Notes from Maine - 2025/01/05
This year is already flying by—do you feel that way? I’m ready to drop back into a schedule. The last couple of weeks have been disorienting, but today feels like a proper Sunday. It’s quiet outside except for the trees creaking in the wind. At 20º F (-6.5º C), it’s seasonably cold. Everything is frozen except for the little stream that runs through the gully. Albert (dog) briefly lost a frisbee down there this morning. The first few fetches are used for assessing the status of the woods. He lopes around with his nose pointed down and picks up the recent news. I try to get some chores done while he’s messing around. This morning I was hauling water when he came back without his frisbee. I know precisely what happened—he got distracted, left his frisbee for a moment, heard me dumping water, and came running back empty-mouthed. After I dressed him down, pointing my finger at the woods, he went back to work and found the frisbee. Albert has very few responsibilities around here. Keeping track of his toys is pretty much at the top of the list.
Last night, I spent the evening working on a pinball circuit board from 1978. I was told that it was broken, but I found that hard to believe. The board was so pristine that I took a photo of it. Usually by the time I get them they’re covered in corrosion and the normally-green substrate is baked brown from overheated parts.
It was, and is still broken. After I started poking around, I discovered one part, then another, then another, that had been blown up internally from too much voltage. Maybe a careless technician shorted a couple of lines while adjusting a switch. I’ve removed five integrated circuits at this point, but I still haven’t found all the damage. These parts can run upwards of 60 cents each, so by the time I’m done I guess it’s going to cost several dollars to put this thing right. A replacement board would cost a couple hundred. Assuming that my time is free, I’m going to come out ahead. That assumes that my repair will be successful. We’ll see.
My New Year’s resolutions were to learn phone numbers and stop scrolling. I have eleven phone numbers solidly committed to memory. I’ll keep repeating them to myself daily for the next couple of weeks just to be sure I have them locked in, but I think I’ll be okay in an emergency now. I can recite the numbers of friends and family who might be able to help me if I get stranded and my phone is broken. Of course that assumes that someone will answer a call from an unknown number, which is a big leap. We’re all so accustomed to ignoring SPAM at this point—even if I send a text and say, “Hey, I lost my keys and my phone was smashed,” everyone will assume that some clever AI is trying to trick them. I got a text yesterday talking about meeting someone for lunch. I would transcribe exactly what it said, but I’ve already deleted it.
Last week I discovered that I was spending several hours a day (on average) wasting time on my phone. Today, the number is… Hold on, I have to go find my phone. I stopped carrying it around.
I’m back. Last week I averaged 49 minutes of screen time per day (on my phone). Still sounds like a lot, but it’s a dramatic reduction. I wonder if I can keep that habit or if I will slowly drift back to mindless scrolling. Over 5% of my waking time was spent on my phone—doing what? Hopefully, I was looking up key, critical information that improved my life. I would poke around to get a more detailed report, but I don’t want to bump up my numbers for next week. I know I spend hours and hours on the computer each day, but at least that device has legitimate uses. I write, answer emails, look up schematics from 1978, etc.
Albert just came to check on me. As long as I’m typing, he usually finds something to do—nap, chew on a bone, eat breakfast, etc. But I wasn’t typing. I was staring through the window, thinking about the coming year. With my fingers quiet, he came and sat next to me and grunted. There’s too much to do today—no time for wandering minds. My resolution for today is to spend no time worrying about tomorrow, or next week, or the coming year in general. The only thing I have even the slightest bit of control over is this moment, and even that’s just the illusion of control.
