The Martin Sector

Queen's house

2010-10-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

Long long ago in a greenwich far far away, the queen had a beautiful house by the river (square building, centered). She wanted more buildings as part of the palace complex, but gave her architects the requirement that her 30-meter wide swath of view remain unrestricted....so the entire area has a big open stretch (still) from the front of her house all the way to the warf. It is good to be queen!

Everyone has seen the "underground" public transportation symbols...but how about "river"?

2010-10-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today so far

2010-10-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

I woke up, walked up to the tube station, boarded one tube, changed lines twice, walked by Big Ben, parliment, and through part of Westminister abbey. Then, bought a Thames
Clipper all-day pass at the London eye, took it two stops to the Tower bridge, and have been walking east along the south bank of the Thames since then (about 2 hrs). I have gone through many interesting residential districts of varying ages, seen the HMS Belfast, and just went to a non-alcoholic cider tasting...there is no apple juice like that being pressed into your cup in front of you! I am almost to the next Clipper stop (I think) and will take the next clipper to Greenwich park to pose for nerdy Meridian pictures which I'm sure are the local equivalent of taking a shot at four corners

IMG00316-20101016-1910.jpg

2010-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

Crazy chair in the lobby of the park plaza hotel

Landed safe and its FREEZING

2010-10-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

So a month ago, it was 60 and sunny...now it is 40 and foggy? What gives? Who authorized these "seasons"? The flights were good, had a chatty row mate and no middle the first leg and small row mates the second...drank plenty of water and orange juice to prevent an adventure like last time. The handle of my suitcase broke (le sigh) but I think I can fix it...will bring it with me monday, there has to be a workshop stocked with bolts and such in bridport someplace!

Didn't sleep at all, so not sure what to do. Its 7am, but might lay down for a few minutes if they will let me check in. Speaking of, just got to hotel!

Stonehenge some more

2010-09-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Really quaint...right in the middle of nowhere

Stonehenge

2010-09-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite henges!

Swift boat

2010-09-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

We went out for an hour long boat ride, up and down the coast of what I believe was called Lyme Bay. This is obviously the other boat--they had saddle seats and handles, went 60mph, and got completely out of the water on waves. Fun stuff!

Dinner!

2010-09-16T03:58:00.001-07:00

Had fish and chips and a chocolate milk shake for dinner from this little stand.
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Polite notice

2010-09-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

Is it possible for something to become polite by fiat? Signs point towards 'yes'
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Mmm...prawny

2010-09-13T04:17:00.001-07:00

I was hoping for something more exotic but they taste mostly like vinegar.
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Stairs down to the pub

2010-09-13T00:47:00.001-07:00

These stone stairs are down to the pub in the cellar...very non- ada compliant!
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The view from the hotel

2010-09-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

Right out the door you can see the english channel!
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Back of hotel

2010-09-12T23:57:00.001-07:00

Here is a shot that gives another view of the manor.
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My hotel

2010-09-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

I am staying in the Manor House. It is 600 years old and looks every century of it! That is the main lobby door...it reqally feels like an old inn, with a common room in the basement for food and local beers.
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Petrol prices

2010-09-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

You might not be able to see but the petrol prices are 1.2 pounds per liter...multiply that by about 6 or 7 to get dollars per gallon. Also, its pump and then pay...very weird when a tank could be over $100, but there are cams everywhere, and a cop will meet you at home if you gas and go.
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Landed safe in london (mostly) no worse for the wear

2010-09-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

American airlines international economy is waaay better than united--quite comfortable! I had one of the off center seats in the center 5-row, and lucked out...the very middle was vacant!

Directly in front of me was a family with a baby and a toddler-mostly one of them was screaming the whole flight, but I didn't care that much..I had good headphones and the movie selecion was actually recent--i watched most of "robin hood" before I got deathly bored.

I tried to sleep and was mostly sucessfull but woke up to a perfect storm of unpleasantness: screaming baby, screaming toddler, turbulence, low blood sugar (it had been five hours since meal), dehydration (I forgot a water bottle) and not enough fresh air. I felt like I was going to be sick, so I woke the guy next to me to let me pass and walked back to the lavatory. It was occupied so I stood in the aisle for a minute, started to get a little light headed and...BAM. Out cold, fell straight back into the aisle (sore tailbone and the back of my head) and woke up seeing stars and stewardesses. They gave me a cold towel, some water, and orange juice until I felt up to moving back to the galley, where I hung out and munched some cheese and crackers and another glass of orange juice. I was hoping for a pity pass to business class, but unfortunately I recovered pretty quickly--they said my color was back to normal which means it was probably askew originally.

Anyways, a very odd experience, and I can't quit pin down any specific root cause different on this flight than my other four 6+ hour flights, other than the dehydration factor, which I will go overboard avoiding on the return leg.

Other than a bump on my head and what feels like a hangover, no lasting effects, and I am looking forward to a productive week. The UK country side is beautiful so far (the bits I can see from the taxi)--England startlingly resembles *New* England.

Pictures as soon as there is anything interesting.
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Off to England!

2010-09-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

Since international email is free and international data is $Arm+Leg/megabyte, I have decided to resurrect my blogger to keep a running picture account of anything of interest on my trip, as much for myself as for anyone else. Stay tuned for the next week, two to three people who might care!
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Charlotte's new swingset!

2009-06-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

I had three spare 2x4's and no place to hang Charlotte's swing, so I went to Home depot, and $12 and 2 hours (including a half hour break) later, made her a very respectible little a-frame. I had originally planned some additional braces, but this seems rock solid (Debbie did a chin up on it) so I think I'll just leave it as is. Fun quick project!

In which, our hero learns to tie his shoes

2009-03-22T03:37:00.001-07:00

I've hated having to tie my shoes for a long time now. In fact, as a defense mechanism, I own very very few shoes with laces. Look at my feet next time you see me, chances are they're slip-on of some description or other (although this will soon be changing!). I justified this as a combination of 'efficiency' and a style choice (luckily sketchers/merrell/etc has been making a lot of fashionable slip-ons lately), but I was only fooling myself--I just didn't know how to tie my shoes!

I thought I knew what I was doing (tie a knot, make a loop, go around the loop with the other loop, tada), but it NEVER FREAKIN WORKED. The two 'bunny ears' always justified themselves perpendicular to the direction you'd normally think of for shoes, and I COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHY.

My wife bought me a pair of really nice brown New Balance shoes last week, which, although they were really nice, I secretly wept, as I knew that I would have to wear them, and that the day I wore them would be spent miserably retying my shoes every half an hour, and I'd have to suffer the indignity of having the laces look (in the brief periods they remained tied) stupid and un-shoe like. I couldn't say anything, obviously, as it is completely unacceptable for an Eagle Scout who is also a Mechanical Engineer to admit he can't tie his shoes.

Today I decided that enough was enough, and I was going to swallow my pride and figure out why I consistently failed at shoe-tying. With some (ok, a lot of) help from the internet, I finally realized I've been tying them in a 'granny' knot all this time! Simply switching the direction I loop the loop around suddenly changes the whole thing from a stupid looking tangle of uselessness that unties itself almost immediately to a beautiful symmetrical bow capable of keeping my shoes firmly on my feet.

Amazing. When tied properly, these new shoes are actually quite comfortable, and I look forward to wearing them, and joining the ranks of successful shoe-tiers worldwide!

