Home Improvement, Fitness, and other personal pursuits.
As we renovate our house, we are living in a much smaller place with a really small kitchen. When we got a Linea Mini and a Eureka Zenith 65E High Speed Espresso Grinder for Christmas, we needed a good spot and I designed a set of shelves to fit in our kitchen alcove and dramatically […] read more
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. read more
Around 1710, the English theologian Thomas Woolston wrote that Christianity would be extinct by the year 1900. In 1822, Thomas Jefferson predicted there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian. While these predictions didn’t pan out, we live in a world that neither of them […] read more
This post is about how to use design tools to save time and build nice stuff at home using computer controlled machines (CNC). In addition to describing my design process, I’ve also included the helpful references I found along the way. Our old thermostat was too small for our wall. I could have replaced the […] read more
Framing around bulkheads is painful. It is hard to get everything straight and aligned. I found the Shopbot to be very helpful. There are three problems I was trying to solve: (1) Getting multiple corners straight across 30 feet, (2) nearly no time and (3) basic pine wood framing would sag over a 28″ run. […] read more
My daughter had to make a “probability game” for her fifth grade math class. She has been learning javascript and digital design so we worked together to design and build a roulette wheel for her class. First, she drew out a series of sketches and we talked it over. She wanted a 0.5 inch thick […] read more
[mathjax] Motivation I had to upgrade the Lego table I made when my kids were much smaller. It needed to be higher and include storage options. Since I’m short on time, I used several existing automation tools to both teach my daughter the power of programming and explore our decision space. The goals were to […] read more
Tonight, I just finished Francis Collins’ book “The Language of God” where he lays out the basic facts of genetics and the human genome, denounces Creationism and rejects Intelligent Design theory, rebukes Richard Dawkins, and generally sets a tone for reasonableness between Christians and scientists. This is a lot of disjoint topics, and while he […] read more
Quick post, just to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation regarding a front-end loader washer with a door latch that doesn’t close Big trouble . . . door latch broke on our amana front end loader. First thing I do when I need to fix something is look for ownership so […] read more
If you ever have to replace your under the sink GE filter (specifically the GE GXULQR), be ready for a frustrating ride. It looks like this: You can find the manual here and the ge product page here. It is billed as the “Twist and Lock” Replacement Filter, the inside female hex socket sometimes rotates […] read more