Electricity in the barn Sunday, 02-Feb-25 21:10:04 CET

Repaired the washing machine Sunday, 16-Feb-25 14:47:06 CET

Sunday, 09-Feb-25 22:38:38 CET

The builders finished their part of the barn

This week, the builders finished their part of the barn. Now, DW and I have to finish our part.

Monday 3 February

Last night, I could sleep well until I could not. An idea for a new song hit me. I had to stand up and go downstairs. I did not want to wake up DW. I sat writing on the song, and Merida came to sit next to me, purring loudly. The idea for the song came from this video by Richard D. Wolff. This YouTube is 38 minutes long. I got inspired by about two-thirds of the video for my song. The video explains why we got into this situation that the world is in right now. It is Richards's explanation, but he got a point since I made a song based on it. Or vice versa. Anyhow, what he has to say is interesting.

https://youtu.be/sFa4Lm_ZTyI?si=5jELYCs-LTUsuPJS

I could not finish the song, but I got enough written for peace of mind. That is what is necessary to sleep.

In the morning, I sprinted out of bed like a puppy dog to make breakfast well on time to get DW to work and prepare the place for the people of the building company.

This morning, it was minus 4 degrees Celsius. I opened the barn for the builders and turned on the light. Then I cleared the final little part of the workshop in the house so they could stay there when having their lunch.

DW and I had our breakfast, and I brought coffee to the builders. It was two people. One of them worked here when I tried out the DJ set, and he still enjoyed the memory of that occasion. It was on 20 December last year.

The first task was to put up the walls for the restroom. The walls were attached to the part of the wall we had already covered with boards. They were concerned about drilling in the floor, but I could show them pictures of how the pipes are running, and they were good with that.

While the builders finalized the last pieces of the barn, I continued to work on my song.

We got a simple ladder installed in the barn attic. It is hanging in a bracket and can be removed if necessary. We will see how that develops.

The builders left at 4 PM, and I noticed it was a little late for the liking of one of the builders. All was fine. I thanked them for building the barn, and they thanked me for coffee and good support.

When they left, I finished the new song. It is called Broken Dream Blues. Here is the lyrics of the song:

[Verse]
That dangerous clown walked into the hall.
An insurrectionist, do you remember the brawl?
How’d he make it to the Oval Office door?
Our faith in the system is shaken to the core.

[Verse]
From eighteen seventy, one hundred years light.
Real wages climbed high, and working hard felt right.
But in the last forty years, that promise has lost its glow.
Now, the rich keep on winning while the rest reap woe.

[Chorus]
Our faith is in the hands of an incompetent man.
As a resident of the white house, we cannot ban.
Project twenty-twenty-five rolls out their plan.
Elon is on stage dreaming of apartheid.
Saluting with a straight arm, horrors denied.

[Verse]
Musk, Buffet, and Bezos they are hoarding the gold,
Everyday folks wonder where the good times fold.
Since 1978, real wages have stopped the climb.
Our pockets run empty in these debt-stricken time.

[Verse]
The tax code was twisted to feed the top’s greed.
The women have to hustle because there is no other creed.
Borrowing dreams to keep the lights on at night.
But the cost of our future doesn’t feel right.

[Chorus]
Our faith is in the hands of an incompetent man.
As a resident of the white house, we cannot ban.
Project twenty-twenty-five rolls out their plan.
Elon is on stage dreaming of apartheid.
Saluting with a straight arm, horrors denied.

[Verse]
Now, rising interest rates hit families hard and deep.
Reminding us of shadows from history that creep.
Just like in old Germany, when fortunes fell apart.
A warning from the past should echo in our heart.

[Verse]
Whisper of an Austrian man with a mustache so small.
Who stirred up the masses and saw empires fall.
History’s lessons cry out with every bitter tear.
Don’t let our future be stolen by deceit and fear.

[Chorus]
Our faith is in the hands of an incompetent man.
As a resident of the white house, we cannot ban.
Project twenty-twenty-five rolls out their plan.
Elon is on stage dreaming of apartheid.
Saluting with a straight arm, horrors denied.

[Verse]
The midterms are coming in two years’ time.
Cast your vote for the honest, let the truth be your chime,
Reject trickle-down promises and the glitter of their lies.
Choose voices that speak for all, not just the ones who rise.

[Bridge]
Trade wars are not making America great again.
It just makes us all go through insufferable pain.
Together, we can mend the broken seams.
Next time, cast a better vote and reclaim our dreams.

[Chorus]
Our faith is in the hands of an incompetent man.
As a resident of the white house, we cannot ban.
Project twenty-twenty-five rolls out their plan.
Elon is on stage dreaming of apartheid.
Saluting with a straight arm, horrors denied.

[Instrumental Outro]

Then, I started working on the art of the album. It was not that simple. At first, I tried to make ChatGPT produce Donald Trump as a dangerous clown, but that was against the policy. I could get TensorArt to produce a Donald Trump image, but it did not look right.

