Things I've been doing/learning lately: (In no particular grammatical structure or temporal order)
- Installing linoleum floors and sub-floors
- Replacing floor joists
- Various other home-repair contracting, mostly for Lee's mom's rental properties
- Earplug earrings - so glad I finally made these, thanks Mom. Maybe someday I'll sell them.
- Light-up sign boxes with changeable messages, with help from several people, most notably Lee and Ransom.
- Summer and other travel: Vietnam, Oaxaca Mexico, Peru, Montreal/Canadian National Park/Rochester NY, Southern India
- backpacking - chaperoned 7th graders in Yosemite and 12th graders in Zion, went to both of those and several more places with Lee and others.
- Reading *tons* of books (as long as you count listening to audio-books as "reading.") Since I found audio-books, I've returned to my childhood levels of ~50 books a year. Mostly fiction, some non-fiction.
- How bicycle freewheel hubs are removed, maybe how they're disassembled?, how to get them working again, hopefully soon how to re-install them
- Making custom shelves with the laser cutter and my own modifications to makercase.com plans (I've also been toying with the idea of creating my own system of shelving, sort of a cross between peg board and maker-case boxes.) Tea shelves and soldering shelves and kitchen shelves and...
- "Building" steps (I just stacked some bricks, but I'm pretty pleased with them) for our front door, so it's easier to kick off one's shoes and step inside - particularly nice in these rains.
- Putting up a rain-cover for our front steps area, mostly built out of Burning Man shade structure parts. Thanks to Rob Levitsky for the idea to slant it nice and steep to dump rain off of it. Anyway, it keeps the rain off of my shoes, so I don't have to bring wet, muddy shoes inside. Keeps the inside of our house *way* cleaner.
- Linear algebra... just a bit of progress here
- Fallout - I finally finished the game! Ritalin makes it way easier to stay at least mostly focused on making progress toward the end goal, chasing a somewhat more reasonable number of rabbits. Now on to Fallout 2.
- Archery (recurve) and various fiddlings with custom quivers
- Sailing - loved sailing with Colin and some friends a couple birthdays ago. Would love to sail more. A new co-worker, David Dixon, grew up on a sail boat, so we may go out at some point.
- Traveling down to San Diego to see my family, help out around the house a bit with some yard work, helping set up new teaching spaces for my mom, systems to help with my dad's Alzheimer's, more brick steps, etc.
- Figuring out, with the help of a friend I don't know super well yet, Shlomo Zippel, how to do WiFi communication in Arduino. I'm trying to make a networked lighting-control system, largely because I think the way we do lighting in homes is antiquated. Why run dangerous 120V AC to each switch and bulb, requiring it to be buried deep in the walls? How often do you get a system of switches and lights set up and then wish it were slightly different, when a bookshelf is moved or the usage of a room changes? What if each control panel (light switch) could control any light in the house/van/space? Might as well make them all identical. And have features like sleep-timers. And re-configurable groups of lights. And and and. My current design/prototype is based on the Adafruit Trellis 4x4 light-up keypad and code I'm writing myself for an ESP8266, but if you have suggestions of (open source) IoT things that might do what I want, I'm all ears. #futurePost
- How to replace toilets and their wax rings
- Improving the machine shop at school, with help from a great many people, expanding capabilities in CNC and manual machining, jewelry, welding, PCB electronics, and other things. Mostly, finding ways to keep things stocked and organized in such a way that the space is usable.
- Installing various other shelves and storage systems in my space
- Windsurfing. I never got good at it, but it was fun. Maybe I'll do it again someday?
- Fiddling with my giant Sprinter van, adding a partition wall, a queen-size futon and wire-rack shelving, re-configuring everything several times, settling in to a configuration I'm starting to like. I've fallen in love with cross-nuts - I install them slightly differently, but they're super strong and bend up the frame way less than anything else I've seen.
- Backing up and organizing old files. Thanks to Colin for his thoughts on accepting the phenomenon of "digital rot." Similar to my above thoughts about the game Fallout, I'm much happier accepting 99%-ish backup of old stuff, and not sweating (as much as before, anyway) whether or not I got every little bit.
- Other projects:
+ knitting (I knitted a ball-jar cozy),
+ setting my ringtone to "Bacon Pancakes" from Adventure Time, but making it start out quiet, and then get louder and louder, so if I'm in a quiet room I don't bother anyone before I can shut it off
+ programming radios (Baofeng UV-5R is what I've been playing with - I'd be happy to link to my set of channels if anyone is curious #futurePost)
+ wall-mounted phone holder (and learning how Autodesk Fusion 360 does "assemblies")
+ recording an audio-book (the Blackrock Ranger Manual) and hoping to do more
+ made a table-leaf for the head of my school
+ Cuddle Dumpster! It's a plywood box full of beanbags that looks like a dumpster full of trash bags to hang out in.
+ Related: modifying a koala onesie to look like a raccoon.
+ This is a couple years ago, at this point, but putting on a murder-mystery party for Lee's birthday
- Hopefully soon:
+ Installing 3rd seat in the van (mostly designed? have metal needed for a custom stand)
+ Propane fire-art sculpture (have a bunch of parts - time to make a prototype)
+ Waffle Balls
+ buying land??? we'll see if that ever happens. Moving up to the mountains, anyway, one way or another
+ Sagrada board game dice stabilizer,
+ automatic toilet seat lowerer #futurePost
- No solid plans yet, but I'd like to do it someday:
+ reliable exploding dye packets
+ a magic-8-ball that only ever says "There is no way to know." Maybe 50% done? On pause for quite some time, though...
[PS: wow. sometimes I feel like I'm not *doing* very much. Well, that may be true at times, but I'm pretty pleased, having written this list.]
