Chuck Grimmett

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Month: March 2024

  • Week of March 25, 2024

    Going to be a shorter post tonight. I’m tired from a day of shoveling compost and dirt to finish the garden beds project. We ended the day by sowing peas, radishes, spinach, and cilantro.

    Check out how nice our compost looks! The compost bins were one of our early pandemic projects. I’ve already used it all once and started fresh, so this batch is made up of grass/leaves/kitchen scraps between 6 months and 2 years old.

    My Mom is here to visit for the week. (Hi, Mom!) Charlie’s daycare is on spring break (matches up with the local schools), so she is hanging out with Charlie while Amanda and I work. (Thank you, Mom! We really appreciate it!)

    I put those notes to Mom above because I guarantee she’ll see them. She holds the top number of comments on this blog by a wide margin.

    Charlie and I picked her up at White Plains airport, and there is a little observation area on the third floor outside of security, so we got to watch her plane come in. Charlie loved it.

    We did an Easter Egg hunt with Charlie this morning. He loved that, too.

    We’ve been enjoying the longer days and warmer weather. Lots of wood walks, and Charlie is starting to venture further from the paths to climb the big rocks and to throw smaller ones in the creek. I have a feeling this is going to be Charlie’s Summer ™️.

    The Forsythias are starting to bloom! My favorite.

    Trying out a new watering solution in the garden this year. The past two years I used wick irrigation (see 1 and 2), but this year I want to try using Ollas. I’m hoping to cut down on the issues I had with wick irrigation (mosquitos in the open buckets, wicks drying out, too much air evaporation.)

    I didn’t want to buy them, so I took an chipped terra cotta pot and siliconed a saucer in it. Letting it dry overnight tonight. As long as it proves to be waterproof, I’ll bury it and fill it from the small hole in the top. (And make 5 more)

    The general idea is that terra cotta is porous, so water will dissipate out into the soil when the soil is dry.

    I did our taxes this week. Got the car cleaned and house cleaned. Did lots of laundry. Charlie got a haircut.

    I noticed while driving on Saturday that it was possible to identify large swaths of maple trees in forested land because they are budding out and look red while everything else is still brown. I wonder if any mapping companies are using things like that to build forest datasets? You of course can’t tell the particular species that way, but knowing general percentages of types of trees might be useful.

    There was a point in college where I thought seriously about going down the biohacking route. I was tracking lots of different things for a year and a half. I eventually stopped because going to the next level would have required constant monitoring of what I ate and how I exercised, tons of spreadsheets and research, and lots of time getting labs done. I’d rather skip all that and fill it with more fulfilling things than spend all that time on stuff I hate just to eke out 5 more years at the end. I guess if that is something that brings you fulfillment than it is a win/win, but it isn’t for me.

    Home server update for the week:

    • I have Syncthing running (basically Dropbox without Dropbox – syncs files from designated directories between multiple computers/servers)
      • This required 3x the time I expected and reminded me how much elbow grease you need to get things to work on Linux (Debian in this case.) Even things I thought would be simple like reformatting a drive to get it to mount turned into hour-long ordeals.
        • Sorry, Richard, I meant to write GNU/Linux.
    • Daily, weekly, and monthly backups are enabled. They write to the same machine right now, so I need to configure external backups next.
    • I downloaded every ebook we’ve ever purchased from Amazon Kindle, stripped the DRM, and put them all on the FreedomBox, which runs Calibre. I wanted to make a digital family library, much like our physical one. Now we can log in, select the book and the format we want, and Calibre will convert it on the fly and download it to our device.
    • I started archiving my Likes and Bookmarks using ArchiveBox, and I set up a script to add newly saved links to the archive daily. ArchiveBox does not yet run on Debian, so for now I’m running the tool on a Mac and mirroring the archive to the FreedomBox server, available publicly here: https://grimmett.xyz/share/archivebox/
      • More to configure here, such as automating adding more sources, fine-tuning the settings, and waiting for the 0.8.0 release to unblock an issue I hit with the tool parsing JSON imports. Once resolved, I probably won’t need my scripts anymore and I’ll be able to use the built-in scheduling feature.
        • Twitter bookmarks, Mastodon bookmarks, Instagram saved posts, things I link to in my blog posts and digital garden, Are.na links

    What’s next?

    • Maybe setting up an email server!
    • Dynamic DNS. Probably using GnuDIP.
    • Adding a wifi plug so I can remotely cycle the power if the server crashes and I can’t SSH in to restart.
    • Configuring an external backup solution and getting another 2TB drive to clone locally.

