Archive of posts from 2022

Dec 31, 2022 Goodbye 2022

In general I’m pretty happy with life these days, so 2022 was a good year. Looking at my resolutions for last year, I see that I had no overall plan or theme for the year. I think I’m just finally accepted the new normal of life now that the pandemic seems to be a bit more under control. Personally, I’ve gotten all the vaccine updates and the last one (which I got a few weeks before Thanksgiving) didn’t even make me sick. So while I don’t want to get covid and I still do wear a mask when I go in stores and other crowded indoor places, I’m not that worried about it. Because if I do catch it, I think it’ll be something where I just need to stay home for a while, like any other illness. I know a number of people who had it lately and none of them had to go to the hospital. They weren’t happy they got it and they felt awful, but it was manageable.

Dec 31, 2022 Planer chip collector

We’ve been using the planer quite a bit. The one we have has a powerful motor to eject the chips. They’d go everywhere if you didn’t put something on the output port. We had a very long hose that we ran outside the back door to at least blow the chips outside. But they all usually just stayed right by the door, so we’d still have to go outside and sweep them up. I wanted something to collect the chips better and I found this site. Unfortunately, the cyclone separator that I bought was a little different than the one in the post. But I managed to make it work by simply screwing it to a piece of plywood that I had around. Then I just used tie downs to attach it to a garbage can. The tie downs are easy to take off, so it should be easy to change the bag when it gets full.

Jul 27, 2022 Ruby Openssl Version

There is a problem if I use a version of ruby with a newer version of openssl than what is on the server. Here’s the command to find out what version of openssl that ruby is using.

Jun 25, 2022 Learning DragonRuby

I was on vacation this week. So I had some time to do anything I wanted. For a while now, I’ve wanted to try to create a simple game. I’ve also wanted to learn how to use DragonRuby, which I purchased last year. Then, I found these videos. The guy made a basic tetris clone in a couple of hours. I figured I’d give it a try and see what I could do. Needless to say, it took me a bit over two hours…more like five or six over a couple of days. But I eventually got the game to run. My game has more bugs than the game in the tutorial. Mainly because I didn’t exactly know what I was doing and because I was trying to copy the code from the video, which was hard to read. I tried downloading his final code to compare it to mine, but I couldn’t find it. If I wanted to spend more time to figure out my mistake, I probably could. But the main thing I wanted to learn was how to go about making a game and how to use the DragonRuby workflow. Even with my buggy final game, I definitely learned more about those two things. So I feel like this was time that was well spent.

Mar 26, 2022 Using a Barcode Scanner

I got a Tera 1D Barcode scanner at work. What I want to use it for is to be able to scan a barcode on a circuit board and then print out more labels with barcodes to stick on the boxes that we’ll be shipping them in. I also have an old iMac that I’m going to use for this project, along with a Brother QL 550 label printer.

Mar 12, 2022 Transplant Time

I started a bunch of geranium seeds at the end of January. And look at them now.

Mar 12, 2022 Table Repair

One of the very first pieces of furniture I bought after I bought around 24 years ago was a table with a butcher block top. I’ve been using this table for a few years as my electronics workbench. Yesterday, I was going to do some electronics, when I noticed that the table had cracked.

Feb 5, 2022 Starting Geraniums

Last year I ordered a bunch of geranium seeds. I wanted to try to grow them from seed because they can be a little expensive if you buy a lot of them. But I like them and they generally grow pretty well here. I read that they take a long time to grow to the size that you’d buy at the store. So you should start them in January and I did.

Feb 2, 2022 MacPorts, gems and ruby notes

I’ve had a number of issues with my macports, ruby and rails setup after I updated the OS to 12.1. First I want to document some things that helped me to figure out some of my problems.

Jan 23, 2022 New tool, new repair

I bought a pneumatic stapler that just arrived the other day. I had been thinking about learning how to upholster things and this would be a good tool to have. Then, I was looking at an old folding table I have an realized I could use it for this.

Jan 2, 2022 Hello 2022

There’s really no burning desire that I have for this year. I think the pandemic has washed away any big hopes or ideas. All I’d really like to be able to do this year is maybe travel somewhere and not worry about getting sick. The other stuff is just continuations for my resolutions for previous years. I’d like to continue to walk more. Getting up and going for a walk first thing in the morning just seems to start my day off right. That doesn’t include walking in a few inches of snow (like now), so I know I won’t be doing it every day. But a general moving around more is what I want to do. And I have been doing that, so it’s just a matter of keeping it up.