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Here we go…starting to finish my basement

April 12, 2018 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

Ever since we bought our house, we knew we wanted to finish our basement. The basement is dry, ceilings are high (enough), and we want to maximize our living space. To facilitate the process, last summer we had our electrical panel upgraded as well as the electrical service buried (no more overhead wires!). Besides the financial impact of the electrical work, our daughter was born last May, so it wasn’t really in the cards for me to start working on the basement then.

Now is the time.

Even though I wasn’t going to start work on the basement last year, I did learn enough Sketchup to come up with some to-scale floor plans.

The plan so far.

Amazon Affiliate Linkerizer: Firefox and Chrome extension

February 8, 2018 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

Since I do product reviews and lots of product research, I’m frequently posting Amazon links. To help me send better links and make me a small amount of affiliate money, I made a new Firefox and Chrome extension.

If you use it without adding any affiliate code, your purchases support me and this blog.

Based on a project I found on Github, Amazon Affiliate Linkerizer puts a button in your browser on Amazon pages. When you click it, it cleans up the link and add an affiliate code to the end. The code is customizable per the options page…otherwise it supports me with my affiliate code. If you use it without adding any affiliate code, your purchases support me and this blog.

If you want to try out this plugin, get it for Firefox or Chrome:

I could release it for Microsoft Edge, but I don’t want to pay the $25 developer fee. (My company paid the $5 developer fee for Chrome, since I had a work-related extension first.)

If you are a programmer, check out the project on Github.

What I’ve learned about soil-less gardening: hydroponics, aeroponics, etc.

February 1, 2018 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

Every winter I get excited about gardening and get eager to start growing. A couple years ago I almost bought an Aerogarden. I didn’t because of its cost, but I resolved to learn about how it worked and if I could make one myself. As it turns out, the “Aerogarden” doesn’t actually use aeroponics, but “deep water culture” hydroponics. Not everyone agrees philosophically that we should be using hydroponics, but the science behind it is fascinating nonetheless.

Hydroponics

Hydroponics, simply, is growing plants in a nutrient solution, without soil. There are various methods to do this, and the Aerogarden is an all-in-one consumer kit. Continue reading

REVIEW: My Toro Snowmaster 724 QXE

July 24, 2017 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

The 2015-2016 winter was our first winter in our house, and I fully intended on surviving with only a shovel. I changed my mind, after 8+ inches of heavy wet snow, and almost 2 hours to shovel our driveway. Having already done some research, I seized my chance…I drove to Home Depot and bought a Toro Snowmaster.

I’ve been using my Snowmaster 724 QXE since last year and I was a little apprehensive at first, since it was a new model. After using it a few times, that apprehension is gone.

The Design

Photo credit: Toro

Yes, it is technically a single stage with a different auger design. They call it “inline two stage” because the sides of the auger pull snow toward the center, and the center paddle (much smaller and more scoop-like than a standard single-stage) throws the snow out the chute. The bucket and chute design are shallower in their tapering to maximize throwing distance. It may not throw as far as a two stage, since it lacks an impeller, but if you keep it moving and full of snow, it can throw snow 20-30 feet. The lack of impeller lets Toro use more power in the auger, which spins very fast (“10 times faster than a 2-stage”). This also allows the blower to be a lot lighter, needing much smaller tires (this isn’t a disadvantage).

The lack of weight on this blower means it moves around more like a lawnmower, than a typical two stage blower. Toro even put their personal pace system from their mowers on it. This means that the controls are very minimal:

one lever to engage the auger
Toro’s “quick chute” joystick (which is awesome)
personal pace bar to push the blower and engage the drive-train.

All this means that I can clear my driveway and sidewalk in much less time than my neighbors.

The Best Laundry Basket

July 21, 2017 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

The incorrect basket

I read most of The Sweethome’s reviews. They are usually great, in-depth, and well-researched. They impress me with their testing and I’ve had great luck with their picks. Sometimes, the picks don’t live up to my expectations. Their laundry basket pick is one of them. They picked the Sterilite Stacking basket from the Container Store.

I looked these at a local Container Store. Ultimately they felt junky, were too small, and were unimpressive.

