When You Get Good Advice, Take It!

I've been friends with 'Z' for a long time - since we were 18 years old, in fact, and freshmen in college.

'Z' is short for 'Z. Allora' which is actually the pseudonym under which she writes. Because this is a family-friendly blog, I won't go into any detail about what she writes (Google her and see for yourself), but she's very good at it and has a lot more experience with managing an online presence than I do. So, in my quest to improve my own online presence, starting with this blog, I asked her to check it out and offer some advice.


A few of the tidbits she offered up (in no particular order):

1. Write regularly. Make a writing schedule and stick to it.
I set aside a 1-hour block of time every Tuesday night to write. Even if it's not ready to publish, I'll at least work on it. Having done that, I promptly missed my very first writing session this past Tuesday. Well, I can only improve!

2. Put up a real picture of myself, not a caricature.
I haven't done this yet, but I will. I guess. I can't imagine people want to see the real me, but Z is smarter than I am, so I'll trust her on this.

3. Tag/label your posts.
I hadn't done this - never even thought about it. I went back and tagged my last few posts. Eventually, people may start running across my stuff when they search.

4. Better Titles.
I struggle with this. Coming up with a title that's both succinct and invites people to read the entry is an art form unto itself, I think. She also suggested that if the title is a bit vague (A Glowing Display! is the example she used) then put a picture right under it to grab the attention. Great idea! I added a picture right under the title for that post, and will definitely keep it in mind in the future.

5. Blog Description
I had a long blurb about what my blog is about, almost like a mission statement. I shortened it up a bit, made it a bit less stuffy and formal (I hope!). I need to ask her what she thinks about it....

Thank You, Z, for your good advice! I'm sure my blog will be better for it - now I just need to write, write, write!

A Tribute to a Good Man

Usually, I work in my office. But for about a year, I worked on a project that had me in a lab with two other software engineers almost every day. We had some good times, some stressful times, and everything in between. We chatted about movies, food, family, whatever. That's when I got hooked on Game of Thrones.

 

We had a young guy with us, in his 20's, and optimistic as only a kid can be. I was the middle-of-the-road guy, even though I was the oldest by a few years (I *gasp* just turned 49 in July). Then we had the other guy. Let's call him JW (well, because those are his initials, after all). JW is a good guy, a wicked smart guy, but kinda like Eeyore sometimes, convinced of his (and our) insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes I think he'd say stuff just to make the conversations more interesting. I couldn't imagine someone actually believing some of the stuff he tossed around!

 

One day, he said something to the effect of, "An ordinary person can't change the world." I couldn't help it; I took the bait, and a lengthy debate ensued. Nobody wins such a debate, of course, it's more for the sport of it than anything else. Still, I couldn't disagree more. Sure, we could argue from a chaos theory perspective, the whole Butterfly Effect thing. We could argue from a physical perspective, that even a person that hides under a rock still consumes resources and therefore changes the world. Even metaphysical arguments were fair game, though those make my head hurt like calculus never did.

 

For me, though, I know the truth of it. I know that an ordinary person can change the world. I've seen it. And now we come to the real reason for this post.

 

My dad died in November of 1978, when I was 12. My older sister was 15, and my younger brother 9. My brother was probably closer to my dad than any of us, and while we were all devastated, he took it hardest, I think.

 

Though we weren't well off by any stretch of the imagination, my mom did manage to scrape up enough money that we could still spend our summers at Salisbury Beach, MA. At the time, the 3-mile long beach had lifeguard posts along its entire length, manned by some of the best guards in the state. An amazing athlete even back then, my brother loved hanging around the lifeguards, working out with them, and becoming a sort of mascot. They kept an eye on him.

 

Things could have gone badly for my brother that summer after our dad died. Without the daily structure and discipline of school, he could have made any number of bad decisions, gone down any number of wrong paths, were he left to his own devices. I'm not trying to imply that he was a bad kid - he wasn't. But losing your dad, especially as a kid, leaves a void that just has to be filled.

   

Enter Salisbury Beach Lifeguard Craig Weir. I'm not sure if he was the head lifeguard at this point (if not, he soon would be). He took my little brother under his wing, not so much as father figure, I think, but more like a big brother / cool uncle sort of influence. Craig was only 22 or 23 at the time. While other guys might have been solely interested in chasing women or partying or whatever it is that twenty-somethings do (I can hardly remember), he instead guided my brother through a tough time. Year-round they'd hang out, do stuff (Craig was an avid outdoorsman and excellent athlete), talk on the phone, whatever.

 

The story of their friendship is one that my brother ought to tell; I couldn't possibly do it justice. All I know is what I saw from the outside. And anyway, that's not the point of this story. As a lifeguard, I don't know how many people Craig saved. I doubt he kept count. But I believe, deep in my heart, that he saved my brother. And he influenced my brother in the most positive of ways.
 

 

My brother became a lifeguard himself, one of the best. He became a personal trainer and motivational speaker, helping people find the best in themselves, whether they are ordinary or elite. He wants to be the next Jack LaLanne, and I believe he can do it.
 

 

An ordinary man changes the world by making his little corner of it better than he found it. That's the pebble he tosses in the pond, and the ripples spread out. 

But then again, perhaps JW is correct. Perhaps an ordinary man can't change the world. But if that's true, then clearly, Craig Weir was no ordinary man.

Craig Weir died of pancreatic cancer on September 16, 2015 just a couple months shy of his 60th birthday. He left behind his mom, his wife of 31 years, Karin, daughters Kendall and Brittany, and many other loved ones, both family and friends. If heaven has a beach, then I expect that he's on it. And he's probably keeping an eye out for anyone in trouble, because that's the way he is.

