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       Stardate: 20230422.1250
       Location: the lab
       Input Device: AlphaSmart Dana
       Audio: 80's muzak
       Visual: partially cluttered desk
       Emotional: congested, miserable with seasonal allergies, but grateful.
       
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       Happy Earth Day, to those who celebrate!  I was able to spend some
       time outside, but now I'm dealing with allergy symptons.  Not a big
       deal, just annoying.  I got a chance to visit the wilderness park,
       hike on some of the trails, and play my guitar under a big oak tree.
       
       As I was playing, there were a couple of people that walked under
       the tree.  It turned out that one of those people was my friend, 
       Malia, who I haven't seen for awhile and never seen in that context.
       It was nice that our paths crossed today.  I felt connected.
       
       I wish I could have spent more time outdoors and participate in
       some of the Earth Day events around town, but allergies prevented 
       that from happening.  In lieu of going outside, I decided
       to use the tree planting simulator on SDF's minecraft server. [1] 
       The trees I grow are kinda funny looking, but that's ok.  I'll 
       probably log on again and plant some more or maybe farm some crops
       over at the Nopantsistan Hostel, formerly the Nopantsistan Republic
       Headquarters. [2]
       
       When I joined the SDF minecraft server a few years ago, I thought 
       it would be cool if you could somehow access gopher or COM[mode]
       (SDF's handrolled chat program) when you are in the game.  Gopher
       in minecraft is how I would picture GopherVR, if development had 
       continued.  I wouldn't know where to begin to develop something
       like this and don't have much coding skills, so instead I read
       phlogs in a separate terminal.  But wouldn't it be cool to have
       a terminal in your base where you can access a shell and connect,
       maybe even have aNONradio playing in the game instead of the default
       music?
       
       Well, since I couldn't do any of that, I started writing in a book in
       the game, mostly a log of places I've been, neat contraptions other
       sdfers have made, things to try building, sdfers I've met, etc.
       After I've been gone and come back, the book has been helpful for 
       me to remember stuff about the server from when I was last on.  I 
       think that the reason I left last time was because the server got
       locked up from some automation that went haywire.  I'm glad that 
       the server was not reset, the stuff I had built previously was still
       there, along with my books.
       
       Lately, the book idea has been coming up again.  The books I kept
       were in my ender chest so they were not available to other users, 
       but I've been thinking about keeping a book for public consumption.  
       I have started a new book and I'm thinking about maybe even building 
       a library of books visitors can read or even add to when they visit.  
       I have a guestbook at my base that I started some time ago that
       other people have signed.  There is a chance of the books being taken
       or destroyed or whatever, but the server seems to have more
       safeguards and the user community is friendly.  I can also keep
       copies of books.  I'll put it out there and see how it goes.
       
       Since I don't plan on going outdoors again today and since it is 
       Earth Day, I think I will work on one of my repurposing projects
       that I've been wanting to do.
       
       Several months ago, maybe even a year ago,  my computer speakers 
       let out this loud whining sound and then lost power.  I figured 
       that it blew the fuse.  I bought replacement fuses and tried 
       replacing it, but got the same results.  My knowledge of powered 
       speakers is very minimal and I didn't feel like messing with the 
       internals, so I was gonna take it to the e-waste depot.  As I was 
       disconnecting them, I realized that I could just gut the thing and 
       still use the speakers without the powered parts.
       
       Fast-forward to now, I have been using cheezy, tinny-sounding travel
       speakers for my main computer.  The dead speakers are still where
       I left them, unused, taking up space, and gathering dust.  During 
       the holidays, I was able to acquire a dirt cheap rackmount 
       preamplifier thingy (cuz rackmount and dirt cheap.)  The plan is that
       I would just hook up the preamp directly to the speakers, which would 
       replace the b0rq'd internal components.  Hopefully I can get this
       working without causing harm or fire and have better quality sound 
       than the cheezy speakers.
       
 (IMG) [1] Earth Day Pic
       [2] Nopantsistan Hostel Coordinates (-264 / 64 / -654)
       [3] New Library Coordinates (-166 / 117 / -651)
 (IMG) [4] Panzinger-Z Pic
       
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