It occurs to me I’ve forgotten to share something I had a large hand in developing–an introductory video for WRI, built by a firm in London called Nice & Serious.
Pro monitors for shooting digital video often cost $1,000 or more. Here’s a DIY Dirt Cheep Monitor project that rings in around $30. I have use for a $30 monitor, and may well attempt this little hack.
Here’s an excellent primer on How To Find The Perfect Pocket Knife. At some point I’d like to downsize my Leatherman to a simple one-blade knife; there’s a bunch of great information to work from here.
This weekend was consumed by outdoor activities of the manual laboring kind, which was a welcome respite from a week spent behind a computer or on the road. Mama kicked off Saturday with a cleanout of the greenhouse, while I assembled our new stainless propane grill. It’s about a third larger than the old grill and built a lot more solidly. Then, after a surprisingly fast dump run, I got to work pulling out the rotten edging on the west side of the house and replacing it with new pressure-treated wood.
Meanwhile, Jen collected unused garden dirt which we used to fill in the hole left by the concrete walk to the right of the front door. It’s been an empty pit for about two years now, so it looks much better filled. At dinnertime, we christened the grill with two steaks, a foil package full of root vegetables, and some fresh asparagus.
Sunday was filled with more yardwork; after the girls returned from a birthday party we finished most of the projects we’d started and got the dirt covered with 2″ of fresh mulch. Mama’s head started hurting after dinner so Finn and I celebrated Father’s Day with a ride in the Scout down to Opie’s. She had a root beer snowball and I got a chocolate shake. Then we ran off some of the sugar at the playground. I woke up this morning sore but satisfied with our progress. I’m actually considering hauling the rest of the concrete out and filling that side with dirt before the parade–but I’m almost sure I wouldn’t get it done in time.
I’ve loved basic 7-pocket jungle fatigues since I was in high school, and finding vietnam-era examples has gone from hard to impossible in the last ten years. My friend John sent me this link via Facebook, which has about every type I could hope for—for a price.
So I put the spare up on a brick, remounted the J-hook and called it done. I have to get some larger stainless bolts for the license plate and run the wire back up into the tailgate.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Here’s a shot of Hillary Clinton I got yesterday at the WRI event up in New York City. It was a whirlwind two days of work, travel (and work while travelling), logistics, a delicious dinner, more work until midnight, and then a brief sleep in an incredibly swank Park Avenue hotel. On Thursday morning, we hit the ground running. I helped set the venue up, got things organized, and shot still pictures. Then we broke everything down, got the venue cleaned out, hopped a cab downtown, and made the train back to DC with time to spare. I’m worn out but happy it’s over, because there are about 100 other things I need to get back to.
We currently have a Honeywell thermostat in our house, and it’s a cheap plasticky piece of shit. Apple unveiled a framework for home automation at WWDC last week, and Honeywell announced a smart thermostat Nest competitor today which uses Apple’s technology. I’m curious to see how good it is, because I don’t trust Google for shit and I loved the Nest.