	Then I tried making Chat GPT to make an image of a girl holding an empty wallet with a debt collector in the door opening. Well, that worked, except she became cartoonish and too pretty.   Another thing is that it is not that convincing. There is a guy, but what is this about?
	In the next attempt, I tried to make the girl hold an envelope with the text Final Notice. The person at the door wears a hoodie. Good enough. The problem is that the girl is way too undressed. The girl's skin is too smooth. ChatGPT has a cartoonish style that I did not want in this case.   Besides the unnecessary shoulder. She is about to lose her apartment and has a bare shoulder. It gives the wrong vibes.   Her hand has another problem, but I have not noticed it yet.
	I tried the image-to-image functionality of TensorArt, and it undressed the girl even more. Now, the hoodie is a helmet, and he has a handbag. I like that the skin is more rough.   I used the STOIQO New Reality model.   Now, the sweater is separated at the hand. Strange.   The hand gave me an idea, however. What if I dressed the girl and did the image-to-image operation again?
	I took the image from ChatGPT and dressed her myself. Then, I ran this through the image-to-image in Tensor Art.
	Now the girl had the clothes on. The person in the door opening is now wearing a strange helmet, but that is okay.   I tried to get the girl to cry, but Tensor Art would not give me that favor. There is just so much one can do.   The girl has a dot below each eye, and I will remove one. For the rest, It is fine like this.   There are red patches in the door opening. That is strange.   Amazingly, I could trick the tool into putting her clothes on.
	Here is the result with my manual edits. This is the artwork for now for the song. I can always replace the artwork later.

 

Moments later.

There, she goes to the stores. I decided not to send her to Dezer because Dezer doesn’t appreciate AI artists. I can live with that. We live in a new reality with new tools. Some people cannot handle it. They have a moral torch they can shine on things, and they point the torch to AI music. There appears to be a moral issue with how these new tools have been trained. Where is the material from? There are no doubt moral issues to be found with Suno.ai if you search hard enough, but where is the torch not shining, and are other moral problems perhaps more severe?

I am paying for the Suno.ai service, and I do not know how they got to produce the tool they have. I am filling the car with gas, and I have no idea if that gas is paying for Putin's war effort. It is not so that I am without personal morals. I stopped eating most animal products. I try not to buy avocado and palm oil products. I am trying to buy as little new clothing as possible. I am not flying unless it is strictly necessary, and has not been necessary for over ten years. Point your moral torch to the stuff that matters to you.

Tuesday 4 February

Today, DW worked from home, and I went to the office. With me came a neighbor that I brought to the train station. It was a productive day, and that was feeling great. At home, DS took on the task of receiving the pipes for the barn's rainwater system. We got nine pipes of five meters each and a large box of couplings.

Wednesday 5 February

Today, I worked from home in the morning. I made some minor improvements at work that I was proud of. DW also worked today, although she usually got a day off on Wednesday. It was her birthday today. We planned to go to PILs in the afternoon and stay for dinner. The PILs are old now. We would instead go to their place to celebrate DWs birthday because the PILs are not that mobile. It was late when we came home.

Thursday 6 February

6:00 February right now, it is 8:12 AM. I’m driving to work on my own. It is misty today. In the distance, things disappear.

6:15 PM on my way home. It is 6°C and not misty anymore. Today, we received the wood chips . They arrived with the last rays of sunlight. It feels like there have been many things delivered to us lately. Every time that happens, it means we need to work on something as well. It is not so that things are arriving and the product means we are doing less.

Friday 7 February

It is Friday, and I have a day off. I am in a good mood. It feels great. I have had backaches lately, which is unnecessary because if I do my belly muscle exercises, the aches will disappear in a couple of days. The thing is, I have not done any belly muscle exercises until this morning, and I already feel better. DW is working today, at least in the morning. In the afternoon, she will compensate for the lost hours on Wednesday.

I made breakfast, emptied a bokashi bucket, and gave our sheep hay. I see the difference when I give them hay; they eat more of the hay. When DW gives them hay the next time, there is a perfect ridge in the middle of the hay rack that they cannot reach. Essentially, it is a design error for the hay rack, but we will keep this rack until the stable is finished, and then I will build the ultimate hayrack. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see a difference between DW and me. What am I doing differently?

Now I smell sheep. I think it is my trousers. Oh well. I think I had a sheep smell in my face. Oh dear. The trousers had to be washed, bringing us to the washing machine. It appears that the cole pins of the motor were worn out. That happened a couple of years ago as well. I had enough things to do, so this new extra task numbed me.

I calculate the beams I need for the barn to support the boards and the sheet metal ridge. The builders advised me to extend the existing beams to improve the ventilation of that part of the barn. That means I need 57 pieces of 0.4 meters, which is 22.8 meters of beam. I bought these beams last year as well. The last time I bought these beams was my birthday last year, on 3 July. At that time, it was for mounting boards on the house. The beams are 4.81 meters long, so I will need 4 of them, but I will buy a package. I will use approximately half of the package.

I went to my first go-to hardware store, but these beams were out of stock. The second store, which was not far from the first, did not have that product. Then I went to a new store, PontMayer, that I have not been to so often. Perhaps one or two years ago. They had the beams I was looking for. I could drive the car through their shop. That is nifty. I like that.