The Container Store also vastly disappointing. The selection was poor and it felt like walking into a OCD nightmare. The store felt unorganized, but it was a store of organization containers….

The correct laundry basket

The good one

Back to the point…the best laundry basket is the 2 bushel Sterilite basket from Walmart: Sterilite Ultra (the good one)

Note that there are two different versions of the “Sterilite Ultra” basket. Walmart stocks the better one, with the triangle shaped holes and the non-arching handles with a bulge on the bottom. These handles are thicker and more sturdy compared to the ones with oval holes and simple arching handles, which break easily. The basket itself is also made out of heavier plastic.

We have three of these baskets and they’ve held up well to regular laundry tasks, but also to my kids messing around in them (which is what broke our old baskets). They’ve even survived being thrown down the stairs…more than once by Alyssa.

Check it out!

Quick Tip: DIY Bird Feeder Filler

May 27, 2017 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

You know I love the birds. I buy black oil sunflower seeds in 50 lb bags and fill my bird feeder all year round. Instead of buying a filler or a special scoop, which do work, I made my own out of an old juice jug. The design is super simple, very effective, and free.

Make it!

Just a utility knife to cut a decent sized hole in the top narrower side of the container (I used a cider jug, but you could probably use a half gallon milk jug, or some other similar plastic container). This hole allows you to use the container to scoop seeds out of your seed bag. Use the juice container’s pour hole to pour the seed/bird food into your bird feeder. Depending on your feeder, you might even be able to leave it hanging while you fill it, like I do.

The final step is to bask in the feeling of saving yourself $6-$15 and the glory of DIY!

Happy birding!

REVIEW: High Sierra 1.5 GPM High Efficiency Low Flow Shower Head

February 2, 2017 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

I know, I know…I’m reviewing a shower head. The only reason I’m reviewing this is because it is a great shower head for not that much money ($40).

Most low flow shower heads are terrible. My parents have gone through a few of them, and all the ones they had were cheap, plastic, and had poor water pressure. It took twice as long to wash my hair, which defeats some of the purpose of the 40% water savings.

If you know me, you know I like to do a lot of product research before I buy. My shower head research started on The Sweethome. They do a lot of research and testing, which helps me to understand how a product works and what to look for. I almost pulled the trigger on one of their picks last year, but an Amazon recommendation stopped me. The High Sierra shower head is a well reviewed, metal shower head, that was also 1.5 GPM low flow. It had to have fake/paid/incentivized reviews. Nope.

Making sense of the election: your vote, your voice, let’s learn from each other

November 14, 2016 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

All of the responses to my request were very informative and have already challenged me to think differently about things. While this poll wasn’t scientific, the responses I got are all very valuable.

Without further ado, here are your uncensored thoughts:

Continue reading

Fake Submodules in Git

November 11, 2016 / Jimmy / 2 Comments

The current project I’m working on for my new church website requires me to have a Git repository inside of another Git repository. Typically when you do this, Git assumes you want to use a “feature” called submodules. You probably don’t. I read up on submodules and don’t see any use case for them. (There likely is one, of course, but this wasn’t it.)

It took a bit of searching, but if you add a “/” to the end of the folder that contains your nested repo when you are running git add, you can fake the parent repo into acting how you’d expect, and not ignore everything inside.

Thanks to Felix from debuggable.com!

Making sense of the election: who did you vote for and why?

November 10, 2016 / Jimmy / 0 Comments

Like most people, I was shocked at the result of this week’s US presidential election. Facebook has been an interesting place, to say the least, with differing viewpoints, though very little civility. (Even many calling for civility are not being sensitive to other viewpoints.)

I voted the way I did for many reasons, and at this point, I’ve come to grips with the fact I don’t really know why others voted the way they did. I want to change that.

My goal is to compile responses from people as to why they voted the way they did in the presidential election. I’ll personally review each response and share them all in a future post. I think it will be educational and enlightening, and it will hopefully help us to understand each other better and work together.

The rules

Please no name-calling, labels, or libel about the other candidate. If one of your reasons for voting was the other candidate, please express your views respectfully. Also, if you are going to make a claim about a candidate, please fact check.

Finally, share this with your friends. I want as big a sample size as possible.

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