The moral of this story is, if, when your shoes are tied, they look stupid, with one loop pointing towards your toe and one up towards your ankle, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

Android Pill Minder--outline of a program I want to write

2009-03-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

My mom mentioned to me today that my (gracefully) aging grandparents sometimes have a hard time keeping track of their rather complex perscription cycles: when to take what, with or without food, and how often can be hard to juggle, espcially when the bottles themselves are identical and crawling with tiny text.

She suggested individually shrink wrapped pills that would blink when you needed to take them--I agree this would work, but I think that I could write a program for an Android device (currently just the G1) to do the same thing more genericly, with today's pill bottles.

Currently, there are no hits for pill, pills, medicine, or perscriptions in Android Marketplace. I think this needs to change.

The major G-phone API's I'd need to figure out how to access are the barcode scanner, background scheduler, a setup screen, and an alert interface. Really, there wouldn't need to be any more complex than that. I'd also say that the barcode scanner is optional (but extremely handy).

Basic functionality would be inputting how often you should (in case of scheduled medicines) or can (in case of 'take no more often than Xhours or Y times per day') take your various medications. The program would then provide an alert at the appropriate time, telling you when you should (or can) next take said medicine. That's the barebones version.

Adding one level of complexity, you could 'color' each medicine by adding colored dot stickers to the corresponding bottle. So rather than an alert saying "Take your hydroxydoxorubicin!" it would be a flashing green screen saying "Take your hydroxydoxorubicin! (GREEN BOTTLE)"

Adding a second level of complexity, there are currently barcodes of some kind on all the perscription bottles I've seen. When you're setting up your new medicine, you would 'check in' the new bottle's barcode. It would store this code with the schedule, and when it prompted you to take your medicine, it wouldn't clear the alert until you'd rescanned the correct bottle. This would prevent you from accidently taking the wrong medication.

A third level of complexity which isn't possible without the involvement of pharmacies would be to add 2-D barcodes to the labels encoded with all of the direction information about your dosage schedule. 2-D barcodes are grid looking structures that look like this:

That particular barcode has "http://eng.wikipedia.org/" encoded into it, so you can see how easily large amounts of information could be compressed into a small symbol on the bottle. This code, when scanned by the phone, could then add all of the information automaticly.

I think the Android is definitely capable of handling this entire task, it's just a matter of me gaining the knowledge to make it happen. I've been wanting a legitimate reason to try my hand at writing an Android program, and this seems as legitimate as any, so we'll see! I just wanted to use this blog entry as a napkin sketch of my ideas, in case I don't have the time to impliment them while they're still fresh in my mind.

Holga Photo simulation

2009-03-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

My brother in law was playing with his cheap plastic Holga camera when he came to visit, and I was inspired to see if I could approach the effect digitally.

The camera original shot on medium format film, which was then often cross-processed, resulting in a unique artistic color pallette. Cross processing is intentionally or accidently developing film using the wrong chemical baths. Here's an actual image from an actual Holga, that has been cross-processed:

Note the yellow-orange skin tones and cyan sky that is the signature of a cross-processed image.

For maximum 'realism', I duplicated the camera as much as possible with the tools I had at hand, namely a Canon Rebel xti and a prime lens:

F/13, 50mm (not 60mm, sigh), ISO 400, shutter speed 1/100.

Then I played with a variety of 'old timey' action sets and filters, most of which were awful and didn't do anything close to what I wanted. I ended up doing most of the effect 'by hand'.

Here's a source image we took that duplicated all the Holga settings (except focal length):

And here is my attempt at emulating the effect:

I'd say I got 60% there. I'll fiddle some more and see if I can do better. The analog process of the plastic camera is fun, as they are about one step above shoebox/pinholes. Plus, hacking it to use 35mm film instead of medium format is a fun challenge. They're about $20 on Amazon....hmmm...may have to pic one up.

Home Network planning

2009-01-29T23:06:00.001-08:00

I'm planning out in my head a home network, and have a few things left to determine, so thought I'd make a blog post to help sort things out.

Name: Mouth
Downloader/Web Host/Stream server (WinXP, Cracked-screen Laptop)
Primary Responsibility: Download client
Secondary: Streaming video processor
Tertiary responsibility: Bedroom music broadcaster
Location: Closet
Internet: Wired
Display: Onboard
Special Hardware: Logitech MusicCast USB transmitter,
Special Software: uTorrent, PlayOn, PiMPStreamer

Name: Stomach
File Server/Exercise Room PC (Ubuntu, full sized Viao chassis)
Primary Responsibility: File Server
Secondary Responsibility: Media for exercise room
Location: Exercise room
Internet: wired
Display: 22" Samsung, wall mounted
Special equipment: 750gb hard drive
Input: TBD (wireless keyboard/trackball combo?)
Software: File Server software TBD

Name: Intestine
HTPC (Ubuntu, Silver Micro ATX chassis)
Location: Living Room
Internet: Wired
Display: 50" Samsung in media center
Special Hardware: Barracuda sound card (pending PCIe motherboard), Logitech Harmony remote, wireless keyboard/mouse combo, IR reciever
Special software: XBMC, girder or linux equivalent

Desktop (OSX, iMac)
Internet: Wireless

Laptop (WinXP, HP Laptop)
Internet: Wireless

PSP with wireless internet feeding off of PiMPStreamer for streaming videos and music

Total shopping list to accomplish all of this:
Power Supply for MicroATX case
CAT5e jack for exercise room

Optional: New MicroATX motherboard, downstairs surround sound

Pregnancy Q & A

2008-12-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

Someone emailed me this and I thought it was useful enough to share. Here are some great Q & A on various topics about parenting and childbirth.

Q: Should I have a baby after 35?
A: No, 35 children is enough.

Q: I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A: With any luck, right after he finishes college.

Q: What is the most reliable method to determine a baby's sex?
A: Childbirth.

Q: My childbirth instructor says it's not pain I'll feel during labor, but pressure. Is she right?
A: Yes, in the same way that a tornado might be called an air current.

Q: When is the best time to get an epidural?
A: Right after you find out you're pregnant.

Q: Is there any reason I have to be in the delivery room while my wife is in labor?
A: Not unless the word 'alimony' means anything to you.

Q: Is there anything I should avoid while recovering from childbirth?
A: Yes, pregnancy.

Q: Do I have to have a baby shower?
A: Not if you change the baby's diaper very quickly.

Q: Our baby was born last week. When will my wife begin to feel and act normal again?
A: When the kids are in college.

What Fits in a Honda Fit

2008-12-02T19:43:00.000-08:00

Someone, somewhere on the internet, to someone else:
"I don't know if you've ever been in a Fit or a Versa, but their "cargo area" has maybe enough space for a cooler. It would be very difficult to put more than two people + stuff for more than just a weekend trip in there, and camping would be hard as well."

Now, I don't speak for the Versa...in fact, I rather do not like them, and hence don't own one, but this is just untrue for the Fit. It is one of the most efficient transportation vehicles for its size and gas I've ever seen. However, saying is not showing, so, here we go!

Here it is configured comfortably for 4 passengers. With the back seats up, you have about 26 deep x 36 x 36 cargo cube to fill.

This can be filled quite effectively, and easily hold a normal human's weekend roadtrip's worth of stuff, or four backpacking backpacks standing up next to eachother:

In this case, it held:

Two Large Sleeping Bags
Two small flexible coolers
One large low rubbermaid
Two large storage rubbermaids
One duffle
One kitty transport vessel

Now, if it's just a roadtrip for two, which many are, then it's a different story all together. We can fold down the rear seats (not remove them), and with the front seats in a comfortable sustainable position, we have over a five foot deep cargo area. For comparison, this is the same size as a short bed Tacoma pickup truck.

