Category: Leisure

January 3, 2024 – What Does Time Off Look Like?

January 3, 2024 /

At one point in my life, I had watched every episode of This Old House. I suppose that this is one of my few, guilty pleasure TV habits. I lost track of the show on the switch from analog to digital broadcasting format in 2010. This is because I used to record the show when it was live and watch it later at my convenience.

Around 2016, I realized that it was being streamed and so I started picking the show up again with the episodes that I could. Not every show or season was viewable. In fact, the show had significant technical issues like not enough server bandwidth and clunky commercial interruptions that sometimes never came back. I fought through it picking off hours to watch and restarting.

Somewhere around 2020, I just forgot about it. I think that I was hot and heavy remodeling then I transitioned into driving for Amazon with an irregular schedule and then I started working again and my free time was devoted to writing to AltF4 as well as all the other things I needed to do. Right before my Christmas break, I remembered that I was years behind. A large part of my break was binge watching the last four years of This Old House episodes.

I now have a gap of seasons (I think). Some of my gap years are behind the paywall and so I remember things about certain projects but I can’t actually view them to confirm. I don’t know if I caught an episode here or there during normal broadcast and now I am misremembering things. I have a feeling that I am going to pay for a short subscription so that I can catch back up.

Not all of my time was spent in front of a screen. I did a lot of cooking, reading, and something that is a small family tradition. We usually do some sort of puzzle. This year we bought a very large and expensive Lego set that we spent several evenings building. I also got my electrical run so that I can move my keezer and get started in earnest with my wine cellar project this year.

Home improvement was definitely on the mind. I had the siding in front of my house removed. We have had a leak in the front picture window every since the siding was done in 2015. It has gone on long enough that I was beginning to worry about the damage that it was causing. This actually occurred before Christmas but I had already had many articles queued before my break. I also plan on discussing this more in detail soon.

What I didn’t do was a lot of thinking about AltF4. This was by design. When I need to take a break, I need a real break. I have learned this about myself over the years, I do not give up easily. Because of that, I tend to keep after things too long. That is to say we all reach a point of diminishing returns and it is necessary to take a step back. I have solve many a programming problem in the shower after a late night of working much longer than I should have.

End Your Programming Routine: My break was closer to two weeks than one since I had most of the week before Christmas already written and published ahead of time. I don’t know if that is actually enough time because right now I feel charged and ready to go. That feeling waxes and wanes throughout the year and hopefully this isn’t a veneer. That being said, happy to be back and ready to go.

December 19, 2023 – A New Camera: Coleman Conquest 3

December 19, 2023 /

Not long after I started my new job in September, I got an email saying that it was employee appreciation month. As such, they were going to be drawings for prizes. I of course didn’t have anything better to do so I registered for the drawing. About a week later, I was sent an email saying that I had won a prize. Truth be told, I forgot about it because it didn’t arrive for several months.

What am I going to do with this? Well, I thought that I would try it out and make videos. One time, I used the kids’ GoPro to make a video and it was nice to have two hands free rather than trying to hold the phone in one hand and do the rest of the work in the other.

In the box that it came with were straps to mount it to my person. A waterproof case, a remote control, different mounting platforms to put the camera on handlebars and pretty much wherever you want to put it. I have a planned a video for tomorrow so that I can break it in.

I am under no illusion that this is equal to the GoPro in performance. It was stated that any gifts over $100, we (the employees) would be taxed on the value of that prize. I think the stated value was $99.99. It is still cool and it is still better than nothing. I would say that if this proves to be worth it, I will use it until I reach the limitations and then at that point consider upgrading to a more refined device.

The question might be asked, do I feel appreciated? The truth is that I suspect every person that entered got a prize. In the application process, I selected all of the things I didn’t want which were largely things that I already have or don’t really need or want. I will test my theory next year and potentially get something that I might give away. But, to answer the question, not particularly appreciated because they gave me a gift. That being said, I have never had anything like this happen before.

The truth is that my phone is starting to get tired. I have had this iPhone X for five years now. I find lately that the lens is smudgy and shows a glare on many of the pictures that I take. This causes me to retake them. Additionally, transferring the raw clips are very cumbersome. It takes a lot of bandwidth to move them from my phone to One Drive where I keep all of that stuff and start editing. I often have to do this in multiple iterations for all but the smallest of clips. I welcome the ability to take content directly from the device via a wire.

End Your Programming Routine: As of the time of writing I haven’t done anything but charge the battery and power the camera on. I have no concept about how well it will really do, but like I said I will use it until I see the limitations. But hey, it is better than a stick in the eye (or a pink slip). So, I can appreciate what new dimensions this will bring to AltF4.