When I got home, it was close to lunchtime. I was eager to finish my task, so I set up my workplace in the barn workshop. If I prefabricated the parts I needed in the workshop, I could then go outside with the pieces and mount them at the correct spot. That worked very well.

Eventually, it was time for lunch. After lunch, I continued making 40-centimeter beams and attaching them to the outside of the barn. It was nice working in the workshop, although it was cold outside.

I unpacked the sheet metal and discovered that the front face was too light gray, and the back side was the correct color. We decided to use the backside on the front, which was possible because we made the sheet metal symmetrical. It did not work well. I failed with the corner. I have to produce a corner plate covering the mess. It looked good!

 

Before I could start on that corner plate, it was time to go and pick up the dinner for the day. We have a restaurant at the farm shop to cook our dinner tonight. We had a quiche of two sorts and a salad. DS came and attended the dinner. Delicious and enjoyable. We had cake and coffee for dessert, and I lit the wood stove. It was so lovely.

 

Saturday 8 February

It was a gray morning, but it was not misty. We had tea in bed, and I blogged as I usually do.

We had a delicious breakfast with a smoothie and a half cup of coffee. I made so much coffee for the builders that our coffee had run out. We decided to buy some more when we were going to fetch hay after breakfast. Merida was putting on a strange face when considering if she wanted to go out in the garden. Eventually, she concluded it was not 20 degrees Celsius, sunny, and wind still, so there was no point going outside.

After breakfast, we bought our sheep a new load of hay bales. We bought the previous load on 21 December last year. They have had 11 bales since then. They eat about 1.6 bales per week. That means we need more hay in March. If we could have them graze a little early, we could avoid getting a fourth load of hay. That would be convenient.

When we got home, we had our coffee and started to disassemble the washing machine to pull out the coal brushes of the primary motor. To our guidance, we had a YouTube movie https://youtu.be/TkPH3cik2aM?si=p9jQzmM42Mwus0Xd by Stuart Chettleburgh.

He was good and well in his explanation, but he did not say that the backside of the wire socket had two lips locking the socket. When pushing in those lips, the socket can be pulled out. We had an extra wire with a locking mechanism, which released quickly when the unlock button was pressed.

We got a WFO2852NL/15, but nl 09 or 17 is similar. There are differences, but the coal brushes are the same. How do you know that, Jens? We first put all of them in the basket at FixParts.nl, and they put identical items in the basket four times. Then we ordered just one.

DW’s camera has something that distorts perspective when making close-up photos. By the look of it, my nails grew two inches long from one photo to another.

	Impressive nail.

I had the idea that we would buy a new washing machine. DW said we could do that, but all the natural resources that went into producing the old machine would get lost, which is bad for humanity. It was fun when we pulled out the motor, and I regretted my previous idea. How beautiful it is to save humanity and have fun simultaneously.

The brushes have been ordered, and they will arrive quickly. We will have them next week.

Next, we had lunch.

After lunch, we went to the shop for spinning and weaving craft utilities in the city, and DW bought a reed. It is used in a loom. We went there last week as well. After the crafts shop, we bought a doormat (again) that we will put on the hatch towards the space under our house. This will make life much easier for our robot vacuum cleaner. I was delighted that we found the perfect match for our hatch. This time, we knew the measurements of the hatch. The doormat we bought last week will be good to use at the door to the garden.

When we came home, I continued working on the sheet metal corner of the barn. Yesterday, I cut out the corner for the first time, and it did not look good. I had a good thought about it, and I decided to make a cover plate for the corner. I had leftovers from the window sills. It looked great! Then, I put the board on top of the sheet metal to know if this project would be any good. It looks perfect! I started when it was light, and I took out auxiliary lighting when it got dark. You will see the corner plate better if you click on the image. It looks nice.

It was an active day. We achieved a lot of valuable things. There are still many things to do, but we are getting there.

Merida came to help me fill the dishwasher. She thinks I need surveillance when handling the cups and plates.

Sunday 9 February

Today, I continued to work on the cement boards of the barn. We did not go anywhere; I worked on the same thing all day.

It was great fun. I made the southeast corner the same way as the previous northeast corner. I had to have wood behind the sheet metal to fasten the corner cover plate. It looked like a snow plow. The corner did not become as lovely as the previous corner. I decided it was sufficiently good.

The entire east side of the barn was finished before it got too dark to work. It was almost too dark for photography, but the photo was not too bad.

I will continue on the south side the next time. I plan to work on it on Wednesday.

This evening, to my surprise, I made a new song. It was inspired by trying a new feature in Suno.ai. I wanted to record my voice and let it sing with my voice. It was more complicated than I had thought. To try this, I made a song about our experience with the starry night a few weeks ago on 10 January. I made a song, recorded myself reciting it, and generated tunes with this material. Suno sometimes decided to discard my recording, but I selected a version that somewhat resembled my voice at the beginning of the tune.

It took some time to get this all together, and I was not finished at the end of the evening. I will continue on the song tomorrow. I will use compression for this song to get various parts to align better. That is for tomorrow.

Here ends this week's blog. The builders finished the barn. Now I have to finish the barn as well. I made two songs but only finished one. This week, I wrote 3442 words!