Ryan McFarland

One of my least popular Instructables has been an entry for the “Fridge Magnet Challenge” on how to reuse cheap fridge magnets.  The contest was over a year ago and my Instructable only has 2,600 views.  (Compared to the cart-bike with 66,000 views, Kevin’s and my t-shirt printing press with 49,000 views, or my geek wallet with 198,000 views.)  I didn’t even rank as a runner-up in the magnet contest.

I’ve been very happy with the exposure that the Instructables site has given my projects.  My first project for the site ended up in Popular Photography magazine.  It looks like i’ll have two projects in the upcoming book.  I’ve had my stuff in Australian and Italian magazines.  Of course, i’ve won a number of t-shirts and a few other prizes but to date none have ever brought me any direct money.  (Not that i do it for money but some cash wouldn’r hurt!)

Then I got an email from someone at HowCast.  They would like to pay me $50 to use “my” idea for a video.  They also are offering 50% of the ad revenue generated if i embed the video on zieak.com or in my Instructable.  It sounds like they will do all the production but will “work with” me.

Since this project has been one of my bigger flops i’m willing to sell off my idea for a few bucks.  Maybe I’ll stop waiting around for worthy contests to create and post my ideas now.

It seems that i might end up with two projects in the Instructables book.  I didn’t even enter this one in the book contest so this one has been selected purely by the editors and not because of popularity.

Hi Ryan,
It looks like we are considering a second instructable of yours, the “Stool made from bike parts and crutches” project. If you haven’t sent back the agreement yet, I can resend another one with both of the instructables in it, or just send you a new one for this one. Let me know what works best for you.
Thanks,
Terry

I decided a few days ago that on Sunday i would go to the landfill and pay $5 to do some salvaging.  I had to go to the pool a few times to let a plumber in to work on the boiler and then see the results of his inspection.  After doing that i headed to the dump.  One of the first things that i saw was this bicycle.

I’m not sure why someone cut two bike frames and then duct taped them together.  You would think that if they had the tools to cut steel and aluminum that they also could have drilled through and bolted the pieces together.  I ignored the bike until a while later when i decided to collect all the aluminum that i could find to try and make my $5 back.  I got $.40 a pound for aluminum when i went to Juneau and sold scrap.  If i could find 12 and a half pounds of aluminum i could call the trip a wash.  Here is most of the scrap that i came up with.

I didn’t want to work too hard for the scrap.  Another guy was there cutting cords and pulling aluminum wheels off of scrap vehicles so i pulled the things that take a bit of work with a relatively low payoff.  For instance, there are 6 bicycle rims there.  I brought a pair of bolt cutters and snipped the spokes where they cross (so i have to make half as many cuts as there are spokes).  I had to remove some tires too.  That’s quite a bit of work for perhaps a pound of metal (I have not weighed any so i don’t know how much to expect.

The bicycle frame is also aluminum but the fork and the crankset have to be removed.  Some of the brake parts will also be scrapped.  You can see the rear triangle of a GT bike frame that i pulled from the duct taped bike.  The straight pieces were from a window frame.  The most weight comes from the other big pieces - cast aluminum from a chop saw.  They require some cleaning too.

I came across two Razor scooters and chucked them in the back of my car.  Turns out that the front “fork” on both of them was bent so i ended up taking them apart for the aluminum.  The deck, upright pipe and handlebars were fairly easy to remove from the steel hingebetween the deck and upright.

I got a bit of assorted stuff like the the shovel.  I have found useable tools almost every trip i have ever made to the dump.  I don’t have any of this type of shovel so it will be nice to have it as an option.  A commercial door closer - no idea what i’ll use that for… yet.  The metal Christmas tree bowl is holding some parts for a garage door.  I might need those when i enclose our carport.  The “0″ “REG” and “1″ things are spiral bound and flip to use for showing the price of things on display.  They are made of plastic so shouldn’t have even been in the metal pile.  The tin box says Dremel on it but i’ll find something else to store in it since i like my Dremel case.  I found four brand new “Property of the United States” metal signs.  Three of them say “All persons are prohibited under penalty of the Law from committing damage.” And one sign says “All persons are prohibited under penalty of the Law from committing trespass.”  Also in the picture are two wheels i pulled from another scooter.

The first thing i loaded in the car were these metal signs that i pulled off of an old cigarette dispensing rack for Old Gold regular and king size.  I didn’t bring drill bits with me so i couldn’t remove the one rivet holding the “Don’t run short… buy a carton” piece off so i used my bolt cutters to trim away as much of the display as possible.  The “Remember… courtesy is our policy!” was on the back side that would have faced the employee.  On either side were the smaller ads for Kent cigarettes.

I also picked up a chair.  I cut the arms off of it on the spot with my new cordless reciprocating saw.  I’ll reupholster it somehow and it will end up either deck furniture, an office chair or the aluminum base will fetch a few dollars.

One last thing that i picked up - a display rack for Astroturf door mats.  It’s on casters so i’ll definitely be keeping the base because i love to be able to roll things around.  Right now i’m using it to store my collection of aluminum scrap.