  • What’s in my first aid kits?

    I’m thinking a lot about first aid kits recently. There are tons of catch-all lists out there that didn’t quite fit our specific needs (or I felt were overkill), so I thought about it for a while and made my own.

    First aid kits should be situationally dependent. For example, I don’t need a tourniquet in my daily use backpack, but I do in the woodshop. Size matters, too. I have a lot more room in my car or workshop than my backpack.

    This is a list of what is in my family’s first aid kits, not necessarily what should be in yours. Feel free to take inspiration, but I encourage you to think about your specific needs.

    Car first aid kit

    First, this is not everything I keep in our car for safety or emergencies. This is just the first aid portion. For more of what I keep in the car, check out this post: https://cagrimmett.com/2023/10/05/what-non-standard-items-do-you-always-travel-with/

    I got this First Aid Only 298-piece kit as the base. It covers all the essentials, and I like that it also has tweezers, scissors, and an emergency blanket.

    Here is what I added to the kit:

    • Children’s ibuprofen (chewable tablets) – For Charlie
    • Small waterproof bandaids
      • Primarily for Charlie. They are small and have jellyfish on them. Great for small scratches and scrapes.
    • Butterfly wound closure strips
    • Triple antibiotic ointment tube
    • Pain relieving cleansing spray
    • Superglue
      • Wound seal in a pinch, also can be used if something important like a pair of glasses breaks.
    • Tegaderm
      • This is thin clear sterile dressing that keeps out water, dirt and germs yet lets skin breathe. Often used by tattoo artists and surfers. h/t Christie Wright
      • The main reason I carry this is Charlie and his frequently skinned knees. It is helpful to quickly clean them, put on one of these, and get back to playing. Especially helpful at the beach.
    • BleedStop/quick clot powder (large and small)
      • Small is for smaller cuts, large is for bigger wounds. Goes hand-in-hand with the next item, the tourniquet. When are you most likely to get into or witness an accident that causes severe blood loss? In the car!
    • Tourniquet
    • Allergy pills
      • Amanda is allergic to cats, so I keep this in case we end up somewhere with cats. Also useful for seasonal allergies if we are out and about all day.
    • Pepto-Bismol chewable tablets
      • What does it say on the label? Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. Terrible on a roadtrip. The tablets are a lot easier to store than the liquid.
    • Instant coffee
      • Few things make a road trip more unpleasant than a caffeine headache. I learned this on a week-long cross-country trip, when in the middle of the plains I had no prospect of caffeine for most of the day.
      • Instant coffee can be mixed in room temp water in a pinch.
    • Electrolyte powder
      • I prefer LMNT. This is essential in hot weather, and helps a lot with hangovers and general dehydration, too.
    • CPR Mask
    • Tampons
      • These are backups for my wife. She usually has some in her bag, but they take up so little space and make a big difference when they are needed, so I put a couple in the car, too.
      • They can also stop bad nosebleeds.
    • Hair tie
      • My wife has long hair and hair ties break at the most inconvenient times. I keep a backup in my backpack for her.
    • Cortisone cream
    • Sting & bite relief stick
      • Similar to the cortisone cream, getting lots of mosquito bites makes for a long, grumpy ride home. These help.
    • German Tissues

    Workshop first aid kit

    One thing to note about this kit: My workshop is about 100ft from the house, so this tends to have either convenience items to help me bandage and keep working, or life-saving emergency items. No middle ground. For anything in the middle, I’ll just walk across the yard and go into the house. For example, no burn-related stuff in here. If I burn myself, I’m going in the house.

    • I keep this all in a red metal container with a white cross on it. Easy to find.
    • Workshop Wound Care book
      • Short field manual
    • Triple antibiotic ointment tube
    • Tourniquet
    • BleedStop/Quick clot powder, small and large
      • My thought with this and the tourniquet is that the workshop is where I’m disproportionately likely to get a major wound. Being able to quickly stop the bleeding is a must. Two people influenced me here: Emmet van Driesche and Christie Wright.
    • Bandaids – two different sizes
    • Roll gauze + tape
    • Butterfly wound closure strips
    • Tegaderm
      • This is thin clear sterile dressing that keeps out water, dirt and germs yet lets skin breathe. Often used by tattoo artists and surfers. h/t Christie Wright
      • The main reason I carry this is Charlie and his frequently skinned knees. It is helpful to quickly clean them, put on one of these, and get back to playing. Especially helpful at the beach.
    • Tweezers + scissors
    • Superglue
      • Primarily for sealing small cuts quickly
    • Ibuprofen
    • Rubber gloves
    • Alcohol prep wipes
    • Hand sanitizer
    • Two plastic bags
      • From the Workshop Wound care book: If I cut a finger off, I need to stick it in a plastic bag, then stick that sealed bag into another with ice.
    • Electrolyte powder
      • Probably don’t need these since I’m at home, but nice to have and doesn’t take up much space
    • Stain remover wipes
      • Not first aid, but good to keep on-hand. My thinking was that if I get blood or stain on a piece of clothing I care about, I have one to use right away. I had a box of 50, to I grabbed a couple.

