Category: Uncategorized

I’m building my own book scanner now. It’s basically a PVC rig that will hold two cameras on each side and allow for a book to be placed in the middle. Both covers will be at a 45 degree angle so each page can be photographed in high resolution without damaging the spine. I’m doing […]

In the early 2000s, Lego did something that possibly had never been done before: they changed their colors. Specifically, they changed the light and dark grays to what are now often called “light bluish gray” and “dark bluish gray”. There were several reasons for this: there were some changes in philosophy within the company, and […]

For all of the money I’ve saved, I still live in fear of some financial issues. This is important to investigate. It took me two tries to successfully change my transmission pan gasket. The first time, I accidentally let some excess fluid spill out the back side of the pan while installing it, which was […]

When I bought my first car over ten years ago – a mid-90s Honda – the AC wasn’t so great. This really didn’t bother me as I was just excited to have a car, but as other stuff hit the fan and I started learning to work on the car, I eventually realized I could […]

We had reached the lake and were heading back down when one of my friends decided we should follow a different return path, or more precisely, that we should make our own, at least for a distance. We followed the water course for a ways as it led east and we took the time to […]

My car is out of commission right now, so my mobility is exclusively foot-powered. I think I baby my car a little too much. Much of that is enjoying the results of taking old and worn out parts and giving them fresh, new life, really restoring something to quality. But after starting a big project […]

I’ve spent portions of the past two days changing the rear struts on my car. Yesterday, the passenger side changed without a problem, which was awesome, but I hit a snag on the driver’s side when one of the lug bolts wouldn’t come off. I knew it was going to sheer off, and it did, […]

Between the 1950s and the 1990s, the United States Geological Survey undertook the massive task of surveying the entire United States, producing over 55,000 topographic maps. These maps attempted to provide a comprehensive record of United States land, and as a small part of this effort, they attempted to reproduce the locations of mines, mine […]

There’s a popular, but good cliche in the Christian missions community: God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. It’s led me to question the striving in my own life, the trying so hard to establish an identity. I had a country I was planning to visit this summer, but it’s thoroughly locked down […]

In middle school, our band had a number of slackers, most of whom were in percussion. It was, after all, a time of trying subjects out and discovering strengths and weaknesses, and I think it was common for a lot of people to want to try their hands at drums and guitar. One particular percussionist […]