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Personal Projects & Interests

Personal Projects & Interests is my sandbox for life outside the office—where spreadsheets, sensors, and code tackle real-world chores and passions. Here you’ll see data models guiding gear buys, DIY automations that make the house (and gate) smarter, endurance training logged like an experiment, and reflections that tie it all together.

Die Macht der Religion (in German)

Wir wohnen in einer Welt, die viele Religionen hat. Wir wohnen aber auch in einer Welt, die viele Kulturen hat. Natürlich gibt es viele andere Ansichten über die Beziehung zwischen Reli gion und Kultur. Sehr viele Leute denken, dass die Beziehung zwischen Religion und Kultur ganz ähnlich wie die Beziehung zwischen Kultur und Musik oder […] read more

Truth (from 1994)

In the political mire of our day, the word “truth” is slung around like a worn-out baseball. Every politician, religious leader, self-improvement author and educator seems to know what will solve all our problems. Truth is thrown at us from every direction. Why then does mankind face the same problems today that it has faced […] read more

Suffering reveals our true Humanity (1996)

Our world is large. Billions of others are living as you read these words. Each one of them, though from remarkably different backgrounds, is strangely similar. They all have hopes and dreams, fears and desires. They all live-and they all die. They all laugh-and they all suffer. Yet out of these experiences suffering is the […] read more

What is a conservative?

From the initial guidebook from Patrick Allitt’s course: Conservatism is, above all, an attitude about the world, which sees the past as the best guide for navigating our way into the future. It assumes that all the really important questions confronting humanity have already been answered, and that it is generally safest to stick to […] read more

Set up Dual Monitors in Ubuntu with Nvidia GeForce FX 5200

First I installed tim@Lincoln:~$ sudo apt-get install envyng-qt with all its crazy dependencies. Then I ran lspci | grep VGA to find my video driver. 00:0a.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1) With envyng, I took their recommendation of: 173.14.12-0ubuntu5.1 and installed, restarted. On restart I had access to the […] read more

Pullup Bar

In order to do more workouts at home, I decided to put a chin-up bar in my basement. I looked around at amazon and saw three real options: over the door mount, on the ceiling mount or wall mount. Three examples shown below: Chin-up bar examples Wall mount Wall Mount Ceiling Mount In a pull-up […] read more

Interior Lighting

The first thing we considered, was the different functions we wanted out of our lighting and how different layers combine in an overall lighting plan. First, we wanted general downlighting with the flexibility to be in full-clean/bible study/game mode (I want to see everything in the room), but also wanted a dimmer discussion mode and […] read more

Tim’s Testimony

My Christian home provided a very fertile ground for my Christian life. I accepted Christ at vacation Bible school when I was eight years old and prayed nightly thereafter with my loving family. I distinctly remember telling my grandfather at an early age that I wanted to be a pastor when I grew up. And […] read more

Bathroom Handles are Spinning

Something in our cold water tub faucet assembly wore out and now the faucet is spinning 360 degrees. I regret it not getting checked when I recently read [sewer cleanup in dallas][1] post and got my home’s entire sewer system cleaned thoroughly. It still works, but you never know the best place to stop when […] read more

Need to clean up masonry work

After noticing lots of loose mortar in our front retaining wall, I decided to try and tuck-point with the mortar repair kits sold at the local home store. I found the work tricky and knew my work was a little sloppy, so I hired a local handyman to do the job. I removed all of […] read more