I did tell my dad once that i wanted to have a job that didn’t use computers. And now i’m a computer geek. Some people pay me to fix their computers. Others pay me to build websites, and still others pay me to play music from my computers. All that and i still need to use a computer during my “day job” and i get home and often spend some time on the computer there. So, needless to say, i really feel lost while i’m in my car driving between computers. Not for long. I’m installing a seven-inch touch screen into my dashboard connected to a computer running Windows XP that i have mounted under the driver seat with a dvd drive. There will be a wireless keyboard and probably bluetooth or wifi connectivity. Why? Because i can. I’ll have thousands of songs at my fingertips. If i wanted to i could have the gps that came with the computer running (i always know where i am though). I could install a cam in the back of the car and easily see just how close i am to the car behind me while parallel parking. Before and during pictures… not done yet so the completed project will be a little while.

So that is what the dash originally looked like. And it will eventually look something like this…

Getting there required me removing the seats and all the center console stuff. I ran wires from the battery and under the carpeting. I removed the factory stereo. I used the internet to figure out the wiring harness and to splice the new head unit that Cena picked up for me at Best Buy while she was in Seattle over the weekend.

And i busted open knuckles on both hands working on this project.

It has been a while. At work i have been trying to get the old pool working again. Here’s the pump that was causing the problems…

It turned out to be just fine. After that was wrapped up we ended up having a leak on some of the early 70s vintage aluminum plumbing. We couldn’t unbolt the section that was bad because the bolts were so corroded. See?

So we cut out the bad section and replaced it – not that we have those parts just sitting around though. Turned the system on and one of the fittings we made with the 6″ pvc pipe blew open. Ten gallons were coming out of that pipe in one second. If it was pumping into a large gas tank it would have been full in under three seconds. We got that fixed and for some reason we have had problems getting the pool to warm up correctly. Then this afternoon another fitting blew apart. It took me an hour and a half or so but it is reassembled and we hope it stays together for a while now.
We had to run the filter a little harder than usual because we ended up pumping some really brown water into the pool.

All this and my usual staff has not been available – i have had temp maintenance staff that is not familiar with the systems or facility as my primary help along with the assistance of quite a few different city departments. I’m now trying to clear up my email and the piles that have formed on my desk. It’s bad.

I usually hate getting songs stuck in my head. I just had a very odd one that popped in though. It is from one of my grandmother’s player piano reels. Thanks to Google and the whole internet thing i was able to find out the artist, title, year, and even a free mp3 to download. It was “The Farmer Took Another Load Away” by Billy Jones and Ernest Hare performed in 1925. The mp3 that i have linked here isn’t quite the one we played on the piano but it was close enough to dredge up the memories of my brother, sister, and i sitting on the bench, pumping the pedals, and singing with grandma. This is a good place for me to start with my plan to provide a new free mp3 every week so that my posts are not all about the stuff i’m making.

This little project is sort of nameless right now because i don’t quite know where it will end. I sort of want these to end up as lamp shades. I picked up two "stained glass" coloring books at – you’ll never guess… the Salvation Army. They were not colored in and cost me fifty cents each. As you can see, the paper is sort of waxy – allowing light to shine through. You’re supposed to color them in with crayons or markers and then hang in a window. But i like the designs plain.

I decided to make plexiglass boxes to attach the pages to. I had scrap acrylic kicking around from another project that was almost the right size. I took care to cut two pieces the right size for the page and then two that were a quarter inch smaller in width so that i didn’t end up with blank space at the corners. If you use 1/8 inch plexiglass then you could just cut all four pieces 1/8 shorter and just lap them. I ended up with the wider sides opposite each other and the thinner sides between the wider ones. I used the metric system when i measured though. I wanted the accuracy only millimeters could provide.

