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.
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
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
Who understands what love is? The ancient greeks used variants of the word for love to denote increasing levels of altruism. Medieval love was said to focus on the suffering that one feels “derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex”. Think of the sad, but pure, suffering […] read more
Well, we didn’t expect this to happen today (Chrissy was scheduled to be induced tomorrow), but we are proud to announce the birth of our baby boy. He was born this morning at 5:15 weighing 8 lb 10 oz. Some initial pictures below, if the link below doesn’t work, click the direct link here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23298466@N06/ […] read more
As you can see here, the room that David was going to move into had significant problems. There is no insulation inside our brick and block constructed walls, and there’s a thin layer of plaster on the surface that causes some excessive flaking when a nail pops out. When we tried to paint David’s room, […] read more
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
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
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
I had stored this away in the depths of my old web-site. I find it interesting. Thoughts? Warning signs of a love-lacking heart: Prayer ceases to be vital part of your life. The quest for biblical truth ceases and you grow content with the knowledge of eternal things already acquired. The biblical knowledge possessed or […] read more
I envision my life to eventually become: * a life of worship * a life of service * a life of learning * a life of joy I picture myself as a man who: * to be morally pure and dedicated to God * has time for people, elder in the church * can play […] read more