Oaken Gearbox

I've always loved gardening, but living in Minneapolis presents some challenges. Most notably, our short growing season means that starting plants like tomatoes and peppers (some of our favorites) inside is a must. I tried all kinds of ways to successfully start seedlings inside, but every one seemed to have a fatal flaw. Covering the kitchen counters with little plants for several weeks every spring got old fast. Setting up a whole growing table with lights took lots of room in our small house, and was ugly besides. We moved it to the basement laundry room, but it was too cold and there was no natural light. Besides, we kept forgetting to water them down there. Precariously stacking little cups of dirt on a south windowsill meant the toddlers and dog knocked them all over. Besides, even a south window doesn't give enough light to grow healthy seedlings. Finally we settled on these narrow shelves hung across a south window with some fluorescent lights above. This set u...

This is a leaning ladder style dumbbell rack I recently made. Built mainly from 2x4's, its cheaper and better looking than the steel ones commercially available. The plans below use a slightly different shelf design than I used, to better support weights of different sizes.

Yesterday, courtesy of World Magazine , I received in my inbox a chapter from the book With Calvin in the Theater of God , edited by John Piper. I was impressed by what I read, and since our local library didn't carry the title, I ordered a used paperback copy from eBay for $4.29 + tax. That done, I continued down through my inbox to see I had gotten a coupon code from my local cable company. "Thank you for being such a great customer," it read. "Enter this code for $5 off your next bill." Keeping in mind that I once cancelled my (basic internet) cable for year in the process of price negotiating (after they again raised my rates for no reason), I can't help but feel my life a part of the theater of God.

Redoing your brakes is one on the simpler auto maintenance tasks, especially if your car has disc brakes all the way around. That being said, keeping your brakes working is pretty important, so it's well worth the extra time spent to do the job right, rather than stopping at simply throwing new pads on and calling it a day. I've probably redone the brakes on 4 or 5 vehicles at this point, and I've learned something new each time. 1. Brake Pads. This is the most basic step of brake maintenance. Brake pads are usually equipped with a metal clip the creates a high pitched sound when the pads are worn too thin. This signals that they should be replaced before they damage the rotors, or even the calipers. I inspect my break pads twice a year when I swap summer and winter tires, so I usually replace them before they get that worn. When installing new brake pads, make sure they slide freely in the caliper bracket. The new pads should come with new metal shims and packets o...

Photo courtesy of our garden last summer While browsing the news during my lunch break last week, I read an interesting story published by the BBC about the limitations of a vegan diet. As the popularity of such diets has increased, nutritional scientists have found several vitamins and fats that are both essential to brain development and can only be found in animal products such as meat, milk, or eggs. In fact, a vegan diet is not recommend for young children and nursing mothers, and even other adults can be left deficient in essential nutrients. When sharing what I'd read with my wife later that day, she pointed out that this is yet another result of the Fall (of man in Genesis 3). Under God's original plan, without death, all creatures must have subsisted entirely on a plant-based diet. Yet now, in our fallen world, God has made us genetically dependent on a type of animal sacrifice. We are unable to return to the utopia for which we were created. Unable, at least, unt...

I needed a roof rack for the 2013 Ford Focus Hatchback that I recently bought. I don't like the clamp-on racks; they always look like an afterthought, and there's also the risk of damaged paint. I wanted the rack to be bolt-on, yet fully and easily removeable. This was my solution. Pictured are Yakima "Jetstream" bars with Landing Pad 11. This should work with any type of Focus, Focus ST, or Focus RS since they all have the same body, probably other cars, too, if they have the same style rain gutter. Although it took more time than I thought, I'm really happy with the result. Overall I probably spent 16hrs, spread over a week's time, mostly because I had never done it before and was being extremely cautious so as not to damage my car.  I checked with a local rack installer before I started, but their solution was to permanently mount the landing pads, which I was not thrilled about. Instead, I opted to install threaded "T-nut" mounts...

Gospel: literally, "Good News." That humans are incapable of living good and perfect lives, as would be required to meet God's Just and Holy standards; but that Christ Jesus came to take the punishment we deserve, meaning that by accepting that gift, we all can spend eternity with God. Although I was taught the Gospel at a very young age, it wasn't until recently that I realized how central it is to all beliefs and decisions in life. Last summer, while visiting with a friend, he mentioned that while searching for a church after moving to the Indianapolis area, they had found many that were Bible centered, but not Gospel centered. I did not really understand what he meant until I read Tim Keller's article "The Centrality of the Gospel." In it, he makes the case that the Gospel should be central to every area of life by building on a concept first put forth by Tertullian. From Keller's article: "Tertullian, a Christian writer in the se...