I tested superglue but wasn’t happy with it. I then used a new adhesive that i’m pretty excited about. I can’t tell you the name of it because i’m pretty far from it right now. Just support the adhesives industry and buy a basket full of different types and see what kinds of results you get. I wanted to be precise in my gluing so i used my quick square and a clip to make sure i ended up with a right angle.

I repeated that process and then glued the two halves together. I kept cutting plexiglass because each book had eight pages – enough for two lampshades (or whatever) each.

I then put a tiny (and i mean small) dot of superglue on the outer edge of the plexiglass and glued the pages (after pulling the staples from the book) to the sides. I should have experimented with the insect book first since i’m not as fond of it as i am of the leaves. I ended up having some glue show through the translucent part of the page. A little dab’l'do’ya. (That’s what my elementary art teacher always said.) Here’s what the box looks like with the pages on and two small candles inside. They may just end up softening the light of candles instead of light bulbs.

If you want some of these books you can pick them up pretty cheap. In fact, there is a wide assortment of the books at Amazon.com and most are just $1.50 new.

Dear Diary,

I hate Teletubbies. I also hate electronic doorbells that don’t actually have chimes and have some midi file play instead. But when you combine two things i hate i get something i like. The Teletubbell. It is kind of like salsa. I’m not a big jabañero fan. Nor do i like tomatoes. But mix them up and i’m digging in with the Santa Fe chips.

Seriously though. Teletubbies are often found at the Salvation Army. Sprawled out with the plush Garfields and the generic bean bag animals you can find them for under a dollar. Every now and then you find one with a voice box thing that says six or so different sayings when you squeeze them right. The black lab got to do her duty and open the teletubby. Eventually (25 seconds perhaps) i had to rescue the plastic box from her death shakes. Actually it was more of a rescue for the dog. I was certain she was going to damage her face with that white brick smacking her head.

Open up that little voice box and you’ll see a couple of buttons, a tiny circuit board and a small speaker. The battery compartment is on the other side. I carefully removed a jack from an old sound card and tested the contacts to see which ones would give me sound through the old powered (this is important because the batteries can’t power a big speaker) computer speaker i wanted to use.

A bit of Dremel gouging and a little cordless drill action and the jack fit in the case. Soldering two small wires in place wasn’t exactly easy. I seem to always need another hand or two to solder well. And then there isn’t enough space for a hot iron dripping with lead to get in there.

In the photo below, i added the light blue box (from the old sound card) and the two wires that connect to the spots with the red circles.

I then connected the black plug (shown) to the output i added to the Teletubby box. I drilled a hole through the wall near the front door. I decided to hide it behind a switch plate cover (drilling from the inside) that covered an abandoned light switch. Since it is quite normal for people to have a light switch just inside their doors everyone should be able to do this. Run the dual male cord through and connect to your speaker.

Naturally, having a speaker by the front door isn’t ideal so i ended up hiding the speaker (a little) under a shelf that i made from parts of wooden spools.

On the shelf is an Amazon.com book sale ready for shipping and a photo frame box that i picked up at the Salvation Army and put in clippings from the chapter cover pages of book about auto repair (also from the Salvation Army).

From the outside the button is too far from the hole in the wall but we needed to cover the spot that the former residents had left unpainted because they painted around their doorbell.

In hindsight i might skip the output jack and just solder the ends of the cord to the circuit board. I’d also run the cord through the bottom of the voice box so that when it was mounted on the wall you had the hole hidden from view. I wanted the jack so that the box was easily reused. Some day I’ll get around to making mp3s of the sounds that it makes to post on this page. I might even take the thing along with me djing some time. Nothing like hearing "big hug!" or "lalalalala la la la" mixed in with some tunes.

A nice thing is that the voice box has a speaker so the person ringing it can hear it too. It has a giant button so it is not easy to miss.

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I finally completed the Nintendo controller card reader. Before i drone on about it there are a few things that must be said.

1. I did not play much Nintendo as a child. I was in 9th or 10th grade when they hit it big and i was not very interested in it.
2. If you try this you could hurt yourself, burn your house down, knock down the power in your community, or worse.

