iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I don’t sew much, but this machine from the’50s might get me to find some projects just because it’s so precious. A few drops of oil got it running fast and smooth.

A Singer Featherweight sewing machine sitting on a kitchen counter. The picture doesn’t really convey how cute it is because I was too lazy to put in other stuff for size comparison. But it really is super cute.

Close up of an adorable Singer badge on the machine’s main pedestal, right above the model tag that says 221.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Meanwhile at my house, which I fled a few day’s ago to be at the house that lost power because my house has no sewer connection.

The bottom of a concrete house foundation with a plastic sewer pipe sticking out from under the foundation edge and failing to connect to the matching city sewer pipe. They miss by several inches. It’s possible they were properly connected before the house leveling last week, but I don’t know for sure, and it doesn’t really matter. It’s also possible this is the only problem with the pipes under the house, but I won’t bet on it.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Adulting challenge for the day turned out okay. The weekend on call electrician from sponsored search results roulette was great, he found the right part on a Saturday, and the utility crew showed up to disconnect power less than an hour from when we called them. Couldn’t have gone much better.

An electric utility guy holds a freakishly long collapsible insulated pole up to the power line fuse, preparing to disconnect power.

Looking up at the disconnected fuse with colors behind it

Resourceful electrician works to remove a broken 200A circuit breaker from its box. One of the utility guys helps out by removing wasp nests from the power meter box.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

One of the guys digging tunnels under my house said a good thing about his job is that he can work all year 😞

a small residential side yard, with one wall of a house on the left, a fence with tall crepe myrtle trees to the right, and an enormous pile of dirt in the middle covered with a plastic drop cloth. There are some pieces of plywood covering up holes in the ground dug to reach the house’s concrete slab.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

The new Fisher Price “music box” toy record player is electronic and has no music box. This makes me sad.

A plastic toy record player with a tiny collection of toy records

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

I’m inheriting a few shelf feet of medical text and reference books from the 1959s - 1970s. They don’t have sentimental value to me, so would anyone else care? Should I waste Half Price Books’ time, or just put them in the trash?

A bookshelf with some old medical textbooks

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

That is cute. More like this: www.brownie-camera.com/27.jpg

Picture of a small black plastic box camera, shown by itself and also in a couple of configurations with attached flash

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

A risk of saving bows or gift bags with attached tags is that next year you might find tags from people (or pets, in this case) who have died. I always have to pause when that happens.

A big reddish decorative bow with a gift tag attached. The tag says it’s from Pippin.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Learned today: 1) I can’t tell how much fuel is in the tiny diesel tractor’s tank by peering in the hole on top. Looked like at least half. 2) it’s a real pain to run out of fuel. Now I know how to bleed the air out of all the injector fuel lines.

The top of a five gallon diesel fuel tank in a tiny Ford tractor. The cap is lying next to the filler hole. You cannot peer into the hole and judge the fuel level.

The fuel-related side of a little Ford tractor, showing the fuel pump, filter, low pressure lines, and three injector lines.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

My poster stayed in the magazine, so it’s creased. I thought that I had the soundtrack on vinyl, but didn’t find it. I did find the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange, though.

front cover of an “official giant collectors’ edition” of a TRON promo magazine from 1982. There’s a dramatic futuristic picture from the movie on most of the cover, and a footnote promising a “full color poster inside.”

The full color poster inside, but opened up

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Oops. I went to listen and discovered I don’t have that after all. The funny collectors promo magazine is all I’ve got. There’s vinyl of A Clockwork Orange, though, so that’ll get played instead.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

I found this while clearing out some old stuff a few weeks ago, so I’m likely to see it regardless what the reviews say.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Maybe I misremembered. This Hitachi isn’t European, and doesn’t look as sleek as I thought. Very clever, though.

A Hitachi 1” helical scan videotape recorder from the late 1970s. It’s a compact portable device with the two tape reels stacked one above the other, with the same spindle axis, to save space.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

What’s the modern inclusive term for a dead man switch/pedal/cutoff? I remembered this doesn’t have one as I leaned way over in the seat to duck under low branches. I can’t easily add one, either, since it’s diesel.

