It's hard being a dad...

There are times when I'm happy, but sad at the same time. This has always been the case, but it comes into sharp relief when I'm not sad at anyone, but rather, the mixed situation I find myself in.

I'm happy because yesterday I had just the best day being the solo parent. We spent the day playing, running about, etc. And having a good day when in quarantine is a tough cookie. So, despite it not being planned (Mrs. just needed to get out), it was great.

But then I'm sad because I have so many projects queued up or in various states of progress and I can't get anything on them done. I even put 90 minutes of time for me on the flipping calendar - four minutes in - literally four minutes, and all hell breaks loose. So, I get to a state where it is better to not even try.

So many projects - zero time.

Here's the list:

1. A new climbing net for the kiddos I've had for three years and it still sits outside waiting to be hung.
2. I have a desire to spin up a Loki node which requires lots of research, time, and effort (and quite a bit of money.)
3. I have over 1000 pictures that need to get scanned into the new scanning system - even bought a brand new picture/negative scanner which has yet to be plugged in.
4. Oh, the new picture scanner repository thing needs completed too. Another epic Cloudron tool to package.
5. I have 10,000+ paper documents that are mostly scanned but just sitting in OneDrive. I packaged an app for Cloudron (my favorite self hosting tool) that's perfect - just needs more testing.
6. Then I need to actually move those pictures in and monitor, tweak the auto tagging.
7. Mrs. and I have pictures going back to the 1970s (plus our collective family pics) that need to get uploaded to the new picture scanner thing and auto classified - at least most of these are already digital.
8. When I was in college, I had a history professor that used video that she had manually captured from VCRs to teach 20th century history. I bought her a pizza and she loaned me the CDs to re-rip so I could catalog, upload, and create an app for. That was 20 years ago, but my Cloudron system has an amazing app called PeerTube (decentralized YouTube) that can do exactly what I need - so that's at the top of the list too.
9. I have a wonderful network setup - I collect all of my Unifi logs into a InfluxDB database and even created excellent graphs from Grafana to monitor the performance - now I need to add all of the Windows telemetry from my newly acquired server so I can compare and contrast how to do it manually versus how to leverage the brilliance of Azure Log Analytics.
10. I have long been a fan of Home Assistant (OSS) - I have a pretty decent, but not excessive, smart home setup. But I'd prefer to get those data locally, instead of paying for, and relying on the good graces of companies, to which I am the product, not the customer. That's one of the reasons why I bought the new server!
11. Many moons and several thousand attempts later, I continue to work to extricate myself, my friends, and my family from Face/Gram/Insta/Book - that is mostly solved in a variety of great Cloudron tools that I even helped package Mastodon, Pixelfed, and a few other apps that are PERFECT for doing this. But I just can't quite convince anyone to come with us :) Even built an import/export tool. Even built a tool that "copies" posts from the new stuff to the old services so non-movers could still stay in touch.
12. I think I figured out a way to solve some of the federated social media stuff - engaging in push and Many-One conversations - ala, something like community.com but for non-rich-famous people. I did some research and am ready to build the app using Twillio (my second favorite cloud company) that would allow people B to subscribe to posts from people A. When people A "posts," the message goes out via MMS to people B. Replies come back via SMS to just people A - many to one. I think this would be a much more engaging and personal social media.
13. I have four different blogs queued up to write - so they each count, the first, is a description of how I made my Ubiquiti network router work as a policy based VPN tunnel so I have a "secure" network and an "unsecure" network - complete with VPN (obviously), DNS over TLS, and more.
14. The second article is how to wire up Cloudron to NFS services in Azure to take advantage of REALLY cheap storage vs using Azure Managed Disks (I create lots of data).
15. The third article is how to leverage Minio as an OSS provider of S3 endpoints to expose Azure storage to any app that needs S3 storage from those other guys. Been running this setup in "production" for years and just haven't had a chance to write it up yet.
16. The fourth article is a series of blogs on different OSS video/audio/screen sharing apps that can/should replace things like Zoom cause it is vile and evil. And can replace Teams cause it isn't bloated and for families, not companies. Poor Skype really shit that bed at that start of the pandemic.