December 14, 2023 – And Now, Performance

December 14, 2023 /

I was looking through my stuff and I realized that I had six different cans of white spray paint. I don’t exactly know why that is the case but I was going to paint a project that I was working on white and I wanted to see what I had. As it turns out, three of those cans started spraying and then plugged up. I tried to clean them and figure out their day had passed.

I was going to throw them away, but I didn’t want to do so pressurized. I also didn’t want to poke a hole in them pressurize because that is a good way to have white paint sprayed everywhere. So, decided to shoot them with my pellet rifles. I thought I would use the same pellet in three different rifles to see the performance difference at three different power levels.

What I learned was actually not as much as I thought I would. All three rifles shot through both sides of each can. I have the energy calculations for each combo but when that exceeds the standard, it doesn’t tell much about performance. For a while now, I have been thinking about how I would test performance of these difference rifle/pellet combinations.

I have the pictures in order of power where the first one to the left is the lowest. One other thing you might observe is not every shot is dead center. This is because I don’t have every rifle sighted in for this pellet weight. But, I will say that this is an honest to goodness, three shots. There were no misses.

The first shot (left) was the most fun. When it hit, it twisted out of the box and sprayed paint all over the place. This is why the term reactive target exists. The target is hit and reacts. I thought that all three might do that, but that wasn’t the case. Since I have shot spray paint with 22lr before, I was kind of expecting it. This is why I had them inside a box to contain the mess.

I have heard from others that cans of shaving cream will do this as well. The advantage of those is the foam dissipates with the addition of rain. In my case, the small amount of paint on the grass will eventually get mowed and collected. But, if you are going to do something like this, be sure you have a good radius between your target and anything you wouldn’t want sprayed with paint.

End Your Programming Routine: I will continue to collect energy information and that is a good baseline to know. But I will also continue to look for a way to quantify what energy means against some sort of target. It appears that spray paint cans are not the answer, but I kind of wish that I had some more.

December 7, 2023 – Networking and Power Over Ethernet

December 7, 2023 /

One of the projects I got completed over the Thanksgiving weekend was installing outside, wireless mesh router. If you might recall, adding this unit was an attempt to add internet to our Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) also known as ‘the apartment’. The theory was that part of our mesh included the ADU and so I needed to have a strong signal between the two buildings.

The lowest box you see on the wall I actually put in in 2017. I have stub outs for conduit so that I could trench to the ADU. I was waiting for better weather (and time, money and desire). Believe it or not, everything is terminated in the box already as well.

Part of my testing included placement and power of the wireless router. I started it much closer to the ADU but then I realized that I have this unused hole in the wall. It would be nice if I could utilize it for part of it’s purpose. Plugging the router into this box put it quite a ways away from electrical source outside. I read that this particular router could be powered using Power over Ethernet (PoE). The DC power runs from the switch over the ethernet cable to the device. That is pretty cool.

I thought that I would also pass this on. I run cable every time I have the option to do so. The majority of my network is Category 5e. Since Category 6 has become the predominant standard, I have switched to running Category 6 wiring when I do new runs. I was under the belief that that Cat 5e was only rated for 100Mb speed but that is actually not true. Cat 5e supports gigabit speed up to 45m runs.

I don’t know if I will ever go back to Category 5e, but it is good information to know. I don’t like putting out temporary or obsolete effort. But, I still find Cat 5e cable significantly cheaper and easier to find. Also, I find Category 3 cable almost impossible to find. You can use either 3, 5 or 6 if you are terminating phone extensions but why pay the premium? And sometimes, I use what I have on hand.

I used to have a big contractor box of Category 5e. I would pull two runs whenever I had to pull one. That gave me the flexibility to have two drops or a even backup capability. I probably won’t ever do that now that those boxes of Category 6 are $250. But, believe you me if I ever do pull wire to the ADU, it will be two Category 6 cable because I want it to be the only time I do it.

Before I leave this topic today, I want to go back to PoE. You need to look at your devices power requirements before selecting a switch. My mesh router requires 17W. The switch I picked provides 65W power. But, you have to divide the total output by the port number. The switch specs say that each port can provide up to 18W of power with a 65W maximum. This means that the switch I picked worked with the specs required.

I did make one mistake. I was looking at price so the switch I purchased is only a 10/100 switch. I cant take advantage of that Cat 6 wire that I ran. This brings me to the last fact in today’s story. At least with my mesh router system, the devices communicate wirelessly (this is what works for me in the first place). They do have ethernet ports on them and the purpose of those ports is for backhaul.

