Month: April 2020

April 27, 2020 – The legacy and disappointment of ‘techno-junk’

April 27, 2020 /

One of the side effects of this quarantine period is a constant reorganization of furniture and settings in the house. The latest rendition of our TV area no longer has a place for the surround sound receiver and DVD player. The Xbox has replaced the Blue Ray player and the receiver doesn’t seem to be working.

Back when I first ‘made it’, we made an investment in a home entertainment center. This was the late nineties so the center piece was a nice Yamaha receiver and surround sound speakers. Later, a CD carousel was added and finally a cassette deck. I even spent numerous weekends building a custom entertainment cabinet

As technology advanced, there was a change in the configuration and usage of the equipment. The first real crack at obsolescence was when we replaced the tube TV with a plasma screen. The audio output on the new TV was digital fiber optic. I had to buy a special converter to change the optical signal to analog. That worked until it had to be reset every year or so.

To be honest, the idea of an nice audio system was stronger than the usage. Music has gone digital, despite having stacks of CD’s and cassettes. If I have a hankering for a particular song, I can look it up on YouTube. And my phone is much closer than the music in the living room. About a year and a half ago, I switched the CD player for the cassette deck for fun. We listened to some old mix tapes for nostalgia. That was the last time I heard it work.

I will admit that that I would get a little frustrated getting everything setup, then to move it and reconfigure it again. In our current house, I have wired the setup in four different places in two different rooms. For that reason, the system hasn’t been fully setup in the last year. We have pulled out the receiver for karaoke purposes from time to time.

$1000 of techno junk

There was no room for the audio system in the new TV setup. So I thought I would set it up in the basement. First I tried the tape deck – no sound. I checked the speaker wire, that seemed fine. I switched the audio cables, those seemed fine. Then I tried CD player, thinking the input might be bad and that was jammed. So I took it apart and found a CD lodged in the mechanism. But I managed to get the drawer stuck.

So, here is where I am at, I may be able to repair the CD player given enough time and effort. I am pretty sure that one of the electronic components is burned out in the receiver – but which one? The whole thing is frustrating and disappointing. Can I, will I and even if I do fix this will I even use it?

I hate to throw away something that was once so nice. I am not sure whether I will try to repair it. I am too deep in my remodeling project to spend any time on this at this time. So, for now it is going to get stacked with the other junk like college text books that haven’t been used in 25 years.

April 23, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

April 23, 2020 /

There is a saying in preparedness “two is one, one is none”. What does that really mean? It means, have redundancy in your life. Because if you count on one item/system and it fails, and you have no ability to fix it or work around it then you are in trouble. The other reason to look at redundancy gives you the ability to breathe and assess the situation. There is nothing more desperate than someone that has nothing to lose… so to speak.

During the pioneering era, it was said that an ax was life. With an ax, you could grow food, contain livestock, cook, build shelter, etc. Without an ax or the ability to use it you were in a tough situation. Looking out a bit farther than that consider a file to sharpen the ax, tools to replace the handle. That is the kind of planning that redundancy leads to.

If there is nothing that this pandemic situation could have taught us, that is having income that is resilient to the economy or multiple sources of income. This can be an intricate and deep subject however, having savings is one way to weather the storm. That is not redundancy per se but using this gap time to build redundancy would be a good idea. If you can get a little bit of traction going, then you have the ability to ebb and flow into making more or less of an income when you need it or want it.

To get a little ‘tacticool’, there is a saying that goes “There aren’t many situations that $5000 and Glock cant get you out of”. I am sure that you are not dense but you can only buy or force your way out of tough situations. I really don’t recommend force except for the gravest extreme self defense. As we all know, we live by exchanging money. It is the number one redundancy to have in place.

In today’s society, it is hard to justify items as a place to focus. Most people have enough in the way of clothes or cookware or even critical tools. I would say a vehicle is maybe the only ‘necessity’. It allows us to work, obtain food or seek help for medical or security reasons.

Nevertheless, examine your situation. You may have others that depend on you such as livestock or pets. What do you need to do to ensure their safety and security. Is fencing critical to protecting them? You might need to have the ability to repair a fence in the middle of the night. Having lights and wire and staples makes your fence redundant.

Municipal systems are fairly robust. In most cases water, gas and electricity will be the last systems to fail. But they do. Having a generator to run your freezer in the meantime so a year’s worth of meat isn’t ruined seems like a good idea. Having alternate ways to cook or heat and now you have the ideas to evaluate.