17. I also need to finish up my blog series on Cryptocurrencies - the last one is actually about Loki, so I gotta do that first, then write a blog about it.
18. My new server puts out a LOT of freaking heat. I've created quite the frankenstein setup to keep it cool - that in itself is worthy of a blog or two, but this project is setting up a simple USB based temp tracker that tracks to my Influx/Grafana - yes of course I know the Dell R730 running in my closet has temp sensors, but it measures temp coming off the back of the board (which is good), but that's not the only source of heat in there - so I need an ambient air sensor - preferable to control the as yet to be purchase/installed dedicated AC unit.
19. I bought the server originally for the sole purpose of standing up Azure Stack HCI so I could learn/play/experiment with all the new shiny Hybrid things. Made it through a beta installation and got it up and running, but it was very brittle - so I needed to write a bunch of neat new scripts to automate all the manual stuff. Plus, the software continues to improve, so my stuff needs to stay up to date. How to patch, how to deploy, how to remove quickly to build an HCI lab...mmmmm
20. In my network, I've created my Unsecure and Secure VNets, but I wired each subnet as a /24. I also have an IoT subnet with firewall rules set so all my home automation shit can ONLY talk to the internet (which gets logged and Piehole'd) and can't talk to the other subnets to keep the hackers away. Well, surprise, I'm running out of space on my /24 for the unsecure subnet cause I also have lots of freaking other devices. So, I created a new subnet (zone2 if you must know), but for some reason, it won't route - I think I know why, but need time to study it.
21. My family has invested in a sweet cabin at the lake. In order for me to, you know, work from there (as well as stay connected to all the other needful), I am building a brand new network. It's nothing fancy - Ubiquiti gear for most of it, but I haven't yet gotten it set up. The part that makes it interesting is that wired internet is not available out there (it's in the sticks), so I bought a 4GLTE modem / router and TMobile gives me lots of love cause I have like 12 lines with them (and all the phone payment plans that come along with them). Just need to test it. Oh, and hook up the new wireless cameras I got for the camera, and the new Nest thermostat, and the wireless ice/water sensors, etc.
22. Speaking of cabin network - I also have a neat project to do a Point to Point from a local microwave ground station that has high speed backhaul direct to the internet, so I can hook up community wide wifi (it's about 60 cabins, seasonal). Just need to do that - already have all the gear too.
23. When we moved into this house, Janell bought me some really nice hose holders - I like to water my grass by hand like a peasant, it's therapeutic or something. I hung one hose holder right when we moved in, but in seven years, I haven't gotten around to hanging the other one. FFS.
24. Speaking of hoses, our faucets outside are 10 years old and also have those annoying as shit anti-freeze thingies (called vacuum seals) - well, they are all broken. Normally, I'd just pay someone to fix them - but the part is literally $0.12 and a plumber charges $150 EACH to do it - what a racket. So, just waiting to do that.
25. The backyard needs a complete redo - due to the age of corona, our kids got every possible toy and apparatus you can imagine back there. Lots of fun and play, but now, it's just dirt. So, I need to bring in at LEAST two dump trucks worth of pure topsoil, sod, and oh, the sprinklers back there will have to be replaced, cause they too are ten years old, in here in 'murca, things are designed with careful precision to NOT last longer than 10 years.
26. I moved a lot as a kid - and the very FIRST thing we ALWAYS did when we moved (after buying the house), was replace the carpet - cause ewe, other people's skin cells and hair and shedding...and in our case, poop. Well, when we moved in to this house, seven years ago, we just didn't get around to changing the carpet out - and it was builder grade carpet that the people that built the house didn't change out. And we've had four children - lots of poop. Suffice to say, we need new carpet.
27. I really love our house - the appointments were next level, at least to a poor kid from Oklahoma. We have "rounded" corners everywhere. Insert 6 kids who love to run, play, and break shit - all of our rounded corners are now busted and it looks like Friday night fight fest happened in our house - despite just getting a new whole house paint job a few months back. It requires time/money - isn't hard, just gotta do it.

So, I spent 30 minutes writing this, my list of things I need to do, instead of doing them. Sometimes, it is better to complain than do. And, it took me all day to write it cause...screaming little precious pooping everywhere gifts from God.

Enjoy some cuteness.