    Backpack first aid kit

    This is a very small kit designed to live in my backpack. Its primary purpose is comfort and minimizing disruption, rather than preparing for an emergency situation. Why? Because when I have my backpack with me I’m usually traveling, at the office, or just out and about.

    • The bag is from Duluth Trading. I got three different sizes of these for Christmas at least 7 years ago. The small one is a perfect size for this. I’m surprised at how much I can fit in there. It fits in any pocket of my backpack and pretty much lives in there.
      • I tried a small hard shell kit, but the fabric case lets me shove more stuff in there.
    • Ibuprofen
      • Honestly, this is what I use out of this the most.
    • Pepto-Bismol chewable tablets
      • What does it say on the label? Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. Terrible on a roadtrip. The tablets are a lot easier to store than the liquid. These came in clutch recently for me on a redeye flight to Spain.
    • Instant coffee
      • Few things make a road trip more unpleasant than a caffeine headache. I learned this on a week-long cross-country trip, when in the middle of the plains I had no prospect of caffeine for most of the day.
      • Instant coffee can be mixed in room temp water in a pinch.
    • Alcohol prep wipes
    • Bandaids
      • Some regular
      • Some small waterproof ones, primarily for Charlie. They are small and have jellyfish on them. Great for small scratches and scrapes.
    • Triple antibiotic ointment (small packet instead of a tube for space)
    • Quick clot powder (small)
    • Tegaderm
      • This is thin clear sterile dressing that keeps out water, dirt and germs yet lets skin breathe. Often used by tattoo artists and surfers. h/t Christie Wright
      • The main reason I carry this is Charlie and his frequently skinned knees. It is helpful to quickly clean them, put on one of these, and get back to playing. Especially helpful at the beach.
    • Gauze (small individual packet)
    • Tampons x 2
      • These are backups for my wife. She usually has some in her bag, but they take up so little space and make a big difference when they are needed, so I put a couple in my bag, too.
      • They can also stop bad nosebleeds.
    • Hair tie
      • My wife has long hair and hair ties break at the most inconvenient times. I keep a backup in here for her.
    • Superglue
      • Wound seal in a pinch, also can be used if something important like a pair of glasses breaks.

    What’s next?

    Some things I already have on my radar:

    • Getting a LifeStraw to keep in the car kit.
    • I think what’s missing from my setup is a small hiking and paddling first aid kit in a dry bag. I’d hate to get a bad cut a couple miles up the trail or river. I’ll turn to that next before summer.
    • At some point soon I’ll add some naloxone to the car and backpack kits. I hope to not have to use it, but I’ll try to save someone’s life if I can. Small size with a high potential impact.

    I’m always looking for feedback on this stuff and ideas for things to add. Email me or leave a comment!

  • Week of March 18, 2024

    We’ve all been sick with a cold this week. Charlie got it first and recovered the fastest. Amanda got it next and was down Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I got it Saturday afternoon and was down most of Sunday. Hopefully I’ll recover quickly.

    Thursday and Friday after work/daycare, and Saturday after dinner Charlie and I hung out a lot to give Amanda some time to rest. We went to the library to pick up some books we reserved (Charlie had some requests!), two different playgrounds, the grocery store, the riverfront walk, and an ice cream shop. Charlie’s new ice cream order is chocolate with a cherry on top. (I think he picked that one up from Trash Truck.)

    One of my favorite things is toddler-led walks. He chooses the pace and where we go. I follow his lead and cues. I love how much he notices and how curious he is. Afterward at dinner he recounted to us everything we did and saw, quite accurately.

    Charlie is big into helping. Here he is helping make breakfast while Amanda is on her way back from the gym.

    Here he is holding some daffodils that he and Amanda cut for our mantle:

    As we start the engine, so we start our days.

    I’m loving the griddle we put on one half of the grill. It is nice to quickly cook some veggies while grilling some meat. Monday we did a pork tenderloin with some zucchini and squash while rice cooked inside.

    I finished restoring a cutting board that was my Mamaw’s. My Dad grabbed it when they were cleaning out the house after Papaw moved in with my aunt and uncle. She’s been gone almost 11 years now.

