Upgrading to Fedora 37

 With Fedora 35 support reaching its end-of-life, I decided to upgrade to Fedora 37.  Instead of directly going from 35 to 37, I first upgraded to Fedora 36.

I've always appreciated the ease and stability of upgrading Fedora.  Usually there are zero problems (knock on wood) although there was a couple of times when I ran into software problems such when the font I was using was no longer supported which made the terminal text look weird. 

When upgrading to to 36, everything looked fine but I didn't test it very thoroughly.  The system booted up and I was able log into the my windows manager and didn't encounter any issues.  I immediately started the Fedora 36 to 37 upgrade which went pretty much like the previous upgrade.

This time, though, when I logged into the windows manager it didn't recognize my multi-monitor setup so the orientation of my monitor was lost.  That was an easy fix going to the Display setting and changing the location and rotation of each monitor.  However, there was another problem with each monitor's wallpaper.  

I use a tool called Nitrogen to set the wallpaper for each monitor but Fedora tells me it is crashing when it tries to start it so I tried starting it on the terminal and saw this message:

(nitrogen:9183): GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 16:04:48.248: Settings schema 'org.gnome.desktop.background' does not contain a key named 'draw-background'

I didn't find an immediate solution online so I moved ~/.config/nitrogen to a backup location and tried Nitrogen again.  This time the error message went away, but Nitrogen only saw the main monitor and not the other.

After doing another quick search, I found this article which led me to try start Nitrogen with this command:

nitrogen --force-setter=xinerama --restore

This enabled Nitrogen to see the other monitors and I was able to set my wallpapers.

Returning to Woodworking

After many years of doing very little woodworking except to occasionally cut something to size, I dusted off the tools and started to make three pieces of furniture for a small shed.   Returning to woodworking re-introduced the three classical problems I always faced:  materials, space and organization.

Materials

To build anything requires having materials: wood (plywood and dimensional lumber), fasteners (screws) and finishing.  

I'm able to get lumber (1x, 2x clear douglas fir) at a nearby lumber yard easily and they don't take much space.  I can fit them into my car once I put the back seat down.  The prices on lumber was eye opening.  I've read in the news about the soaring prices of lumber due to the pandemic and supply chain issues to until now I've not had to buy much so there was a bit of sticker shock seeing how much lumber cost now.

Plywood is more difficult to get home and are heavy.  Fortunately, in the years since I last had to buy plywood, a local company will now deliver to residential addresses.  The one downside is that their hours and distance are just enough that its prohibitive to go and check out their inventory first hand.  I ordered a few sheets of 3/4", 1/2" and 1/4" Maple.  I've been conditioned to go straight to 3/4" plywood for most of my projects but with the cost and sometimes the weight, I realized that using 1/2" can be just as effective.  Whereas I previously would've used 3/4" for a dust separator/shop-vac cart, this time I used 1/2" and realized it was actually a better choice. 

I keep a stock of various size screws but did not have enough for this project.  The online store that I like to order from from were out-of-stock or had long delivery times for what I wanted so I ended up buying some from the lumber yard.  I went with GRK fasteners which are more expensive but I heard they are the bee's knees.  The heads use Torx (star) recess which are superior to Philips and can be used both indoors and outdoors.  I have a personal preference for square heads which I find easier to insert into the head and also easier to figure out the right bit size to use (pretty much #2), but they aren't as common to find locally.    I found that I mostly use 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" length #8 screws with the occasional 1". 

The last major material I needed is finishing.  Basic polyurethane varnish is readily available at the local hardware stores, but for woodworking I've mostly used Gel wipe-on stains and top-coat.  They are easy to apply and hard to mess up.  The small woodworking shop that I used to buy from had closed and other local places that would normally sell it are out-of-stock so I went online.

In the end, I found that it is easier now to get materials needed but at this particular time the challenges are high prices and supply chain issues.

Space & Organization

I was quickly reminded of one of the biggest frustration of woodworking: space and organization.  My work space is one side of a 2-car garage and it felt like I spend more time rearrange equipment and setting up then actual woodworking.  One of the most frustrating thing was to doing setting up to do task A, do task A, rearrange for task B, task B and realizing I need to do task A again and having to rearrange everything again! 

I ended up doing some major reorganization of my workspace which took just as much time as building the furniture.  I ended up building some things for the shop as well and by the time I was near the end of the third project my workflow was night-and-day different from when I started.  The garage is still not big enough to have every equipment in a fixed location, but they are starting to be less cumbersome to access.

Harry Potter Reunion Special

The end of 2021 and start of 2022 seemed be consumed with late 20th century nostalgia.  Over the past few months there was the live action version of Cowboy Bebop (better then I expected), the release of the fourth Matrix movie (okay as an nostalgia trip especially when streamed), season 4 of Cobra Kai (great actors and respect to the original but heavy on the soap-opera drama), another Sex In the City movie (not interested), Ghostbusters (very interested) and a bunch of reunion specials such as Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Harry Potter.  There are many others, but I can't really keep up with all the history!

Harry Potter did not play any defining part of my life so I didn't have much interest in its reunion special.  I did read the books and watched all the movies, but while it seemed to have been a major event for the Millennial generation I had viewed it as pop culture entertainment.  When I found myself folding laundry one night, I decided to switch it on just to have something running in the background and this is my quick reaction.

JK Rowling Controversy

The author's controversy around her views towards transgenders is well documented and the special did not address it directly.  The author was not part of the special although clips from previous interviews was used (and prominently noted on screen that they were from prior interviews) and it wasn't brought up anywhere during the special.  Although it wasn't addressed directly, I wonder if there was some subtle jabs taken in the selection of quotes used during the show especially one that says to not judge a person by their looks but by their actions.

While I didn't mind that the author was not part of the show, completely avoiding the controversy did not keep it from hanging awkwardly over the special.

Grown Up 

The main actors grew up in front of our eyes through the 8 films and to see them together again was a reminder of how time has passed.  At the end of the series, they were still young and just  embarking on adulthood but now they would be playing the parent/teacher roles if the movies were made now. 

Informative...not

I'm really not sure what the show was trying to do.  It gave tidbits of background and context and would not be considered to be any type of documentary.   There was emotions shown by the 3 leads as they got together, but no information was given about their interactions over the past 20 years.  Was this the first time they seen each other in a long time or did they hang out regularly? There were some hints of tension but they quickly jumped in to PR mode and declared everything was great! 

The cast were also separated into groups so there weren't a lot of interactions shown between different people.  Many people were not part of the special but played major roles and they weren't even mentioned.

Conclusion

The special felt like it was hastily put together so that it can be broadcast to start the new year.  I'm not certain if they actually had a reunion or whether it was just a bunch of different interviews sliced together.  It provided little for the casual Harry Potter fan and unlikely to provide any satisfaction to full Harry Potter fans.