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Category: around the house

How To Decrease Grip

Published August 8, 2011

The orange plastic shown above is the pull-off / snap-on cap from an Elmer’s All-Purpose Glue Stick, the same one which I’ve been using to glue labels on to SDrive NUXX packaging. For some reason the packaging designers for this glue stick saw fit to add vertical serrations to the cap, oriented in the direction that one pulls to remove the cap. These serrations would be useful if one had to twist the cap to remove it, but as it simply snaps off they only serve to make the cap harder to use than necessary.

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Fennel, Propolis, and Myrrh Toothpaste

Published August 2, 2011

For the last few months I’ve been using a tube of Trader Joe’s-brand Fennel, Propolis, and Myrrh toothpaste when brushing my teeth. I rather like this toothpaste, as it tastes strongly of fennel (one of my favorite flavors) while brushing, yet doesn’t leave a lingering, cloying, fake-mint taste in one’s mouth like most big-name toothpaste. Also, unlike mint, the slight leftover fennel taste also doesn’t clash with whatever breakfast food I happen to eat later in the morning, be it coffee, orange juice, cream cheese, or just about anything else.

I’d prefer it if I could get this flavor toothpaste with fluoride, but neither the Trader Joe’s labeled product nor the natural toothpaste heavyweight Tom’s of Maine (now partially owned by Colgate-Palmolive) offer this flavor with the tooth-friendly additive. Unlike some It’s a good thing that I’m a regular drinker of tap water; I’ll just get my fluoride that way.

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Thanks, Feedback Sports!

Published June 28, 2011

For years now I’ve been using Feedback Sports’ RAKK storage and display stands to hold up bikes around the house. Unfortunately, the place I bought all of mine from sold them without the clips to hold them together. Wanting to clip them together in the garage I emailed Feedback Sports asking if they had them available.

After a brief exchange of email, Sammy, an internal sales and customer support person sent me a $0 invoice for the exact number of clips that I didn’t have, and it arrived this morning. Now I’m able to hook all four racks together, which is quite nice as then they don’t slide around the floor when shoving bikes into them.

Thanks, Feedback Sports!

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Bartaza Virtuoso Coffee Grinder

Published June 14, 2011

Yesterday afternoon Danielle and I received another one of the gifts on our Amazon Wedding Registry, but this one is something that I’d specifically picked out: a Baratza Virtuoso coffee grinder. For years now I’ve been grinding and brewing coffee fresh every morning, and Danielle has started to do the same. The coffee grinder that we had (well, still have) was a basic Mr. Coffee model that worked, but leaked grounds, had static electricity problems (read: grounds would fly out and cling to things when opening it), and would clog a couple times a week.

After doing a bunch of research, this grinder seemed to be the most cost effective model, while still holding a goodly quantity of beans. Having received it I’m not disappointed. It feels very solidly made, is much quieter than the previous grinder, has a more consistent grind, and doesn’t build up a bunch of static. I’m really looking forward to using this. Hopefully it’ll be the end of having to listen for the telltale sign of the grinder starting to clog and running to the kitchen to stop it before it plugs and starts heating the grounds and turning the clogged bits into powder.

Thanks, Bennett!

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Aggregate Shadows

Published June 1, 2011

I’ve always liked the aggregate shadows formed by the four discreet bulbs in the light fixture in the hallway bathroom. For once I finally took a photo of them, here as shown being cast by the latch on the door knob / lock.

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Flowers: 2011

Published May 22, 2011

This morning I finally got all the plants on the front porch rearranged, planted new flowers and herbs, and lightly fertilized everything. Shown above is a lemon tree that Danielle bought, then some (typical for me) salvia, then the nifty purple plant whose name I’ve forgotten. Some peppermint was acquired and planted in the same place that the rosemary started, the sage now has its own pot and will hopefully flourish, and the garlic was moved in with the green onions. The purple plant whose name I can’t remember is also doing very well after Danielle cut it back over the winter.

