their boxes have really elaborate custom cardboard inserts to protect the contents. It’s amazing what they achieve with just cuts and folds. Inspired by that, I wanted to try something similar. My goal was simple: ensure the laptop survived the journey in one piece. Unfortunately, I don’t have a degree in cardboard engineering, so I used what I had and improvised the rest.

Step 1: Prevent Vertical Movement
First, I needed to stop the laptop from shifting up or down. I made four corner pieces—essentially cardboard pillars with cutouts to cradle the laptop’s corners.

None of this was measured. It was all eyeball once, cut 5 times, and repeat until it fits. It took a few iterations though.

Step 2: Protect the Edges
Next, I needed to keep the laptop’s edges from touching the box walls. I improvised some edge supports:

Here’s how they look installed:

I also used tape in a few spots to keep everything secure.

Step 3: Final Assembly
Here’s the laptop, reasonably well-supported in the box:

I added extra padding here and there. It's just rolled-up cardboard and tape, nothing fancy.
Note: The box itself was originally for a display, so I had to adjust the length significantly. The charger isn’t visible in the photo because I tucked it under the laptop.

The Verdict
The buyer sent me a photo of the laptop upon arrival. My arts and crafts project worked as intended! 😀

It doesn't say so on the branding, but but the barcode reader goes both ways and it will pop open a locker for you to use. Nice for avoiding lines or getting a receipt after hours.

Louder bird sounds than I have ever heard before, though that could just be a factor of my own proximity to the bush and how many birds were congregated at the bush. I stopped and put my glasses on to look, but by then most had flown away.

I cleaned the innards of my sole electric guitar distortion pedal. First time ever, bought the thing in the early 2000s. Wild seeing spiderwebs inside it, and no spiders.

I apologize for the non-OC photo, but my phone camera app kept crashing. Tomorrow's another day.

Credit where it's due, Lenovo made it very easy to swap.

Right now I'm moving my stuff from Floorp over to Librewolf and noticed that some of my bookmarks are ones that were auto-created by Manjaro.

Manjaro was the first Linux distro I used as a daily driver (after Windows Update ate my boot partition) around the spring of 2022. I know that four years is not a long time, but within context, I've wiped and reinstalled my PC at least six times (soon to be seven) and moved from Firefox to Brave to Floorp to Librewolf, and those bookmarks survived everything.

Woke up to pee and smelled it and now I'm too excited for the morning to go back to sleep.

Replaced the main seal on the espresso machine for the second time. Seems we reliably get about 3 years out of a seal (machine used 4-6 times per day for 2 people).

It was so satisfying. No egg shell crumbs to clean up. Feels like I’m playing breakfast in very easy mode.

Edit: It happened again, but this time I got a better photo.

Kind of funny that it was stapled despite there being no need for one.

Everybody else wanted to crush it, so I jumped up to rescue it (I don't believe in the senseless killing of creatures that are just minding their own business). Let it crawl on a bit of tissue and took it to the exit to remove it from the premises.

On the way it escaped but I said it had been removed. It's still at large in the house somewhere but is free and alive.

Came back from running errands this morning to a wet basement and no hot water. Turns out those two things were related. Hot water heater gave up the ghost and sprung a leak. I did notice it sounded extra gurgle-y after I got out of the shower this morning.

I was planning to upgrade to a heat pump unit soon anyway, but I ended up having to get another gas one because I need it now and don't have time to run a new 220 line from the breaker box. Should have done this last year when I originally planned, damn it.

Ordered it at 1:59 PM and just barely made the 2pm cutoff for same day delivery, so that's nice. So I got to spend my evening replacing the hot water heater. Yay :-/

Update: I have successfully replaced the hot water heater. By myself. Uphill, in the snow, both ways. It was also kind of weird/sad since today is 1 year since my dad died and he would have helped me and kept me from fucking anything up. I've helped him and grandpa do this kind of stuff many times growing up so had to channel that energy and power through.

ready for the tiles (which I won't do)