Another Friday

I find it strange that Friday, while it still gets me going, I no longer work, and Friday is just another day, so different.

I rose later than I had planned, surfed, and did some lazy things. I had liberal coffee and just a banana. For the holiday, my diet was full of cheeseburgers, hotdogs, and chips, and my weight was now 235. Hmmm. Just a banana. I cleaned up, dressed, and boarded Air Volvo later than I planned. I had stayed up late writing the blog, allowing me to start early on my walk in the cool morning air. I blew up that plan! While Reedville Creek Park was not busy, the cool was long gone. I was determined to get that third loop today, and my body (unlike Friday) felt better about this walking thing. I started and tipped my hat to the other walkers.

The Panther Marching Band, the local school across from the park, was practicing while the morning was not burning hot. I got a drum marching cadence to walk to. The rest of the band was elsewhere. But I remember days of marching and playing for the Wolfpack Laingsburg Marching Band, two things I was terrible at. I remember we would practice marching the streets of the town with the band leader, having us play when we passed enough startled residents. Even though I was terrible, it was still fun and a good memory.

I managed my third loop, and the rest of the band then showed up. But unlike Laingsburg’s band, they did not strike up with an audience. I left with them, still marching around the park. I got gas and had the car washed (I have a monthly pass that lets me wash the car once a day if I was so inclined).

I returned home and started on my electronic project. I am planning on trying to build an aquarium-sized submarine with video and remote control. But for my first version, I will use a diving bell version—just lowering a camera into an aquarium by remote control. I hope the small space will not attenuate the video signal enough to make it fail. A surface ship (not needing a water-tight container) will lower and raise the diving bell and drive around the surface. At least, that is the plan in my head for the first iteration.

But even before the construction of those items, I need a test platform to create the motor and servo controls. I have a space XIAO Sense (with a camera) and will use that to test. I might also go with this as a WiFi-connected device (then not having to learn Bluetooth controls), but that is a later decision. The main check for this morning is to make the power work for the XIAO, as that is a concern. According to the Seeed website, the XIAO can charge a 3.7V 750 mAh lithium battery via the C-USB connection, but I have 400 mAh and decided to use what I have. The C-USB is also a modem connection for the XIAO for the Arduino IDE, and my Apple M2 Airbook makes this work. I had trouble with the M1 and previous versions of the OS (I use 14.5).  I love this Airbook!

Aside: I checked that to match my current machine (upgrading to M3), an Airbook with a 15″ screen costs about $2,000. A 14″ screen Pro matching the Airbook costs $2200, not the previous $1,000 difference. But a 16″ screen system is $2,000 more and more to get the top line (a f**king lot more). I priced a newish Airbook 15″ at OWC with too low of memory and drives for $900. So I will enjoy mine, which is still worth $1000; I love the 24G memory with M2 with the extra cores. My M1 one struggled sometimes.

Soldering leads on a lithium battery is not without hazards. I managed that without issue. I also added pins to the holes in the tiny XIAO. This required switching to my Hako solder iron. I also got my spare hands rig to hold things. Then, I added wire strippers, wire, cutters, needlenose plyers, shrink tubes, and a heat gun, and soon, I was working my way through attaching wires to tiny pins and putting XIAO in a breadboard. I was extremely happy that my skills in soldering 5mm areas still existed. I did not burn myself, and I did not short anything. I did have to add a loop to check the tiny attachment of a lipo to the XIAO (why not an easier connection n!?) and redid it to ensure it was not shorted (a bad thing to do even at 3.7V circuits). Yes, the tooling is impressive. I used shrink tubes to prevent any shorting, which can be bad when working with Lipo batteries (fire, boom, poison gas, and very colorful).

I plugged the USB-C into the now-lipo battery-connected XIAO with an off/on switch and a spare line to power other devices at 3.7V. The used voltage is 3.3V for these devices. The four volts are used by a regulator and other protection devices. The line off of the Lipo battery cannot be shorted (back to fire, boom, etc.).

Aside: Clean, fresh water (tap) has a high resistance to electrical use: 1-5K ohms. Thus, drowning a low-voltage DC circuit in clean, fresh water will shorten but will not likely cause a battery to explode. The by-products of the short will be oxygen and hydrogen but at a non-dangerous rate. A marine (ocean or saltwater) environment is a totally different picture and would likely be unpleasant.

Everything worked (no sudden heating), and I let the XIAO run the uninteresting Blink program loaded from the Arduino IDE. I then turned on the battery (no sudden heating) and let it charge the Lipo battery. I left everything running for a while. I read more introductions to Homer (a 70+ page introduction covering all the topics I could imagine about the text). There were no issues, and after the workout of assembling all this, I decided to stop and read.

Kathleen and I revised our plans as it was too f**king hot to not have AC and selected Guardian Games to play some games. Air Volvo in the 90+ weather soon, with just some traffic, at Guardians by 2:30. There was plenty of space in the cold AC’d gaming area. I set up the solo game, Ottoman’s Sunset, with the extra time (we planned to meet about 4). This game simulates running the Ottoman Empire from 1914-1919, trying to avoid its fall. So, Sultan Wild began his odyssey of trying to hold off all the would-be invaders and keep the morale up. I had some trouble remembering the rules and suspect I had a harder time than I should have. Strangely, the Germans won a great victory on the Western Front (Verdun!), increasing morale. I managed to reach 1918 before the British and Russians took the Middle East and Caucasians from Ottoman control. The Germans sent a battleship as a gift (a true historical event) and saved me for a little longer. The morale of the Turkish people finally collapsed, and Sultan Wild was driven from the palace. Next time!

Kathleen appeared just as Sultan Wild lost. We played two Wrymspan games, with me getting lucky and getting all the end-of-game scoring dragons (and high-value) and placing them; I won by about ten points. A second game, having to move our play to a shared space as a collectible card game tournament started, was crushing for me as Kathleen scored twenty points higher than me. I made some mistakes, and Kathleen landed some excellent combinations in the last few dragons. Next, we got out Kathleen’s upgraded Quacks of Quedlinburg, and we played the two-person base game. This is a press-your-luck game, and I did blow up twice and Kathleen once. It is a fun game, and I recommend it. You need to upgrade the components to make it great (Kathleen’s game was wonderfully upgraded). I can’t claim more than dumb luck and scored a near-perfect final play, reaching the maximum with only a count of 2 for exploding and winning by just a few points. My first win in this game.

We had not had dinner, and it was approaching 8. With the hot weather, Kathleen was thinking of an ice cream shake. A local chain, Burgerville, was only a few minutes away and makes shakes by hand. I had a bacon cheeseburger and fries; Kathleen tried their excellent chicken sandwich with fries and a shake. I have played board games on their tables before; it was before the pandemic when I was last there.

Air Volvo flew us across Portland to Kathleen’s place in Milwaukee. There were no construction highway shutdowns or other events to close a bridge, so Air Volvo took 205 back (to 84-26-217-8-209-Clarion to reach home). I was soon back at the Volvo Cave.

I was tired and not willing to stay up beyond midnight to write the blog. I read and soon showered, went to bed, and then melted. I got up and set the AC to 71, and the change let me sleep (the air moved when the AC cools). I woke at 3 to prove hydration and to climb into the covers; the night was cold now.

And that takes me to now. Thanks for reading!