We know that many families in our community have been hit hard by layoffs, inflation, and other dire circumstances. I talked about it with my wife and son and we decided that we are in a position to give. We want that to be our focus this Christmas.

Listening to one of my music playlists on random, I was reminded of the existence of a beautiful piece of music performed by the supremely talented Norwegian soprano Sissel.

I've been thinking about what tech-related upgrade I'll focus on after I get my laptop fully working (still waiting on one more part).

The battery I ordered for my Dell Latitude 7470 laptop arrived today. However, it didn't come with the cable needed to connect it to the motherboard. So I still can't use my laptop as an actual laptop until I get that cable. I ordered one and it should arrive next week.

I accidentally left a Pluto TV stream running overnight (the Judge Judy channel, don't judge me). I don't know what my data cap is with Comcast Xfinity, but I'm probably at risk of hitting it this month. So now seems like a good time to try an experiment. For the remainder of November, I am not going to stream any video or audio for personal use.

It's been at least a couple decades since my clarinet was last taken in for maintenance and repairs, so this was long overdue.

The RAM and SSD I ordered came two days earlier than expected! I just installed them in the barebones Dell Latitude E7470 I got earlier this week. The new battery is still en route, so it'll need to be tethered to the power cable for now. It looks like everything else works!

I bought that bare bones Dell Latitude E7470 laptop from my son for $100.

Yesterday evening I started practicing some scales on my clarinet and something felt off. I discovered that one of the key mounts was loose and negatively affecting the function of several keys. I could try to repair it myself, but I'm no expert and wouldn't want to make the problem worse or break something else inadvertently. Also, it's been a very long time since I had my clarinet serviced by a proper repair technician who checks all the corks, pads, screws, etc. to make sure everything is in tip-top shape. It's probably best for me to take it in for repairs and maintenance before I start seriously playing it again.

My son and his friend raided the local university surplus store this past summer and picked up several barebones laptops with the intention of fixing them up and selling them on eBay for a profit.