Category: Life
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Design for Serviceability
About an hour into a brief, twenty-four hour getaway, I received a not quite panicked call from my mom, letting me know that her microwave (a Panasonic NN-SN733W, bought in August 2015) wasn’t working. She uses the microwave all the time, for heating up water to make tea, and even making a good percentage of […]
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Another of My Favorite Things
Maybe this is a series? Growing up, my parents had a 14 speed blender — I think it was a Hamilton Beach. Each of the speeds had a name — things like blend, whip, puree, mix, etc. I think it had 7 buttons for the speeds, and a “High/Low” range switch that selected one of […]
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The Blizzard of ’22
Late on Friday evening, 28 January 2022, it began to snow, and it snowed for about 22 hours straight. By the time I walked the dog around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, there were a few inches in some spots, but a lot was bare, owing to the winds. The bulk of the snow came during […]
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The Mains Problem
One night a few weeks ago, we lost power briefly. And then apparently again that night, but while we were asleep. A couple of weeks after that, we had a strange occurrence during the day which I first noticed because I heard some relays click like when power is turned off on some appliances. I […]
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A Shard of the Truth
Have you ever caught some bright spot of light out of the corner of your eye? You move your head around to try and catch another glimpse; to find its source, but it’s gone. Maybe you forget about it, or ignore it, then all of a sudden it’s there again. It’s elusive, like a rabbit […]
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We’re an American Pant!
As I started to write this, I searched for my previous post on the topic, and turns out I’ve not only written twice before but I already used a variant of the pun in the title. Sigh. Old habits… Anyway, what brought me back to the writing desk is that my two current pairs of […]
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EDC
If you weren’t aware EDC stands for Every Day Carry — the things you keep with you all the time so they will be handy. Here’s what I tend to carry on my person (thankfully, my pants have good pockets): Top row includes: Leatherman pocket multi-tool Cash Monogrammed brass money clip (I don’t think it’s […]
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Yay, Physics! Boo, Traffic!
I always enjoy Rhett’s articles. I rarely try to follow the math completely, but good stuff nonetheless. This one is pretty simple physics. I could probably still work out projectile motion problems like this. He often does nifty things with video analysis, although not in this piece. But what really struck me about this particular […]
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As American as Apple Pie
I’ve posted before about buying American made jeans. I’ve come to like the All American Clothing jeans quite well, and so I’ve placed a number of orders there over the years. My first order was placed back on March 9, 2009, and was order #40208. It was for 3 pairs of jeans: one American made […]
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Fahrschaden: It’s what makes a TDI a Volkswagen
from the German fahren, to drive, and schaden, damage or harm. A play on the old VW slogan Fahrvergnügen: It’s what makes a car a Volkswagen. I wrote a while back about our most recent car purchase, a 2011 VW Jetta Sportwagen TDI. I confess I’ve really enjoyed the car. It’s fun to drive, it has […]