This will hold, um, a rather lot of things. Actually, more things than I had in rubbermaids in my garage, so I had to start improvising (note the large cardboard box and the milk crates of electronic stuff)

Yes, everything fit with the doors closed...that picture was boring due to tinted windows so I didn't upload it.

Still have plenty of leg room. If my wife wasn't taking no part in this nonsense, I'd have a picture of myself sitting comfortably in the driver's seat.

A total inventory:

Three Large Sleeping Bags
Two small flexible coolers
Four large low rubbermaids
SIX large storage rubbermaids
Two milk crates
One large cardboard box
One duffle bag
One full daypack
One internal frame backpacking pack
One kitty transport vessel

I'd say this is a rather bit more than 'maybe enough space for a cooler,' and if you need more than that for a weekend camping trip, why, I pity you.

If you have another person you want to bring along, you can easily sacrifice, say, two of the large tubs and fold up one of the back seats and not lose much storage--they are 60/40 split, so he will still be comfortable, and you can carry the above minus two of the large rubbermaids.

This doesn't address the 'long' option for carying, where the passenger can sit behind the driver and the front passenger seat flips back, allowing you to fit up to a 9'6" item (like say, oh, a pair of these kayaks) in the passenger side.

I did this as an exercise for my self as well, as I'd never tried to max out what I could Fit in the Fit. This load is in addition to a dining room table and four chairs (with a passenger), two large rolled area rugs (11 x 14 and 10 x 10, I believe, again with passenger), an assembled desk and chair, and many many other things on a daily basis. Did I mention it gets 35mpg, and is consistently ranked 'best value' and has a couple 'car of the year's under its belt as well?

What can I say other than THE FIT IS GO!

Ceiling fan mod--buying light kits is for suckers

2008-11-18T20:37:00.000-08:00

I bought a really cool ceiling fan that looks awesome and goes great with the look of the house. However, it doesn't have a light, and I need one. All the light kits available at Home Depot hung down way too low, so I decided to make one myself out of the stock light and some bits. I didn't document this as fully as I usually like to, but I did take a bunch of pictures at beginning, middle, and end, so, onward!

Here's the stock light. These lights are installed all over the house, so it was important to me to match it with the finished product.

Our house is Spanish/Mission/Craftsman style, so this wrought-iron looking fan goes perfect with it. It took me a solid evening to install, having to reinstall the whole thing (including the support box) three times to get it all installed to my liking (I'm still not totally happy with how the wiring is)

This fan didn't come with a light, but the bottom 'cone' is removeable--or rather, I had to install it. It had a bunch of electronics in it that I decided to relocate slightly, but more on that later.

Here's the lamp on the ground. I am going to use the shade...the guts are no good, they're made of cheap sheet metal that I won't be able to use. It only has two bulbs anyways, and I want my light to have three.

Here's a mockup of what I'm going for:

All of these electronics were in the cone (told ya I'd come back to it), and I relocated them to attach to the bottom of the base. No major problems with getting everything to fit, I'm not sure why it wasn't like that to begin with. Note the white and blue wires with the quick disconnects--those are what we will be using for the light (it's what they're for...see, the blue one says 'for light...who am I to argue?)

Due to a great stroke of luck (because I hate drilling glass), the little cap on the end of the cone threads onto a bolt that fits perfectly through the whole already in the glass glass. This will make my job waaaaay easier. Also, I think this looks pretty snazzy...this just might work!

A quick run to Home Depot later produces three sockets, a six pack of bulbs (I'm a sucker for the 'reveal' lights), and a nice long 10mm x 1.0 bolt (the thread pitch that the cap fits on). Oh, and a bunch of tiny screws to mount the sockets...their little tabs had a TINY hole.

Here's the plan to mount the shade. I was going to drill out the threaded end that the cap fit on, but it actually unscrewed (even easier!), so the bolt goes into the cone, a retaining nut goes on to hold it securely, and I'll sandwich the shade between neoprene washers on the end. Easy peazy.

Here is where I stopped taking pictures and just WORKED...it took me about 3 days off and on to finish it all. Three light bulbs was a tight fit in the shade, so I had to dremel clearance holes for the bulbs (ugh, dremeling FOREVER), I had to drill tiny mounting holes for the sockets to mount, and I drilled a nice big hole for the cables to pass through. I also threw in some reflective heat protectant sheet that was in the light...don't want to fry whatever was in those electronics boxes!

Here's what it looks like with all three bulbs on. I picked this bulb arrangement because you can actually change the bulbs (something I almost didn't think of, haha)...I tested each socket before I tightened them down.

Yay finished product! This is unlit. You can just barely see the purple of the bulbs...I may have to change to regular white bulbs (or clear) to get away from this if it starts to bug me.

Here it is lit. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Total cost, around $10ish dollars in parts, and I had to buy a new pack of cutoff wheels for the dremel, but I didn't use them up so I'm not counting them. I like it better than any of the $30+ light solutions I saw for sale, and they all hung down way further (important, as this light is already pretty low)

I call this project...success!

Fish Blimp...the most beautiful thing I've found online in a while

2008-11-14T08:14:00.001-08:00

Found this on vimeo, had to share...such a simple Idea, I'm jealous I didn't think of it first!

Air Art from flip on Vimeo.

Semi-DIY, Wall-Mounted, Recharging Station/Laptop Desk/Every-Day-Carry Organizer

2008-10-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

So, I had a need. It is a common one. I had many (so many!) digital gadgets that needed to regularly suckle at the electric teat. This resulted in an octopus mess of chargers, digital devices crammed everywhere there was an outlet, and a constant search to find plug A suitable for fitting into slot B.

I also had some uncommon raw materials that were dug out of the trash (full disclosure: at my previous place of employment.) Specifically, some pieces of a Wall Furniture Unit. It is meant to be used thusly:

but I had some miscellaneous pieces (and a stick of cable management) on my hands and decided to repurpose them into..

"Semi-DIY, Wall-Mounted, Recharging Station/Laptop Desk/Every-Day-Carry Organizer" (SDIYWMRS/LD/EDCO? Catchy!)

Features:

Bottom laptop shelf is desk height (29" or so, I don't remember) for emergency desk use. It's in the breakfast nook, so it's not hard to just flip a chair around and type.

Middle shelf holds everything I carry on me every day (keys, wallet, flashlight, sunglasses, work badge, etc), as well as my cell phone, all in one place. This is right by my carport door, so I just load and unload on my way in and out of the house.

Middle shelf also organizes all of my chargers for various phones, gameboys, portable DVD players, MP3 players, cameras, etc. The little phone stand/organizer thingy was picked up at a tradeshow.

The top shelf has both a media dock (with IR remote!)-slash-charger for the PSP and an exposed outlet for outlet battery chargers (shown: universal Canon charger with fittings for my three Canon cameras in the little green box. Not shown: the charger for my cordless drill batteries)

Now, this (and other recharging stations) isn't so much a DIY project (strictly speaking) as it is an idea...mine just happened to have (pats self on back) a particularly slick implimentation. I suggest that everyone figure out SOME solution that works with their house and life, and do it! Don't just tolerate having cord mess when there are so many better ways to make your life simpler and neater.

