Now that spring is here consider giving bicycle commuting a try. Nothing is better that getting back on your bicycle and feeling the sun shine on your face. Not to mention the amount of money you save not purchasing vehicle fuel. Some basic equipment I recommend carrying with you is a pannier to keep the weight of anything you are carrying off your body and on your bike, a spare tube, a wrench, sized for your bike’s bolts, a patch kit, tire tools, a compact pump, chap stick, a knife, keys for your bike lock and hand cleaner. (When I get to work it is frowned upon to have bike grease hands.)
All posts in How To – Tips and Tricks
Bike Commute- Give it a try.
Sharpen your own chainsaw blade
Just a short post. My friend “crazy Doug” shows me how to sharpen my chainsaw blade with a file.
Please note that you should never drag a file backwards.
How to use and maintain a chainsaw
Just a super quick post today about chainsaws. Sort of a halloween theme right? Well I suppose saws are more useful than chasing screaming children around a corn maze.
Like many people I spend a fair amount of time sawing dead fall and pruning every year. Previously I had always taken my saw to the dealer to get service done and to get my blades sharpened, however I am very interested in starting to learn how to do these myself.
I purchased a chain saw sharpening tool that attaches to the end of a dremel and I will be reviewing that in an upcoming video, so watch out for that.
eHow definitely has the best collection of videos on using and maintaining a chainsaw.
Keeping your saw maintained will greatly increase the lifespan of your saw, definitely worth the effort
Episode 4: Natural Baby Care with the Martinez Family
Jon and Julia Martinez join me on the podcast to talk all about cloth diapers, making your own baby food, breast feeding, and more!
This episode is important to me since my wife and I are expecting a child this coming May. I hope some other young parents find this useful. If you have anything to add lets hear it in the comments.
Resources of the day:
Julia’s Reading List
- The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
- Super Baby Food
- Healing Children Naturally
- What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Julia’s Resources and Recipes
Recipe for cloth wipe solution:
2 cups water
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp Aveeno Baby Wash
2 drops tea tree oil (optional)
Keep the solution in a resealable container. (we use a plastic container from disposable wipes) When you are ready to use a cloth wipe, dunk it in the solution and squeeze out the excess. Don’t double dip!
Where Julia buys her diapers:
http://nickisdiapers.com/
Thirsties Diaper Covers:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=840
“Chinese” Prefold Diapers:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=214
Birdseye Flat Diapers:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=609
Snappi (instead of safety pins):
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=125
Diaper Pail:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=106
Planet Wise Diaper Pail Liner:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=369
Flannel Baby Wipes:
http://nickisdiapers.com/catalog.php?category=109
Articles and Cloth Diaper Reviews
http://diaperpin.com/
Show Outline
- Cloth Diapers
- a bit more work than disposables
- cheaper than disposables, even after all of the extra washing
- better for baby
- Less leakage (ok this one surprised me)
- Better for potty training
- How to get started
- Don’t follow the advice of one guru, just do what works for you. If you want to use a disposable part of the time go ahead and do it.
- Many brands were tried, learn what worked for them.
- Baby food
- Food + food processor = baby food
- Freeze your food in ice cube trays for future use
- Follow the doc’s advice about which food to use and when
- Breast feeding – a natural immunity booster for your child
- A few natural remedies for your child
Plumbing disaster turns into cool discovery!
Today my kitchen sink had a major clog. I first tried liquid plumber “power gel” and that had zero effect. Since this drain was hooked into a garbage disposal I had to get in there with my channel locks and disconnect the trap so I could run the auger through the line.
Of course I man handled the pipe and it broke. Ok, not big deal the hardware store is still open… not the end of the world. I’ll just take the auger and clear out the gunk and then go get a new trap.
The auger is spinning it is hitting the clog like it is made of cement and not moving at all. At this point I’m seeing red so I know it is time to take a break. I leave to the hardware store and after I grab a new trap I decide to look over the plethora of drain cleaning devices available at the hardware store.