A little old Ford diesel tractor with an also little box shredder is parked in some freshly mown grass. There’s a wire fence behind it. You can’t tell from the picture, but one of the lift arms has sheared off at a ball joint, so there’ll be no more mowing for a while.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Farewell to IsaBeauty, the only animal who ever liked my tuba playing.

A guy is standing in the shadow next to a tree, playing a tuba. A little white horse is raptly listing from a dozen feet away. She had come over from another part of the pasture when he started playing, as she usually did when there was tuba playing. There are a couple of big red plastic bells attached to the gate she’s standing next to, so she looks extra festive, and it must have been Christmas time, even though the live oaks have their leaves and the grass is green.

She was a sweet horse, and we’ll miss her.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

this pic is only because the one above is transparent, so you can't read the pin names. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

diagram of the 16 pins and their signal names on an Intel 4004 microprocessor. Pins 1-4 are data bus, 16-13 and 11 are memory address and control, two phase clock is on 6 and 7, 8 is sync output, 9 and 10 are reset and test inputs, and power is 15V across pins 5 and 12.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Someone could, though it would be really hard to coax 500W across the one square cm of metal lid. Typical draw of a real one was half a watt. I was wrong about both power (only 2 pins, with 15V across them) and that data and address were multiplexed. Oh well. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

My kids named some cats from that movie, but that problem has faded on its own. The two LOTR cats lasted a little longer, but now we have no more cats from literature.

A black and white tuxedo cat named Potter sits up straight on a desk, tightly between a beige keyboard and a bright ladybug mouse.

Orange and white cat named Weasley pokes his head sideways out the end of a carpeted cat tree barrel. He has intense orange eyes.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

I had a sweet but simple kitten (Weasley) who ate the strip of plastic that you tear off the top of a pack of baby wipes. Or we thought he did, anyway. So he got surgery to check. He lasted many years after that and didn’t eat any more trash.

Weasley, an orange and white cat, is asleep in a people bed. His head Is on the pillow, covers are pulled over most of the rest of him, with one front leg draped over the edge of the comforter. He’s posed like the kitten on the Chessie System emblem.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Beautiful majestic cat! And is that gear considered classic, now? Here’s Ginny, helping. D700, Zeiss 35mm f/2

Black and white picture of a young woman with her head fallen down on a tabletop with some poster project in progress. She stopped working because a small orange cat is on the table, too, helping too much.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Thanks for the tip to fetch all the data. I got the screenshot for fun, but it doesn't have all the loan details, so the file is nice.

a student loan summary card that shows a green check mark over the words, "Your loan balance is $0"

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Where’s the right place to give away an early 80’s Millennium Falcon plastic model? Good Will? It’s complete, slightly started, and not likely to be finished by me.

Top cover of a Millennium Falcon plastic model box, showing a picture of a completed and carefully painted model it also says the model is over 18 inches long.

One side panel of the middle box, showing some close ups of parts of the model.

Another box side panel, with pictures of other models once available in the same series, like an X-wing fighter and Dart Vader bust.

A look inside the box, showing lots of plastic parts, assembly instructions, and some tiny bottles of paint from decades past.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

The weather stayed dry and I got off work early enough to pulverize leaves with the mower before sunset, but now my neighbor is inspired to more in the dark.

Picture of a front yard with yellow leaves covering the yard, driveway, and sidewalk leading to the front door.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 05/09/2024

This one had enough persistent inflammation in the better eye, after the clearly bad eye was being treated for glaucoma, that he was tested for systemic stuff twice. First round found toxoplasma; second was bartonella. The bad eye has been removed, but the good one seems fine now. Whew!

Henry the one eyed tuxedo cat beats up a leather belt that has been menacing him on the bed

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 21/08/2024

After the great Mohs surgery and before the repair. The whole team—dermatologist, Mohs surgeon, reconstruction surgeon, anesthesiologist, and all the nurses—were women who respect each others’ work, which was reassuring.