Now, with that "The More You know!" out of the way, here are the guts of my particular charging project, hopefully to inspire you to create one of your own:

Here it is 'naked':

And a closeup on the custom outlet (that I never got around to stain matching) at the top:

Now, if that is naked, here it is skinned:

Its guts are a power strip, an extension cord with a grounded triplex end, and an outlet mounted power filtration-slash-surge protector-slash-overload protector (not shown) to make sure I don't light my house on fire. Oh, and some of that 3M double sided sticky stuff.

Behind the bottom cable management, I have the head for the triplex outlet. Into this I plug the power strip (which goes up to the next panel), the laptop charger (not shown properly installed--normally the brick gets 3m'ed to the wall and the unused cord ziptied), and the cord for the outlet on the third panel (because all my outlets in the power strip were taken)

Behind the second panel, I have the power strip (stuck to the shelf) with all my chargers plugged in. I thought about getting some outlet extenders for maximum utilization, but I ended up just unplugging and alternating my less used chargers (you can see one not being used)...this panel is really easy to get on and off.

The third panel has the outlet mounted in it. I jigsawed a hole out of the cover, cut the back off a j-box, cut the head off an extension cord, and hardwired a plug onto an outlet (danger!!! do this at your own risk!!!...not suggested for houses with small children!!!). I flushed up the faceplate with the front of the panel, and then hotglued it from the back to hold everything in place.

You can also see the brick for my PSP charger stuck to the wall and the cord ziptied (this is how the laptop usually is), and a random charger I dont even remember the purpose of that somehow got built in.

Functionally, this works great for me. Having all my chargers organized and in one place super simplifies my life, not to mention the convenience of having all my pocket stuff there, too. As you can see on the panel 3, there are clips that hold the covers on, so it's not hard to change things around, but, to make it even easier to change the main chargers in panel two, I didn't even put the clips on, and just have it be a perfect fit and let friction hold the panel, so I can take it off like so, and change my chargers:

Before I settled on this, I kicked around ideas using roller breadboxes with false bottoms, a drawer, an end table, an upside-down box with all my chargers in side and holes for the cords to come out. I know there are a couple commercial solutions that are similar, but I had never found anything with all of the exact functionality mine has, and definitely not with the same aesthetic.

Ridiculous facial hair

2008-09-26T08:57:00.001-07:00

So I was fooling around last night and partially shaved off my goatee, intending to take a picture and finish the job (or trim it down to a sweet 'stache, at least). I got busy, fell asleep, and forgot about it until just now when I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror and started laughing. Took this pic last night....enjoy hehe.
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Woo hoo! Yay new house!

2008-09-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

This just popped into my inbox!

Hi Martin and Deborah,

I wanted to let you both know that we received the final clearance from the investor/underwriter. Everything is ready for your closing date. The title company will be contacting you to schedule a time to sign closing documents. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I just want to thank you also for getting me everything I needed so quickly! I really appreciate all of your help. It has been a pleasure working with you. Congratulations on your new home!

Sincerely,

Janis ******

Yay new house! So exciting! We actually turned power and gas on Tuesday so that they can finish the installation of the AC tomorrow, and put all the kitchen appliances in. We have a walkthroug/orientation on Monday afternoon, I'm guessing we have to meet with the title company to sign some stuff, and then we get the keys! Huzzah!

*does a little happy dance*

Creating Outlook Macros and Linking them to Keys and custom buttons

2008-08-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

To streamline my Inbox Organization process even further, I decided to see if I could automate things, by mapping buttons and shortcut keys for "move to folder and mark unread" for Action, Respond, and Waiting, and "move to folder and mark unread" for Temporary Hold and Archive.

The best tutorial was this blog article, descriptively called Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts to Move a Message to a Folder: http://www.fiftyfoureleven.com/weblog/general/outlook-email-shortcuts

You can basically follow that exact walk through with the following caveats:

The macro he links (which, by the way, was broken for me, I had to google it: http://verychewy.com/archive/2006/04/12/outlook-macro-to-move-an-email-to-folder.aspx ) is great for just moving stuff around, however we want to mark it read (or unread), so we need to use this version: http://www.yeraze.com/article.php/outlook_macro_move_to_folder_mark_Read It is the same, except it has "objItem.UnRead = False" pasted right above "objItem.Move objFolder." Rather obviously, you need to switch this to 'true' for the folders you want inbound mail marked 'unread', and leave it 'false' for the ones you want marked read.

SelfCert.exe, at least on this machine, is a weird piece of software: the interface of which was all question marks...as in ???????? ????????? ????????--it performs as advertised if you just follow the steps described on the Microsoft website (hit enter instead of OK after you type your name if you can't tell which ?????????? button is which), however it wasn't located where the site said it should be--I had to do a search to find it

The instructions at http://blogs.technet.com/kclemson/archive/2003/09/25/53794.aspx for creating keyboard shortcuts is a little bit unclear for my taste--the basics are there, but I modified their technique significantly.

First, pick the letters you want to use for your shortcuts. I realized I had two "A" folders, so I renamed Archive to Vault. I also choose to display them "Image and Text", and picked cute little pictograms to represent my five folders. Also, Temp Hold got renamed "hold" since I couldn't figure out how to make the two word name work in the macro.

Second you can drag the new macro buttons wherever you like, not just on the standard toolbar. I put them up next to File Edit etc.

Third, you can use whatever letters you want, but you need to delete the & signs from the names of the commands that originally had them. For example, if you want Hold to be "alt-h", you need to rename the Help menue from "&Help" (the current alt-h) to just "Help" . If the letter you want to use isn't displayed with an underline on the current toolbars, you're in luck...do note when looking for conflicting letters that it doesn't have to be the first letter (I'm looking at you, Find)

Finally, if you open any piece of mail, you can customize it, too. That way if you're reading a message (or clicked 'ok' on the "you have new mail, would you like to read, like I just did") you can add all your buttons (using the exact same process as above) to disposition the message without ever even opening your full outlook window

Helpful Hint: it isn't very intuitive, but the renaming command and other properties are only available while the 'Customize Toolbar' window is open. You'll see what I mean once you try to start doing it.

The first time you try to run your macro (or possibly the first time you close and relaunch outlook, and THEN try to run it), it will prompt you asking if you want to trust macros from "your name"...check 'trust always' and click yes, and you won't have to do it again. It is important that you digitally sign your macro project using the SelfCert or it won't let you run them next session and this will be a big pile of wasted effort.

All in all, this is a reasonably simple process, and barely requires anything more than basic Office knowledge. YMMV with different versions, and obviously this is Windows only (there are easier ways to do it on a mac, they are linked in the first article in this blog post), but the general steps should be basically the same.

Enjoy your new found organizational ability! Here's some pics!

Outlook Organization Addendum

2008-08-06T09:42:00.001-07:00

Addendum: After using the system briefly, I decided to adopt the full 5-folder system, at least for now. The difference between a "Temp Hold" and a "Waiting for Response" is significant enough that I think it warrants its own folder. Plus, the Waiting has so far been my most used folder, as whenever I send action requests to others, I drop my sent mail in there, so I can keep track of any pending requests.

In this case, I don't actually have any truly 'unread' messages. What I do have is nothing in my inbox (yay!), one item that requires action (that I have marked 'unread' so it will show up on the folder), two items that require quick responses (both marked 'unread' after getting dropped in the Respond folder), and one item I'm waiting for a response on (my 'copy sent into inbox' rule automatically marks my sent messages unread as it copies them, so I just dragged it into 'waiting'). This system has been so far quite suitable for dealing with everything that has come in.

