Draining

This summer has been hot and we've had the air conditioning running a lot. That's a pretty normal thing in Florida, but I've also switched to working from home for four out of five work days, so I need it cool so my brain doesn't bake. With the extra cooling, came an unfortunate incident where the condensation pan of my HVAC unit filled and overflowed. The result was water spillage that took a few days to dry out. The root cause was the drain line to the outside world got clogged with calcification. Subsequently, the leak detector in the pan (the one that comes with the A/C unit) didn't work and didn't shut off the unit. So, double-fail. I cleared the line with my Shop-Vac and replaced the PVC "S"-shaped trap on the outside of the house, which was easily re-built with new components. But, along with buying an IoT...

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TinyTV and Weekend Plans

Cari is away in Miami for the weekend and I have a bunch of little household projects I want to complete. Out in the yard, I need to replace the old garden hoses and sprayers, pull some weeds, apply lawn fertilizer, and trim the palm tree and Bird of Paradise in the front yard. In the garage, I have a few tool holders to hang and need to recycle some old rotors and a car battery. Inside there are some pieces of iron artwork I need to hang, as well as some normal chores such as laundry. And, if I can get all of those things done, I have some work to do on the DeLorean and some more organization to do in the office. I recently saw a YouTube video from Norman Chan of Tested.com reviewing the TinyTV from TinyCircuits. Instantly, I needed (and ordered) one. It arrived a...

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Storage and More

As noted before, I got the new boxes in for my nerd collectables et al. And today I've transferred everything into them. Behold. The box. The main collectibles box. The second storage box has a bunch of lanyards, badges, and materials from cons. This last image shows the new boxes in one of the cupboards (top right). I pulled everything out of here today and re-organized it all. I don't have a "before" picture, but this is actually a lot better. Still not done, though. More organizing to come. And, lastly, here's a quick view of the state of the DeLorean.

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A New Year

I feel lucky that all of the craziness that began in 2020 has barely affected me and Cari. What's missed the most is hanging out with friends, both near and far, and not being with them during the holidays. Other than that, every once in a while I get the craving to go out to a restaurant. We have not eaten out since the pandemic started, and that's not really an issue with online ordering as it is these days. I'm also not blinded by the fact that an arbitrary number on a piece of paper now says it's a different year and things will be different. Sure, I'm hopeful that maybe things will be much more normal by the end of 2021, but I fear that the narrow-mindedness of people who think that everything bad died with the turn of the calendar will once again push us into a...

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Switcheroo

I fixed the vertical blind in the living room, but I forgot that the lawn service usually comes on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, so I've postponed applying the fertilizer until after they've come. Instead, I spent some time cleaning up my desk and organizing. I still have a stack of magazines to go through, so I'm going to go take a shower and then spend the rest of the day reading. Since this is vacation day 4 of 10, I feel I need to be somewhat productive in a relaxing way. I've also gone through HackerBox #57, "Safe Mode", I may start working on that too today or tomorrow. The contents of HackerBox 57 "Safe Mode".

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All Taped Up

This morning I finished capturing all of the DV tapes. In total there was about 17.5 hours of footage. The next step will be to figure out how to also capture the roughly ten or so 8mm/Hi-8 tapes, of which I don't have a camcorder or deck for that format. I've ordered a capture card and need to get my hands on a playback device. Next up is doing some work around the house. Going to go apply fertilizer to the lawn and then I need to fix one of the vertical blind blades. Added to the movie library today: Capote

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Flower Planter

The planter is finished. This past weekend, I spent a grand total of about 5 hours in the garage cutting, sanding, and assembling. Here's what it started like: The front yard flower planter, in raw-board form. And it evolved into this: It's about 8' 7" long, 12" wide, and 12" tall. Oh, and I think I forgot to show what the drill bit holders look like hanging on the peg board in the garage, so here's a picture of that.

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Making and Catching Up

Yesterday I spent three hours cleaning up and organizing in the garage. A lot of the worked centered around putting away all of the spare aquarium supplies and equipment back into their proper places on the shelves. Then, I took the time to finally break down a ton of cardboard boxes and put them into the recycling bin in preparation for next Monday. Because of COVID challenges, Hillsborough county has moved our recycling pickup to every other week for now. That means all cans and plastic containers need to be smashed down flat and all cardboard needs to be cut up to smaller pieces so we get efficient, compact usage of the bin. Anyway, I also put away and re-organized several tools and finally did a big cleanup of the workbench area. One of the little organization things I've been wanting to do is to get my drill bits into...

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Planter Project

One of the projects I've got in the new schedule is a planter for the front yard, just next to the porch. It measures 8' 9" long and 16" wide. I drew up the rough plan back in May, but tonight I planned out all the wood, the cuts that need to be made and solidified the design in LightWave 3D. All of the materials are in my Lowe's online shopping cart and I'll likely pull the trigger and order them tomorrow. The sketch of the planter. The 3D model

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