And getting the timing right on dishes you’ve never made before is TOUGH. Tonight I tried three things I’ve never done, and somehow it all managed to work out. The first part was the pork loins, which I had never done in the oven on broil before (I recently got a broil pan, so I’ve…
Category: Personal Projects
Surgery on my baby
Yesterday my projector was acting up in a very unfriendly way. There was something wrong with the lighting. It was uneven with a couple lines through it. Worse, when I moved the projector, the lines moved, and I could hear a part moving around inside. Eventually, percussive maintenance no longer affected any change in the…
Typical me
A few days ago at work it was snowing. I don’t have a window in my office, so I was getting regular updates on the rate of snowfall by more privileged coworkers. The terms they used were wildly inconsistent, though, and I thought there had to be a way to determine the actual rate of…
Computer Lights Show
Back in college I occasionally did DJ gigs. It was a lot of fun and I did some pretty neat things to make it easier. I had a remote control for my WinTV card and I remapped the buttons to control WinAmp, so I could control the music while I was dancing on the floor….
Bob Baddeley Memorial Fountain
At the lab a model of the campus additions was placed on display in each of the buildings so that people could get an idea of how the campus was going to change. One day I made a little addition to the model. It stayed up for at least 4 months and moved from building…
Audio Switch
I have a set of speakers that I embedded into my coffee table. This actually made a lot of sense because it moved the speakers to the center of the room and away from the apartment walls and increased the stereo effect, as well as saving room in the cramped apartment. The speakers serve both…
Steadicam
My digital camera needed some accessories, and the steadicam seemed like a perfect addition. Built out of simple parts from a hardware store (and a pie plate from ShopKo), this steadicam makes sure that while I’m taking video the camera stays level and steady. The pictures should be pretty self-explanatory as far as building it….
Composite to S-Video
With the projector in my apartment, I have a VGA cable and an S-Video cable running as inputs. However, my Playstation2 cable only has composite video output. It turns out that composite can be hacked into s-video fairly easily. By running the composite video signal to both the brightness and color parts of the s-video…
Staples Easy Button Hacking
For a project at work I needed a solid button that would be easy to press. It turned out that the Staples Easy Button was a perfect match for what I needed; heavy, easy to locate without looking for it, a great size, and it was just a single button. I opened it up and…
Coconut Shrimp
These will turn out fantastic. They’re best served warm or right off the frying pan. This isn’t a recipe so much as a process. Remove the shells from the thawed, uncooked shrimp. Traditionally, the tail part is left on, but it’s annoying at eating time, so you can take the whole shell off if you…