I hope that this makes an impression on your needs assessment and encourages a look at redundancy. Focus on the things that really matter in your life like food, water, shelter, safety and sanitation. Having a backup Xbox is great but you might get a little thirsty.

April 22, 2020 – Just because it is raining, doesn’t mean the work stops

April 22, 2020 /

Looking at the forecast for the rest of the week here, there is definitely rain all day today and it looks iffy until next Tuesday. There are supposed to be dry days but gray with mixed showers until next week. That is a real bummer when you are trying to button up the exterior of house.

So, I thought I would show some progress and then talk about how I am going to work around it.

First of all, I guess that I have been pretty lucky in the weather lottery. Many times in April, it can be just as wet and cold as December, just not as much light. So, the fact that I have had three weeks without a lot of rain is pretty remarkable.

The house wrap is on the back and side (as shown). I have barely touched the front as I can see there is rotten sill. That will have to be repaired before we can button it up completely. My current strategy is to work on those two sides until I run out of materials. I am guessing that will be at the end of this week.

I did drag some of the T-111 and trim boards into the basement for painting last night in preparation. Today, I am going to try and make some progress on pre-painting before installation. It is much easier to paint materials on the ground and touch up nail holes and such when installed than trying to paint everything in place.

Aside from that, I did some drywall damage cutting the rotten studs out and replacing so I can switch to inside. The window trim will have to be modified now that there is a new window. I am vacillating around replacing or cleaning the drywall in places. The main reason is that I think the carpet is in reasonable shape and I am worried that it will be ruined if I start cutting chunks of drywall out and mudding it up.

Lastly, there is always clean-up. At least the way I work, things come out of the shop and get thrown back on the bench when returned. Saw dust piles up and it is kind-of a mess to work in and around. I have been doing it on the weekends as preparation for the next week, so it is not horrible but it bugs me to see things in disarray.

April 21, 2020 – Truth in advertising, the $100 pantry?

April 21, 2020 /

Before I started on the pantry project, I had estimated for my wife, the cost would be $100. My estimation was based on my belief that I would need finish, hardware like drawer slides and some incidentals.

I was cleaning up the other day and I ran across the pile of receipts from the project. So, I was curious myself how I did. I knew that it was more than $100 based on some repair to the bandsaw, but how bad was it?

DateLocationReq. CostOpt. CostDescription
Jan 17True Value$19.85Dust collection, glue
Jan 20Home Depot$40.83Hardware, plywood
$55.12Polyurethane, dust collection
Jan 25Bi-mart$16.97abrasives
Feb 4Bi-Mart$8.49hardware
Feb 11Lowes$12.87knob, bandsaw blade
$17.17Extra blades
Feb 11Amazon$158.94Bandsaw blade release
Feb 11Do-It Best$4.99Electrical extension
Feb 14Woodcraft$45.97saw maintenance upgrades
Feb 14McGuire Bearing$10.56Thrust bearing
Feb 21Bi-mart$4.49Epoxy
Feb 25Bi-mart$4.99patching compound
Feb 26Home Depot$1.48shims
Feb 26Sherwin-Williams$22.07Paint
Mar 3Lowes$6.18Brads
Totals$275.89$155.08$430.97

So, the truth is that I didn’t make it under $100. Without the saw problems, I would have been much closer, more like $120. In addition to the required cost, some of the optional costs could have been avoided, like the polyurethane turned out to be an unnecessary purchase. I upgraded some parts in the bandsaw when I was dealing with the bearings.

I certainly never planned on dealing with a tool failure, but it happens. The other optional purchases were for productivity or replacing used stock items like abrasives. Productivity is hard to quantify but stock is not; I did not need to buy those items because I already had them. Technically, not part of the cost of the project, but realized as part of it.

So, it is a $450 pantry.

April 20, 2020 – Review: Kreg Accu-cut Fence system

April 20, 2020 /

I have added some new products to my shop/tool stable to work on my latest project. One of them is the Kreg Accu-cut fence system to turn your ordinary circular saw to a more precise track saw.

The reason that I considered this option is that I wanted to make some angled cuts on 10′ long lumber. I could do it on the table saw, but I would have to be really careful as my shop is only 24′ in length. I would usually open the door to make sure I had extra length (with counter space). Also, I have some sheet goods to cut.

