The great pickup

 I was up wayyy too late into the night and early morning, watching idiotic stuff on YouTube and on some level thinking I'd avoid doing some work, but in the end I listed about 15 gauges and things on Ebay, and found room in the optics cabinet for some new optical stuff by taking the tray of microscope stuff and putting it with the other microscope parts that sit in boxes on top of the "Science" cabinet. 

And I practiced, of course. I think there's a lot I'm just not "getting" about the shakuhachi. I guess there's a reason it normally takes 10 years for someone to get adequate on the thing, and it reminds me of the sport I did where it wasn't cut-and-dried; it wasn't down to being able to curl X lbs for Y repetitions, it was just a matter of performing the sport a lot. So I eventually built up to doing it for hours a day and got fairly good. 

I finally went to bed at something like 7AM, and woke up at 2 in the afternoon because the guy was here with the truck to pick up the annealing furnace. And it went really smoothly. I opened up the roll-up door, and he got his pallet jack and picked it up, and I was ready to jump in to help him push it onto the lift gate of the truck but it went on fine. And he wasn't even a big guy; he was an Asian guy about Ken's size. I told him right off it's top-heavy and he said he picks up lots of lab equipment and it's all top-heavy. 

And I'm proud of myself, because with these pickup guys generally waking me up, I'd been interacting with them (at least with some distance) without a mask because I'd just jumped out of bed and it was all I could do to pull some shoes on. So this time I put a mask on top of the the papers I'd put on a clipboard so it was easy to put the mask on then pick up the clipboard.

After he was done, I closed up the door etc. and went back to bed for a few hours. Whew! I'd been thinking up all kinds of scenarios where the thing fell over etc. I think I worry too much. 

Dinner last night had been the pork gyoza I'd bought at H Mart, cooked with oil and chives and I made a nice dipping sauce. Late-night (early-morning?) snack had been to sprinkle "seasoned pepper" on cold gyoza wrappers, roll 'em up, and eat. It's weird but they tasted good. Breakfast today was scrambled eggs with shrimp and chives. I'm amazed how far even a small package of chives lasts.