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24
2010
Jul
10
2010
Unfortunately, my Jetta has a cracked radiator. The estimate that I received to fix it was $1,500 and $1,000 of it was for labor. I figured I’d save some money by doing the work myself. Today, I removed the radiator. Here’s a picture:
Jun
28
2010
I was out of commission today, so I figured I could be productive by updating my blog. Here’s a picture of the kitchen kiosk computer:
The original thread can be seen here
Jun
28
2010
Last week I primed the theater room and replaced the carpet (temporarily). Here’s the room as it exists right now:
After priming the theater room
Jun
12
2010
This weekend my friend Jeff and I worked on finishing the drywall in the basement. Natalie painted the stairway. Here are some pictures:
Jun
12
2010
I created an executive dashboard of my overall energy expenditure. One of the graphs from it can be seen below. In this graph, you’ll find electricity, natural gas, and the aggregate (the red line). I’d like to overlay an average monthly temperature trendline on this graph, but it’s going to require me to install my own weather station (or a reliable source of data for my zipcode). Until then, here’s the graph at present:
May
31
2010
I finally added the hardware to the garage cabinets. Here’s a picture:
Apr
11
2010
I just ran across this amazing DIY three-axis CNC machine on instructables.com:
I’m definitely going to build this beast in the near future.
Apr
3
2010
If you have any questions about my me, my projects, my accomplishments or my failures, ask them anonymously here:
Feb
20
2010
I created an energy usage summary webpage to give me an ‘executive dashboard’ of my home energy usage.
Jan
9
2010
I wrote a program to read events from the security system and put them into an RSS Event Log 
. I have some logic in it so that not everything gets recorded. I wouldn’t want a would-be robber knowing when the system is armed or disarmed, of course!
An event is anything that is monitored by the security system, including door openings, windows being opened / closed, etc.
Nov
17
2009
Today, with a combination of astute driving and good traffic conditions, I was able to hypermile the Insight up to 63.2 MPGs. I discovered a few “tricks” during the drive and I’m going to try to utilize them more during my daily drive. Among them are much more conservative acceleration, pulsing and gliding on the gas, and avoiding coasting with the clutch depressed. It seems that in the Insight, having the assist battery fully charged results in more effective “assist” during heavy motor use (climbing hills, etc). At this rate, I’ll be able to travel 630 miles on a tank of gas (in theory).
As the price of gasoline creeps up (yet again), it’s nice knowing that I’m mitigating both my financial obligation and my carbon footprint.
Here are a few pics:
Nov
8
2009
I finally got around to finishing the cabinets in the main-level garage. Organization is a wonderful thing, and having enough cabinet space to store everything is going to make it much easier to find things.
Oct
31
2009
I moved my website to a new hosting provider: Peer 1 Networks If you’re looking for a great net hosting company with great customer service, I highly recommend Peer 1. Among the reasons I chose Peer 1 are their supernetwork, FirstCall Support and a 100% network uptime SLA..
Oct
24
2009
I spent most of the day installing some unfinished oak cabinets in my garage. I still have one more cabinet to mount, though. I also installed a pegboard to mount my tools on to. Here are some pictures:
Oct
13
2009
Here’s the latest data from the commute tracker:
Oct
11
2009
This weekend I worked on the theater room some more. I started to frame the proscenium base. It’s been very slow going, but it’s some progress.
Oct
3
2009
Natalie and I went for a walk last weekend during a neighborhood yard sale. One of our neighbors was selling a Black and Decker electric lawn mower for $10. I quickly snapped it up. It works great and it produces no emissions (aside from the electricity generation). Here’s a picture of the same model (but not the actual mower):
$10 Electric lawn mower
Oct
2
2009
During today’s commute, I got the Honda Insight (hybrid) up to 58.9 MPGs. Not particularly great, but not bad either. Based on current gas prices, I’ll be able to drive about 580 miles for around $20. Here’s a pic:
Sep
26
2009
I installed some carpet in the theater room. I don’t think it’s permanent, but it will have to do for now. I also found the tiles that I’m going to install in the wall arch. Here are some pictures:
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