    First I had to glue some sections back together. It fell apart.

    Then I sanded down the pretty deep knife cuts and general wear.

    Finished with my standard beeswax + jojoba oil blend. Started using it in the kitchen the next day.

    Keeping with the woodworking trend: I made more french cleat holders this week after work:

    • a chisel/gouge/hook knife/carving knife holder
    • measure tape holder
    • Foredom rotary tool holder
    • a cord holder so I don’t have to go hunting behind my Shopsmith for the cord
    • clamp holder
    • holder for Hand drills, push drill, and hand brace

    I’m particularly excited about the Foredom being hung, because I ran the speed control pedal under the bench, so now I can just turn it on and use it rather than spend 5 mins getting it set up for a 30 second task.

    I’m trying to tee projects up for myself in the workshop so I can jump on them when I have a little bit of free time. The next one is adding holes for bench dogs and holdfasts in the workbench, as well as making the bench dogs themselves.

    I’m thinking a lot again about first aid kits. I’m putting one together for the workshop. I plan to write about this soon with more detail on what I have in the kit in the car, my backpack, and my workshop.

    Seeds are coming along nicely. I’m now fertilizing them and have an oscillating fan on them daily to start the hardening process/prevent them from getting leggy.

    We didn’t make much progress on the garden beds this week. The weather turned cold and being sick this weekend put a damper on things. We did line the bottom of the beds with the old plywood from the previous ones, plus some cardboard and sticks. Next step is shoveling in compost and dirt.

    I heard back from the fence contractor, so hoping to get that project rolling soon.

    I went to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday afternoon at The Vinyl Room in Beacon. Amanda and Charlie were feeling rough and had to stay home, but the cold hadn’t quite hit me yet so I went. Cool place and nice to meet some of their other friends and make new connections, like Ryan who owns an outdoor shop in Tannersville called Camp Catskill.

    I bought a FreedomBox a couple months ago to dip my toe into the self-hosting world. I thought setting it up would be a whole thing, so I let it sit in the box. This weekend, since we were all sitting around with a cold, I figured I’d get it out and give it a try.

    Setting it up was a lot easier than I expected. I had it up and running with less than an hour of active time (though lots of waiting for booting, updates, etc.) I have it running at https://box.grimmett.co/ and I set up some of the basic services, including a WordPress site.

    It still blows my mind that visiting that address accesses a tiny little box currently sitting on the buffet in my living room.

    Next step is adding some external storage, picking a more permanent location in my house, and configuring more of the services (for which I need that storage.) Then I need to figure out dynamic DNS in case my IP address changes.

    I tried to connect an APFS-formatted drive today, but went down the Debian rabbit hole of having to compile my own drivers. I messed something up and ended up breaking the FreedomBox service. Thank goodness for automatic snapshots. I was able to load a previous snapshot, reboot, and get it back up and running.

    Related, I finally got Backblaze back up and running, and while I was going through old drives to see what I could wipe and repurpose, I backed up my various machines and put a recent dump of photos on the photos drive.

    I’m really proud that I have accessible photo backups from 16 years ago, which is when I got my first laptop. Anything before that is still on the computer at my parents’ house, and I’ll have to remember to clone that the next time I visit.

    I had a nice conversation with Chris Glass over email this week.

    I like Chris’s bookmarks and am slowly working on moving my bookmark archive from the past 16 years over to my digital garden.

    I like the layout of Chris’s blogroll. The grouping + context is nice.

    He inspired me to update my own /now page more regularly.

    Jon Elordi started doing week notes! 🎉

    Rough week at work. Not much I can say about it.

    From last year: https://cagrimmett.com/2023/03/27/week-of-march-20-2023/

    Amanda and I were sick then, too. We had strep. We also started seeds that week.

    In 2022: https://cagrimmett.com/2022/03/26/week-of-march-21/

    We started seeds then, too! And Charlie and I went to the same playground. Fun to see how much he has grown.

  • Week of March 11, 2024

    The warm weather and extra daylight at the end of the day has been a welcome change. Every night this week Amanda, Charlie, and I spent some time outside after daycare/work and before dinner. We are dinner outside multiple times this week, went for walks, cooked dinner on the grill, got our outdoor seating out, rode bikes, and played in the yard and at the playground. It was good for all of us.

    Amanda found a battery-powered motorcycle for free on the Buy Nothing Facebook group, and I replaced the 6V battery and sourced a charger to get it working again. Charlie loves to cruise around on it!

