A Geek Goes Flying

Much to my surprise, I found myself with six guitars[1] (seven, if you count the battered 10 year old JS34 Dinky I keep at the office, that I bought off a guy from Taft in the alley behind the Virgil ). And my small space was starting to get cluttered. Most of the cheap stands I found on Amazon were too big, or only fit a smaller number of guitars, or had enough 1-star reviews to make me nervous. $130 isn’t a huge splurge, but it’s more than I wanted to spend - but I’m glad I did, on this  String Swing Guitar Stand for 6 Electric or Bass, or 3 Acoustic Guitars for Home or Studio (CC34) . (After being inundated with ads for their stuff on Facebook etc.) (I kinda want to wall hang, too (or, like, shelf-hang, maybe with something like this ?), but I have no idea where I could do that where it would look “right.” I’m planning on wall hanging one guitar out in my living room where I’ll be reminded to pick it up every day.)   The CC34 stand with one acoustic, five electric guitars ...

For the Listening Station™, intentionally constrained by the dimensions of the IKEA Knarrevik ($10 when I got it), I needed to put the Schiit stack on top of the 2014 Mac mini I’m using as an audio source. Unable to find a ready made solution that did what I wanted, I hacked this together Parts / tools: 6061 T651 Aluminum Sheet Metal 10 x 10 x 1/8(0.125") Inch Flat Plain Aluminum Plate ($15) Sign Standoff Screws Advertising Screws Stainless Steel Wall Standoff Mounts Glass Acrylic Nail, 8 Pieces (0.75 x 1.96 Inch) ($9) DEWALT Drill Bit Set, 14-Piece, 135 Degree Split Point, For Plastic, Wood and Metal (DWA1184) ($10) A 7.2V Black & Decker cordless drill I already had ( $27 at Walmart? Edit: Found the original receipt; it was $19.88 in 2007); roughly equivalent to this I think ($29), but if I was doing it again I’d get something like the beefier 20V MAX Cordless Drill (BCD702C1) . Shooting glasses I had lying around ( equivalent to these ) ($11). The stand-offs being .75...

Been meaning to do this for a while, if only to get them up off my flat surfaces. IKEA SKÅDIS pegboard and keybards   SKÅDIS Pegboard combination, white, 14 ¼x22 ($17) Connector , to mount it to the piece of scrap lumber pictured here ($6). Container , to hold switch lube, tools, etc. ($4). Ikea Skadis/Uppspel Keyboard Holder Set from Etsy seller AkosinCreations (4x $13).

The Zendure X5 was a pretty unique package, and I’ll miss it (it died and they were not able to replace it under warranty 😢). The best compromise I found to replace it was the Anker Power Bank, 20,000mAh Portable Charger with Built-in USB-C Cable, 87W Max Fast Charging Battery Pack (A1383) for about $60. It’s a little bigger and heavier, but Anker packs tend to have good efficiency ( comparison ), and the power profiles available mean I should definitely be able to properly fast-charge a tablet with enough juice to spare for a top-off of an iPhone, etc. Anker 20,000mAh PowerBank (The new pack is 6.2x2.9x1" (vs. 4.5” x 2.8” x 1”) (so, ~43% larger on the Cocoon ), and 15.5 oz/ 440 grams (vs. 10.41 oz / 295 g) (so, ~49% heavier). Not super small or light weight, but to get no-compromises high speed charging for both the battery pack itself and a connected tablet, plus > 60 Wh of usable capacity, that’s what’s out there. Everything else has a severely charging capability ...

I bounce between bags / a briefcase (e.g., Timbuk2 Control messenger bag or Spirit or Track II backpacks; various tomtoc bags; a black leather Kenneth Cole backpack I got as a gift a few years back). I found myself buying, or poised to buy, duplicate cables and other accessories, and then realized how silly that was. But constantly unloading/loading all the miscellany was a pain in the ass. Enter Cocoon organizers. Small Cocoon with tablet accessories I have a Cocoon CPG4BK GRID-IT!® Accessory Organizer - xSmall 7" x 5" (Black) for my tablets (an old iPad Pro 9.7 in a ZAGG Rugged Book Pro keyboard case with an Apple Pencil 1 , and an iPad 9th Generation in a protective case also with an Apple Pencil 1), that fits perfectly in the front pocket of my tomtoc 11 inch Tablet Sleeve Bag . It’s carrying: An Anker 20,000 mAh battery pack Zendure X5 ( waiting on a warranty replacement ) 15,000 mAh power bank with 45W output power Insignia Lightning Wired Earbud Headphones (...

Done. I mean, it’ll probably always be a work in progress, but I’m done tweaking the space for now. Really happy with how everything came out. The workstation corner. The workstation corner and new sofa (featuring the Labrador) The Mac Pro (etc.) battlestation itself. The wire shelves, storage boxes, Tokyyo60 keyboards, headphones on stand, and radiator. The Desk: UpLift. UpLift Desk Redoing my home workstation (again), finally with a sit-stand desk (I’ve been meaning to do this for years , like, I found a Facebook post from 2014 asking for recommendations, back when my other furniture only provided a tiny space and UpLift didn’t have anything that would fit). I love my Sipo Mahogany 72x48" desk at the office (from 2016), so ... I started with a 48x24" solid wood UpLift desk from their clearance section , with an October coupon code. Went with the regular (non-commercial) V2 C-frame in black. Added the Advanced Comfort Flush keypad (the memory feature is worth $39 to me, v...