Category: Uncategorized

I finally wrecked house with the Skaven, so it’s time to do real things. Not to say I’m going to stop playing video games, just that I’m going to mix an match with other things.

Of course, we had a modifying scene so some of my timeframes have to be adjusted. We got a dog this weekend, which will be eating up a good amount of the Wif’s time, but also some of mine when we walk him together. For example yesterday we went for a four hour walk, which isn’t out of the normal, but is running up against the peak. Also, at least for the time being, I expect I’ll be exhausted as I’m not sleeping too well with a dog waking up and making whatever sounds every few hours.

Now that the Wif is graduated, passed her test, and got her dog, she wants to head down to Cali to see a friend of hers, so that’ll eat for days off my upcoming vacation. I need to plan that into my build schedule. Everything I can have on hand ahead of time will be a definite boon. So I need to get dinner supplies (neither inclusive nor exclusive):

• Heating element
• Hole saw
• Temperature probe
• A relay that can drive a temperature probe (Sparkfun for these two?)
• Whatever I need do to rework my lighting rigs for the garden. I want more LEDs with less hassle. A powered rail system would be great so I could put together mini modules of lights with a driver. This will be a more robust project that I should research before committing too much.
• Lumber for building enclosures (I need to pre-measure my glass)
• Proto-perf boards (for wiring all this up before I want to commit to actual PCBs)
• Room. I need to make room.

Like I said, this is quite a bit, so not everything will be happening right out of the gate.

Things to do next vacation (wishlist):

• Indoor gardening
• Get FPGAing
• Concert brewery to electric
• Brew
• Sweeper bot

Now that all the emergencies of the day are done…

I should start by measuring the clearance under the couch as that will drive the final size. I think a cigar box chassis to protect against raging felines. Put a range sensor and webcam poking through the front bristles. Look at induction charging. Mount line following things on the corners to make sure I’m not falling of the stairs. Bump sensors? Maybe just a (bump sensor).

Start with a mole concept and then start adding parts.

I guess the first questions I have to answer are how many wheels and which ones have power. I think bristles, listens bumper thing, two drive wheels, as described front to back.

53° at 8:19pm.

I had some other stuff come up. Well, more of I played video games until this weekend, and then I found out it refrigerator was no longer getting down to the right temperature.

Good news is I now know a lot now about our refrigerator; bad news is that I can’t get my part until tomorrow. Bunch of BS. I was really tempted to just replace the controls and the fan (the fan being what died I believe) with an Arduino, a few thermistors and a computer fan. I showed self control though.

It’s been a while since I last got typing. I’ve had some other priorities other than my projects, and to keep my sanity during those things I’ve been having more. As a plus note, I’m gaming at a higher level than usual.

But on to serious topics. We had an issue where our daily clutter interfered with life, so that’s getting nipped in the bud. We now have a sparkly living room and kitchen, and even the den no longer looks likes the London sewers. That said, I still have a lot of work to do in the den and beyond. Tomorrow is recycling day, so once that’s empty I’ve talked myself with filling it back up. Tonight, and every day until I feel everything is “clean”, I’m going to disadvantage a thing. Breaking the things into smaller things. Things will be recycled, garbaged or organized.

I finally got done with the project. I’ve retarded myself with a new computer for getting my game on, and I’m currently exploring the destruction of Total Warhammer (while trekking Blood for the Blood God). Everything is running well, and I haven’t even gotten into overclocking. I’m thinking I’ll take my old box and turn it into a functional shadow box. Because art. And computers. And artsy computers.

The next project is starting at work, and this well be a bit more interesting. Unlike the last one, it should be pushing everything as far as I can take it.

I’ve been working a lot. This equates to me not going anything much the else. It’s weird not swearing. Back on topic. Been working a lot. Stressed out. Thinking. Stressed out. Working. 

So where does that leave me?

The Wif got get degree, so now it’s time to get her license and add a second income. That’ll be nice as I’m laying the groundwork to take care of a lot of other things.  By things, I mean projects. So we’re thinking getting kitchen gadgets to make more food at home, stuff like a pasta roller thing and meat grinder for sausage.

I’m still in planning on my garden cubes, but other family things took precedent. I should think about doing the prototype in the next week or two. This’ll be done with hand tools as I haven’t built a CNC yet. Just need to build a cube with the baseline electronics.

It’s odd, this a personal blog that I know incredibly few people read, hi E, but I’m still incredibly circumspect. I had a whole paragraph here that I just deleted. I’ve written posts that I marked private, but it’s not quite the same. I blog to organize my thoughts, but here I’ve deleted my thought externalization which means that I have an entire paragraph still rolling in my noggin. Also my phone doesn’t recognize externalization. Stupid phone.

I’m becoming more set in my ways with age.  Becoming more me as it were. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

Somewhere I lost the culinary excursion. 

I think I should go to work tomorrow. It won’t make me happy but it might get me out from in front of the eight Baal.  that was obviously ball, but again the phone. The problem with multi-dislike competence is that you get called on to use a lot of them at once.

As Marvin (Douglas Adams) said “How I hate the night.”

I’ve been back to working on a special project at work. Too many hours and too many balls to make any real progress on any projects.

On the other hand, I had nature provide me with more drive as something ate all my strawberries and all but one sugar snap pea pod. The one they left behind though was shared with the Wif and it was delicious.

The front posts won’t be solid wood. These too will be cut from plywood in two layers. The layers will involve a central slot which will facilitate a piece of thinner wood, engineered wood product, or plexi to slide in. The top and bottom won’t be fully square with the addition of depressions along the front edge for the now engineered posts to be placed, grooves for the previously mentioned panels to slide into, and the top will have depressions for the hing… maybe not. I need to think about that. I should start doing up a model tonight. 

I’m still deciding what I want to do for the electronics. While it’d be wicked to do a single board with everything, based on the odd shape it would need, I’m not seeing that being economically viable. I might just put depressions for the LEDs and wire runs with a central unit to drive everything. I should mount that right off the rails. I need to look into cost effective ways of driving the LEDs, ideally all off of 5 volts so I don’t have to do too much tomfoolery.