I took a little downtime before the snow flew the other day to run up the Scout, do a few errands, and slip my rollbar pads on. They fit really well! So well, in fact, that I dusted off a pair of inserts I had up in the rafters of the garage and put them in for old time’s sake. These are the originals from Chewbacca so the passenger’s side is cracked where a protruding bolt head made it impossible to slide between the bar and the window. Luckily, I’ve got another good set covered in red river dust waiting to be cleaned up.
On the Binder Planet, a member called 540fan built a bumper based on the plans Brian and I developed, and it turned out really well. One thing I really like about his setup is how he handled the swingarm stop—an elegant and simple plate welded to the top right side prevents the swingarm from going past 180°. He also mounted his Hi-Lift on the backside of the triangle below the spare instead of the face of the bumper, so he was able to add a couple of clevis mounts to the face. It looks like his hinge pin mount is different as well; I think he may have welded it directly to the face of the bumper instead of adding standoffs. Overall, it looks great and I’m happy I was able to help lay some groundwork.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
Via BoingBoing: Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling. This list can apply to many other creative pursuits as well.
Flickr Can’t Go Back To What It Once Was.
In late March, users will notice significant changes to the photo uploading process.
I use (and always have) Flickr for nothing more than a glorified CDN. Let’s see how their changes affect things.
How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me). Awesome, awesome, awesome. Inspiring.
Mr. Scout and I have been talking about getting materials together and building a pair of rear bumpers jointly to save on materials and time, and he sent me a link this morning: a write-up on a project from the Binder Planet. The author built it for an 800B but the design could be modified for a Scout II pretty easily, we figure. The part that interests me is the swing-away tire carrier and Hi-Lift jack mounts, which would clear up a ton of space in the back of Peer Pressure.
Here’s a great little primer on letterpress from The Economist.
The weather finally broke here in Baltimore, and 90° suddenly feels downright balmy to me. Which is a sad state of affairs, considering the load we’ve put on our air conditioners in the month of July.
It’s been exceptionally busy the last couple of weeks, which means Idiotking.org is a quiet place. I’ve been juggling baby duty while Mama is recovering from a monster infection, helping remodel and move my daytime office, and also reorganizing my day to day life in order to be a better husband, father, and employee. No mean feat to be sure, but I think it may be easier to accept sweeping change when everything is in flux.
Mama is recovering from her illness, and I will be giving back the keys to the swanky babyhauler tomorrow (mainly because I have a dentists’ appointment in the morning, not because she’s at 100% yet) but I’ve enjoyed my mornings with the girl. Even when it’s been an hour before my alarm clock rang. She’s getting so big so fast. To see her walk a set of stairs, upright, by herself fills me with an immense surge of pride and a wave of sadness, because there’s no better feeling than to have her reach up for my hand and circle one or two of my fingers with her little palm, and there will soon come a time when she won’t want my help with the stairs anymore.
We’ve just finished remodeling our offices at work after about four weeks of work, and it feels good to be settled again. What was once a large space subdivided into tiny offices has now been expanded into an open-plan area with expansive desks, exposed brickwork (my suggestion), new carpeting, and better lighting.
In order to keep costs down, we all pitched in to help paint, move, assemble furniture, and organize the space, so I spent much of the early part of this month at the office after hours pitching in. The payoff has been immediate, though; I feel much more motivated and focused on my work being out in the open instead of holed up in my office.
On that same note, I’m trying a new method of personal organization, which involves a smaller, lighter notebook and a resolution to keep using it. I’m pairing this with my own basic version of the Getting Things Done Methodology that is in a state of kaizen, and I’m really going to work hard to make this stick. I’ve also started using Mint.com to track my personal finances and start setting some specific long-term goals for the future; I’m hoping to dovetail this in with all the work Jen has done on household budgeting in order to save more money than we currently do.
So, in a nutshell, I feel more optimistic than I have in a while, more motivated, and at peace with a lot of things in my life. The trick will be to maintain that peace and forward momentum.
Tomorrow morning I’ll see the dentist for the first time in ages, which is a good feeling.
This is a great idea, but with one fatal flaw. Emeco’s 111 Navy Chair is made from old Coke bottles, 111 of them to be precise. Of course, because it’s being sold at Design Within Reach, they want $250 for one.
For the record, I love the design of the Navy Chair. But there’s no way in hell I’d spend $250 for one made from soda bottles; $25 is more like it. (via)
New favorite weblog reading: Ate Up With Motor. The article about Henry Ford and the flathead V-8 is a fascinating story.
From one of the message boards I frequent, here’s a group of photographs taken at Kingman, AZ in the late 1940’s of surplus airplanes being broken up for scrap. Oh, to have been alive and independently wealthy in the late 1940’s. Here’s one of my favorites.