AN EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
I love the new quad monitor stand from Tyke Supply. I got the kind that clamps to the desk, instead of sits on it and screws in. Lovely stuff. My concern was stability, but the reviews were quite positive and, sure enough, the center of gravity is just right. If I had a wish, it would be that it was taller by 3" (so I could bring the primary monitor up more) and the arms maybe 3" longer (because … [Read more...]
I'm deeply thrilled to take out a high deductible health care policy and open a healthcare savings account (HSA). Or at least as thrilled as one can be about paying for health insurance or health care. I won't talk about the inflated prices of both, here, but merely the reasons I chose this HSA approach. First, let me say that there's no comparison between this approach and an employer … [Read more...]
One of the principles that motivates and sustains an experimental life is the observation that "the world is big". Consistently, I find I'm not interested in the mentalities that there's a right and wrong way to live, a good and bad one, a smart and stupid one. The choice of a life (some people would say "lifestyle" but I think that's a word for superficialities - mere 'styles') - the choice of a … [Read more...]
I have one of those dishwashers that are made to be any color you like. There are two framed panels - you take off the frame, and you can flip it to black, white, gold, or beige. It's in perfectly good shape and washes like a real champ, but I needed to upgrade it cosmetically to stainless steel - which is, after all, just a color. So I pulled the panels, took them to a stainless steel shop … [Read more...]
Success! I am transferring old speeches and lectures (from other people) from cassette to mp3. Both other tape recorders have mysteriously broken themselves since I last touched them, years ago. The pioneer receiver I grabbed from a thrift store doesn't work. My Sony cassette deck has one of those enormous headphone jacks that no one uses anymore, and I long ago got rid of the adapter in a spring … [Read more...]
The way it works is you receive a check (or write yourself one from another account), scan both sides with your TWAIN scanner (I use my Canoscan), and your bank sends a confirmation that it's uploaded, then has a human somewhere verify it's a valid check. Once they send you confirmation that it's actually deposited, you shred the original check - no need to keep the paper around anymore. Keep … [Read more...]
I've decided that if I can read it on [Kindle], that's how I want to read it. I really am done buying books that come in Kindle format or PDF or EPUB or something. Some books I just can't get except on paper, but part of living a portable, agile life with few possessions is treating media as, fundamentally, digital. Update 11/24/2010: While I'm not getting to read as much as I need to be … [Read more...]
Windows 7 is a great upgrade, except for Netbooks, which seem underpowered unless you give them Linux (Ubuntu or Jolicloud, for instance). If your machine meets the resource criteria, I like Seven a lot better in many ways. ESPECIALLY the 64-bit version. But if you upgrade to Windows 7, you may run into a number of permissions issues that you're not used to in previous editions of Windows: … [Read more...]
I got (and love) a super lightweight recipe book called Of These Ye May Freely Eat: A Vegetarian Cookbook by Joann Rachor. It's exceedingly portable (the recipe book equivalent of the Zinester's Guide to Portland - and exactly the same size), and it's got several recipes per page. The three basic kinds of sauces are on one page, for example. The ingredient lists are all sparse (maybe 5 … [Read more...]
I love my new organic cotton T-shirts from Anvil. Most cotton in the world is farmed in impoverished countries by children (as young as 3yrs old) with scarred fingers for 12-15hr days in scorching heat, at the expense of their schooling and their futures. Fark that Abercrombie and Old Navy garbage. Also cotton accounts for about half of the industrial chemicals sprayed on the earth. We're wearing … [Read more...]
I like my reel mower, but it's one heck of a lot of work. I don't much like the smog-belching alternatives. So this week I got an Earthwise electric mower. Ace Hardware has them on sale for $180. These things are powerful and do a fantastic job of mulching. 5-minute setup time out of the box and there's no gasoline, no oil to change, no spark plug to foul, and no filter to keep clean. I got the … [Read more...]
The [Scansnap] promises to be my key to digitizing the part of my life that's piles and piles of paper. File cabinets full, piles of notes, notebooks full of stuff. I've been scanning for years with my HP, but it's very time consuming. I dig [Pixily] and [Shoeboxed], but the volume I have to scan is enormous. It's a room full. And I'm looking for economy, too, so I figure if I scan a couple of … [Read more...]