This month our smartphone using, Netflix-streaming family of four wrapped up a yearlong experiment in cable cutting. Mainly it was just my wife and I, since all our toddlers had to give up was the PBS-Kids streaming app. With our hotspot enabled smart phones and their 8GB of data, we weren’t exactly off the grid, but it was certainly an adjustment. My wife and I are pretty typical Millennials when it comes to internet use. We were both early adopters of smartphones, and pretty invested in an all-digital, paper free lifestyle. We don’t have a checkbook, because we pay all our bills online. We don’t own a printer, because we never print anything besides baseball tickets. We also went two years without a DVD player, because, who needs one with Netflix and Hulu? Despite all this, when our monthy Comcast bill hit $65, it was just too much and we told them to turn it off, we would just get by using hotspots from our LTE smartphones (4GB each, plus unlimited music streaming). The...

I noticed earlier this summer that my 5.5hp Briggs & Stratton powered push mower was constantly revving up to a fevered pitch, and then dropping to an idle and nearly stalling. Over and over again every 10 to 15 seconds. Quick Diagnosis (so you can get back outside and enjoy the summer weather): The air-fuel mixture was off. In my case, due to a plugged air filter. It was gross. I can't believe the engine ran as well as it did. A dirty carburetor could also cause these symptoms. That should look like a sponge... Explanation (for those of you who have to know why): A lot of newer lawnmowers use a governor to control engine speed (rather than the classic "Rabbit-Turtle" throttle lever). If the carb cannot achieve an efficient air-fuel mixture, the system just fluctuates between over-revving and almost stalling. After washing my filter out with degreaser and warm soapy water the mower runs just like new. Moral of the story: always try the simple stuff ...

I recently spent a night at Wild River State park with my brother and my two year old son. I found it to be an enjoyable park to visit, although I still prefer Afton for a quick get-away close to the Twin Cities. Check out my Flickr page for a few photos of the campsites and trails. We opted to staying the backpacking sites, rather than the car camping park, so I'll speak only to those. Although they call them backpacking sites, they are treated more as car camping park; you pay and select your site at the office and they give you a tag to hang at a post in front of your site. That being said its only a couple mile walk, so changing sites would be a simple matter. The actual trails are cross country ski trails--mowed in the summer--that pass through new growth forest as well as prairie. Although winter camping is permitted, no hiking or snow shoing is allowed on the groomed trails, so you would have to ski in with your gear. The trails were full of short steep hills. I've be...

There are likely many ways to complete this task. The method below uses GIMP 2.8.8, an opensource (and free) competitor to Adobe's Photoshop and a pretty generic Cannon Scanner. Scan your artwork in Black and White (not greyscale) at twice your intended resolution (I chose 600dpi, the highest offered by my scanner software) and save to a format of your choice. I used .tif because there is no quality loss, but it's not really very important for this application. Don't be alarmed if the result has ugly, jagged edges and extraneous stray pixels. We'll take care of that later. Your scan will look something like this Open the saved file in GIMP. Rotate if needed. Note GIMP's "Select by color" feature didn't seem to work if I didn't first rotate the image (presumably a bug?). Crop out the unwanted margins. Select Image>Mode>RGB Color Go to Image Size and set the resolution to half of what it was before. This will eliminate a lot of ...

The simplest way to buy new tires or wheels that fit your car is to look up the current ones and buy ones the exact same size. If you don't want to do that for whatever reason, you found a deal on craigslist on similar sized ones, for example, or you want to up-size your wheels for looks, it starts to get more complicated. I'll start by explaining the different important dimensions on wheels, and then move to tires. Wheels: Wheels have five important measurements: Image cortesy of sizeitup.com Diameter. This is the one you're probably most familiar with. It is measured in inches and is usually somewhere between 14"  and 19". Width. Pretty self explanatory. This is also measured in inches. Bolt Pattern. This is measured by the number of lugs and the diameter on which they are drilled. It can be measured in either inches or millimeters. This is both important and difficult to measure. The easiest way, if possible, is to find out what car the wheels ca...

 I was recently given a 1st Gen Nook Simple Touch by  Barnes & Noble. Since used books are relatively cheap and I only read 3 or 4 a year, I've never seen the need to own an eReader. That being said I love a good gadget, and the NST is simple, easy to customize, and surprisingly capable given its age and limited intent. Essentially, the NST is a very simple tablet running Android 1.2.1. Although many apps in the Play Store are not compatible with such an old version of Android, many still work and often old .apks can be found and side-loaded to your Nook (including the Kindle App, where ebooks are generally cheaper that from B&N). Below are various steps I took to set up my Nook. 1. Connect to my home WiFi network. Oddly enough this took longer than anything else I did. Due to its older hardware, the Nook Simple Touch is not compatible with Wireless N at 5GHz. When I first tried to connect, it showed my network, allowed me to type in my password, even connect...

Although conventional wisdom (or at least a window salesman) would say that replacing will always save you money, that isn't necessarily true, and depends on a lot of factors, including the condition of your windows,  the cost and type of fuel available in your area,  and not least your climate. Read on for the actual results I've gotten from both new windows and rebuilt origin My suburban Minneapolis story and a half, like many thousands of others that popped up during the post WWII baby boom was built with the traditional double-hung, single pane windows and removable wood-framed screens and storms, each one custom fit and labeled in neat black sharpie for its parent window, NE Bedroom, for example, or Kitchen Sink. Although it is well documented that low-e glass, double pane windows allow less heat to escape your home and don't require the screens and storms to be swapped every spring and fall, that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best energy invest...

