eve_prime | Reading

1/350 scale model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (refit)
TOMY International
Nikon Z6 • NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 S
f/11 @ 105mm • 1/45s • ISO 1600

Back in 2011, I passed on the QMx USS Enterprise refit Artisan 1/350 scale Replica. Of course I did – it was $5,000!

Then in August 2024, TOMY International launched its crowdfunding campaign for their own 1/350 scale replica of the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise refit. In a moment of FOMO, I placed a preorder – which became real when the campaign was fully funded. 329% funded, actually. 19 months later, the 34" long starship replica was delivered to my door – today.

( A Few Pictures – and a Dilemma )

lovelyangel

I’ve been using black mesh zip pouches of various sizes to organize my gear – tech gear, photography gear – and for traveling, makeup/beauty products, vitamin/supplement containers. These pouches are very handy. I had been buying them from Amazon, but it appears that Daiso has them, too. Anyway, I have quite the assortment.

The thing about using them for my photography gear is that the contents all look sort of similar, so one might have to spend a moment or two figuring out what exactly is in the pouch.

At this year’s Portland Winter Light Festival, there was one night (Day 5 Tuesday) where I was shooting a Nikon D810 and a Nikon Z8. I don’t think I’ve ever used both a DSLR and a mirrorless camera on the same night. While those cameras can use the same battery, they use very different memory cards. So I had two very similar black mesh pouches – differing only by memory card type. It’s a little hard to figure out which bag was which in the dark.

I wanted an easier way to identify the contents of the black pouches, and at Etsy, I found Custom Zipper Pulls by ThoughtfulColors. I built up a list of tags that I wanted and placed an order on March 4. The tags arrived today, and I affixed them to my photography zipper pouches. They are excellent!

Tagged black mesh zip bags for photography gear
Zipper Pulls by ThoughtfulColors@Etsy.com

The black zipper pulls are one-sided and are for general organization in my studio or my luggage. The purple zipper pulls are two-sided (same text on both sides) and are for pouches I have in my photography field kit. The purple makes the labels stand out more for faster identification. Anyway, I’m very pleased with these tags – high quality materials, excellent workmanship – and high legibility.

lovelyangel

I confess to having a number of fast food apps – mainly for the purpose of getting discounts (replacing the old chore of coupon clipping). Sure, the companies track my redemption habits, but I don’t really care. If they keep wanting to offer me discounts, I’m frugal enough to keep taking them.

I provide my birthday to these apps as they give me special offers for my birthday. I thought I should itemize what I got this year for future reference.

( 2026 Birthday Offers, Under the Cut )

heleninwales

We're still only getting one decent day per week and that was yesterday. I felt a bit tired and downhearted first thing, so instead of going to the forest as we'd planned the previous day, we drove to Penmaenpool, walked along the Mawddach Trail and then up into the woods. G's favourite tree (an oak he calls Tree) has buds but they're not yet opening. The moss is looking very green after all the rain and there were birds singing.

After leaving the walking and cycling trail you have to climb steeply. Some of the paths must have been created a long time ago, probably by whoever lived in Abergwynant Hall when The Picturesque became fashionable and anyone with an estate wanted some suitably romantic woods and crags. ( Pictures here... )

The route we took goes past this wooden bench which has a carved buzzard at one end and a little mouse at the other.

After following the narrow paths in the woods, we reached a broad track which took us back to the trail at Abergwynant and thence back to Penmaenpool. The trail was fairly busy with cyclists and walkers, some with dogs. One woman was jogging with her son riding a bike. They had a drone and were filming themselves. Perhaps they have a YouTube channel or a TikTok?

The sunny weather and exercise did make me feel better and I got useful things done in the afternoon.

Then today the weather reverted to be being awful with high winds and heavy rain. It did calm down after lunch, but too late to do anything outdoors.

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

lovelyangel

Once or twice a week I take a Randomness Break and click on Kagi Small Web for a while. Like I need more rabbit holes to fall into.

Anyway, today Small Web led me to Pawel Grzybek’s blog post: My Defaults 2026 – which was really interesting (to me).

I know that my own defaults are currently messed up, and the plan is to rethink things – but it’s a low-priority task. However, I can at least start with a list for assessment purposes.

Know in advance that I’m really weird, and defaults aren’t the same for all devices. You’ll need a key. Belldandy = Mac Studio M4 Max. Fern = M3 MacBook Air. Holo = M4 iPad Pro. Meiko = iPhone 13 mini.

