Chatter

Puzzle Boxes

Dang. Them's some crazy wooden puzzle boxes.

Rust Removal via Electrolysis

http://workshop.tjmahaffey.com/workshop/electrolysis.php
http://antique-engines.com/electrol.asp

Picture Frames

Picture frame making reference. Illustration 1 and the preceding paragraph of rabbetting seems to have useful rules of thumb on depths and minimums.

Log Entry

25 min interval training. 140-170 bpm range, same as last time. 2.1 miles.

Log Entry

~18 min interval training on treadmill. Heart rate moved from 140-160s, up and down, until the time was up. About 1.6 miles.

Money Research

Money data sources for later:
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/popula.html
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p60-218.pdf
http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp/pubsmain.htm
http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p590/ch01.html#d0e1617

log entry

jog around the neighborhood w/ joclin.

TeX, LaTeX, MiKTeX

I probably should have learned to use LaTeX during college, but I was able to get along with Word (except for that one time that Word barfed on a very large document). Going to learn now. Planning on using MiKTeX and TeXnicCenter.

Starting points:
Gentle Introduction' to Plain TeX
Getting to grips with LaTeX
Index of Tutorials
AMS Short Math Guide

log entry

15 min jog. ~1.5 mi. Dusted off heart rate monitor and kept heart rate around 168-170 bpm.

My Polar heart rate monitor works with the tread mill. How cool is that? No more clunky watch for me. And no more not knowing my heart rate until I'm walking and the machine stops complaining that holding the handles while running is dangerous.

Kitchen Action

New food entries. Made a giant onigiri, some pizza from scratch, and some microwaved smores.

Craftiness

Making fake tombstones. Tips on working with foam, Super 77 spray adhesive, and how to make your own wire cutting tools.

Web Log Analytics

For reference later:

http://boxesandarrows.com/archives/web_traffic_analytics_and_user_experience.php
http://brettlider.com/blog/archives/site-traffic-report-map_no-transparency.pdf

Design Observer

A good place to go when I feel all designery.

http://www.designobserver.com/

Hydro-Foam

Will have to check out http://michaelconnally.com/ later when its bandwidth is back for plans on the cool RC boat/plane.

Learnin'

Things I've learned over the last couple of weeks:

Cleaning wood and metal (hand planes):
-mineral spirits and fine steel wool is a good way to get rid of paint splatters
-mineral spirits and fine steel wool does so-so with light rust, wd-40 does better
-wire wheels must be used with caution, even fine ones
-a dry scotchbrite pad will eventually clean off anything; for deep rust, allocate a couple of months
-mineral spirits and fine steel wool does so-so with light rust, wd-40 does better
-a citric acid solution does wonders on deep rust. two nights of soaking will also eat cast iron (laminated iron seems to hold up well, though). try spot applications for a couple of hours at a time instead of soaking.
-breathing in wd-40 or odorless (not really) mineral spirits for a while really will make you light headed. open the door and turn on a fan.

Food:
-when you've got a couple of dots of flour on your shirt, resist the urge to dust them off. you'll end up with a big stripe of flour on your shirt in their place. your hands are floury.
-pizza's not so hard. success here will make you want to try your hand at bread.
-render your bacon completely or the fat will soak through your crust and make it soggy instead of crispy.
-get or make a peel. handling a 500 degree pizza stone is no fun even with welding gloves on. or my welding gloves aren't very good.

MovableType:
-using unordered lists causes an internal server error and will drive you batty for a day