What this means is that those devices are not on an island. They still need to see signal of the master router and the stronger the better. But, if you have a strong connection, you can increase your wireless experience by having a wired backhaul. Users are not limited to hopping router to router for internet but can go straight to the source via the cable. This means that the range isn’t extended but the reliability and bandwidth is.

End Your Programming Routine: I have had this one banked for a while now. As life kept pushing us around, I kept pushing this back because I knew it was something I could do without a lot of effort. It was kind of like my testing of this outdoor unit. I just needed to plug things in and check the signal but other, more important things came up. The testing took about a month to complete, not because it was hard or time consuming, I just needed to make it a priority.

November 29, 2023 – My Newest Woodworking Project

November 29, 2023 /

I haven’t even brought this up, but I have quietly working on another sofa table. My wife wanted to steal the one I made for my office the minute I brought it into the house. I promised that I would make her one and I finally got around to it. It had to come after the summer projects but we are now into the shop time of year.

As a very infrequent woodworker, I am lucky if I get one project done let alone the chance to duplicate a project I have already done once. This was an opportunity to really see if the reason it took so long to build the first one was my problem or it was really that difficult. I knew the answer, but I still wanted to see how fast I could do it. This picture was two weeks after I had drawn up the plans.

As it stands in this picture, this is about 20 hours of work. This includes drawing the design out on graph paper and picking out the boards from the stack. So, it is definitely my problem. I find myself falling into the trap that I don’t have time to do this or that and so things drag on months and months. When I am most productive, I say to myself either ‘I have to get this done today’ or ‘I have thirty minutes, how far can I go?’.

Back when we lived in South Carolina, my wife wanted a mantel built by Christmas. It was about 4AM Christmas day that I finished. I really don’t recommend that kind of effort unless this is your career or have nothing better to do in life but other’s having deadlines is also a good way to not end up flaking out on a project either.

I did have some help on this one that I didn’t have before. I used the taper jig that I built for the first table and I have about the same height of legs. Instead of chiseling out the mortises by hand, I just cut them with the router this time. The first time, I wanted desperately to prove to myself that I had the knowledge to do fine woodworking. This time, I took the pragmatic approach that I had nothing to prove and that was a much faster way to do things. Practicing is a sure way to do things much faster than the first time.

I almost used pocket screws instead of mortise and tenon joinery. That would have knocked at least four hours off of my time. I didn’t think the joinery was actually necessary but I thought that the practice would be good for me. I also think in the end, it made a better final product. By better I mean that the joinery was more likely to stand the test of time then screws. Everyone that has ever had Ikea furniture knows that the first move is when things start to go south in the durability department.

At first my wife was wanting different legs and I thought that I was going to get an opportunity to buy a wood lathe. As much as I would have loved to add that to my tool collection and skills, I convinced her that duplicating the shaker style legs I used on my first table was the fastest way to get this project done. I have other things in the queue besides this table, not to mention my long anticipated wine cellar.

End Your Programming Routine: My Toolbox Fallacy is real. ‘I can’t do this, until I do/get that’. Sometimes I figure out that I bought stain in a color that I already have or I already have the sandpaper. Then I figure out that the thing I was using as my excuse to not do something was there all along and I really had no reason not to work on projects. I am happy with the results and I feel even better that I learned things that really helped me with this table. On to the next project.

November 28, 2023 – Didn’t Even Know That This Was a Problem

November 28, 2023 /

I was pretty diligent when I went to add my new wireless card to my old Windows computer. I saw that it needed a USB connection to the motherboard to make the Bluetooth work. I checked it before I ordered it. I also educated myself as to all the different types of PCIe slots and if I had the right ones.

When I did the second one for the Linux machine, I wasn’t quite so diligent. I new that computer was newer and I knew that I hadn’t added any cards to it at this point, So, I went on the assumption that if I had all the space I needed on the old one, the newer one would be just fine. Well that wasn’t the case.

I did have three PCIe ports but all of my USB connections were taken. At first, I just disconnected the front ports to make sure that the wireless card was working, but it bothered me so I started looking. I discovered that there is a way to share these motherboard connections. See the video below.

Now, everything is right in the world. Since I was looking for this video to share here, I also discovered that there are devices that can add more motherboard ports if necessary. That is also good.

The one thing that wasn’t quite right was that my Linux computer already had an imbedded wireless card. I ran the right commands (I think) to check if that was the case. I got no return on validating a wireless card which is why I ordered it in the first place. However, when I installed the new card, it enabled the imbedded card. I had read that wireless driver installation can be tricky on Linux and I guess this is what I ultimately encountered.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that the plug and play worked. But, I kind of wish that I had known that there was already an imbedded wireless card. I don’t think it had Bluetooth capability which is what justified me keeping the card installed. I may have deprioritized it.