There are motorized augers which are like $100 or more and other normal augers like mine except with fancier handles, there was even a slim plastic rod for $2 which claimed several miracles on the packaging.
With visions of myself failing, calling a plumber with my tail between my legs, my eyes catch a simple device for $5. It is called the Drain Cleaning Bladder by Cobra Products.
I had a summer job for my father who was a civil engineer. What I did was throw smoke bombs down manholes and then run through yards with a Polaroid camera taking pictures of smoke coming out of the ground. Sounds like a good way to get shot huh? We had sent notices to everyone weeks beforehand but we still got yelled at on occasion.
Well the reason I mention this is because a few times when we were out on the job there would be a legitimate blockage in the sewer, well what the fire department would do is plug off one end of a fire hose and turn it on. It would launch through the sewer with all the force of the water behind it and you would literally see trash and crap spew out the manhole down the street. It was pretty awesome to see that. Well this thing reminded me of this.
I got home and attached this to my garden hose and stuffed it into the drain. I would say I ran this device for about 15 seconds before it had my entire pipe nice and squeaky clean. In conclusion this simple $5 device is pretty friggin’ awesome and made my night almost pleasurable.
Here is a highly redundant video review:
Beginners guide to nuts, bolts and threading
By Ohio_oz,
Identifying nuts and bolts for those odd projects can be confusing for the beginner, so I wanted to do a brief tutorial on nuts and bolts basics. I also wanted to show how a simple threaded hole is made and a repair that might give new life to something that is broken or worn out. For many of you, these will be things you already know, but I’ve found it difficult to get good basic information on things like this without lots of jargon and digression into specialized cases.
The following images will look at a grade 5 3 inch 3/8-16NC hex bolt. What does all that mean?
The length of a bolt is measured from under the head to the end of the threaded shank; in this case, we have a 3 inch bolt.
The diameter of the bolt is measured across the largest part of the threads. Bolts are generally made slightly smaller than their nominal diameter for ease of installation. Here we have a 3/8 inch bolt, and as you can see, it measures .370”. In theory this bolt would measure .375” there is a difference of .005, about the thickness of a hair.
How to Bake Standing French Loaves from Scratch
By Cohutt:
Not much to it really after you do it once or twice
1 pack of yeast
¼ tsp sugar
1 cup of water +
3 ½ cups of unbleached bread flour
¼ cup rye or whole wheat flour
3 tsp salt
Proof the yeast in ¼ cup of hot tap water by stirring it with the sugar
Add the cup of water to this when it bubbles up some
Put flour in food processor with a plastic dough blade
Turn on processor and slowly by steadily pour the water/yeast mixture in until the dough forms a ball that runs around the bowl a bit.
Let it rest for 5-10 minutes
Check it- if sticky/wet feeling to the touch add a tiny amount of flour and run the processor.
Once it is soft to the touch but no sticky, turn on the processor and have it turn the ball 30 times – 30 laps. If you do much more the dough will overheat.
Let it rest 5 minutes then turn out on a lightly floured surface and pound flat, fold over, repeat about 30 times.
Digital Prepping: – How to Create a Highly Redundant Backup System
By: Nick LaDieu
Data Reduncency is Key to Good Planning
I’m guessing that you know someone who has suffered through a digital disaster such as loss of precious family photos or important tax documents and other files. Just like you prepare for other disasters n the physical word you need to be digitally prepared. The first step towards digital preparedness is creating a good backup scheme for your important files.
I have a good friend who recently had all of her interior design business’ documents on a laptop. I didn’t know this was the case until it was to late. In her case she didn’t drop it in a puddle or experience hard drive failure. On new year’s eve this past year her house was broken into while she was away and the laptop was stolen.
Laptop lo-jack and encryption of sensitive information is a topic for another thread. Those issues aside, she experienced the loss of many digital assets including quick-books financial records and irreplaceable photos which were both business and personal in nature. This is not a threat on the level with a physical threat to your safety but I assure you it is a real threat and if you go through it you will highly regret not being prepared. People regularly pay upwards of $5000 for hard drive recovery services to retrieve family photos, make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
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