Mail Client: Microsoft Outlook (Belldandy), Apple Mail (Fern, Holo, Meiko)
Notes: Apple Notes. Also, Google Docs
To-Do: Google Docs
Calendar: BusyCal (Belldandy), Fantastical (Meiko), Apple Calendar: (Fern, Holo)
Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive. Also: Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive
RSS: none
Contacts: Apple Contacts
Chat: Apple Messages
Browser: Google Chrome (yeah, I know)(Belldandy, Fern); Apple Safari (Holo, Meiko)(alt: Belldandy, Fern)
Bookmarks: Google Chrome (Belldandy, Fern); Apple Safari (Holo, Meiko)
Read It Later: Google Docs
Word Processing: Write 2 (Belldandy, Fern); Apple Pages (Holo, Meiko)(alt: Belldandy, Fern); Microsoft Word (alt: Belldandy, Fern)
Text Editor: BBEdit
Page Layout: Affinity (Publisher, now Studio) (Belldandy)
Code/HTML Editor: Panic Nova (Belldandy)
Technical Graphics: OmniGraffle (Belldandy)
Spreadsheets: Microsoft Excel (Belldandy, Fern)(alt: Holo, Meiko). Also: Apple Numbers (all devices)
Presentations: Microsoft Powerpoint (Belldandy, Fern)
Photo Editing/Library: Adobe Lightroom (Belldandy, Fern). Also: Apple Photos (all devices)
Image Editing: Adobe Photoshop (Belldandy). Also: Affinity (Photo, now Studio) (Belldandy)
Video Editing: Apple Final Cut Pro X (Belldandy)
PDF Editing: PDFPenPro (now absorbed by Nitro) (Belldandy)
PDF Reading: Adobe Acrobat Reader (Belldandy, Fern); Apple Preview (Holo, Meiko)(alt: Belldandy, Fern)
Document Scanning: VueScan (Belldandy); Apple Notes (Meiko)
Calculator: PCalc
Shopping Lists: Clear (Meiko)
Meal Planning: none
Budgeting and Personal Finance: Microsoft Excel (Belldandy)
News: Apple News. Also: Google News
Music Streaming: none (but have access to YouTube Music)
Music Listening: Apple Music
Password Management: 1Password
Podcasts: none

lovelyangel

Phase III of the home remodel has been on hold during January and February – partly because I was underwater – but also we had some track head lighting on backorder.

Yesterday morning the electricians were here. They 1) installed the new, dimmable track lighting in the family room, 2) replaced a partially broken overhead light in Katie’s room with a new fixture and dimmer switch, 3) repaired a GFI outlet in the kitchen which had been permanently interrupted, and 4) added one more track head lamp in the NE corner of my home office. The work took four hours – from 7:00 am to 11:00 am.

New Light Fixture in Katie’s Room
iPhone 13 mini photo

The new track lighting necessitated running power under the floor to a new light switch. Holes had to be cut into drywall so that wiring could be run. The drywall will get repaired in the near future.

The new lighting – everywhere – looks great. Previously, there was no overhead lighting in the family room, so the new media library and storage cabinets were dim. Now it’s much easier to see and find things.

New Track Lighting in the Family Room
iPhone 13 mini photo

One remaining task is installing a new carpet runner in the entryway. The carpet is here but not installed as my interior designer was sick and didn’t want to enter the house. Once the drywall is patched and the carpet runner installed, Phase III of construction will be complete. (I still have months of item sorting / reorganization / giveaway to conduct. The remodel project will be complete when I can get Shizu back into the garage.)

heleninwales

I made a good start to the day. It was a lovely sunny morning so instead of driving, I walked into town to do a top-up food shop. There was a special offer on broccoli (50p off), so I bought one, cut it up, blanched and froze it. I can't eat broccoli fast enough to finish it all before it goes yellow, but freezing works well. The rest of the day is being spent doing indoor tasks because the forecast was for rain this afternoon and it was correct. At least there was a rainbow earlier, arching over the trees in the distance.

10/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: J is for Jalopy

I thought this might be a difficult subject, but I was in luck and walked past this yellow DAF 33 on the way home from the Co-op. I looked up its details and it was manufactured in 1971, but still looks in good condition. According to wikipedia, the DAF 33 is a compact saloon car produced by the DAF company of Eindhoven, in the Netherlands between 1967 and 1974. It has a 750cc petrol engine.

heleninwales

Last year I didn't go away anywhere until the trip in mid-November to stay with our daughter. I used to rely on G organising our trips away and it took me rather a long time to realise that he just doesn't want to travel any more. He used to travel because he wanted to give a paper at a conference, but he doesn't want to do that any more. Now he has everything he needs and wants here. He's busy with his projects and has some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK to go for walks in. However, I felt I'd got into a rut and so we had a conversation about going away for short breaks and G said he was perfectly happy for me to go on my own.