You can see by the Plus sign that I have some Archive subfolders...so far they are Reference and CYA, but if something that I feel like I want to save long term doesn't fit nicely in one of those, I'm not afraid to just let it live in the main archive until I see a large enough trend develop to deserve a subfolder.

The hardest part of the system is viciously and immediately deleting things that don't fit in one of the five categories. It is totally worth the effort, though...not to mention outlook will never get bogged down. At my previous job, my inbox had 5800 messages in it, for no particular reason, I had just never thought to delete anything. In this system, I will never run out of mailbox space, and if my archive somehow gets large enough to get close, well, I have an easy choice of which folder to archive locally.

The folder system is actually streamlined enough that it makes my color formatting obsolete. I'd have to be getting truly epic volumes of mail to have enough stuff in my inbox at one time to need to visually distinguish between them.

Outlook Inbox Optimization

2008-08-04T12:34:00.000-07:00

Since I started a new job, and don't yet have a flood of emails streaming in, I decided to take some pre-emptive steps to manage my inbox. I'm using three different techniques--Some things I implimented at my previous job, some are new, so I'm not sure whether they will need to be modified to work well together, or if they will compliment eachother. I will follow up after a couple weeks once I know how much I use them.

1. Priority Coloring

I've used this for years, and it really makes it easy to sift through a busy inbox. Using autoformatting, you can specify that messages be different color based on how they reached you. From highest specificity to lowest:

Messages only to me are blue
Messages to me and others individually are black
Messages I am CC'ed on, or that are to my group are dark grey
Messages to the entire company are light grey

This gives you an easy at-a-glance indicator as to how important it is that you react to the message. New messages coming in are usually bolded, so they retain the coloring.

2. Sent mail in inbox

I set up a rule to copy any sent mail to my inbox. This way, I can sort by subject line and see the whole conversation thread. If your version of Outlook isn't smart enough to know that "RE: Lunch Room" goes with "Lunch Room," then you can pull up the field chooser and sort by Conversation instead. This rule by itself is very convenient, but actually works a little bit against my next technique, but I'm still able to make good use of it.

3. Zero Inbox

As a goal, this technique immediately sorts all incoming email into folders, and gets them out of your inbox. I read about this on lifehacker, where Gina Trapani links to the originator (which I've forgotten at the moment), who originally crafted a 5 folder sort system. Gina went even further, making to mergers to simplify to a 3 folder system. I'm not sure I'm ready for that amount of streamlining, so I'm going with a 4-folder system:

Respond - Any emails that can be responded to in less than 5 minutes. Anything that can be responded to in less than 1 minute, just do as it comes in and don't bother to file it. Gina merged this with Action and called the whole thing "Follow up".

Action - Any emails that require more than 5 minutes of work to respond to, or that have work instructions. Marking active tasks unread as you place them in this folder give you a running tally of currently active tasks, is a way to keep yourself aware of this folder's contents.

Archive - Long term reference message storage. This folder can have sub folders by category if desired, although since it is searchable that is probably not needed.
Temporary Hold: Stuff that requires no action, but that you want easily accessible. Examples would be tracking numbers, order confirmations, or other stuff you might be referring to over the next week or so.
Trash - Yes, I know this is a fifth folder, but it's one that is already there. Delete visciously. Anything that doesn't go in one of the top four folders, or anything from those folders that you are done with and don't need to move to archive, gets deleted.

Because I have my sent message copying turned on, I disposition my own messages just like I would anyone elses (am I promising to do something, am I sending out information I would like a permanent copy of?). This lets me keep a running conversational record of the exchanges.

It's actually ridiculously easy to impliment all of these techniques, so much so that it is a little frustrating that they aren't turned on by default. If anyone is curious about them, just poke around in the "organize" menu, and you can see the rich available options for the (separately grouped for some reason) Rules Wizard and Auto Formatting.

B-cat attack

2008-07-27T13:55:00.001-07:00

B likes to rampage arround with no traction on the tile. I got in his way and suffered the accidental consequenses :(
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A B in the closet

2008-07-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

We have solved the mystery of how clean clothes somehow get cat hair on them while hanging in the closet! B apparently likes sleeping in there. And yes, for those not in the know, our cats are named B and Z.
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New Job and Cool Knives

2008-07-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

I accidently got a new job (ask me about it if you haven't heard, it's a funny story). It should be a fun new challenge. I start the beginning of August. It is at AmSafe Aviation, an aerospace seatbelt company. They have a huge production facility here in Phoenix, and are the #1 supplier of aircraft seatbelts worldwide...start checking the back of your buckles when you fly!

Related to this by a distant tangent (stay with me), I've been looking to get a new pocket knife. I miss being without something sharp from my Boy Scout days, but the last time I bought a knife and tried to carry it, it was a cheap 'tactical' knife with huge blade, and I sliced my finger with it pretty badly from being out of practice (it left an interesting scar, ~~I'll try to take a picture of it~~ see below). I think I gave that knife to my dad with blood still on it.

Anyways, now that I'm not a teenager, I have no desire to carry a giant ~~manly~~ scary looking knife, so I was poking around on one of my forums (edcforums.com) for something more 'gentlemanly' and less likely to cause alarm. I noticed a knife designer, Chad Los Banos, who designs knives for Boker, responding to people's comments. This level of interaction was very impressive, and even more intriguing, his knives are available for sub-$30--skirting clost to impulse-buy prices (or easy birthday gift range...ahem ahem wink wink nudge nudge two weeks is plenty of time for ordering things online).

The two knives that interest me the most are the Boker SubClaw and ResCom. They are both variants of the original Boker SubCom design.

The ResCom (bottom, if you couldn't figure out) is available with a red handle, which I'd love so I could easily distinguish them. It has a 'blade' optimized for ripping seatbelts and other webbing (which I'll be working with on a daily basis--see, I told you it would tie back in), as well as a serated section for making short work of thicker ropes. The SubClaw's 2" hawkbill-style blade is great for more conventional knifing duties, and at $26 each for the ResCom, and for the SubClaw at edcdepot.com, I'm going to have a hard time not daily carrying both of them.

Debbie's toad

2008-07-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

Every night we go on a 2 mile walk, and every walk it is debbie's mission to find 'her' toad. We have seen him about four times, we have seen a baby toad twice, and today we saw this big fat guy....unless 'her' toad has been pigging out, probably not the same one.

It's funny because Debbie has taken over the flashlight (we are still walking) and is making sure every rock is not a toad
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Cross post from the Charlotte sector

2008-07-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

[Cross posting this from tcs in case I didn't configure the post-by-email correctly over there]

We are sitting in the ob's office waiting for what is hopefully our last prenatal visit. I am getting so excited...I can't wait to hold Charlotte!

The worst part of this trimester for me has been the waiting. The hospital bag is ready, the car seat is, well I still need to do that....however, the nursery is ready, the blog is up, and we are ready to rock and roll! Charlotte sector, come on down!

I was almost intentionally late--the one time they got Debbie in as soon as she got here was the time I was ten minutes late...the whole appointment was over when I got there, whereas we have been here ten minutes already now.

This entry is a combination brain dump, nervous fidget, and test of the Charlotte broadcast system... If there is any news of progress you'll find it here (or tcs hehe) in about an hour!

Thanks for all the votes, it's great to know so many people are looking forward to meeting my daughter :-) I am at the top of that list!
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Baby blog is live! (for people who haven't seen it)

2008-07-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, we've got thecharlottesector.blogspot.com online and ready for live announcements as Charlotte transitions from womb to world. Feel free to go check it out! There's still some time to get your birth time guesses in if you haven't already!