I recently finished reading the biography Eisenhower in War and Peace . Before reading this book, I knew little more about Eisenhower's presidency than that he built the interstate system. After reading this biography, I'm inclined to think he is the most effective modern president we've had. In many ways his success seems to highlight the more recent lack of leadership in Washington. A few of his accomplishments Ended the Korean War within 7 months of being inaugurated Avoided entanglement in Vietnam Not only balanced the budget, but reduced the national debt from 100% of GDP to 56% Accomplished this while engaged in an arms race with the Soviet Union and without massive cuts to social programs or increasing taxes Avoided a recession after Korea by building the interstate highway system (unemployment when he left office was at 5%) Only president in the twentieth century to preside over 8 years of peace Began desegregation of the South while avoiding major...

I completed this job on my 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon (stock) in about 8 hours. That included a lunch break and a trip to Autozone for a 24mm deepwell socket. The vast majority of my time was spent on my back in the driveway trying to reach the bolts around the oil pan, several of which are located up under a frame member. RTV vs Gasket There seems to be some debate about whether RTV or a premade gasket makes a better seal. Most people I talked to advised using RTV, and since that is what Subaru used originally, that's what I did. I was not able to get as clean a bead as I hoped because of the awkward position under the car and I still had no leaks, so I'll add my voice to the opinion that RTV is a good option. Finding the Oil Leak A piece of advice: If you're looking to fix an oil leak, take the time to find out where your oil is leaking for sure and don't just assume its the oil pan. In my case I was pretty sure, because I damaged the oil pan drivin...

If you've ever bought anything from a smoker, you know exactly how hard that smell is to lose. I recently bought an older ThinkPad on Craigslist with this problem. Every time the fan kicked on, my living room was filled with the smell of stale cigarettes. The fix took some effort, but it did work. I first disassembled the whole case and removed the fan. I found some very good instructions for my particular model that helped me accomplish this without doing permanent damage. If you've worked on computer hardware at all, you're probably familiar with the grey scum that accumulates on fans and vents. Well this one was full of a black scum (ash? nicotine?). I wiped it as clean as I could with wet Q-Tips. After all the scum was gone I sprayed the whole thing, including the nearby foam inserts with pine scented air freshener. After reassembly, it now smells like air freshener, a big improvement over cigarettes. It did seem to make the fan noisier, though, so I would reco...

I grew up building fences. Pounding steel posts into the ground and stringing wire fencing was one of the better jobs on the farm. This fall I decided to fence in my small city lot, but my wife wanted something a little nicer than barbwire. I flat out refused a white picket, so we compromised on a scallop top picket board fence. I opted to use 4x4 green-treated posts, five quarter decking boards ripped in half to 3" wide for stringers, and 1x4's for the pickets. Some online research and conversations with friends indicated that recommended post spacing was 4 to 8 feet. I opted for 8 ft spacing, which seems sufficient for my 4 foot high fence. Tools Needed Gas-Powered Auger Manual Post hole diggers Spud Bar Circular saw Drill Router (optional) Level Step 1: Design your fence Decide: How far to space your posts How wide to make your pickets and how far to space them Where your gates will go, so you can set hinge posts Step 2: Plan your fence Thi...

When I moved into my "new" house last year, I quickly realized that something about the switches for the light above the stairs wasn't right. Once the upstairs switch was "off", the downstairs switch no longer turned it on. Although it isn't hard to wire up two switches to control one light, cleaning up after someone else who did it wrong can turn into quite a puzzle. The first step is understanding exactly how these simple, convenient circuits work. The diagram below shows this. This is not the only way to wire it, just the simplest. If you want to see a few of the stranger variations, check out this link . Note that each one does the same thing, it just splices the wires in different places. To begin unraveling the puzzle you will need a multimeter , screwdriver , and maybe a pair of pliers . First, flip the breaker for the circuit you're working on. Pull the covers off both switches and pull unscrew the switches from the box.  Before to...

About a week ago the steering started acting up on my '02 Subura Impreza WRX. The only way I could describe it is, "notchy." It would be very stiff for half a rotation of the wheel, then very loose for the next rotation. My first thought was that power steering fluid was probably low, but a quick look at the reservoir showed  it right where it should be. I then began to worry about the differential, or some other component of the AWD, but I was able to rule that out since it did the same thing while cranking the wheel without moving the car. It this point I put the front of the car on jackstands, started the car, and had my wife turn the steering wheel while I looked under the hood for bubbles in the power steering fluid, a slipping belt, or any other issues. Nothing. Finally, I shut the car off and turned the steering wheel myself with the front wheels in the air and the engine off. Still notchy. At that point there was nothing left to cause it but the steerin...