I didn’t post here since February 2021. I found myself in a dark place and have not yet found my way out, unfortunately. But, since I enjoyed sharing here very much, I decided it was time to re-engage with you. And there is nothing better than a significant change to do so. In July 2013, I posted pictures about my move from the garage to the office (here). At that time, we reclaimed our bonus room and converted it into an office space that I could use as a lab instead of the garage where I was exposed to the bad weather. A few weeks ago, we engaged in a similar move and started decluttering our house. I have to admit that we went a bit overboard while prepping for the lockdown and the pandemic. After a year of experience, we believe we better understand what we need to stock at home and what we can reasonably assume we could source, even if the situation takes longer to resolve. To combine business with pleasure, I decided to move my collection from the garage to a climate-controlled storage place to store usual garage-gy stuff there. Since we found a place close to our home, I should access my systems almost as quickly as before. I just need to plan ahead of time.

Now, that was the plan, and the pandemic reality made our move harder than expected. Not because of the packing or the 100+ degrees weather. No. Because it is now harder to find anything. The right place, the proper storage material (shelving, boxes, etc.). This latter point is essential, as I learned the hard way that rodents would infiltrate your garage whatever you do, and they will ruin your valuables. In my case, I had to disinfect several of my systems that I foolishly kept on shelves without specific protection besides the dust. Ah, another lesson I learned is never to let any horizontal surface be exposed; they will use it as their latrine and urinal. Gross. Although the storage place claims that there are no rodents, I decided to take no chances. So, I am storing everything in plastic containers, many of them hermetically sealed. For the larger pieces, I am wrapping them into several translucent plastic garbage bags. This should take care of the problem in the future.

To express my geekiness, I will leave a camera to see what sort of nocturnal fauna lives there and measure the temperature over time, in the lot and one of the boxes. There’s no such thing as too much data! Now that I am back, I have to pick the topic for my next post. I think I will follow up on My ASM is FORTH, my FORTH has no ASM post (here); and write about the HP-41 in my next post. After all, this calculator is 42 years old! I am happy to be back; stay safe!

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