    I worked from Automattic’s NoHo office on Friday. I went in for a meeting, but I like going in once a month or so for a change of pace. Los Tacos 1, right around the corner, is very good. Astor Wines is also right up the block, so I usually stop in and restock on stuff I can’t find up in Westchester. This time it was orange shrubb.

    I made more French cleat tool holders in the shop after work this week.

    • Air nailer
    • Air hose
    • Router bits
    • Axe and adze
    • Pencil sharpener
    • Clock and dust collection hose
    • Draw knife and spokeshave
    • Drills/drivers, bits, and charger/batteries (I also added a magnet bar for my most-used bits a couple days later)
    • Files and rasps

    I also made a workbench for Charlie that hangs on the French cleats so that as he grows we can just lift it up. I had my own bench in my Dad’s workshop growing up and have fond memories of the countless hours I spent out there, and I want Charlie to have the same option. I put a magnet bar up with the tools we got him for Christmas, and the old vise I had. He’s played with it a lot in the past couple days. Makes my heart happy.

    I’m trying out toe spacers and one of those magnet nose bands to improve your nose breathing at night. Slowly trying to make improvements. Following up on a previous one I mentioned, the probiotics are helping quite a bit.

    The seeds we started last weekend are doing great. 80% of them have sprouted already. Rosemary and the scotch bonnets are the holdouts.

    This was a yardwork-focused weekend. We disassembled the 4 year old garden beds that were starting to fall apart and built new ones. Instead of elevated like the previous ones, we opted for regular ground-level raised beds so that Charlie can help more easily. Also, now that we got rid of the groundhogs, we expect fewer pest issues.

    We went with 12ft beds (previously 8ft) to space things out a little more, plus and extra 4×4 box to grow some luffas in.

    Yes, we know the fence is falling apart. I’m waiting on a contractor to get back to me so I can finish filing the permits with the city. Yes, I hate that we need a permit to replace a fence. No, I’m not going to go rogue because I’m pretty sure we have a neighbor that will check because another neighbor recently got fined for something similar.

    Next steps: Lining the bottoms with cardboard and sticks, layering on compost and coconut coir, then shoveling the dirt back in.

    I also secured Charlie’s swingset with some 24″ metal spikes driven sideways at an angle and attached them with conduit straps.

    I needed to rent a UHaul to move the 2x12x12 boards and some wood lattice that I’m replacing on my deck. I originally wanted a pickup truck, van, or trailer, but neither Home Depot nor UHaul had them available. The only thing available was s 15′ box truck, so I rolled with it.

    Unfortunately I had an awful experience. Their app is terrible and errors out constantly. First it didn’t show my reservation, which I finally fixed by finding a tool that helps you associate an order with your account. Then the “mobile pickup” option did not accept upload of any the photos it required. Three phone calls and hour later I finally got the truck. Drop-off/mobile return was the same headache, but only took 30 minutes.

    Software and AI struggle the most where it has to interact with the physical world. The physical world is messy and does not follow clean, machine-readable rules like the computing world. We still need humans to help us navigate AFK.

    At least Charlie thought the truck was cool.

    That’s all I’ve got this week. See you next week 👋

    p.s. if you read this regularly, drop me a note (email). I’d love to hear from you because I have little idea who actually reads these posts. I mostly write them for my future self, but I like hearing from other readers, too. Thank you in advance!

  • Workbench build

    ,

    Step two of the workshop upgrade. Previously: Insulating and heating my workshop with a diesel heater

    Research and design

    The workshop is a small 10×14′ space, so I needed to be very intentional about where I put this workbench to maximize work area. The previous owner had haphazardly installed a 72″x20″ particleboard desk top as a bench, which I shored up when I moved in, but it was way too small and bounced whenever I used a hammer on it.

    I considered a lot of options, and almost went with The Anarchist’s Workbench, but I didn’t have the space to walk around something like this in the middle of the floor, so I decided to go with putting a bench along the full 10′ wall.

    For the top I wanted something hefty. The Anarchist’s Workbench calls for 2x6s halved from 2x12s. I thought that was probably overkill for what I needed and more expensive. I opted for cheaper, more readily available 2x4s.

    I wanted the top to be 31″ deep so I could slide big plastic totes completely underneath for storage. I also wanted plenty of space to work. 2x4s are actually 1.5×3.5″, so that means I needed (21) 10ft long boards.

    Laminating the 2x4s and planing the sections

    When I got to the point of laminating the 2x4s, it was still below freezing at night, so I needed to laminate them in my basement so the glue would set.