If you have ever priced one of these units, you would see why the Kreg system is so appealing. I saw entry levels around $400 and the high end at $1000. You supply the saw, so you can use your everyday circular saw which means that you don’t have to own a specific use tool.

The theory is that the saw rides on a track to create a straight cut. I have heard of cases where table saws have been replaced for track saws. I often times use a circular saw to break down sheet goods when working on projects because they are so much easier to handle. So, I thought this might be a good solution.

The setup was a little tricky. I usually read the instructions, especially when there are lots of small parts and screws. There were some errors in the instructions like diagram labels not matching the written text which left me guessing at times.

Getting everything indexed and aligned was a little bit fiddly. The saw had to be moved on the carriage, so as not to cut the rubber bumpers (edge). I also tried to get the saw as close to the bumpers as possible so I could plop the track down on the line and know where to cut, but it is about a sawblade off. I suppose when you make something ‘universal’, you have to leave margin for every saw possibility.

The carriage seems a little flimsy made of plastic and the hold down of the saw a bit tenuous with two pointed screws holding the saw into place. When on the track there was a bit of side to side play. There is not a real good feeling of positive connection when the saw is on the track. What I can say is that none of those things caused a problem for my cuts.

The track has a sticky back and a rear stop, so it stays in place pretty well with friction and forward pressure. You do have to watch to make sure the front is not moving away from the line as you cut. This is remedied by watching the track ahead, not the saw. If you want to make a cut longer than 50″, you need to stop, remove the rear stop, slide the whole track back before cutting again.

By far and away, the biggest downside to this product is the screws that hold the track together back out with use. I saw a lot of complaints about this on the internet, After using it yesterday, I put some thread locker on the screws.

Score ProsCons
Value4/5Compare to other track saws the cost of $80 vs $450-1000A 50″ track is not long enough to rip a full sheet of plywood
Allows the use of one circular saw to be more preciseAdding tracks are expensive. If I used routinely, I would have an 4′ and a 8′ track ($160)
Quality3/5The sled glides nicely on the trackThe set screws holding the track together, tend to back out with used
The friction pads hold the track on the wood without clampsSaws with a thick base plate do not mount securely
The setup instructions had some errors that were not totally intuitive
Performance4/5I got nice results on cutting panels in half, tapers and ripping lumberEverything was as advertised, I just didn’t do enough research on this before purchasing. I think full panel cutting capability would be better.

The bottom line, this is a worthy product for someone like me. I have three electrical circular saws already, I sometimes cut sheet goods and accuracy is important. If I were a professional using a track saw, I would most likely consider a more expensive option for durability reasons. I really wish that I could rip an entire sheet of plywood easily, extra track lengths are available for purchase at $80/4′.

I will continue to use this because I like the results that I got and I don’t regret the purchase.

April 17, 2020 – Making Vanilla Extract

April 17, 2020 /

Enough of the heaviness. Because this has been a hard week, lets end on a happier note.

On my shopping list this month was vanilla extract because we have been doing a lot of baking lately. I almost fell over when I saw the price. I swear it was more like $15 the last time I bought it. Last time I checked, I think it was around $8 for 2oz. at the grocery store. Thirty-one dollars for 16oz. seems reasonable given that comparison.

Interestingly enough ‘America’s Test Kitchen’ did a comparison several years ago comparing real vs. artificial and the various options for vanilla extract. You can watch the video here.

I figured that I could make it cheaper and get the real thing. Will it be as good? Time will tell.

I ordered some beans online. I dug out some old bottles, that I plan on making root beer in the next couple of days. I bought some cheap whiskey, and then I topped it off with cheap vodka. In a couple months, it will be ready.

Researching recipes, I found quite a bit of variation in the ratios. But it all came back to the same theme: Beans, alcohol and time. Some of them suggested refilling the containers when the alcohol is empty… I don’t know about that unless we cant wait to break into the first one.

IngredientUsageCost
Vanilla Beans3 whole beans/cup of alcohol$18
AlcoholBourbon or Vodka or Rum or Brandy, fill to the top$13
Let sit for at least two months

It wasn’t totally sure, but I thought I had 16oz bottles. They turned out to be 24oz. I originally bought one 750ml bottle of Canadian whisky, but I was about 350ml short so I topped it up with vodka. So, I made 48oz of extract for $31.