You’ll need some stuff for this project.

Glues

You can see that the cardreader is just the right size for the controller. Despite some of my other projects i’m really not that interested in soldering and modifying everything – i’d rather just open one case and put the guts from something else in. This isn’t as much a craft as a skinning project.

I glued the buttons in place and then trimmed them down as much as possible to make space for the cardreader.

Mark the areas for the cards you want to be able to read. This was a “12″ in one cardreader but i only use compact flash and sd cards. I used the Dremel to cut the initial hole and then used the razor to trim it nicely.


I did run into a small problem. The cord for the cardreader didn’t fit the form factor.

Looking at the board i realized i couldn’t solder a new usb cord in. I had to risk cutting away plastic to see if i could get the cord to fit after discarding the unnecessary parts.

It worked. I also trimmed some of the sheathing of the cord to make it fit well. I then glued everything in place because i didn’t want the parts to drift around at all.

i am not linear. it is a rare project that gets started and completed on one day. that said let me list a few of the unfinished projects, finished projects that have had their files reopened, and ideas that are still cranking away…

The chair made out of skis. I now have enough skis (i really prefer to write “skiis”) to do two Adirondack style chairs out of them.

A table made from wooden crutch parts. I envision a glass tabletop supported by wooden crutches. Maybe a piece for the firehall? I can’t find wooden crutches. I doubt that i’ll be able to find or make them short enough to be a viable table. So i have no raw materials and no realistic design. Some day it will be so.

The wooden block tabel has been back in the shop. I’m making the leg appear like a pile of the blocks. I’m about half way done with that. You’ll see the finished project within a few months i’m sure. I think the book will be closed on this one then.

The aquarium. I have taken an old wooden television and removed the guts. I want to put an aquarium inside but i really want the aquarium to bulge out like the tv tube did. I think i can use a heat gun to soften the acrylic and melt it over the old glass. I need the chemical that fuses acrylic because i don’t want to rely on caulk. AS part of this project i installed a cdrom drive and a power unit from a computer. If you turn on the tv using the original power switch it turns the power on. One of the button holes for contrast and brightness has a button that ejects the cd tray out of a small slot inthe front of the console. The knob that changes the channel advances the track on the cd. I accomplished all this with some experimenting with soldering wires onto the drive’s motherboard. this is a huge project and is quite a ways from completion.

The mp3 server. I picked up another wooden console – this relic from the Salvation Army free pile was a stereo/record player. Stereo might be a generous term – since it has a mono/stereo switch. I am gutting it and installing a computer with monitor, wireless keyboard, etc. This computer will eventually be networked and host the mp3s for the house. It will have a decent set of speakers installed so that it can operate as a jukebox itself or run the music off of it an piped through any other computer in the house via the network.

Clocks, clocks, clocks. I have a number of clock projects started. Noting incredible special. But i have collected some really cool raw materials to work with. I think i’ll probably crank some of these out next.

Lego phone. Mine will be way cooler than this one. I am working on rendition number 3 right now. I have essentially gutted a perfectly good phone and am putting the parts in a case made of Lego. I don’t think i’ll be making the handset out of lego. I’d rather the handset actually be comfortable to use.

Decorations. I have some old National Geographics from the 20′s and 30′s that have some beautiful plates of butterflies and plants (not together). I need to find the right (inexpensive and plentiful) frames to do a series of these.

Spare tire cover. My Suzuki has a spare tire mounted on the back. It came with a cover with a huge Suzuki ad on it. I have a piece of stainless steel cut to cover that. The piece has a small dent in it that i can’t work out so i need to figure out some way to cover the dent. I hope it doesn’t make the back of my car too shiny.

There are more. But these are the big ones in the hopper.

The Nintendo mouse ended up featured on Slashdot. So my site was “slashdotted” for a bit yesterday. Fortunately i hosted the images for that project on imageshack.