Daily - Feb. 4, 2026

Previously…

Today’s recap

First breakfast and then I needed to get our biz books balanced and pay a few bills. Even though we aren’t working, them bills still need to be paid.

After bookeeping I went outside to work on my truck. The last prep I needed to do before the start of the season is drop the spare tire and check it out, plus make sure the jack is all in the same spot and functional. It didn’t go well.

First the jack. It had built up a lot of debris and the grease was mostly gone, so it was jammed. It took a long time to grease up the pole 😎, clean it up, and then operate it a few times to make sure it was reliable.

Next was the spare and this was all bad news. The spare can be raised or lowered using a pulley that you wind up or down using the jack stand poles. I couldn’t get it to lower. The arm would just spin and spin with no impact. I climbed under the truck and found that the arm attaches to the pulley and has a cotter pin that connects the two. The cotter pin is missing so the arm can’t spin the pulley. Plus the tire is covering it, so I can’t get my big ol’ fat hand in there to attach a new cotter pin. The tire is stuck until I figure out how to get that pin in.

Lunch and then I had another hair-brained idea. This time to mount my 100W solar panel on the roof. More on that below.

The weather has been so nice, so Wife, myself, and the gorls all went outside in the late afternoon. This is unreal for February in the Puget Sound region. The weather should be the coldest it will get all year and our best chance at snow. Instead it is 65F and clear skies.

Our adventure outside was a blast. The gorls played for a bit and then the neighbors kids came out to play. All of my kids have been slow to warm up to other folks and keep small friend groups. They are never the ones to instigate a conversation, either. They get adopted by an extrovert.

Not my littest gorl though.

Once those other kids came out she made it a point to go play near them. One of the best features of this gorl is she’s not afraid. She’s not afraid to do whatever she wants and not afraid to tell people her opinions. She just started playing around those other kids. Ultimately this was little kid stuff, so they went a long, long time without really acknowledging each other. But, this was just day 1.

I’m proud of her. She went way out on a limb and made some progress towards some neigborhood friends. We are friendly with the adults, but not friends. My wife is an extreme introvert and I’m anti-social (I can be extroverted when I want to be, I just don’t like people), so when the kids make friends it means we also have to go speak to the other parents. Not fun, but part of the job.

We played outside until it was too dark. Came in and had dinner, then watched the latest Lucha Libre AAA.

Projects

I saw some posts on my #solar feed on Mastodon that was showing off balconey solar panels. It is infuriating these kinds of systems aren’t available in the US. I have a single 100W solar panel that I use for various projects, notably my Pixel phone server. I had plans this summer to build a frame for it and put it on a post in the backyard. After feeling some inspiration seeing these balconey solar panels I decided fuck it, I’m mounting mine on the roof.

I bolted on 4 brackets to the panel and mounted those to the roof above the garage. The roof faces south and gets lots of direct sun and is a straight line into my bedroom. I made a little frame to close the window around the wire and then connected it to my Jackery power station. Its not much, but I’m happy with it. Next up is configure my desk to only use the power station that is charged from solar.

Daily gratitude

• I’m so proud of my littest gorl.
• I’m happy I got this solar panel. I’ve done so many fun projects with it. Let’s see where this rooftop mounted panel goes.
• I am glad I know how to use tools and build things. Happy to work with my hands.

Tomorrow’s big thing(s)

Work! I have my first job of the year. We are installing a sprinkler controller inside of a secure box to prevent it from being vandalized. Someone keeps breaking into it. I think I know who it is. One of the homeowners also thinks they can mess with the neighborhood parks watering system.

Loose thoughts

How does a place become a city? Like, how does it happen? How does a collection of a few houses turn into a city? How do you choose when to have a mayor?

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