Cell phone signal allowing, I'll be making live posts from the hospital to keep people up to date, so bookmark now!

http://thecharlottesector.blogspot.com/

Cats are weird

2008-07-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

Do all cats use body pillows?
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The Cubicle Sector!

2008-07-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

I actually cleaned up my desk today so I thought I should document it just to prove it has happened. My cubicle is about 50% the size it needs to be for all the stuff that is in it!

Edit: Ugh, the second one is horrible quality. I'll bring in a camera tomorrow.

Crazy avon lady

2008-07-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

I want to believe she drives down the road with her hang tag strips flapping. It was so windy it looked like her catalogs were going to escape to Freedom.
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First post from the Nerdcycle!

2008-07-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

I finally got my Nerdcycle up and running (and am currently sweating on it)

Problems i addressed:

-i built a full desktop computer out of spare parts for a drive unit
-i temporarly stacked some boxes to use for a mouse pad
- i remembered i had a tiny keyboard laying around. Good thing I am quick at texting!

-I loomed all my wires to make it a little neater.

Still to do:
-wire up the PVR capabilities (card already installed)
-fabriccate a mouse pad

Even with those changes needing to be made, i have burnt 200 cal making this post! Yay fitness!

Mobile blog test

2008-07-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

Off to get taco bell for dinner (did you know you can order anything that has ever been on their menu and they will make it for you?) and figured I'd test the blog by email capabilities while I wait for my order.

Don't mind the gratuitous image, I just want to see how it handles image attachments.

Also, please excuse the cookie-cutter format and too-big pictures. Both will be changing shortly, possibly also the clunky 'view more' workaround-it is functional, but not very elegant, and I'd prefer something that didn't preload images.

Ok, food is ready. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the unveiling of the Charlotte sector!

Toxic Experiment

2008-07-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, my afternoon was all going to be computer work, so I decided to conduct an experiment. This is the journal I kept.

From the hours of 1 to 5, today, (barring any meetings that pull me away from my desk) I will be listening to Toxic on repeat. This will be 71 listenings. I will be journaling my thoughts.

1 listen: Toxic is a pretty OK song. Quite catchy, if a little over produced.
2: I wonder if those strings are real or synth? They don't sound quite right.
3: is that accoustic guitar in the opening? I never noticed that before, wow it's through the whole song!
4: Wow, through most of the heavily distorted vocals, an almost completely unmodified vocal mirror is audible faintly in the right earphone. It almost sounds like a real singer.
7: There's at least three different filter sets they apply to her vocals. That is, if they didn't have her re-track backup vocals/harmonies, and did it all digital. In at least three places it is obvious she did her own backup, as her vocal inflection and timing are different.
16: In the intro, very quietly there is some pseudo-far east sounding string instrument. Interesting. This song has a lot of layers.
17: The reverb/echo on 'spin me all around (round,roundround) seems really cheap compared to the rest of the vocal effects.

After one hour: I am fidgity. My body relaxes slightly in the brief pause when the track loops, and then tenses up again when the intro beat hits me with like a jolt.

20: Her pronunciation is starting to grate on me.
22: So i just tried to have a conversation with someone who had wandered by my cubicle, with only one of my two earphones moved, so i was still getting toxic piped in on one side...it almost broke my head.
31: I can still write, and I just tried to have another conversation. I realized the problem is that I am now subconsciously singing along with every loop, and expecting every beat, so forcing my brain to process other input (someone talking) and create words is difficult.

HALF TIME ANALYSIS:
The element of the song that is still annoying me most heavily right now is her inconsistent pronunciation. A lot of "ya" and "yer" instead of "you" and "your"...but not 100%. Somehow, having her say "you" and "your" makes it more obvious when she's fudging her pronunciation every other time.I'm starting to feel slightly nauseous. This may or may not be related to the song, I did have a small slice of Costco pizza and a cheese sandwich for lunch. At this point, for the first time, I really want to stop listening. Going to push through it! (You're toxic, I'm slippin' under...)

Also, there are still a couple points in the song where my verbal sing-along degrades into sounds instead of words, as I can't for the life of me pick any meaning out of what she's saying. I just concentrated for a loop and figured out one. "Ahgadayu" is probably "A guy like you [should wear a warning]" even though there isn't even a hint of the k or l. I now hear the 'correct' lyric each time instead of just the jumble of sounds it was before, to the point where I have tricked myself into hearing a hint of the 'k' in like.

I'm starting to get a little bit of a tension headache. I'm mentally fatiguing. The song is slowly being split into its component parts, and almost getting checked off as it goes through the song. "whiney strings, check, james bond-y electric guitar riff, check, 'bow wow' distortion synth, check"

Most of the mental fatigue is probably a result of the fact that it is such a stacatto song that it repeatedly demands priority from my nervous system. I can usually be doing something and thinking about something else. (daydreaming while modifying a cad model, or thinking about the rest of the email I'm in the process of writing) but having toxic blaring has reduced my brain to a single track. I can do and think exactly one thing, as all multi-tasking capability is being taken up by Toxic.

41: A new development. Every 's' and 't' sound now feels like little pinpricks into my brain, and she has a lot more 't' in her 'd' sounds than normal people do."Too high can' come Town" "I'm atticktet to you" etc

61: Since she's obviously not doing this live or continuously, it's very odd to see where where the mixer choose to insert breaths. Sometimes she'll start her phrases with a breath intake, sometimes she'll have a breath between phrases, but more often not. They're probably only there 20% of the time.

65: there's a ding in there that makes me think I have a new instant message, it's gotten me the last four playthroughs.

70: 1 more repetition! After what I calculate to be 70 repetitions, only having the one left is a delight. For the last three, I've had a strong desire to curl into the fetal position under my desk.

I am done! Woohoo!
Results: I am slightly disoriented, really have to pee, my fan is loud and so are my computer keypresses, and I don't have the song in my head, yet. I'll report back at end of day and let you know if i find myself humming it.

Further Results (8pm): I missed my freeway interchange driving home from work and didn't realize it for 5 miles. I've never done this. I'd say 4 hours of Toxic messes me up worse than missing two nights of sleep in a row...I still don't feel quite right.

The Shoe Sector

2008-07-02T01:10:00.001-07:00

(clicky for biggie)

So I just got a new pair of dress shoes, and thought I'd document my whole shoe 'family':

Back Right, from L to R: Steel toe work boots, oil resistant sneakers for garage use, running shoes.

Middle row, Left to Right: Black Kenneth Cole Reactions and brown generic brand slip-ons--purchased to be Scottsdale 'clubbing' shoes (both in deserate need of shoe trees); Allen-Edmunds Delray (recently purchased); Brown, black, and more newer black Sketcher slip-ons; ahnu slip ons (omg comfy, and with mesh uppers--great for summer)

Front left: Brown leather Reef's on top of some generic brown flipflops, new black fabric strap Reefs on top of old blue fabric strap Reefs (wandered 15 miles through suburbia in those once, can't bear to part with them); Five Fingers, and slippers.

Not shown: Nike trail running shoes that I use for backpacking. They are in storage.

Yay shoes!

