Chore Day, June 6, 2020 -- Ridding My Hard Drives of Duplicate Files

I spent the day removing duplicate files from my backup hard drives. Of the 60,000 files I found, there were thousands of duplicates—images, movies, PDF’s, etc. It’s a time-consuming job getting of them. I’ve been working with software I found for Windows 10, but today I thought I should see if there might be some more efficient for my Mac. And I found it: Gemini. It’s awesome. Not only does Gemini find duplicate files, it finds similar files! Similar files might be those that you shot just to make sure you got the picture and now they’re just hanging around cluttering up your drive. Gemini has a three-day free period, then it converts to a $20 a year subscription. Considering that Gemini is fast and efficient and can save hours of drudgery, it’s a good deal.

My chores today were simple: vacuum the house and replace the balance springs in my bathroom window. No longer do I have to prop the window open with a stick!

One more thing… I’m all on fire about a mind-blowing Marco Bucci video showing how use Blender for 2-D concept art. The title tells it all : Draw character concepts from any angle and any lighting. Gamechanger tools!

Chore Day, May 30, 2020 -- The Problem of Deleting Duplicate Files

No cooking today. Instead I did the house cleaning — vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom.

I spent the rest of the day looking for a solution to a problem: finding and removing duplicate files. It sounds like a simple problem, but if you have 600GB of images, it’s a BIG problem. For the last two weekends I’ve been collecting my family’s photo libraries so that we can make picture books with the snapshots we’ve taken over the years. We have photographs from the ancient times when cameras used film and since we started using digital cameras, we have many thousands of pictures that have never been printed. 99% of the digital images are hidden away in forgotten corners of decrepit hard drives. After Taco passed away, we resolved to take the time to back up all of our images and archive them on multiple hard drives. I’ve got them all together and we have more than 150,000 images. I would estimate that 50% of them are duplicates.

With so many duplicates, going them one at a time is a losing proposition. Some files have been copied so many times that there are 10 duplicates! I want to find software that will find the duplicates and then give me the tools to remove them. I’ve looked at half a dozen software packages, but most of them come up short of handling this big job. There is one program that may be up to the task, Duplicate File Finder. It’s subscription software that costs $60 a year, but there a $20 discount. I’m cautiously optimistic.

The Friday That Turned into a Chore Day

My book’s files imported into my Mac via Clip Studio Cloud

Today I resumed working full-time on my second children’s book. However, as change is the only constant in life, my plans for a productive are day went up in smoke.

I started the day with a chore: fixing the bathroom window. About year the double pane window’s balance springs broke with a mighty snap. When I tried to dismantle the window to see what was going on, I was stumped and decided to prop the window open with a glass bowl until I had some time to do research on how to fix the problem. This research went on for a year, but today, with the help of some Youtube repair vloggers, I dismantled the window and replaced the coil springs. It was an easy job, I thought, but it took me more than two hours. Now that I know how it all works, I could probably do it in 15 minutes.

The next chore was getting my Cintiq hooked up to my iMac, which I thought would be easy. My iMac is a bit faster then my old PC…not much, but it does have a nice 27-inch screen that I can use for color corredtion. Since my files were synced to Clip Studio Cloud…or so I thought…it would be easy to jump over to the iMac, sync the files, and start working. To my dismay, when I synced the book’s files to my iMac, my work for the last two weeks was missing. I had to reconnect my PC to a monitor, then figure out why the files hadn’t been synced. The Clip Studio Cloud has a baffling interface, but I think I managed to sync my most recent files…maybe. I really should read instructions before pressing The Big Red Button. I eventually succeeded in syncing my PC’s files to the Clip Studio Cloud, and then to my iMac. I’m back in business.

Chore Day, May 16, 2020 -- Collecting Old Photos from Old Hard Drives

Taco’s eyes are gorgeous! — 2011

Today, for the first time in a long time, I cooked really good food for only one dog, my hairless Pomeranian, Willy. He’s a fussy eater and I’m hoping he will deign to try the delicious tofu veggie loaf that I baked for him. If I were a diligent blogger I would have taken a picture of my culinary vegan masterpiece, but, nah! Taking pictures sometimes just takes me out of a meaningful experience. I have a good memory and I like to use it.