    I laminated them in 3 sets of 7 boards each so they’d fit through my 12″ planer. I laid them out, rolled glue on one side of each board, and clamped them together.

    After the first one was done, I ran it through the planer. There were two issues:

    1. It took a lot of passes to get down below the rounded corners on each one
    2. The rough-ish edges didn’t stick together as well as I’d hoped. There were some gaps.

    I decided for the next two sections it would be better to pre-joint and plane the 2x4s before glueing them, and that make a big difference.

    The other thing that made a big difference is that a new set of planer blades came in right before I was ready to plane the final section. The cut was faster and cleaner with the new sharp blades, so I did one final pass on the two I had already planed to both clean them up and ensure the depth of all three matched.

    Framing

    For stability, we opted to mount the bench to the wall on three sides and support it on the fourth with legs. We used 2×4 stringers on the wall and leveled them (not relative to the floor the wall, because nothing in that shed is square.)

    It is 36″ high.

    Routing out spots for the carpenter’s vise and legs

    We wanted to route out spots to flush-mount the vise and to inset the legs, and we figured it would be easier to route the front section before joining all three sections together. Here was my plan:

    Dry fit first.

    That’s my Dad routing. We took turns.

    Biscuit joining and gluing the three sections

    After routing the front section, we used a biscuit joiner and joined the three sections together with glue and biscuits.

    A biscuit joiner is ingenious. Since it always cuts at the same depth, you don’t need to sweat minor variations in the depth of the items you are joining, as long as the top is flat.

    This was a late night. I think we finally finished around 11:30pm.

    Adding legs, shelves, drawers, outlets, and backstop

    The next morning we screwed the top in place on the stringers and set to work putting in the legs and the shelves. I varied from my above plans slightly to leave a section in the middle with no shelving for a chair, trash can, vacuum, etc. The shelves are at different heights to accommodate totes on one side and a set of drawers on the other.

    We decided to run two outlets for above the work bench, then added plywood, which French Cleats will be later mounted to.

    Adding the vises and LED bars

    Sanding the top and putting on a coat of finish

    I planed and sanded the top to even out some uneven spots, especially at the seams. Then I added a coat of a beeswax and linseed oil blend that I made for stools a couple years ago.

    I decided one coat was enough. It is a bench that is going to get dirty and beat up anyway, it isn’t a piece of furniture.

    How is it?

    Great! It is solid and does not budge or bounce. It has plenty of storage and is the right height for me to stand and work at.

    What’s next?

    • Adding dust collection (done IRL and post forthcoming)
    • Adding french cleats (in progress IRL, post when complete)
    • Adding bench dogs (not started)

  • Insulating and heating my workshop with a diesel heater

    I mentioned this in some weekly posts, but wanted to write a dedicated one so I have a place to link to in the future.

    Working out in my 10’x14′ workshop on a cold day in January and shivering, I resolved to finally put in some heat.

    My first idea was a tiny top-loading wood stove that I could burn offcut chunks in. I priced out some options, but it ultimately had three big downsides:

    1. They take a while to heat up and cool down. I can’t just go out there and work for an hour, I need to start the fire an hour before, keep an eye on it, feed it while I work, and make sure it burns out before I go back in the house.
    2. They are expensive! The cheapest one I could find new was $350, and the quality was iffy. Good ones were over $1000 and made for sailboats. Used ones are hard to come by, too.
    3. They take up valuable floor space. This matters in a tiny shed.

    When I was chatting with my Dad about it, he asked,

    “Have you considered a diesel heater?”

    I hadn’t, mostly because I had never heard of one. I knew I didn’t want a loud, smelly forced air propane heater, and that is that I thought a diesel heater was, but I was totally wrong. They are small, quiet, and fuel efficient. People often use them in RVs, ice fishing huts, hunting cabins, and garages.

    We settled on a Silvel 8KW, 12V version, which my parents gifted to me for my birthday. To power it we used a 120V -> 12V converter.

    In order to make a heater worthwhile, I needed to insulate. It had bare studs with plywood paneling on the outside.

    I went with double reflective insulation because it is cheaper and easier to install than fiberglass (less itchy too!) and less messy than spray foam. It won’t keep the space conditioned all the time (not a good choice for a house), but it will work long enough to keep the space heated while I’m working out there.

    I used the 16″ width for between the rafters and 48″ on the inside of the roof. I put up about half of it myself and Dad helped with the other half over President’s Day weekend.

    Once we got the insulation hung, we installed the heater. We opted to install it outside to reduce the noise, save space, make exhausting it easier, and not have to worry about filtering out dust from the air intake. We piped the hot air in through the wall.

