§ Last Sunday I moved my quails inside in anticipation of an impending cold spell. I made them a cozy outdoor coop that is protected from the wind and warmed with heat lamps but it doesn’t quite cut it once temperatures drop below zero. I’m glad I did because this week was cold with wind chills often dipping double digits below zero.
§ Monday was MLK Day. One of the ways the holiday is celebrated around Cleveland (and other cities across the country I imagine?) is that all of the local museums offer free admission to the public all day. Consequently, that means it is generally the busiest day of the year at my museum. This year broke records, with the most people I’ve seen at our museum in the three years I’ve been working there—as long as you don’t count the total solar eclipse back in 2024.
§ Setting aside Monday’s mania, this week consisted of lots of digital work with very little physical output. It all feels so engaging in the moment but is ultimately fleeting. As the week was wrapping up I was beginning to feel like I accomplished very little.
Finally, to try to counteract this, on Thursday I started a small side project that involves grid mapping a large set of individually addressable LEDS. I don’t know where exactly this project is going to go but it helped settle some of my earlier antsyness.
§ Yet again, Saturday was filled with robot prototyping. We nailed down a revised prototype of the intake mechanism we started last week. This one is both mechanically simpler and more effective.
§ My workplace and most local schools have already signaled their intention to close next Monday in anticipation of another extremely nasty storm. I apologize for the larger than average weather talk in recent weeknotes. This winter has undoubtedly been the worst one I’ve seen here in quite a while.
