Hey guys, David here. I hope you’re having a lovely day. Today’s post is about how sometimes waiting to make a big purchase can work to your benefit, perhaps finding a cheaper solution in a place you would have never expected. It’s a shorter post as I want to get more in the habit of being consistent with them, not necessarily on length. With my time being a little more limited with my job, I need to be more strategic as I post here.
I wanted to talk about a cool scenario that happened during my summer vacation trip, where I went to the thrift store and ran into a couple computer monitors, a brand new computer mouse (unopened), and a few HDMI cables, all for a total of around $30-40.
When I saw these, I was immediately reminded of my volunteer work at my church, where our camera and livestream operator could directly benefit from an additional monitor, as well as having to find a more permanent replacement for the computer mouse we had, as we were having issues with a wireless option. I found it really cool to find all of these things here in this one place.
Both of the computer monitors were a gamble whether they worked or not, but I tested them when I got home and they worked flawlessly, and they replaced two of my other monitors that were a different resolution. All my monitors are now 1080p, and I have the pleasure of being able to donate my old monitors to my church, which fills the need for the camera operator.
I’m also very delighted to have been able to experiment with a MIDI controller that can send commands to the livestream software, allowing the controller to have a physical button which transitions between certain scenes, and even toggle mute on certain audio channels. I’m very excited about this change and look forward to running services with this new controller.
Lessons Learned
The lesson learned here is, to always be patient – sometimes the things you didn’t expect to be the solution will be in a random place you would have never thought of. I could have ordered a replacement monitor or computer mouse, but finding a brand new mouse for $2 at a thrift store beats Amazon any day of the week. It pays to calculate your movements at times though – don’t get me wrong; there’s a level of overthinking/analysis paralysis that can happen. I say, plan it out, seek accountability on whatever you’re trying to pull off, and as long as you have a balanced perspective, things will work out.