- Installing linoleum floors and sub-floors
- Replacing floor joists
- Various other home-repair contracting, mostly for Lee's mom's rental properties
- Earplug earrings - so glad I finally made these, thanks Mom. Maybe someday I'll sell them.
- Light-up sign boxes with changeable messages, with help from several people, most notably Lee and Ransom.
- Summer and other travel: Vietnam, Oaxaca Mexico, Peru, Montreal/Canadian National Park/Rochester NY, Southern India
- backpacking - chaperoned 7th graders in Yosemite and 12th graders in Zion, went to both of those and several more places with Lee and others.
- Reading *tons* of books (as long as you count listening to audio-books as "reading.") Since I found audio-books, I've returned to my childhood levels of ~50 books a year. Mostly fiction, some non-fiction.
- How bicycle freewheel hubs are removed, maybe how they're disassembled?, how to get them working again, hopefully soon how to re-install them
- Making custom shelves with the laser cutter and my own modifications to makercase.com plans (I've also been toying with the idea of creating my own system of shelving, sort of a cross between peg board and maker-case boxes.) Tea shelves and soldering shelves and kitchen shelves and...
- "Building" steps (I just stacked some bricks, but I'm pretty pleased with them) for our front door, so it's easier to kick off one's shoes and step inside - particularly nice in these rains.
- Putting up a rain-cover for our front steps area, mostly built out of Burning Man shade structure parts. Thanks to Rob Levitsky for the idea to slant it nice and steep to dump rain off of it. Anyway, it keeps the rain off of my shoes, so I don't have to bring wet, muddy shoes inside. Keeps the inside of our house *way* cleaner.
- Linear algebra... just a bit of progress here
- Fallout - I finally finished the game! Ritalin makes it way easier to stay at least mostly focused on making progress toward the end goal, chasing a somewhat more reasonable number of rabbits. Now on to Fallout 2.
- Archery (recurve) and various fiddlings with custom quivers
- Sailing - loved sailing with Colin and some friends a couple birthdays ago. Would love to sail more. A new co-worker, David Dixon, grew up on a sail boat, so we may go out at some point.
- Traveling down to San Diego to see my family, help out around the house a bit with some yard work, helping set up new teaching spaces for my mom, systems to help with my dad's Alzheimer's, more brick steps, etc.
- Figuring out, with the help of a friend I don't know super well yet, Shlomo Zippel, how to do WiFi communication in Arduino. I'm trying to make a networked lighting-control system, largely because I think the way we do lighting in homes is antiquated. Why run dangerous 120V AC to each switch and bulb, requiring it to be buried deep in the walls? How often do you get a system of switches and lights set up and then wish it were slightly different, when a bookshelf is moved or the usage of a room changes? What if each control panel (light switch) could control any light in the house/van/space? Might as well make them all identical. And have features like sleep-timers. And re-configurable groups of lights. And and and. My current design/prototype is based on the Adafruit Trellis 4x4 light-up keypad and code I'm writing myself for an ESP8266, but if you have suggestions of (open source) IoT things that might do what I want, I'm all ears. #futurePost
- How to replace toilets and their wax rings
- Improving the machine shop at school, with help from a great many people, expanding capabilities in CNC and manual machining, jewelry, welding, PCB electronics, and other things. Mostly, finding ways to keep things stocked and organized in such a way that the space is usable.
- Installing various other shelves and storage systems in my space
- Windsurfing. I never got good at it, but it was fun. Maybe I'll do it again someday?
- Fiddling with my giant Sprinter van, adding a partition wall, a queen-size futon and wire-rack shelving, re-configuring everything several times, settling in to a configuration I'm starting to like. I've fallen in love with cross-nuts - I install them slightly differently, but they're super strong and bend up the frame way less than anything else I've seen.
- Backing up and organizing old files. Thanks to Colin for his thoughts on accepting the phenomenon of "digital rot." Similar to my above thoughts about the game Fallout, I'm much happier accepting 99%-ish backup of old stuff, and not sweating (as much as before, anyway) whether or not I got every little bit.
- Other projects:
+ knitting (I knitted a ball-jar cozy),
+ setting my ringtone to "Bacon Pancakes" from Adventure Time, but making it start out quiet, and then get louder and louder, so if I'm in a quiet room I don't bother anyone before I can shut it off
+ programming radios (Baofeng UV-5R is what I've been playing with - I'd be happy to link to my set of channels if anyone is curious #futurePost)
+ wall-mounted phone holder (and learning how Autodesk Fusion 360 does "assemblies")
+ recording an audio-book (the Blackrock Ranger Manual) and hoping to do more
+ made a table-leaf for the head of my school
+ Cuddle Dumpster! It's a plywood box full of beanbags that looks like a dumpster full of trash bags to hang out in.
+ Related: modifying a koala onesie to look like a raccoon.
+ This is a couple years ago, at this point, but putting on a murder-mystery party for Lee's birthday
- Hopefully soon:
+ Installing 3rd seat in the van (mostly designed? have metal needed for a custom stand)
+ Propane fire-art sculpture (have a bunch of parts - time to make a prototype)
+ Waffle Balls
+ buying land??? we'll see if that ever happens. Moving up to the mountains, anyway, one way or another
+ Sagrada board game dice stabilizer,
+ automatic toilet seat lowerer #futurePost
- No solid plans yet, but I'd like to do it someday:
+ reliable exploding dye packets
+ a magic-8-ball that only ever says "There is no way to know." Maybe 50% done? On pause for quite some time, though...
[PS: wow. sometimes I feel like I'm not *doing* very much. Well, that may be true at times, but I'm pretty pleased, having written this list.]
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