Recent Posts

Saturday, October 19, 2024

I bought myself a new keyboard recently. The shape is so different that it took me a several hours of practice to be able to touch-type on it. So, I stopped and thought, “There must be a harder way.” What if I also mixed up which letters are on those keys?

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Saturday, September 28, 2024

I want to geek out for a moment about wrist braces. I've worn one while sleeping occasionally for the past 20+ years to help alleviate Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) symptoms. I just found a completely new design during this year's replacement cycle, and I'm both absolutely delighted by it, and also enraged at what passes for CTS braces in the general U.S. market.

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Saturday, September 21, 2024

Four years ago, we submitted an offer on a house in the far north of Wisconsin immediately after checking the final box on our search list: could we get internet service there? Last month, almost four years to the day of accepting the seller's counteroffer, a Spectrum salesperson knocked on our door.

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Monday, September 2, 2024

A few bites into my sundae, an older gentleman ambled over from a nearby table. “What year is your bike?” he asked. “In the early 60s I had one like it. A 500cc.”

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Friday, August 30, 2024

Technically all I needed to do was plug in a new flasher unit. Before I knew it, I was planning to rewire essentially everything forward of the steering stem.

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Tuesday, August 13, 2024

I finally gave up, and decided to tackle the N things I was worried about all in one shot.

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Friday, June 21, 2024

“I've worked myself into the corner of needing to buy a spindle sander. Right now,” I told Amanda when I came up from the woodshop one day last month. I had finally decided what I wanted to make for my mother's birthday, and it required sanding lots of internal curves. I needed to get that gift done before we left for New Hampshire the next week, and I needed my carpal tunnel syndrome to not flare up while making that happen.

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Friday, June 14, 2024

I suddenly noticed Amanda leaning out the car window as she said, “Is it okay that there is smoke coming out of the headlight?” No, it was very much not okay. The smoke increased. “Uh, oh. We have a fire. I need the toolkit. Now,” I replied. As I pulled the ignition key to cut power, Amanda jumped out of the car and extracted the toolkit from the trunk. I unscrewed the headlamp's retaining screw and pulled it off the nacelle. Smoke puffed out, and I found several wires melted to each other.

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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Burnett county is not nearby, so I thought I'd spend a day getting there, stay in the area, and then spend a day getting back. The only question was where to stay. A hotel? A quaint inn? Some AirBnB-like situation? No! I was going camping.

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Wednesday, April 17, 2024

It's one of very few places in northern Wisconsin that I've seen speed bumps. Eight of them in less than two miles!

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