Look at that iMac. So close yet so far.

Had to do some recent further downsizing to accommodate squeezing another person into the house. My desk (which was off to the left of this photo) had to go in the garage to make way for a fridge freezer so I’m now micro-desking on the end of the cabinet storing the dogs’ stuff. I’m (obviously) still in the utility room/corridor with the dogs, washing machine (yay for noise cancelling in meetings) and shower room, but now I’m sat on top of the cat litter instead of half a metre away from it. It doesn’t sound great, but it is actually a nice little neuk.

Before the move was complete I did have an intermediate week when I ended up with the family computer on my desk where I could easily use it whilst “at work” and this meant I did finally get to explore using CSS for the show/hide on my archive page instead of JavaScript. Nothing came of it (I don’t think CSS can do that yet), but it was nice to get to tinker again - like with exercise, it’s nice to know it’s not lack of motivation on my part that is the problem.

I decided to put away my old iPhone and plug my headphones into the iMac instead. Since it is always logged in as me anyway (for AirMessage) I can also leave Spotify running and just control it through my phone. For 6music I ssh (hit exactly this issue) from my phone and use tmux and ffplay. This is cool and fun, but not really any more useful than having my old iPhone plugged in, although does save a tiny bit of space - and space… is short.

For the weekly finance updates I close my work laptop so I can stick the iMac keyboard on top of it, the trackpad in front of it and then swivel the iMac round. It works well enough for occasional use.

[EDIT: 2024-09-05] A little while ago it was decided I was marginally more important than the dogs so we got rid of their green storage cabinet and bought my desk back in. Which means I also have the iMac on my desk! Whoop! Sometimes cats and cat food too, but ach. I think micro-desking could have been doing my back in. Forgot to mention originally, but that strip of floorspace is my yoga/workout space, which is not quite the space needed to rollout a yoga mat, but I’m making it work.

[EDIT: 2024-10-31] And then the younger daughter went to Uni so it was decided that my desk would be moved into her room. So far so good. But then my chair got replaced with a pretty one “to suit the room” that is unfortunately too low for a desk. And then my desk got replaced with a dressing table that is too shallow and too wobbly to use as a desk. On the plus side, when my daughter is back from Uni I will be allowed to work at the dining table; Can’t day to day as that results in “too much clutter”; I also can’t go back to micro desking as that “desk” now has an air-fryer and microwave on it; What does work is putting the laptop in my lap when working and just using the dressing table as somewhere to store/charge my laptop; I can also put the iMac keyboard on my lap to type - just like now.

[EDIT: 2024-12-09] And back to micro-desking. Although now looking over my work laptop I get to see a microwave and air fryer stacked on top - turns out there was room. Just.