On muscle memory & misc.

Back in 2011, after that reactor melt-down in Japan, Geiger Counter Guy flooded the world with geiger counters. Since then the market has been utterly flat. But a couple of days ago he told me he wanted to work up a biggish run, because these 10-at-a-time sessions are getting him down. So he hired me to help work up a hundred or so.

It’s been the better part of a year for me, and I was concerned I’d have to learn everything all over again. The first steps are simple enough: Clean the assembly trays, unwrap the cases, make sure you’re unwrapping the right cases, clean the speaker section with alcohol so the hot glue will stick. Then I had to prep the circuit boards. I grabbed an armload of little anti-static packages, packed six boards to a package. I poured out the first package and wondered to myself, “Now what am I supposed to do with this step?” while my hands were already doing it. This wire bundle up, this bundle out, bend the LED just so… Scut work is easy after the thousandth time or so, even after a long hiatus.

I thought I was going to have nearly $300 coming in from the same source, because GC Guy said he wanted another run of arsenic caps. But since it turned out he never shipped last month’s run of arsenic caps, that anticipated windfall fell through. Bother. But a dozen hours or so making geiger counters is far better than nothing.

Hey, you know how they say you should never warm your house with your oven, because carbon monoxide? I confess I do it all the time, but mostly just in the morning until the wood stove warms up. I am a little nervous about leaving it on all night when the temps go single-digit because I’m fond of the idea of waking up in the morning. But a couple of nights ago the forecast was for oh-my-god-cold, and I left the oven on low. About 11:30 the carbon monoxide detector, which is mounted on the loft bannister a few inches from my sleeping head, rudely woke me up. It’s the only time it ever did that. I reset it, laid back down, and it promptly started squalling again. I took the hint, went downstairs and turned off the oven. Made sure to mention the incident to GC Guy today, since he’s the one who gave me that gift. He was tickled.

Maybe the things Ghost has been getting so excited about aren’t coyotes at all. Yesterday morning he went into his act, running all around and barking like an enraged maniac. Turns out he was chasing a pair of ravens. I’ve never been able to decide if Ghost hates ravens for some reason, or just enjoys chasing them around.