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After one of my two free-cycled wooden bookcases collapsed, I contacted a Craigslist seller with several metal shelving racks at $15 per unit. She turned out to be a really nifty person to talk to. Her husband and father had both been techy folks. One had a Ph.D. in biological math and the other designed control systems for furnaces. As well as the shelving units, I bought eight or ten multi-drawer parts pins, many stuffed with various electronic components (as well as random screws and thing I'll have to toss). Just as cool, I mentioned when I first visited that I was looking for slide rules. On my return trip, she'd found two of them for me, including a 20" K&E with a magnifying cursor. Of course, I bought those too. I now own five slide rules by five different companies.

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I kept remembering too late in the evening that I wanted to paint my fingernails again. I finally did it last night using the purple/gray that was in a holiday gift bag from the library director where I work ('cause she is awesome!).

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I've commented before that different kinds of photography can be essentially whole different skillsets. Architecture vs. portraits for instance. Or even architecture vs. cars and trucks. Basical technical concepts carry over, but the details are nothing alike.

Enter digital vs. analog electronics. I started out being interested in analog, but that's led me into some digital stuff too and they are entirely different worlds. Learning to understand the analog amplifier in my radio kit while also watching Ben Eater's videos about constructing an 8-bit computer is like learning two different languages. Digital feels a little more straight-forward in its basics, but analog has more elegance and beauty, and complexity, right from the start.