Creating an Ikea Craft room

2008-06-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the new addition to the family is coming soon. Unfortunately, our two bedroom house is full of stuff right now...including our second bedroom, which is eventually (ed: eventually has arrived!) going to be the nursery. At the beginning of this project, it was half full of my wife's sewing and craft stuff, which needed to be moved. (the other half has my hobby stuff, which will be dealt with later) We didn't have any easy places to move it to, however--it is a small house. We had three options:

1. Get rid of the craft stuff (unacceptable)

2. Box up the craft stuff and put it in storage (undesirable)

3. Be creative!

Since we have a carport, we never ever (ever ever ever) use our front door. In fact, our front hall looked like this:

We saw some potential to repurpose this space, so we cleared it out:

We took some measurements and headed to Ikea. First order of business, hide the front door:

We found a cool desk with a pull-out L-extention that exactly fits the space:

A railed storage system will be a good use of space for items that need to be frequently accessed:

There was 8" left over, so we bought an 8" wide shelf that was supposed to be for CD's...I was so happy our measurements were accurate!

Sewing stuff starts to get transfered...

We decide it needs more light, and a power strip. A trip to Wal-Mart for parts (we repurposed the lights from the old craft room)

And, tada! A fully functional craft room in a space once devoted completely to a litter box and some junk.

Hopefully this inspires someone to make the most of the space they have! It was definitely a very satistfying weekend project, and my wife is ecstatic...she says it's the best craft space she's ever had. That's good enough for me to call it a success!

(ed: originally posted 5-8-2008)

An Organized Closet

2008-06-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

My closet is a mess right now. However, not too long ago, it looked like this:

I'm hoping that posting this inspires me to get it back in order.

Top drawers: Belts/ties/gloves/misc
Left row, top to bottom: Undershirts, long sleeve t-shirts
Next row, t2b: Solid color t's, textured t's.
Next: Teir 1 shirts, Tier 2 shirts, workout shirts, workout shorts/swimtrunks, Tier 3 shirts, trash shirts
Next: Jeans, Jeans, not jeans, shoes (black and brown in dress and casual + running)
Bottom tray: 4 pairs of flipflops, one pair of slippers, one pair of Vibram 5-fingers, one pair of moccassins
Next to bottom tray: Work boots, hiking boots (not shown, too far left)
Dresser on other side of room: socks and undies.

Yay target organizers!

Also, the pole isn't sorted by type, it's sorted by wear freqency. Whenever I put away a hanging shirt after wearing and washing, I put it on the right, thus my least-worn shirts migrate left, and the most worn stay right. /dork.

Crib Hacking

2008-06-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

So (surprising noone reading this blog, I'm sure) I hacked a crib. Wasn't happy with the stock options available to me, so bought a cheap crib on craigslist, bought some table tops at Ikea, and a handful of threaded fasteners (and some white paint) later, Tada! Cool modern crib for under $100.

(that's a really dark wood on the ends)

The dresser and changing table were different light woods, so we painted them white to match the room. One was free, the other was cheap.

Debbie made those curtains. It's strips of ribbon. I'll post an update when Debbie gets finished with the crib skirt and when we finally get knobs on all the furniture!

Making an Ikea Cat Ladder

2008-06-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

My cats are bored. If you're honest with yourself, yours probably are, too--let's face it, the average urban dwelling doesn't offer much in the way of excitement for felines genetically predispositioned to hunting in the jungle. So, in order to give them some exploration options (and because I thought it would be adorable), I decided to give them access to the top of my entertainment center from the back of one of my couches via a series of shelves spaced on the wall at with cat-navigatable spacing, aka a Cat Ladder.

(couch on the left, entertainment center on the right)

My requirements for this cat ladder were:

1. Sturdy and safe

2. Nonslip, kitty-friendly surface to protect overexcited kitties from sliding death

3. Attractive enough to blend in with the living room decor

4. Easy to fabricate in a single evening with minimal tools

5. Cost effective. I set myself a budget of a halfway decent retail cat playground-$80.

Some internetting turned up some interesting homebrew results using Ikea components, so I decided to go to Ikea and see what I could see that matched up with my requirements.

Due to some compromises on size, and some sales, I was actually able to keep it down to $60. You might have to spend more if you don't think your kitties are nimble enough to use 7" deep shelves (they're also available in 11" or 15"), or if you want more shelves, or longer shelves, but the idea is generally the same. On to the hack...

Ikea Materials list:

ROSKILDE Rug x 1 http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80100487 (I think, it was similar to this and on sale for $1.99)

BJÄRNUM 7 1/2" x 4 http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10032411

JÄRPEN x 2 http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00110466

FIXA wall anchors and screws

Other supplies, in order of appearance:

Wood Saw
Scissors
Sewing Machine (or needle and thread + more freetime/patience than I had)
Hammer
Flexible Metal Puddy knife
Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Optional mounting supplies:

Stud Finder/Level/Drill with screw attachement

Directions:

1. Using your wood saw, cut your JÄRPEN to the desired lengths. I made the logical (and cost-efficient) decision to just make four shelves of equal size, so I just cut each of my 31" boards in half.

2. Cut a rectangle of your ROSKILDE rug the same shape and size as the top of each of your shelves.

3. Hem this on all four edges by the method of your choice.

4. Sandwich one end of the cover and the JÄRPEN into your BJÄRNUM bracket. Don't worry if you aren't perfect.

5. Use the hammer to force the wood all the way into the metal bracket, and use your putty knife and hammer to straighten the fabric.

5. Install the other side of the BJÄRNUM. Don't worry about getting the fabric sandwiched at this phase, it is way too frustrating and unneccessary.

7. Using your puddy knife, drive the rug fabric into the crack between the JÄRPEN and the BJÄRNUM. This should take most of the slop out of the rug.

8. Once the fabric is fully installed, lift the edges one at a time and apply hot glue to keep it from sliding sideways.

9. And, you're done!

Install in the location of your choice by whatever method you want. I recommend picking a stud for at least one side, and using the very-capable FIXA drywall anchors for the other side. It took my cats a couple says to realize that they had a new toy (I didn't want to force them onto it, the curious exploration was half the fun!) but now they use it quite frequently. They like being able to get to the highest point in the house, and I like being able to watch my cats be cute and the TV at the same time.

(ed: Original posting date: 9-6-2007)

How to make Bleach Shirts

2008-06-26T01:40:00.000-07:00

This is a very low cost technique that produces very cool results. I discovered this technique in the stencilrevolution.com tutorial section, so they get the credit for the original idea, and I can't for the life of me remember who linked me there.

This is what you'll be making:

Supplies you'll need:

A shirt--at least 50% cotton. Black is easiest to touch up afterwards, and usually has the coolest effects. I haven't experimented with other colors yet, although I've bought a few, so stay tuned
Bleach, and Bleach Accessories--This includes bleach filtering mask (look, they have on especially for that), nitrile gloves (not totally neccessary), clothes you don't care about (not shown), bleach (duh), and a couple fifty cent misting spray bottles from walmart.
A stencil, or a design on some stencil material and a way to Cut It--The three basic ways to cut stencils are use a razor or exacto knife, use scissors, or burn them with a soldering iron. All three have their strengths for different applications. Don't try this with any non-plastic stencil materials. Cardboard won't work, neither will paper. Shelf paper works great, and is already sticky on one side, so you won't need adhesive. I use overhead transparencies, because they fit in my printer and I already have a grip of them.
Some Other stuff--Some spray mount adhesive (experiment with anything from 3m if you have to, but repositionable stuff is best), a t-shirt board (bought or cut out of a box), and some fabric dye pens in case you screw up, or to add difficult detail

Because I want this to be a very large design, I printed four stencils with alignment marks. I'm using an exacto knife and a metal ruler to get nice crisp straight lines everywhere it's straight...