This was also in the metal pile - a giant sheet of sponge.  The deck boards are 2×6s.  Ollie liked lying on it.

Skateboards at Zoom

Originally uploaded by zieak

I stopped by the bike shop during lunch the other day and there were 8 skateboards on the ground outside. At least 4 of the kids bought stuff.

Mike and i made plans to attend Interbike next month.  We’ll fly to Las Vegas on the 21st of September and return to Petersburg on the 28th.  I used Hotelsescape to find a room at the Sahara for an average of $52 a night (plus taxes) and we’re using a companion fare ticket to fly down and back.

Interbike is the world’s largest bike expo.  On the 22nd and 23rd we’ll participate in their outdoor expo where we’ll get to test out the latest products from hundreds of manufacturers on road and mountain trails.  From the 24th to 26th we’ll wander the 1,000 plus brands represented with over 20,000 other bike retailers.  Yes, i’m excited.  Oh, and there will be Pai Gow squeezed in there on the 27th I’m sure.  Kevin will probably drive up from LA to hang with us for the weekend too.

The big news in Alaska today is that Permanent Fund recipients will get their money early this year.  All people that are approved and signed up for direct deposit will receive the money on September 12.  Mailed checks will be sent on the 30th.  Right now the estimate is that the total amount will be about $3,300.  That’s five times the amount of the federal stimulus check if you qualified for the higher amount of $600.  So we’re getting a bumber crop amount and early (so that people can actually use it for fuel oil before it is too late - some bush communities can’t get fuel after the rivers freeze over.

All this and our governor isn’t up for reelection!

Here’s a chart of my net worth over time not including the bike shop or the mortgage.

The bump in the line in November was from receiving 6 months of advance rent and shifting some debt to a 0% interest credit card but not adding the account to the program.  You also can see a plateau in April of this year where i lost some focus.

If i can hold off on many more vacations or big shopping trips i can really move this trend in an even more positive direction!

I have to admit it.  I have loved and lost software to the ravages of time.  The five stages of grief in the Kübler-Ross model;

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Here’s a list of software that I have loved and feel is dying along with my stage in the grieving process.

1. ScreenPrint32 - [Bargaining] - Vista comes with a screen grabbing tool installed (called the Snipping Tool) and ScreenPrint32 isn’t even available for Vista.  Granted, many people have rejected Vista and have reinstalled XP on their machines but I don’t plan on doing that ever.  So I’ll continue using the program on the computers that i can.
2. Trillian - [Acceptance] - As a self-proclaimed “early adopter” (thanks to close friends and family for the most part) i have ICQ, AIM, and other instant messaging accounts.  I used to use them frequently - daily in fact - but with almost everyone carrying cell phones which are almost always on why bother with a program that has you tied to a computer and needing to be logged on?  Instead of Trillian i just send a text message.
3. ePrompter - [Anger] - I have hotmail, yahoo, gmail, and a few pop email addresses.  It’s nice to be on top of the mail without having to go to individual sites to log in, block ads, and move on to the next account.  ePrompter solved that.  Every 15 minutes it would log in, check accounts and notify you of any new messages.  Sadly, it tends to have frequent shutdowns of services, lately the send mail feature has been buggy and for some reason it sometimes resets all of my yahoo mail to unread every now and then.  I like the small size, easy setup, and just about everything except for the dated interface and using text instead of buttons in some places.  I need to find a better program to do this and i’m upset that it has stopped working as well as it used to.
4. miFiles - [Denial] - Sometimes software just gets one-upped by something else.  FireFTP is a FTP program (File Transfer for uploading stuff to websites).  I don’t use it yet - but i can tell that i should make the switch!
5. Palm OS - [Denial] - I can’t believe that I’m saying this.  I’m starting to think that the Palm OS is dead.  It just needs to get with the times.  I want WiFi on my cell phone.  I want GPS.  I want a better camera.  Yesterday i found out that the programs that i really love (Splash Money and Splash ID) are available for Windows Mobile and the iPhone platforms. The release of new phones that will run my favorite programs and that have the features that I’m looking for might be enough to lure me from the Palm OS.  I’ve been using Palm devices since 2000 or 2001.

Litter benefits me

Originally uploaded by zieak

I spent a few minutes and checked a spot near my office that high school kids go. I’ve seen them sneak down there during school hours and before and after school. I found plenty of cigarette butts, beer and liquor bottles, pop cans, and empty snack wrappers. I’ve decided i’ll start to patrol it and will harass kids I see go down there. I picked up 10 botle caps that got me 3 points each in the mycokerewards program. Big thanks to Kevin for texting me codes when he gets them!

Last week i noticed that my chainsaw was missing from the carport.  I looked around but didn’t notice anything else missing.  The last time i used it i noticed that the bar oil had been leaking out of it because of the way it was hanging up.  So a month and a half ago i put it in a different place - where it could be easily grabbed by someone outside of the carport.  I’ve written about my chainsaw two times on here before.

I have a hunch that it has to do with our frequent calls to the police because of our neighbors screaming at each other.

I filed a report with the police.  If they find the saw they’ll let me know.  And they told me that it is likely to be a felony because of the value of the chainsaw.