Book Burnout

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For the first time in my life, I think I’m getting sick of reading. Maybe it’s just bad selection of books right now — I’m stuck in the middle of three different books — and I just can’t seem to find any traction with any of them. Maybe it’s that in 2017, I absolutely crushed … Read more

Maker Stuff: March 2018

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My inner maker was pretty happy in March. I got a lot done, most of it on the coding side of things. Part of the credit here has to go to the last place I was contracting at, which didn’t have enough incoming work to warrant keeping me around, and so I wound up “on the bench” — which means no office time, but no pay, either. That means I was at home for a good chunk of the month and working on these things (when I wasn’t job hunting, interviewing, or doing housework).

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Tinkering/Nerdery: February 2018

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So. Tinkering. This month was productive, but it also wasn’t. How to best explain that? Well, I had a freelance gig that I had to build out, and I learned a ton about the WordPress back-end, ZURB Foundation 6, and jQuery, but it wasn’t for personal hack-y projects. I did manage to get some geeky going, though, which is nice.

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Awesome Web Reads: February 2018

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GQ had a great interview with Quincy Jones. John Perry Barlow, founder of the EFF died early in the month. Kottke shared his 25 Principles of Adult Behavior In saecula saeculorum was a thought-provoking look at the eras of an empire. Tim Ferriss has a great (and short) podcast called The 9 Habits to Stop … Read more

Other Chili, Other Stuff

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This blog is supposed to be focused on tinkering/making/hacking stuff. So why am I posting another chili recipe? Well, mainly because I can’t stop tinkering — every time I try a recipe, I mess with it a bit. My Unholy Good Chili recipe started fairly simple and grew over many iterations into a burn-the-hair-off-your-feet monstrosity. It wasn’t something I wanted to cook up for the Birchwood Bike Team Superbowl Party, as I wanted something more mild. So I found a different recipe, and scribbled it down. Then I edited the hell out of it to formulate my own take on it. I’d say about 60{3b4d110c5d1596d2297e6430d163d306168bc3d03da137601e3ed8beb4b12205} of the original recipe remains, if that.

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Hacks: June-November 2017

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This post hopefully closes the gap on the shit I’ve been doing since my last update about my ongoing tinkering/goofing around. This summer/fall was pretty busy, most of my time was spent hunting for a full-time gig and doing freelance work. There was a lot of housework, and errands, and so on, but there was a little bit of tinkering, too.

Hacks: April 2017

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“Well, shit, that month didn’t go so well, did it?” That was the first thing that went through my head when I started this draft and started thinking about what tinkering I’d done in April. Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that it was April 18th when I started the draft and that I had almost two full weeks left in the month. Here’s what I got after in April:

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Five Ways I Cope with Kids’ TV Shows

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Sing along with the songs, but intentionally butcher the lyrics. Sing along with the songs, but in a Death Metal voice. Go in the other room and sob because they’ll never know the joy of the classic Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show. Knitting needle + eardrums + eye sockets = peaceful bliss. Using television as a method … Read more