Power Level Over 9000!

November 22, 2023 by Adam in Adam's Projects

The Hunter Communication people just left after installing 2.5 Gb fiber Internet to the house.  So far I have only one computer hooked up and it's technically only getting 1 Gb through the port on the router, but it seems plenty fast so far.  I need to upgrade some network infrastructure and move things over, then I'll make sure everything is stable before ditching Xfinitity, which is slower, more expensive, and the data caps are annoying.

3D Printing Fun

February 24, 2022 by Adam in Adam's Projects

After using my Prusa Mini+ to 3D print a wide variety of practical things, I turned to printing a bunch of less practical things, including this boat that I hope to use in an upcoming D&D session.  It's by far my biggest print and has taken a couple weeks to get all the pieces printed out.  It's made out of a wood-based PLA filament, so my hope is I can stain it to make it pretty.  It's silly fun, and though I'm having problems pulling together the old D&D group, putting it together has been very entertaining.

Garage Update

January 05, 2022 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I've spent the last three days off working on the garage.  It makes me long for my cushy desk job.

I'd been long complaining about how disorganized and dirty the garage is, so it's deeply satisfying to do something about it.  I moved various things out so I could paint the drywall, which had been unfinished ever since the play room was put in nearly twenty years ago.  I went with a nice flat white, which turned out relatively well, then rearranged everything in hopes of making better use of the space.  So far I'm happy with the results, though I have a lot to organize and put away in a more logical fashion.  I've also been 3D printing various things to help, such as battery and chainsaw mounts for the wall.  This resulted in my first serious failure printing something - the chainsaw mount decided to push the printing plate away and make a spaghetti-like ball of filament somewhere in the middle of the night.  It seem somehow appropriate.

Kinda Sorta Making Games

September 01, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I sometimes miss making games and telling stories.  For about a year now I'll occasionally break out a little web-based game project and tinker with it.  I had a little time over my beach vacation to play around with it.  I got to the point where I could make a grid of walls and floors and put a little robot on it that would jump from square to square, pathfinding as expected.  I'm never sure if it'll turn into a functioning final product, but it's been fun to play around with things.

A Comfy Loft

August 10, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

Joanna and I went out to the cabin again today to move the loft down 4 1/2".  It sounds silly, but the difference ended up being fairly dramatic in the end.  It's no longer a claustrophobic nightmare and instead a cozy bed looking out into the forest.

The work itself was fairly straightforward.  We put up reinforced rails to rest it on, pried it away from the wall where the last nails were hanging on, bent the nails, and then lowered it down to new rails with a ladder and car jack.  There was some mild cursing here and there, but we reattached the loft with screws and tossed up the mattress to give it a try.  There's a bit more work to make sure it's solid, but the end result turned out well.

Balcony Sanctuary

June 16, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

Joanna's been working hard on turning our balcony into a cozy little spot to hang out.  I've helped a bit - hauling dirt, attaching hardware, and holding umbrella pulls to be cut shorter.  The end result is phenominal.  Today I snuck out and just sat under the shade, warming my legs in the sun.  It was lovely.

Hole Digging Vacation

March 24, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I've had the last three days off, the last two of which I've spent digging a big hole for the foundation for Joanna's little cabin at the farm.  It's back breaking work, with thick, clay soil.  Last night I came home exhausted, then weirdly woke up early and headed out for more until noon today.  I have the bulk of the digging done, along with axing roots and generally clearing things up.  I think we'll have to frame it as it's at a pretty significant slope, but we're closer than we were.  Tomorrow I leave my hole digging vacation behind me and return to work and relax.

Ben got contacts today and is very excited.  It reminded me of getting glasses when I was little and noticing contrails in the sky for the first time.  Emma's trying to figure out what she's going to do with her free time now that she's going down to a single class.  Duncan hung out with a friend last night to sit around the fire and roast marshmallows.

Life is still bumpy from time to time, but a couple days of hard labor was strangely uplifting.

Garden Beds

January 12, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

Last weekend, Joanna put in a bunch of work getting the garden beds in.  We hauled dirt, spread sand from the old sandbox, and generally got things ready for planting again.  It was satisfying, one of those small victories in an otherwise hard year.  The beds have a gap of a foot or so of air between the beds and the ground, hopefully preventing roots from getting in and choking out the vegetables.  Here's hoping for the best.

RetroPie

January 08, 2021 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I asked for a Raspberry Pi for Christmas, which is a low-cost tiny computer that runs Linux and is used for all sorts of interesting projects, from weather stations to garden watering systems.  One thing people do with it is run old video games using emulators, and there's a well-known community to support it.  After mulling over options, I also bought a lift-top coffee table.  It took the duration of Monty Python's Holy Grail to assemble the thing, but it worked pretty well and nicely fit the old monitor and speakers I had laying around.

Yesterday I finally drilled holes for cables and finished putting it together.  Ben was my beta tester, playing old Atari games and a little Sonic before we had to stop and make dinner.

Fully Operational

March 31, 2020 by Adam in Adam's Projects

I took some of the money I got selling stocks in the brief window before everything fell apart and used it to buy a bunch of computer parts for myself.  Yesterday the last thing appeared, a massive CPU fan, and I finished the assembly that I'd started a few days ago.

As is often the case, things didn't go smoothly at first. The fans turned on, but there was no video or sound (since my motherboard didn't have a speaker).  After a tense few minutes, I figured out that the memory sticks weren't properly seated.  Finally I got video out and pretty soon I was tossing in the hard drive from my old computer and things were booting up magically.

I did a little testing with the VR game The Lab and it was amazingly smooth.  Hopefully it helps with some of the nausea I'd get when VR games would get choppy.  I've got Half Life: Alyx all ready to go, which has been getting amazing reviews.

I also copied my hard drive over to the new and faster M.2 drive.  The only annoying thing was that my Windows Activation decided my license was invalid, but fortunately I have tons through my job's subscription.  I've got a bit of cleanup yet, but it actually all went pretty well and I overclocked the cpu a touch to get a little performance boost.

The next step is to put Duncan's old hard drive in my old computer, then take Duncan's old computer, slap in some old hard drives, and get that to Jamie's house for Emma's distance learning computer.