The weather has been so bad up until now, that I didn't want to go anywhere. However, there was a post on Facebook from a friend saying that she was planning to visit Birmingham art gallery to see their pre-Raphaelite paintings on Good Friday of the Easter weekend and did anyone want to join her? That prompted me to actually arrange the trip I'd been vaguely thinking of since I saw online that the gallery had reopened.

I've just booked a hotel for one night. You can do Birmingham as a day trip, but not if I want to get there for 10 a.m. So I'll have half a day on my own on the Thursday and then get an early afternoon train back after meeting with friends on the Friday morning. It should be enjoyable. As a precaution, I've paid the extra so I can cancel up to the morning of the day I intend to stay. I won't buy the train tickets too early either. Early April can be lovely, or it can be awful with rain and floods or even snow. The railway companies also have a habit of arranging engineering work at Bank Holidays. But hopefully all will be well and I'll get a nice mini-break.

lovelyangel

Meiko VIII
My iPhone 13 mini

Meiko, my 4 1/2 year old iPhone 13 mini, is starting to have problems.

I charge my phone at bedside every night, but in the last few months, charging has been unreliable. Initially it seemed like maybe the Lightning connector wasn’t being plugged in all the way. Then I thought that the charging cable was failing, as it had been weakened where the cable bent a little before the Lightning plug. Moving the phone or flexing the cable would either make charging resume – or stop charging without announcement. Pretty irritating.

A few days ago I bought a new AC adapter – which would charge the iPhone faster – and a new Lightning cord. Hopefully, the new setup would fix the intermittent charging issues. It didn’t.

The new Lightning cable is stiffer and sturdier – which is actually a little bit of a problem in the small space where the iPhone gets charged every night. Adjustments were made. But the iPhone still intermittently stopped charging anytime the phone was moved or set down.

The iPhone was in a very, very thin protective case (by Totallee) – and I finally took that case off so that I could get the most sure and secure connection at the Lightning plug. Things are a little better – but still iffy. Right now, I’m just very careful when charging the iPhone. I guess maybe the Lightning port is weakened and wobbly.

My plan had been to replace my iPhone 13 mini with an iPhone 20 Pro when it’s released in Fall 2027. It’s not clear my iPhone will last that long – but I’m still going to try. I’d hate to have to settle for an iPhone 18 Pro – or even an iPhone 17 Pro if things fail soon. I’ve never had an iPhone fail on me prior to replacement. I suppose there’s a first time for everything.

I don’t like wireless charging, but I could resort to that if the Lightning port fails completely. The new AC adapter heats up the phone a lot more – perhaps as much as wireless charging heats up the phone. The battery will degrade faster – but the phone will retire in 18 months (or sooner) anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

From now until end-of-life, Meiko will be naked. The Lightning plug is most secure when there’s no case. It’s weird holding an unsheathed iPhone. The smooth phone feels nice and looks clean – but eventually it will get dinged up.

heleninwales

9/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: I is for Images

I took this photo early in the week before reading the instructions on the sharing thread. What we were supposed to do was take a photo of photos that we've printed, either recently or in the past.

However, I've been taking digital photos for 25 years and don't print any of them. Back when I was shooting film, it was 35mm colour slides. I do have some not very good snapshots from the time I only had a cheap point-and-shoot film camera, but a lot of those are of family and I don't post photos of family online as a rule.

I initially thought that I wouldn't post the photo I'd taken for the theme to the Flickr group, but then I saw that some of the others had done something similar to what I'd done. I therefore did post it and hope that my interpretation of the theme is OK. Of course for here, if doesn't matter if I go off piste occasionally. :-)

There are a few shops under the arches, but the mural indicates that there is a small concert venue up above.

While I was wandering around town looking for images, I also snapped these two. They're all phone photos because I was walking to the Co-op and wasn't going to take a camera with me.

( A couple more here... )

heleninwales

We had a very spring-like day last week (Wednesday) and I thought the weather was finally improving. I felt rather tired on Thursday for some reason, so G went for a walk on his own. We finally managed a walk in the forest yesterday (Saturday) and it was dry and even a bit sunny, but today we're back to deep gloom and drizzle.

But here are a few of photos from the walk in the forest. For a change, we drove up to the main car park by the mountain bike centre. It was so busy! We were astonished. We've not seen so many people there since last summer. Of course we usually walk mid-week, so the fact that it was a Saturday will have made a difference, but we wondered if it was the half-term holiday in England. Either that or everyone has been stuck at home during the endless rain, saw the decent forecast for the weekend and all rushed out at once with their bikes on the cars and in their vans. Anyway, the route we walked was quite quiet, though we did meet a few walkers with friendly dogs, a jogger and a few of the cyclists. ( More here... )

I think this is the mossiest route that we do. At least the moss has enjoyed the extremely wet winter.