    I set up a French cleat shelf outside on the back of the shed under my kayak storage overhang to keep it out of the rain. Air intake and exhaust go through a hole in the bottom of the shelf. We used a hole saw to cut a hole big enough for the pipe to go through, ran wires for power, and secured everything in place.

    The heater works great! It runs for about 14 hours on a gallon of diesel, give or take depending on which level you run it on. (It has levels 1-10).

    After running for ~3 hours on level 10, it got the cold shed up from 36F to 70F. Incredible.

    A month later I’m still very happy with it. Working in a warm workshop makes a huge difference. Even after I turn the heater off, the shed holds heat in for a while as long as the door is closed. I tried to seal as many gaps around things like the door as I could with weather strip.

    Up next: A post about building and installing the work bench, and a post about the french cleat tool storage.

  • Week of March 4, 2024

    Lots of rain this week, so we did indoor activities like going to the library, going to the grocery store, and making ambulances out of boxes.

    This box is still in our living room, though now Charlie calls it his “garage” and likes to hide underneath it while we walk around the house and call his name. Eventually he pops out and giggles hysterically.

    We also went to gymnastics and a birthday party for one of Charlie’s friends.

    Another activity was starting seeds. Charlie did the dirt scooping and watering. I’m learning from last year’s seed starting mistakes:

    • more lights (shifted four bars to one shelf instead of one per)
    • lights closer to the seeds (raised up the soil and heating pads)
    • warmer location (basement instead of my drafty office)
    • lights on a timer (sunrise to sunset)

    Workshop upgrade progress report

    I put in the dust collection system! It is a 2HP Harbor Freight dust collector that I took off the stand and mounted to the wall. Instead of the dust bag, which doesn’t collect fine dust, I used a canister filter, which does. Hoses run through the rafters over to my Shopsmith area and to the work bench.

    I got a decent amount of karma on Reddit when I posted about my realization that deli quart containers can work as adapters on 4in hoses, blast gates, and splitters.

    I also made and hung the french cleats and started building tool holders. I love how this works and am excited about it. More tool holders in progress this week.

    I spent more time than I’d like last week figuring out the permitting process for Peekskill so we can get our fence replaced.

    I’m slowly improving my Shortcuts actions. My Like shortcut and Bookmark shortcut are smoother and more flexible now. The same shortcut works across browsers and devices, and takes input either from the share sheet or the clipboard. I’m now posting bookmarks to my digital garden site, reducing my dependence on third party subscriptions. I need to clean up and rethink how they are displayed, but the data is there.

    The next step is automating importing my are.na, Twitter, Mastodon, and Instagram bookmarks. If you do this, hit me up.

    Related, it turns out consistently tagging disparate pieces of content using AI without pre-defining the tags is a non-trivial problem. Great thread from Simon Willison on this.

    I’m doing very little pleasure reading right now. I’m working a lot in the workshop after Charlie goes to bed, which is when I’d normally be reading. In general, reading less doesn’t seem great, but I’m replacing it with something fulfilling and productive, which I feel good about.

    Looking back at two years ago and one year ago. Charlie has grown so much in the past year! It is interesting to see how my week notes have evolved. Very work and life dependent. Also, I need to get a move on getting my weather station replaced.

    Amanda and I have predictions on what is going on with Kate Middleton. Amanda thinks she is having a mental breakdown, I think she served William with divorce papers over his cheating and the royal family doesn’t know what to do about it.

  • Adding a Climbing Wall to an A-frame Swing Set

    ,

    This is a follow-up to my A-Frame Swing Set post. Go read that one first if you haven’t.

    Building a swing set with A-frame brackets

    Last year I added a climbing wall to one of the sides and my son loves it. A friend asked for the details, which made me realize I should have posted the details here a year ago.

    Charlie loves it and do his friends. It was a good addition to the swing set.

    Wood

    To cover one side, I needed 8 of the 1x6x8ft pressure treated boards, the kind used for decking. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Severe-Weather-Common-1-in-x-6-in-x-8-ft-Actual-0-75-in-x-5-5-in-x-8-ft-2-Treated-Lumber/4564826

    Here is the sheet I used to figure that out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JE79RWOiklblWVIWV1-GkEgOdemtBh1xLphUyZDpNto/edit?usp=sharing

    I ended up placing and marking them to cut instead of the sheet, but the math was useful in figuring out the number to buy.

    If you use 8ft 4x4s for the sides and the A-frame brackets in the previous post, your math should be the same.