...and scissors anywhere it's curved. Good rule of thumb.

[insert one hour of watching Tila Tequilla's Shot at Love here]

Ok, got my stencils all nice and cut out (and in this case, labeled, so I don't mix up the parts). Time to stick them on the shirt.

A little spray adhesive to stick the shirt to the shirt board so that we have a nice smooth surface to work with

Hit your stencil with a light dose of adhesive, and, with a little careful layout work, (unless you don't care if it's edgy and off center), mount it up.

Bleach is some toxic shit, yo. Wear nappy clothes (or all white if possible), nitrile gloves, and a bleach mask...your lungs will thank you!

To reduce overspray and bleeding, try to keep your sprays light and misty, and from the same angle.

It starts developing almost immediately. If you want to create layers, you can spray different strengths of bleach. The two I used in this shirt were straight and about 30 bleach/70 water. Let it sit as long as you like. I let this one sit for one commercial break (12 minutes?) because I was impatient, but I bet it would have gotten whiter if I'd left it longer.

Bleach builds up on your stencil, so pat it dry before tilting or you'll get runs.

Rip it off the board and chuck it straight in the dryer before the bleach has time to spread. Couple minutes should be enough to get it dry...any longer, and you're using too much bleach!

ed: I have since learned that it is better to chemically cancel the bleach by soaking the garment in hydrogen peroxide, before drying. This chemically stops the bleaching process, and will keep it from eventually damaging your shirt. Also, any dye needs to be heat set with an iron or it will bleed when you wash it.

My camerawoman wandered off while I was doing touchup, but if any bleach got under your stencils, you can take a fabric dye pen and clean up your lines, if you are going for a nice clean look. Otherwise, just let'er rip.

When hobbies colide! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, espcially the shading...that didn't just happen, i tried to blend between the darker 30% and the lighter 100%, and I'd say with good results. I'd say it is at least as nice as the $17 punisher shirt I almost bought last week at Hot Topic, and it only cost me $2.50 at Michaels. Plus I got to be creative. Yay DIY!

(ed: originally posted 10-29-2007)

Projects remaing to be uploaded

2008-06-26T01:15:00.000-07:00

Projects that just need to be transcribed
~~T-Shirts Bleaching~~
~~Crib Hacking~~
~~Ikea Desk Nook~~
Several Nerf Tutorials (Titan and Nitefinder)
Mp3 Car (if I can find it)
~~Cat Ladder 1~~&2
Barefoot Running
Nerf Workshop
~~The Closet~~

Projects which require further pictures or a writeup (or some completion):
Project Thumbdrive
Home Automation
Lego Fun!
Charging Station

I will use this as a sort of checklist of projects I need to post. If anyone remembers any other than these, by all means, let me hear about it!

Project Nerdcycle--Exercise Bike Hacking

2008-06-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

I am getting fat. It's a fact of life brought on by a desk job and a sedentary lifestyle.

This displeases me, so I decided to do something about it.

I bought an exercise bike on craigslist for $100. I rode it five times. It then became my footrest while I surfed the net, as it is next to my computer.

I decided enough was enough, and I had to make it fit into my lifestyle. So, some hacking was in order.

Exercise bike before:

Spare monitor I happened to have lying around with no home, and a mount I picked up at work that seemed suited for this project:

First things first, I had to see how much wiring I was looking at, so I took the control unit off.

Doesn't seem too excessive, I'll just cut the harness in the middle and extend it.

First, though, that bookholding lip has got to go, and I'll need to drill some holes and mount the backplate for the monitor mount.

Looks good!

Now, where to put the control unit. I still need to be able to use it while I'm riding...I think right by my left hand would actually be more convenient then the stock location.

I mock up a mount idea with a paint stirrer and some PVC:

Fits perfect, the ergonomics are vastly improved over stock. My 'mockup' is actually quite sturdy...I was going to make a metal one after work tomorrow, but I may just stick with this one until it breaks, if it ever does.

On to the more difficult part....extending the harness. I have some bulk CAT-5 laying around that I decide to use as raw materials, and 30 butt connectors later...

....I've got a 4' harness instead of a 18" one. Wasn't so much difficult as tedious.

Moment of truth...

Yay, everything works!

This is as far as I got today:

Still to be done:

*loom the wires and ziptie them so I can't trip and die

*Figure out what source I'm going to use for this (most likely: rig up a laptop shelf/slot)

*Make an adapter plate to raise the monitor 3" (my knees hit if I'm peddling vigerously)

*Come up with a workable keyboard solution

*Make a matching mount by my right hand for a mousepad

All in all, not a bad days work! Once it's done, I'm going to do all my at-home internet surfing on it. I may put a switch on it so the monitor only stays powered up if the RPM is above a minimum level, we'll see!

(ed: Originally posted 2-13-2008. Submitted to Lifehacker for their reader contest, and won a book with it! Also, every google search result for as many pages as I looked through for the term 'nerdcycle' refers to my project!)

Acrylic Halftone Painting Tutorial

2008-06-26T00:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sure there are several ways of getting the effect I showcased in Acrylic Halftone Paintings.

Here's how I did it:

Take your picture, and crop a portion the same aspect ratio as your canvas (you can change your rectangle select to 'fixed aspect ratio' and, in this case, make it 20 x 16)

Resize the image to the size of your canvas at 100dpi (so, 2000 x 1600, for me)

Change the image mode from RGB color to CMYK color. That is in the Image->Mode menu. If you don't do that, the next steps won't work right.

I couldn't get a screenshot of the halftone menu for some reason, but it is under Filter -> Pixelate -> Color Halftone...

You can play with any of these settings you want, but to get the effect I got, try your Max Radius at 50 pixels (half an inch, at 100 pixels per inch).

This should be the result:

To print your individual colors (and to decide which channels you want to paint) go to the Channels pallet...if it isn't showing, show it with your Windows menu. Hide one or more of the channels. Through trial and error, I determined that trying to do all four channels is too busy...it is nearly impossible to get multiple colors to mix evenly. The best effects I could get were using black and one channel of color, like this:

Once you get something you like, hide all the channels except one, print it on transparency, then hide all the channels except your other one, and print it, too. Figure out a way to line them up, overlay them one at a time pointed at your canvas, and paint on!

Acrylic Halftone Paintings

2008-06-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

I took home an old overhead projector from work, and decided to see if I could do something artistic with it. This was the first project that popped into my head, and I'm tickled to death with the results.

I bought some canvases at Wal Mart ($5 for three 16 x 20...what a deal!) and some round sponge brushes, and 99 cent bottles of cyan and black.

I took two pictures (one of me, one of my fiance) and cropped them down in photoshop to just the eyes, set the mode to CMYK, and had it halftone the pictures with .75" as the maximum dot size. I printed the black and cyan channels on transparencies (along with some alignment marks) and set up my projector and easel.

First I laid down the black, let it dry, and then laid down the blue, watered down enough to let the black show through.

Here's two zoomed in squares, one from each painting, to get an idea of what they look like up close...these are roughly lifesize on my screen, the big dots are about three quarters of an inch:

And here's larger images of the finished product.

The beauty of these is you have to view them from far away for them to 'turn into' anything...try getting as far away from your monitor as you can. If you can't because your against a wall (or are lazy, hehe) here's some thumbnails to simulate the effect:

This was my first venture into non-digital art in probably ten years, and I absolutely love it! I will make another post that gives an expanded tutorial. Check back soon!
(ed: Originally posted 4/28/07)