A white guy with glasses and a big white bandage on the left side of his nose is in a hospital gown and hospital bed withs couple tubes going down the collar of the gown. He’s grinning lightly at the camera, a mix of tired, worried, and pleased that it could have been worse.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 13/08/2024

If you see this, post an image you saved because it made you laugh…

A silhouette of a cat gently knocking a GOP elephant symbol off the edge of a table, captioned with “November 5, 2024; the revenge of the cat ladies’ cats”.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 18/04/2024

Henry is recovering well after having an eye removed two days ago. I’m relieved, since he was sneezing blood on Saturday. I’m fortunate the cost was not an obstacle, but I’m sad about people who have to say, “I can’t; he’s 12; let’s say goodbye and put him down instead.”

Henry the black and white cat sits up on a bed feeling tricked by whoever put the plastic cone around his head. He gazes accusingly with his remaining eye and shows off his shaved wrist.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 27/11/2023

Ginny wanted all the lights, MIT just some incidental ones

Ginny the self satisfied orange tabby cat looks straight at the camera as she sits on a nest of warm bright Christmas lights

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 24/10/2023

I’d try, but I only have three cats, and they’re enough past kitten adventurousness that they avoid the tubas. Maybe if I put a basket in the bell, so it’s not so threatening. Once they’re this big, only a couple fit inside, so kittens would be more fun.

Ginny the pale orange kitty liked to help with practice, so she’s perched on a sofa arm looking at the camera waiting for someone to pick up the tuba standing on the floor behind her.

Henry, a black and white cat with a red bow tie, saunters past a tuba that’s propped up against a tall wooden cabinet. He’d like for it to not notice him, but it seems pretty harmless as long as nobody is making noise with it. He would fit in the bell, but it would freak him out because there would be nothing to grip with his back paws, to keep him from being drawn down into the bottomless conical tube.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 19/10/2023

It sounds nice, too. I’m about to sell it, since I haven’t used it besides practice, and I don’t have space to collect baritones and tubas. My plain little Yamaha euphonium is less precious and good enough for the way I play.

A picture of engraving on the bell of a 1929 Holton baritone horn that only partly succeeds at capturing the beauty of the design

Another try at showing the engraving, with flourishes and ribbons that say “made by Frank Holton & Co, Elkhorn, Wis.”

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 19/10/2023

My 1929 American style baritone is sure to confuse.

A satin silver baritone horn is propped up against a plastic picnic bench

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 15/10/2023

For my 1 (?) Austin mutual, there's a show Monday night! If you've never heard a brass band (no woodwinds or strings, but nothing like a marching band or drum corp), come enjoy. We're sounding pretty good this year. Maybe I'll even nail my solos.

flyer for the Austin Brass Band fall concert, October 16, 2023, 7pm, at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 14311 Wells Port Dr, Austin, TX.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 01/10/2023

I’m ready. Or ready for the 50s, anyway.

Ginny the orange kitty is draped over some guy’s shoulders. She’s paying no attention to the photographer.

Ginny the fluffy orange cat is perched upright on my shoulder, supervising as I attend to some paperwork (or computer, or dinner. Who knows?)

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 30/09/2023

It’s finally cool enough to work outside again, and this little old thing fired right up. The alternator needs replacing, but it keeps starting fine with the battery charge from six months ago, so I’m not in a big rush. The new radiator is holding up well, too.

A small diesel tractor sits on a concrete pad in the shade with a box shredder, ready to get to work if someone would just close it’s good.

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

Here’s Henry, since I haven’t posted anything yet.

Tuxedo cat Henry helps untangle some multimeter leads

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John Morris @anotherjtm.bsky.social · 29/09/2023

I need to figure out how to make my rotors caps look like that!

Inside the tubing of a rotary valve tuba, three rotors have metal caps with engraved floral designs

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