If you’d like to see the rest of the photos of this year’s flowers and plants, click here: Flowers 2011.

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CamelBak Bottle Cleanliness Issues

Published April 16, 2011

The biggest design failure of CamelBak Bottles for cycling (the Sport line) is the difficulty of cleaning the burst valve in the cap. The above photo shows the black mold / mildew that I found after removing the mouthpiece and plastic retaining ring which holds the burst valve in place. This portion of the assembly can only be flushed and can’t be mechanically cleaned without this (slightly difficult, and not designed into the bottle’s use) disassembly.

Note that the burst valve (seen on the right) is made of a rich blue color rubber (seen around the edges) and the inside of the valve assembly (seen on the left) should be a solid silver color. I was able to clean this with a toothbrush and some soap, but it surely won’t be long before this has to be done again.

Even after this I’ll continue to use some of these bottles, but I definitely won’t buy any. (I happened to get this one and an insulated one for free. They are nice, but at ~$10/ea and with this cleaning difficulty I don’t think they are worth buying.)

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High Winds and a Clean Garage

Published April 11, 2011

I went home early from work today because I was motion sick due to the swaying of the building in the high winds. I didn’t expect this to happen as I don’t normally get motion sick, but an hour after arriving at work I felt my head swimming, my stomach churning, and I was unable to think clearly. Even eating a bit of lunch didn’t help, but walking around for a bit at ground level seemed to. So, around 1pm I headed home and finished up the afternoon working remotely, which isn’t a particularly challenging thing since most of my work is remote, but instead of being 35 miles away I’m normally about 300′ away.

After getting home it took almost another four hours before I was feeling better, but after that occured I decided that it was a good day for cleaning the garage. This hadn’t been properly done in two or three years and was long overdue, so it was quite satisfying to finally wash the floor. It only took about an hour to empty the garage, sweep it, and hose it out. After letting it dry out (which was helped by the wind) I put everything back in, and now the garage floor is as clean as the basement floor. I can once again walk outside with bare feet without needing to brush then off before coming back in.

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Failing at Furnace Repair

Published March 28, 2011

For the last two or three winters my furnace would occasionally have a problem where it would fail to ignite and be left in a lockout state requiring the thermostat to be switched off then back to heat before it’d reattempt ignition. Since this was only a minor inconvenience and not repeatable I’d opted to fix it later. Suddenly this past weekend my furnace started seriously misfiring and failing to light, resulting in barely any heat on Saturday night and no heat at all on Sunday night.

Since I’ve done a bit of electronics work in the past I set about trying to troubleshoot this myself, and just after midnight this morning I was convinced that the problem was likely the main control board, Carrier part number CESO110018, as seen above in my furnace. Lacking a schematic it was difficult to troubleshoot, but I thought that it was not sending enough power to the ignition unit and thus the ignition was simply failing. So, this morning I rushed out to Behler-Young‘s Pontiac location and bought a drop-in replacement, ICM Controls‘ ICM 271 (PDF) for $68.73 (after tax). Hurring home and installing it before work I found that I was wrong; it wasn’t the control board.

I then called Mike’s Heating and Cooling, the trusted local place which replaced my air conditioner five summers ago, scheduled a time for them to come by, and set off to work leaving Danielle home in the cold where she even had to pile a robe on top of Roxie to keep her warm. The repair person arrived later in the afternoon, checked the furnace, and $285 later ($166 in parts, $79 for the service call, $40 for half an hour of labor) the ignition unit was confirmed defective, replaced, and the furnace put back into operation.

It’s a bit disappointing to have failed to repair the furnace myself, but at least it’s up and running again. Overall it’s not terribly expensive, as in the 9.5 years I’ve owned this condo I’ve likely only spent $500 on furnace maintenance, including replacing the humidifier and periodic furnace filters, but I still wish that I would have solved the problem myself.

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