Everything is a trade off.
Sparky likes car rides, but is having a problem with stairs. I like Sparky, but have a problem cutting his nails in the house. We usually trim his claws on the deck, but that’s covered with snow.
Category: Projects (Page 1 of 3)
On Sunday, President Biden repealed the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision. Since I will start getting a windfall, being frugal is pointless.
Tramping around in the snow with Sparky, I get wet boots. Two weeks ago, I knocked up a drying rack for my boots using shelf brackets, scrap wood and my CPAP machine. It folds up for easy storage.
Now that the SSFA is passed and frivolous spending is encouraged, I spent $45 on Amazon to get a boot dryer like regular people use.
I am eager to try it out.
My new approach to breaking up chest congestion is an old idea. Steam from a wet sauna, humidifier or pot of water is a traditional way to help with bronchitis.
I build a steam hookah, or stookah to generate steam. A CPAP hose slips right on. Boiling water generates air too hot to inhale and melts the hose. Instead, the water is heated to a comfortably warm temperature.
If I take a break, the lid has to be removed from the pot to keep the hose from melting.
The stookah works quite well. It breaks up the chest congestion while I screw around online or watch TV. A more robust hose would be good, but this works fine if I’m cautious.
I’ve been scanning and organizing old photos.
The photo on the left was from a balloon festival in Columbia, South Carolina in 1985. It’s not a scanning problem, the photo looks like that. I don’t know if it always did, or got that reddish tint with age.
Film photography relies on chemical processes. The photographer could add filters to get an effect like this, but the developing process also influenced the final photo. Serious photographers developed their own film to get the desired result. Over time, those chemicals may degrade.
Without knowing much about GIMP software, selecting the “White Balance” significantly improved the photo. Some color was lost on the more distant balloon, but overall, I prefer the photo on the right.
My current project is to digitize all of the photos I’ve ever taken. That sounds daunting, but for the first half of my life, film had to be purchased and developed. Figure 25 cents per photo, which would be 75 cents in today’s money.
A photo scanner works well for loose photos. A flat bed scanner will be used for the photos that are too big or attached to a photo album page.
Once a photo is scanned, GIMP is used to rotate or crop the photo. GIMP has a couple of auto-functions to correct typical issues. “White Balance” often helps quite a bit, as shown in the photo at the top. “Color Enhance” may help, make no difference or make the photo over saturated.
GIMP is powerful open-source software. It’s intimidating since it’s so powerful, but I just goggled the functionality that I need. For video, I have Topaz Video AI to enhance movie film that’s been digitized. They also have software to enhance photos. I’m not going that far.
After the photos are digitized and processed, I name the photo files to capture any information on the back of photos, on the envelope or that I can ascertain from the photo. The program, Bulk Rename Utility, is also open-source and helps with renaming.
My goal is to pack away the old physical photos, and forget them.
Maybe your brain works better.
When we go for walks, a recurring thought comes to mind. Sparky likes to lead. That’s good, his confidence is admirable. I can’t help thinking how much Sparky, from this angle, resembles the X-ACTO model 1744 electric pencil sharpener I bought for my classroom. 
It’s not like I am ever going to get Sparky stuffed, with an electric pencil sharpener inside. That’s crazy, right? Still though, that would be a great pencil sharpener.
Sparky and I have a nice setup, but he thinks stupid, morbid shit all the time too. When he looks down on the compound, he can’t help thinking about how he’s going to change things when I’m gone.
He wants to put in a creek that goes from the road to the land bridge, with some big rocks and a bunch of drain pipes that go off to the sides.
That’s all to say that Sparky and I are not sentimental, but appreciate the little moments as they come.
If I go first, I hope Sparky gets his creek and doesn’t get his fat ass stuck in a pipe. If Sparky goes first, he said I can make him into a pencil sharpener if it isn’t too loud, but he wants to chew on the tail if I don’t need it for the pencil sharpener.
Again, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about with that last part, but he seems content.
Time to switch to snow tires. It should melt by next week, so not putting the plow on the quad yet.
After 8 hours of stump grinding, I’m knackered. It isn’t hard. The grinder does all the work, just sweeping back and forth, chewing up the wood. It’s the low-level attention that wears a guy down. At the end of each sweep, lower the wheel just a bit. Take too big of a bite, and the wheel chatters, the machine bucks and the clutch starts squealing.
Sparky says that he is protesting some damn thing, but I wasn’t listening. Early on, he made it clear that he likes pooping on stumps. That was covered in the Poop wars post.
Next walk, he crapped on a stump.
This photo is taken from the headwall we just built, facing downstream. This shows why I went with a stacked bag wall, rather than something more permanent. This photo may save me a lot of effort. Do you see it? [Hint: It’s not Sparky. ]