I spent much of the day sending my gratitude into the Universe, gratitude that I was fortunate to share many years with Taco. I’ve been going through my photo archives on old hard drives. Keeping precious pictures on digital media is a gamble. One hard drive failure and all is lost. CD’s deteriorate in a matter of years. SSDs conk out every day. On the other hand, paper lasts for centuries. I’m going to go through my digital pictures and get them printed and put them into albums that I can enjoy by simply opening a book. No electricity required.

Chore Day, May 9, 2020: Cooking and Sketching

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As expected, I cooked up some veggie burgers for my pug. I should mention that I did more weed whacking, and then the laundry. In other words, the same chores as last week. But, I got done a little early and had time to read. I’m currently re-reading Nausicaä by Hayao Miyazaki. He’s a master of pen and ink. I attempted a copy of one of the simpler images in the 1,800 page book.

Chore Day, May 2, 2020: Rainy Day Project -- Sell Some Cameras on EBay

Today I did my usual chores, cooking veggie burgers for my pug, and doing the laundry. Besides that I’ve been planning to sell some of my cameras on EBay to save enough money for a Cintiq. Currently I’m using a Huion 22-inch pen display. It works but I want a device that has a matte screen, a better stylus with tilt and rotation, and a better feel. I bought the Huion because it was cheap. Instead of going for quality (Wacom), I went for price (Huion). My thinking was “How could it really be much different? And it’s so much cheaper.”

I’ll be selling a Canon 6D, a 24-105mm f/4 lens, A Polaroid Model 95 retrofitted to use Fuji instant film, and a Nikon F3 with f/1.4 lens. Once I have the Cintiq I’ll sell my Huion. I’m not thrilled about selling on Ebay, but I’ll do it.

Chore Day, April 25, 2020 -- Cooking, Doing Laundry, and Futura

Besides the usual cooking and doing laundry, which I’ve been doing for the last year or so for my chores, I also changed the font for this site. I love to learn about fonts and have spent many hours tweaking my various web sites to get just the right look for the content. I make many changes, going from sans-serif, to monospace, to serif, and usually end up going back to my first choice. That’s what I did today — I reinstated the Futura font.

Chore Day, April 11, 2020: Cooking Bean Burgers and Looking for My Book on Amazon

After I cooked up a batch of bean burgers for the boys, I went to Amazon to check out my book. I’ve had only a handful of sales, most of them to myself, but I like to look at my Amazon page now and then to get a renewed sense of accomplishment. But today, when I went to get my ego boost, I saw that Amazon no long sells my $8.99 book. The book is listed, but Amazon doesn’t actually sell it any more. It’s been booted from the store. But, Amazon does redirect customers to another seller who will order the book from Ingramspark for $4.99 and sell it for $16.61. Fortunately, Barnes and Noble is a little more friendly. The book is still for sale there for $8.99.

Chore Day, April 4, 2020 -- Sleeping

It’s been a draining week. After doing my chores, which this week were cooking for my furry boys and doing the laundry, I fell asleep like Rip Van Winkle and slept the sleep of the weary. I awoke what seemed like 20 years later and scribbled off a sketch of my sleeping self, with one of my friends keeping watch over me. Outside the window, Mother Nature goes on her oblivious way. Inside, a photograph of a large camellia bush floats protectively over my dreaming head.

Chore Day, March 28 -- Shopping Laundry, and Whacking Weeds

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Somewhere hidden in those squiggles there must be a perfect hand.

After putting off yard chores for a month of rainy weekends, I got out of the house and whacked the weeds. With the conifers carpeting the yard with their herbicidal needles, nothing grows here…except the weeds. When it rains, they make the most of their glimpse of sunshine and grow like crazy. That’s when I start whacking. I love whacking.

After the whacking I did the laundry. It’s relaxing. That’s when I just sit in the basement with the piles of clothes, blankets, towels, and fleece jackets and relax. Between loads I do the things I don’t do during the week — I catch up on videos about making digital paint brushes (my latest obsession), vegan cooking, building PCs, and traveling to Japan..

After all that excitement, I’m ready to watch The Two Towers, part two of The Lord of the Rings. I have the extended edition of Lord of the Rings, which I’ve watched at least 20 times over the last 10 years. When times are tough, and big changes are happening, The Lord of the Rings helps me to put things in perspective.