Ok, one of the bad things about stress:

When I’m stressed, I get this sickening worried feeling that I should be doing something or I have forgotten something important. The problem is, I can never put my finger on the problem.

I’m a stress magnet. People who are stressed walk by me, and I get stressed.

How does one go about fixing that?

Sorry, readers… it’s been a hectic week. I’ve been putting together the largest budget request I’ve ever done. It’s still small in comparison, but it has taken a lot of work and combined with the other things I normally have to take care of, I haven’t had much time to blog. By the time I get home, I don’t even want to look at a computer.

Today is Field Day for ham radio operators, and my attempts to get my antenna fixed have thus far been unsuccessful. Some of that is attributed to the fact that I don’t care to climb back under the house, so I am waiting on my nephew to get back from work so he can do it. It builds character… manly stuff like climbing under the house is good for him. The other advantage is that I don’t have to get under the house again.

Either way, I think Ann and I are going to the Blount County Amateur Radio Club Field Day station. They sent out an e-mail the other day inviting operators out to their event, and I have been looking for a club that is ACTUALLY doing something besides fighting with other groups.

Looks like work is going to be extremely hectic over the next 3 months. Looks like we’ve got another move in our future, a new accounting system to get online and a robotics project I will have to work on. All of that seems to be coming due about the same time.

I have enough coax to run a new line without buying more!
W00T!

(we now return you back to your regularly scheduled, less geeky lives)

My lovely wife and boy bought me 25′ of RG-8x coax for my amateur radio station. I crawled under the house to install it, soldered the connectors on and tuned it up, only to find that it wouldn’t tune correctly and it’s receive was weak.

After 3 hours of troubleshooting, resoldering both connectors and finally stripping both connectors off I have determened there is a short in the cable itself. Bummer. Now I have to get back under the house when I get the replacement. Given my current girth and the small size of the crawlspace entrance, this will not be any more pleasant than last time.

Sigh… Field Day is next weekend. Maybe I can get on the air by then.
Have a great weekend!

it’s a wonder I can think at all.