    Hand holds, handles, and a bell:

    • Hand holds: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KUOY8O?th=1
      • I actually bought and used a different kind with different colors first, then needed more and got these green ones, and I like the green ones a lot better. The bolts on these are shorter and don’t stick out the back.
      • You’ll need 4-7 packs depending on the age of your child. 4-5 for the bigger kids, an additional 1-2 for younger ones with a smaller reach. Right now I have 30 hand holds on mine, which is good for Charlie (2.5 years old, 1.5 when I put this up.)
    • Side handles: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08MFHB5X6
      • I put these on the sides, with the thought that if a kid gets too close to the edge they can easily grab on to this instead of falling, and Charlie uses these a lot. I’m glad I put them on.
    • Bell: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0811BN1P1
      • I put this bell at the top and Charlie absolutely loves ringing it. Also lets me know he is climbing if I wasn’t paying attention, and I walk back over there.

    The Process

    1. Place the boards one by one against the side, mark them, and cut them to length. Make sure to cut as close to the edge as you can… you want to use the offcuts later on higher up.
    2. Screw each one on before marking the next one. I used 3in deck screws.
    3. Decide where you want the hand holds and drill holes for the bolts. I used one of the hand holds as a guide.
    4. Go around the back and hammer in the T nuts to the holes.
    5. Go back around to the front and screw on the hand holds. I used an impact driver.
    6. Add the handles on the sides. I put them 1/3 and 2/3 of the way up.
    7. Add the bell on top.
    8. Use a belt sander, small disc sander, or router to round over the sharp edges on the cut edges.

    I put a pull up bar on the back side for me. You can’t see it from the front, so it doesn’t look ugly from the house. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PRD5GRS

  • Week of February 26, 2024

    My birthday was this week! I wrote a post about it.

    I’m continuing to work on my workshop upgrade as much as I can. This week I:

    • Added some light finish to my bench top (a blend of linseed oil and beeswax). I decided one coat is enough. It is just a workbench and as soon as I start using it the top will get dinged up anyway.
      • Using it so far has been great! It is very solid, a huge improvement over what was there before.
    • Added weather stripping inside the doors to help the heater out and keep out some dampness
    • Added some missing light switch covers
    • Added a test set of French cleats to a side wall
    • Made my first tool holder to go on the cleats: A holder for my lathe tools.
      • I used my Shopsmith in drill press mode for this for the first time in two years. I also set up the router table and got out the air brad nailer.
    • Started modifying and installing my dust collector. Post forthcoming.
    • Put an old style flexible spout and vent cap on my new diesel can because the new style “no spill” control spouts are terrible and so hard to use. Holding up the can with one hand while you squeeze the spout with your thumb instead of using your second hand to support and guide the nozzle is difficult. Full 5gal cans are heavy! After using it three times I was so frustrated that I ordered a replacement kit.

    Things are starting to come together nicely and I’m pretty happy about it! I’m getting excited about working in there more.

    Posts also forthcoming on the general upgrade project and the new workbench, and the French cleats.

    I met my coworker and friend Fernando and his girlfriend Gabriele for dinner on Friday. They live in Brazil but are visiting NYC for a week. We went to Lombardi’s, the first pizza place in the US. Afterward we had drinks and popcorn chicken at Double Chicken Please. There we lucked out and got offered a table in the Coop, which had a 5 hour wait, but someone had just canceled. I had the Waldorf Salad (scotch, walnut bitters, celery, apple, ginger ale) and the Americano Americano (Campari, vermouth, coffee liqueur, branca menta, soda). I thought the Americano Americano was clever because it combines the Americano coffee drink with the Americano cocktail. And it was tasty! On the popcorn chicken: If a place is well-known for their bar snacks, you have to get them. The chicken did not disappoint.

    Saturday was a full day. Charlie had gymnastics in the morning, then some of the gymnastics crew went to Dunkin Donuts for a snack and then Home Depot for the kids’ workshop. This month they built a butterfly house. Later that afternoon we went to a friend’s new job celebration party in Lake Peekskill. We brought esquites. There Charlie ate his first taco! Until now he would only eat the constituent parts instead of the whole thing together. I think the sour cream sold it for him… sour cream is one of his favorite foods.

    Sunday was sunny and warm, which was a nice change of pace. Charlie played outside while I did some more work on the workshop upgrade and Amanda went horseback riding. We also installed a handle on the workshop door at Charlie’s height so he can open and close the door himself.

    Challenging week at work. You might have seen various articles about Automattic from places like 404 Media this week. I won’t say anything other than the entire situation sucks. Like many other things in life, before you form your opinion you might want to consider assuming positive intent.