When I spoke about my network configuration a few weeks ago, I stated that everything that can be wired is wired. That is still true. I want wireless capability on my Linux machine as a test tool. I want to know if I can connect wired but not wirelessly or on Linux versus Windows versus iOS. Adding the additional Bluetooth connectivity seemed like an inexpensive luxury at $20.

Since I have been slow playing the Software Defined Radio scanner experiment, I heard somewhere that I needed two different radio receivers to make the thing work. The problem is that I am running out of USB connections outside of the computer. So, I have been looking at USB expansion cards. They do exist and they are pretty inexpensive. Believe it or not, they don’t require and USB connection to the motherboard, just a PCIe slot. So no worries there.

End Your Programming Routine: This is why I love techno junk. I would never spend $400 on a new, super duper graphics card but I would spend $20 for an enhancement. The fact that I can get 2nd or 3rd generation technology for a song makes a big difference on me wading deeper into the fray. Like I stated before, I have been out of the hardware game for a long time, it is nice to know that things work much smoother than they used to.

November 16, 2023 – So Many Updates

November 16, 2023 /

I believe this to be true, the more you look the more you see. Since my third foray into Linux, I have been more dedicated and paid more attention to how it behaves. Today is going to be for those who don’t know much or are considering Linux, pretty much like me. If you are an old hat (or Redhat) then nothing I am going to say is revolutionary.

Let’s start at the beginning. Linux is an open source operating system. For that reason, there are many distributions or flavors if you will. So, I have tried Ubuntu and Mint as my distributions. They both branch off of Linux called Debian but then further fork into their own distinct operating systems. Think of it this way, the distribution has a bunch or other programs wrapped on top of the operating system. These are things like word processing, spreadsheets, email programs are all part of the distribution.

Part of the reason that this is important is because when you go to look for programs to install or support, you need to know what type of distribution you have. Different distributions will have different programs and even syntax on how to do it. I think that the Ubuntu/Mint is the dominant distribution so fortunately you can usually find something that works. But, there are literally almost infinite possibilities. Talk about confusing for a newbie.

Open Source means exactly what it says. Anyone with the technical chops could create their own version or distribution of Linux. I don’t know exactly how you get involved in Ubuntu, but somebody has some passion for some element which drives change. These could be error fixes or enhancements or even new features.

I think that we are all used to update notifications in the software in our lives. Now that I have been using Ubuntu daily, I am noticing a high number of updates. I would estimate that there is one every three or four days. In some ways, this is the beauty of Linux. We the user have a chance to say yes we want them or no we do not. I myself being just a casual user and not having any real reason not to do them, just say yes. Since it is not my primary computer, it feels like I log in daily to see if I have any updates to run.

It seems like everything Linux does fine. But, I am seeing a problem with firmware updates. I have one that won’t take because Microsoft forces a signature of the hardrive and the motherboard (even though I am not even running Windows). The supposed risk is that someone could physically login and defeat my security. I am not too worried about that since it is at my home. My current strategy will be to ignore it but it does annoy me that the warning pops up as a to do.

One thing that I think is neat is that with each version, the home page background changes. The lobster has now become a minotaur (and a maze) since I updated to 23.10. I guess one other caveat, if you stop frequently updating, you can get out of sync. This happened to me when I ignored the computer for a few months and then I couldn’t perform the incremental updates. It wasn’t until a major revision that I got back in sync.

End Your Programming Routine: Having to do all these things is the beauty and the pain of Linux. I have a lot of control and a lot of responsibility. I want to say that I have been pretty impressed what you can get for free and pretty light weight in its footprint. It is pretty cool that it can be booted from a USB stick and is really a full featured computer. If your are willing to do the work of learning and research, it definitely works.

November 15, 2023 – Just the Good Old Boys

November 15, 2023 /

Maybe I shouldn’t even be writing this but I have a hankering to watch The Dukes of Hazzard lately. It was on TV from 1979 to 1985 and it was definitely my favorite show on TV. In fact, it was the only show on TV that we were permitted to watch. I was four when it started and ten when it ended.

Until around middle school, my brother and my bedtime was 8pm. That means that any prime time TV was out of the question. TV was also severely restricted in our house as well. We got to choose one TV show a week that we were permitted to watch. This is what we chose of course.

Even Saturday morning cartoons got the boot early in my life. My mom thought that my brother and I got too wound up after watching them. I knew that was the edict but I still liked to turn on the TV in the morning before anybody was a up. With the old manual TVs, you could turn the volume down and then turn on the TV. One morning I woke up and the cord was cut on the TV. That ended that.

