Successful Marketing Happenings – I’ve been semi-interested in Olight’s Baton as a concept. At around a hundred bucks, I really wasn’t willing to drop cash on a semi-interesting concept. Then Amazon’s sale knocked them down around $30. Then they offered up their “fighter pilot” design scheme.

Yeah, I was willing to pay the discounted price for that. Particularly when I have a wife who loves her Cricut machines. The plan is to modify their “fighter pilot” to “Skull One”. I want to put the skull and bones on one side and the Macross roundel on the other. I will post the finalized pics when we get it done.

I will say it was a bit bigger than I anticipated. It’s definitely not something I would throw in my pocket. It feels more like a desk thing. If I trusted leaving expensive things in my office, I would leave it there. Anywhoo, at least it’s an aesthetically pleasing little gadget.

Yarn Happenings (but mainly comments on power stations) – The Wife and MIL got a yarn winder. When they told me, I was thinking of something manual, but this thing’s electrical. Like a lot of things, it doesn’t have a traditional plug, and instead receives power through USB. Anywhoo, they clamped it down on the kitchen bar to test. Which meant getting power to the little device. I have two small power stations – a Jackery we picked up before Hurricane Ian a few years back and an Ecoflow River. For as highly rated as Jackery’s are, mine hates running power through traditional plugs. However, it seems to do fine with delivering power through USB. Which is why we used it for the test. It’s also why I’m not buying another Jackery. I’ll stick with Ecoflow. They seem to handle delivering power through USB or traditional just fine. I might be tempted by Anker’s Solix line. I still want to get a few more of these to complement my big batteries. Currently, if it’s storming outside and the power goes out, I’m not going out to hook up the big batteries. I can hook up a few necessities to the smaller power stations to get us through. The small ones are also easier to throw in the back of the car if we’re doing a long road trip. I have also found out that the end product of the winder is called a “cake”.

Camera Happenings – Shortly after moving in, we added cameras to the front and back of Ward Manor. Later we covered one side. Finally, after an incident where a blue bowl suddenly appeared below our window bird feeders, we picked up another camera to cover the last side. Back in July. Between work and other stuff, I procrastinated on getting it up. Then the Ring doorbell we installed many moons ago started having problems keeping connection to the network. And the video doorbell that came installed with the house never really worked all that great. So, about a month ago, we picked up another doorbell. Since we had Columbus Day off, and both The Wife and MIL were going to be out for lunch, I decided that I didn’t have a good enough excuse to put if off any longer. So, now Ward Manor has all sides covered. Now, if Ring would start putting out batteries that take USB-C instead of Micro-USB to charge.

Weight Happenings – As expected, my semi-bacchanalia came home to roost. I haven’t completely erased my gains, but I’m at a serious setback. I know the program works. I just need to work the program. But this holiday season is going to be rough. Last weigh-in: 280.2; Next tollgate: 250.