Cool and wet, again. Winter in Houston. No surprise there. We’re back to normal. Kid asked me what the weather would be today. I told her I rarely look at the forecast, since you can be better than 80% right just by saying it will be like yesterday. That earned me a funny look, but it’s true. It’s rare that the weather changes dramatically from day to day. Give that we live here in the swamp, I was thinking about how few are the times we have to stand in the rain waiting for the bus. Even with heavy misty drizzle counting as rain, it’s still unusual for us to need an umbrella. And that’s pretty weird.
Did my thang yesterday. Finally got to chat with the manager at the auction that stiffed me just before Christmas by not letting me pick up my item a day late. He was surprised I didn’t come in and get it. I told him I tried twice, but got no love. He refunded the total, and then looked to see if they relisted the item or stole it. They did eventually relist it. I’m feeling better about that now. We had a good chat about the business in general, and making money as resellers, and the ecosystem of their part of the secondary economy.
Wife was home sick all day so I ended up doing more kid taxi than normal. Didn’t get to the grocery store. That will have to happen at some point today. Almost out of diet Dr Pepper, and that can’t be allowed to happen…
Today I’ve got more appointments, and I need to swing by my client’s house. He has a video source not working and I need to figure out why. I’m pretty sure I know, it’s happened before. With all the high quality gear in the rack, we have these cheap nasty chinese HDMI audio extractors to pull an analog audio signal out of the HDMI stream for some sources. They don’t last. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a better solution. I’m hoping that’s the issue because I’ve got spares in the truck and it’s an easy fix. It does cause him frustration and a service call, which sux, but it’s every other year or so… so pretty spread out.
That is a general problem that is actually much better than it used to be. Some things you can’t find a good expensive solution or product, only cheap crep. Most things you have a nice range of choices though. This is a significant improvement over the 80s, for example, when it seemed like quality wasn’t available in the US for any price. I can buy high end pro level gear, or cheap chinese crep that does the job, but barely and not forever; or I can choose from a wide selection in between. In this case, the chinese ignore some standards and protections and requirements that more reputable and professional companies can’t ignore, so the cheap crep actually does something that better quality gear won’t do. It’s a tool in the box. Just not a very well built tool.
In any case, my day is full… and other than the grocery store, and making money, and checking up on my health, won’t involve preps. Oh, those are preps. Ok, I’m good!
You all should stack something.
nick