( More mosses... )

We also passed one of the wood ant nests. There wasn't much activity, but there were a few ants wandering around, but only on the nest itself.

The walk is just 3½ miles and is the shortest of the three forest walks we do. Strangely, though I'd felt tired and achy on Thursday, after the walk a couple of days later, I felt much better. The tiredness could be hay-fever. There's a huge alder tree out at the back beyond the bottom of our gardens and it's been covered in catkins for ages. I'm taking an antihistamine which is keeping the symptoms damped down, but I hadn't been feeling quite right. The area of the forest where we walked was pretty much all conifers, so pollen was minimal.

lovelyangel

Tsundoku Stack, March 7. 2026

With last year’s remodeling project, a bunch of unread books got shelved into the new bookwall, and there was a Tsundoku Reset last October. Books keep coming, though.

I’ve been underwater since last November, and book reading has been largely on hold, with a few minor exceptions. February was especially busy, and now that those events are over, I feel like I’m finally starting a new year.

With that is a return of the tsundoku stack. Besides books that have been collected over the last four months, I recalled a couple of books from the bookwall – as I really do need to read those. At any rate, the stack is big again.

Here is a list of what I’ve read since last October – mainly manga with one graphic novel and one novel:

I track upcoming releases separately. Upcoming book releases:

Upcoming manga releases:

Pending Anime/Manga Tracker, March 2026

ABOUT TSUNDOKU
My tsundoku tag collects my blog posts about my tsundoku collection. The first post was in May 2014. However the tag really kicked off starting in October 2020. I recommend these tsundoku articles: Tsundoku: The Joy of Unread Books by John M. Jennings and Understanding ‘Tsundoku’: The Joy of Buying Books Without Reading Them at Alterpret.

lovelyangel

Last night I was puzzled as to why Backblaze wasn’t backing up Homura II. But it was late, and I decided to follow up in the morning.

This morning, no backup was occurring, and I forced a Backup Now. After a few minutes of wheels turning, everything stopped again. Backblaze reported 0 files to be backed up.

Backblaze Backup Status • March 6, 2026

But I could see that 7.6TB was selected for backup. Could it be that backup was done?

I began the process to request a data restore so I could see what was in the cloud. Amazingly, all 5+ TB of Homura II was there.

Backblaze Restore Files screen • March 6, 2026

I drilled down into the tree structure and confirmed that both folders from TWICE concerts in January 2026 were there.

It appears that Backblaze was smart enough to connect stored data from Homura (I) with the new Homura II drive. All my Lightroom data is backed up to the cloud – and I even know how to do a restore from that backup!

(They say you should always test your backup with a restore. Consider my backup tested.)

Previously
Well, That’s Not Good...
Home System 2026

lovelyangel

A major storage change necessitated an update to my Home Computing Environment Diagram:

Home Computing Environment • March 2026
Click above picture for larger image

A minor change is that I removed the CalDigit TS3 Plus hub that had hosted memory card readers. I found that the memory card readers got warm while they were always plugged in, so I decided I’d just plug them in as needed. And the USB-C ports on Belldandy’s front panel made it convenient for plugging in all USB-C cables. The hub was no longer needed.

Because I removed the CalDigit hub from Belldandy, that opened up a Thunderbolt 5 port, and I direct-connected Homura II to the newly opened port instead of going through the TB5 hub. This explains why I had to relocate the Pegasus M4 closer to the Mac Studio, as the RAID unit's short Thunderbolt cable easily reached the hub but wasn't long enough to reach the back of the Mac Studio.

lovelyangel

My OWC ThunderBlade X12 24TB RAID SSD

What do you do when all your photos, stored and managed in Adobe Lightroom, disappear in a flash? (Besides cry, of course.)

My Lightroom Photo Library has 211,500+ photos from 2008 to 2026. It takes up 5.83TB. Yeah, it’s a lot. And it’s a shock when those numbers drop to zero.

( The Crisis )

( The Scramble )

( Technical Support Fail )

( The D’Oh! Moment )

( Fingers Crossed )

( A New Start )

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Laura

LJ Index (woefully outdated)

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Another Green World

formerly eve_prime's bits and trifles

Reading

The Starship Arrives

Tagged

Birthday Freebies

A walk in our favourite woods

Performing some traffic maintenance today

My Tech Defaults 2026

Library Update #26: End of Darkness

Yellow DAF 33

Planning a mini-break

Meiko Misbehaving

Tŷ Siamas colourful mural

A decent day at last

Tsundoku Again

Well, That’s Excellent!

Home System 2026

Well, That’s Not Good...

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March 2026

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