I think I know the trigger here. I have been looking at CB radios a lot lately. Since CB became super popular in the 1970s, it played a prominent role in the Dukes of Hazzard. All the vehicles, including the General Lee had CBs and the characters communicated via radio during their hijinks. You also had other souped-up cars like the 1976/77 Pontiac Firebird on Smokey and the Bandit during that time that were using CB radio.

This is not to forget the General Lee is a 1969 Dodge Charger and I am helping my son out with his 1969 Mercury Cougar here and there. I was running errands a couple weekends ago and I saw a 1969 Ford Ranchero and all the sudden I was looking up prices of project cars. It seems like my destiny is colliding with The Dukes of Hazzard.

The truth is, as much as I liked the show, I remember very little. I love car chases and jumps. Put a brush guard on a hot rod/race car and drive it like you stole it. Who can resist siding with Robin Hood. I might remind you that Bo and Luke were (wrongly) convicted felons and so firearms were prohibited, that is why they used bows. My brother and I ate that stuff up. Western wear and Daisy Dukes… I am talking myself into buying the entire show since I cannot rent it and it is not streaming anywhere.

Finishing the highlights, the theme was sung by Waylon Jennings, one of the outlaws of country. This was also a time of peak popularity of Hee-Haw. The show reeks of the era of late seventies/early eighties. It was a simpler time, my wife would say a ‘whiter’ time. I can’t argue that, but what I am saying we were all united by less choices.

A few years ago, I was looking for something family friendly and I did end up buying the first episode on Amazon. I don’t think my kids enjoyed it as much as I did. But, it is a new day. My older son has a new appreciation for cars now and he is liking the idea of CB radio and driving passenger cars off-road. So, maybe we can try again.

End Your Programming Routine: After living in the south for a couple of years, The Dukes of Hazzard is not as big of a stretch as people living elsewhere might believe. There are still moonshine runners, there is a lot of debate over the confederate battle flag and racing is popular. I have heard of more than one person outrunning the cops when the ‘blue lights’ come on. But , so is doing the right thing when it matters. Big heart leaves me smiling after thinking about my time in the south as well as the Dukes of Hazzard.

November 8, 2023 – Boots and Scars

November 8, 2023 /

I never set out to be a fashion writer, but here we are. Some of my youngest memories had me wearing cowboy boots. I definitely wore them in grade school. My last pair of boots I bought in college and I got a lot of wear from them until I started getting ingrown toenails. I have worn them now and again, but having surgery on my toes was painful and so I stopped except for very infrequent occasions.

My wife had already decided that our casual renewal was going to involve me wearing western wear. I took it upon myself to buy some new boots so that I had a pair that I would wear more than a couple times a year. So far, it has been a rough go with these new boots.

The first time I wore the boots was my second proposal on the beach. We had already planned on spending the night to take our exchange student out whale watching. I figured that I should get started breaking these boots in so that I would have a nice night on the renewal.

Other than causing ingrown toenails which I attributed to the pointy steel toe, I never had any issues with my old boots rubbing. That is not the case with these new boots which I purchased as square toe to alleviate that problem. I wore my boots for two days and I couldn’t wait to get out of them due to the fact that the pull straps had rubbed my leg raw.

I figured that I was committed at this point, so on the night of our renewal, I put Band-Aids over the area that the pull straps rubbed. That solved that problem for the moment. I have worn the boots several times until we decided to go to Octoberfest. That night I spent about four hours on my feet walking around. My heel started hurting.

When I took my boot off, my heel was raw. I should mention that all of this is really a problem with the right boot, not the left. For that reason, I don’t know if the problem is my right leg or the right boot. I have had zero issues with the left to date. I tried to do research on what others have experienced, and from what I have read, a potential problem is today’s thread.

Apparently, today’s thread contains synthetic material that is much more durable than previous versions. Because it is stronger and tougher, by proxy then it is more abrasive (at least that is what it said on the internet). If we accept that to be true, then it might be possible to add some kind of leather softener or treatment to potentially deal with the rubbing.

I tried these boot on when I walked through the store. It generally starts causing a problem after a couple of hours. If I knew then what I know today, these boots would have gone back to the store. I don’t think that they can be returned after several months of wear. This is something that I never considered to be a problem before these boots.

End Your Programming Routine: I still have my old boots. Part of my intent to buy new boots was to wear boots more, old and new. With these issues, I don’t know if I need to grit my teeth and keep wearing them, hoping that they will break in or give up. I will likely try to wear them more and hope that these are just starting point issues because they should last nearly the rest of my life. I don’t have much helpful advice but consider yourself warned if you are in the market for boots.