Using my formula above, I probably should have put all of the beans into one bottle. The other wildcard is whether the bottle I am using will be adequate for dispensing. When I run across another bottle that will work better for dispensing, I may transfer out of the current container.

At the worst, you can drink the bottle if you don’t like the results. Enjoy.

April 16, 2020 – ‘non-Tacticool’ and Emotional Thursday

April 16, 2020 /

Sorry guys, I am not feeling it today. I can tell by stats that this is not my most popular subject heading as I get low views on Thursdays. But, this is a special one in many ways.

One year ago today, I walked away from a six figure and very stable job. This was my last day of work. I did this to find myself and maybe to save my life from potential self-destructive behavior. I have enjoyed my time so much and I have personally accomplished so many things this year. One of the commitments we made before I left my job was to host an exchange student for the year.

August 25, 2019 we welcomed Sergio at the airport an embarked on an adventure that you cant put a price on. It was supposed to be an academic year of sharing and nurture ending as these programs do with graduation, pomp and circumstance. But, the ending was not our destined path. This morning at 4AM PDT we said our final goodbyes to Sergio with a heavy heart.

We have had other exchange students, kids and guests in our lives. This adventure started as many others do. We did the whirlwind State Fair, trip to the beach, family meet and greets, etc. He was probably glad when school started a short two weeks after arrival to get some reprieve from our crushing tour of hospitality.

I would be remiss to not mention a super emotional beginning when our beloved Snowflake (English Retriever, ~7YO), suddenly died of heat exhaustion on a short stroll in the local woodland trail. We were bonded by trips to the veterinarian ER and euthanizing end. There was a lot of emotion from all of us, including someone that had only been with us a week. I think it galvanized this new unit from the beginning.

I can only imagine what life for him was like; a new country, a new school, a different language, no friends and the like. Life soon settled down into a routine of football games, school activities and new experiences. As we headed toward mid-year, Sergio found his stride and was very involved in the local theater production of ‘Modern Millie’. It was that event that he really found his direction.

As the play was wrapping up in late February, we started getting inklings that the situation would be turning in an un-anticipated direction. Washington was reporting the first cases of COVID-19. My sister is heavily embedded in the situation as she is a doctor in the public health department in Washington. I inquired about the severity of this because I knew that if it was happening there it would be here shortly.

It didn’t take long and the domino’s started falling. My wife’s office closed for six weeks and school was put on a two week hiatus. One of those weeks included Spring Break so not a huge deal. Toward the middle of Spring Break, April was removed from the school calendar. We started to see all of the other exchange students leaving and our program ended as well. We were urged to send Sergio home. We had the option to ride it out as long as school resumption was a possibility and had several conversations with his parents to make the right decision.

About one week ago, it was decided that school was done for the year. All seniors in good standing were dismissed and would receive a diploma for time spent. That meant that his visa was technically over and it was time to officially leave.

Sergio, Aaron and Elijah at Disneyland

He was such a good influence on my kids. He was a playmate and responsible role model. He reinforced our rules and pitched in whenever asked, many times not even asking but understanding the expectations. I think that we all appreciated a different dynamic that this relationship brought.

In many ways, we had something we would have never had if this had been a normal year. We had a solid month of quality family time. We played games, planted flowers, taught lessons in cooking, watch movies and TV series, made videos and laughed. I suppose that the regrets of what we wanted to do to finish the year crept in and certainly the premature ending was abrupt. This was a journey bookended by emotional events with a lot of good stuff in between.

It is time for new beginnings for all of us. I have kept a lid on job searches so as to make sure that Sergio would finish his year with the family that made a commitment to him in January 2019. Now school is out until next fall, it is really time to make some different life choices for me and I can consider relocation if need be.

I am going to miss having him around.

April 15, 2020 – Admitting your darkest secrets

April 15, 2020 /

I am a very private person. I like to share ‘edutainment’ or an editorial political piece, but I have put very little out about myself personally. Today, I want to write about addiction. I want to put it into an abstract way so as to be approachable to others. I also cannot claim that I know everything, just my brand of problem.

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a well established fact that tobacco caused health problems. That being said, every man I knew was well into his addiction of nicotine. Some later beat it and some did not. My generation was at the crossroads of medically wrong but socially acceptable.