I'm making Filofax my PIM (for you youngsters, that's "personal information manager"). It's instant on, with me when I get out of the shower, and goes with me in the car. It's not digital, but it's fast. And it allows me to work when I'm in line to get coffee - no wasted time. [ROW article] At the same time, I'm downsizing my notebook (computer) to a [netbook]. I had one back when they were … [Read more...]
I'm reinstalling my operating system. I should say systemS, since I'm going to be triple booting. I used to dual boot Linux and Windows 2000, with Linux as primary, until my university presented me with a Microsoft-only interface to their online-eviron. Shortly thereafter, Windows went down, took the hard drive with it, and I didn't have time (doing a Masters Degree and work simultaneously) to do … [Read more...]
I got the thinnest phone in the world. OK, the 2nd thinnest - the [Motofone F3]. This was designed for India, to be cheap, reliable, and easy to mass-produce. But the Indians didn't want it. By the time it hit the market, the market had changed, and they wanted iPhones, or something like it. Money is pouring in the country, and so it wasn't loved the way I love it. But this is e-paper, and a great … [Read more...]
I decided to dump the SUV and get a tiny car. SUV = failed experiment. I had a small car, an old-style Nissan Altima, but I was in a huge freeway pileup and it was totalled. My goddaughter gave me her SUV, and old 4Runner (how kind is that?) but I kept having to put a lot of engine parts on it, and it was threatening to be a more serious ongoing expense than a car payment. So I traded it and the … [Read more...]
I bought a memory foam mattress and built a platform bed. Instead of getting one of those expensive mattresses, I got one on ebay - instead of the 3 parts (memory foam, medium foam rubber, firm foam rubber) being fused, we just put them in a mattress cover. Savings over $1000. I paid less than $300 for the queen. The nice thing about this stuff is it's exactly the same stuff in the high end … [Read more...]
Kiva is one of my new charities. [Global Giving], Give Meaning, and Oxfam are the others. Except Kiva is not a charity, not really. It's a way each of us can loan a small amount - $25 - and the amounts are pooled into a microloan to someone trying to pull themselves out of poverty or improve their situation by entrepreneurship. A lot of these businesses are already solid, growing concerns, that … [Read more...]
My garage needed to be a workshop. After all, if I'm going to be doing all this work on the house, I've got to have a command center from which to make it happen. I invested in a table top mitre saw (mounted it on an old microwave cart), a portable table saw, cordless power drills (one for shooting screws, one for drilling holes), and I decided I need shelves. Plus, the garage was just studs. So I … [Read more...]
The bathroom had only a pair of flourescent shop lights on either side of a really long school bathroom mirror (you know, just a piece of mirror glass screwed to the wall). There was a hole in the wall where an old light fixture once was, over the mirror, no bathroom fan, and a dismal vanity with water damage. The drawers and cabinet door someone added to the former water heater closet (could one … [Read more...]
The former add-on closet had been added back when the previous home owner got her first washing machine or dryer (maybe in the 1960s?). The closet isn't the best construction, but it's secure enough for the patio room. The main problem is that the separate roof for that closet leaked when we moved in. The closet roof just doesn't have enough pitch to it. It was almost flat, so I have to bring … [Read more...]
We have this really long "room" that runs the length of the house, because it's really the back patio, and they built a room around it. The floor is the cheapest, vomit-colored lineoleum tile (the kind you see in old elementary schools) that's been held down with a red concrete sealant. The dog peed out there a lot when we moved in, and soon the ammonia interacted with the sealant, and up came … [Read more...]
I can't stand the slimy, wet look of the dark stained kitchen cabinets. Add to that bubble-gum pink counter tile ringed with chocolate brown bullnose tiles, and dingy white walls, and it's just hideous. The cabinet doors are good old birch plywood with fur-core, from the days when plywood was sturdier and made w. hardwood cores. I sanded the cabinet frames and drawers (under the … [Read more...]
Image via Wikipedia I decided to get a reel mower. You know, the silent ones where horizontally spinning blades cut the grass as you push it. They've changed a lot since the old days. No more lead-weight models. Compared to gas-powered mowers, these are: quieter - the animals don't leave when I mow, and I can do it at any hour safer - you can mow barefoot, and it doesn't fill the air … [Read more...]