Before we were all working from home I was already there.  The roots of my home edit suite, back story, an updates in 2020

"Man, I wish I could work from home!" a friend of mine said to me once (no, many times!).  Sounds great right!?  Well...it is, but it's not all roses and beautiful landscapes.  I think the only one who really understands it most is my wife, Rachel.  Now working at home as a school teacher for the South Lake Tahoe school district, she sees it's more difficult than you would think.  She kind of already knew it.  Most people say things like the first sentence of this post, but Rachel will often say "how do you do it?  And, you stay so focused?!" 

Of course, because of Covid, here in South Lake, teachers are remote right now and working their asses off!  I see if first hand.  Getting a handle on remote learning, new processes, and engaging students is almost like developing a program from scratch. 

For someone like Rachel, sitting in front of a computer, often sitting still and not interacting with the kids, and making the kind of difference she often does in person, kind of sucks.  We are still grateful to have work, be healthy, and are so fortunate to not be in much worse situations all around our country and world so we remind ourselves of that every day.  It's all good.  We'll get through this! 

For me, it's been a LONG time in the work from home world and even from my early days as a sound engineer building out my own studio, it's been about creating an environment that encourages creativity, is simple and effective...and cool!

I LOVE THE DESIGN OF THE WORK ENVIRONMENT. 

My whole home setup really shifted in 2014 with the upgrade of my Mac Pro to the "Trash Can" model.  I had for years been on an older Mac Pro "Cheesegrater" and loved it.  Me and that computer got through a lot.  Through the first waves of Final Cut Pro to some fun music production via Cubase and ProTools.  It was a burly, reliable piece of computer equipment and launched my freelance career really from staff editor and motion graphics guy in DC to a pretty damn nice setup at home and freelancing. 

At the heart of this new setup was the stand up desk.  I had been sitting long enough and really liked the idea of getting off my butt more, moving around, and just getting things circulating!  Here's the best part, my wife Rachel was teaching in Chaffee County, CO at the time and the High School Shop was doing "spec" jobs for student projects.  It was perfect.  You work with them on design, they do the welding and parts  job, you pay for said parts and when done you donate to the high school and they showcase and get graded on their work.  What's not to like!  The result was very cool and very heavy.  My buddy had a large piece of desktop wood the high school shop students also belt sanded and I stained and boom...custom stand up desk!

When I built out the "BEAST", I had to approach a few things differently.  As a RYZEN build, I was skeptical about Thunderbolt 3 since it's an Intel Protocol.  I was also trying to move all disks internal anyway getting away from the many external drive arrays.  At least, hoping to start that way ultimately moving to SATA storage and retrieval as needed but nice to have instant access to archive project and those elements.

I had to mention this M-Audio device because although just a small element of the build, love when things work out so well.  I was using a Zoom TAC-2R thunderbolt 2 I/0 device and it had some nice, large knobs too but my build was really only USB options.  This thing fit the mold perfectly.  I sold the Zoom and picked the little guy up cheap and it works so well!  Love the even large volume knob and great for quick scratch recording or quick adjust of headphone loudness all in easy reach.

IF IT WORKS...WHY FIX IT?!  PERSISTENT PERIPHERALS