In high school, I had a friend that I used to joke around with. It started with a ‘ha ha, look at me chewing this tobacco’ to lets get together and do it some more. This progressed to not a huge deal physically but mentally I started looking forward to this and associating tobacco to fun and reward. My first physical symptom that I was heading toward a problem was I was in math, the first class after lunch. I literally could not keep my eyes open. This went on for about a week and somehow I associated nicotine after eating as the solution to nearly falling asleep in class.

My other problem was that this behavior wasn’t legal. It drove that activity underground so to speak. Pretty early on I learned that if I spit my first mouthful out, I could swallow the juice the rest of the day. I even learned that I can swallow the tobacco. So, now this became like a candy. In my twenty some years of tobacco, there have been very few people that I have ever visibly used around, even though it has been constant for that entire time.

I tried smoking for a little while, but I couldn’t deal with the smell. The buzz was more intense, but it was also shorter. That led to smoking more but it was harder to hide and required more effort. Eventually, I moved exclusively to smokeless tobacco.

You tell yourself that you can quit if you want to. To a degree that is the absolute truth. You will only quit if you want to, and some days you really have to want it. You of course try half-hearted efforts to quit. Ironically, I think that it is harder to quit when no one knows that you are doing it in the first place. But, every time you fail it is some excuse you tell yourself that is the reason that cant do it. I made it thirty days once and to celebrate I bought some tobacco. A lot of the time, it was something to focus your energy.

What is the psychology of addiction look like? A coping mechanism – What I realized is that this is how I have been functioning for the last twenty some years.

  • Don’t know what to do…
  • When I am done with this…
  • I am glad that is over…
  • This is going to be very hard/stressful…

I believe that this why quitting is so hard, you cant undue all those years of training overnight. I have felt mental fog, a shaking like being cold and a sudden urge to use the toilet. The consistency of the symptoms fade and I have observed acute triggers like stressors. There has been some cases where I have told myself, ‘I don’t have time to quit’ because I didn’t want to attempt with withdrawal symptoms for a particular day.

I have tried patches, gum and cold turkey. After trying to calculate how much nicotine I consumed, I tried the 1st step patch (21mg) and supplemented with 4mg gum. After the patches ran out, I went to straight gum and was using 32mg daily. That lasted three weeks, during Christmas and New Years.

Recently, I went straight gum for nine days (24-40mg) and went cold turkey. This morning is day six. I am definitely not out of the woods on this. I am having strong urges still at times but I know that giving in today means going through this again. So, I am inclined to make this one stick. I suppose that this is one thing about quarantine has been a positive.

April 13, 2020 – Valuing the software to run the hardware

April 13, 2020 /

This comparison is probably a stretch, but I feel like it will work so I am going for it. I suppose that there are a couple of inputs that make this opinion come alive. In the old days, say pre-Windows XP, hardware was upgraded more often. When hardware was changed, there was a driver that also needed to be installed. That driver may or may not have actually worked. Sometimes it required re-installing service packs and rolling back to move forward. There also wasn’t a video for everything or a forum or ideas to help you get started.

Today, unless you are upgrading your video card or something for a specific reason, you don’t need to add another hard drive or faster DVD drive or more RAM. If you are one of those people, you probably know more about this than I do. However when it didn’t work, which was frequent, what would you have paid to make it work? My point being that without software to run that device, it was worthless. But it wasn’t like you had a choice for vendors, nor could you really pay to have a better or different experience.

I can remember whole Christmas presents not working; never could figure out how to make that game load or that modem work, etc. For those that cant relate to this experience, this is precisely where I am going. Our value of the software is free, because that is our perspective and experience. Yet without it, it doesn’t work at all.

Ker-chunk, Shifting gears. I recently picked up a set of Bora 1100 mobile work bases. Until my recent pantry project, some of the nicety features or accessorizing like dust collection and mobile bases were not in the plan. It was true that my machines could be moved without that mobile base. I really didn’t like to do it and hassle has been some of the issue with previous projects.

Quickly, the pluses on the product are 1) relatively inexpensive at $45 per pair 2) flexible and customizable size accommodating 400 lbs of weight. The minuses were 1) the assembly was time consuming 2) supplying your own frame.

So, unlike the driver situation my tools will work without mobile base. What I will say about it is that I am hoping that I will have much less hesitation to get started when they are easier to move. My shop is small, so having the ability to utilize the space effectively is important. Completing the task is more important than owning the hardware.