Side-Effects of Finally Buying a New Computer

Some months ago (well, last November, if you must know), I finally broke down and bought myself a new computer. I resisted for a good, long time, because my old (emphasis on old) computer works perfectly. By "works perfectly," I mean that it's not broken....

It was never top-of-the-line (I couldn't afford that), but it was a good, solid, middle-of-the-road model. It was a dual Power Mac G5,  2.0 GHz (I think), with 1 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. I added a 2nd internal 250GB hard drive. It had a 20" Apple Cinema Display and ran OS X version 10.5, which was the last version to support PowerPC processors.

 Of course, mere months after I bought it, Apple announced the transition to Intel processors. So, years later, the computer still works just fine, but doesn't have the horsepower to do what I need it to do anymore. There's no new software that will run on it, I can't upgrade the OS any further, and even my favorite browser, Firefox, is letting me down. I can't upgrade it any further, either, and more and more websites require a more recent version.

I finally pulled the trigger and bought an almost-top-of-the-line new computer: a 27" iMac with a Retina 5K display, 4GHz quad core Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM, 3TB Fusion Drive, and a few other bells and whistles. With my luck, it will be obsoleted in a month and a half, but I hope this lasts me just as long as my previous computers....

 

First problem: I need a new desk. My old desk has served me very well - it's a fairly inexpensive Sauder computer desk I bought almost 25 years ago. It's actually outlasted 3 or 4 computers, so was worth every penny, but it's at the end of its useful life. It's starting to fall apart now anyway, and it's getting tougher to repair (the bottom is falling out of the drawer, and top is held in place with a few sheet rock screws, ...)

Even if my old desk were in perfect condition, my new computer just doesn't fit. The old desk is proportioned for a good old fashioned 4:3 CRT. I could fit the Apple Cinema Display in it, but nothing bigger. The 27" iMac would have to sit far forward on the desk, leaving hardly any space for the keyboard, let alone anything else. Nope, definitely needed something different.

As long as I was going to get a new desk, I wanted something better than what I had, and something that (hopefully) would last just as long. The old desk was a bit small - 42" wide x 24" deep. It had a single small drawer, but a decent hutch with an 18" wide bookshelf for manuals and things. I was hoping to find something wider and deeper. with a hutch and more drawers.

I looked all over the place, but couldn't find quite what I wanted - either the size wasn't right, or the price was too steep, whatever. I finally found something that met most of my needs at a used office furniture store. It was a brand new desk, mind you, sold alongside some *ahem* well-used bits of corporate flotsam. It was the perfect size, 48" wide x 30" deep, with 2 small drawers and a file drawer, and was available in a variety of finishes. I picked the American Dark Cherry, because it had the most steampunkish look to it. The only downside - no hutch or shelves.

A quick look around the store and online led me to conclude that there was no equally perfect, reasonably priced, matching hutch commercially available. Like any good engineer, I decided to make my own. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Bob Vila. I've never built anything out of wood that you'd want to show off in the dining room, but I figured that I could probably make something worthy of the man cave. And as long as I'm building it myself, I can go for a steampunk/industrial look, and make exactly what I want.

Well, almost exactly. I couldn't find an American Dark Cherry stain to quite match the desk, so I went with a Mission Oak stain/poly combo finish. It's not a color match, but looks mighty nice just the same.

While wandering through Home Depot on my way to the lumber department, I ran across a vast stack of wooden crates that were on display in the middle of the floor. They were 18" wide x 12.5" high x 9.5" deep. Perfect. I did a quick mental calculation, and decided  I could fit four of them between the desktop and the ceiling.

 

 I figured that I'd have a stack of four crates mounted at the right rear of the desk, and my computer at the left rear. Mounted about halfway up the stack of crates would be a 10" deep shelf extending all the way to the left edge of the desk, to hold a paper organizer I have. Nice!

So I bought four crates, a quart of stain, some brushes, and some hardware to hold all the bits together. The crates came out really nice, but took 3 coats before I was satisfied with the finish.

 

 One thing about these crates - the boards from which they're made are only sanded on one side, the outside, and are pretty rough on the inside of the crate. That's fine if you're going to use them for storage, but not if you're going to use them for books. I didn't need a glass-smooth finish, but I did sand down the interiors of the crates quite a bit. 

 

 

I figured I'd start with a stack of two crates, just to see how they looked and fit. I decided to use ordinary aluminum mending plates to hold them together, but silver doesn't really fit into the color palette I was working with.

 

A can of flat black spray paint took care of that problem. I used two mending plates on each side. If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see that the manufacturing tolerances of the crates is a bit loose. In fact, no two are quite the same! I only put hardware on the sides of the crates because the wood is about 3/4" thick there. The slats on the back, top, and bottom are only about 1/4" thick.
 

 

Here's the finished stack of two crates. Notice the missing slat from the back of the bottom crate. I removed it so I could easily run cords into the bottom crate. I plan on putting my telephone and a power strip there.

 



 

Had all the crates actually conformed to the given measurements, a stack of four would have fit between my desktop and ceiling with a fraction of an inch to spare. As it turned out, the stack was about 1/2" too tall. Drat! Compounding the problem was an epiphany I had about the shelf I wanted to add. Rather than attach the shelf to the side of the stack of crates with L brackets or some such hardware, I realized that it would be much sturdier to sandwich the shelf between the 2nd and 3rd crates. This added an additional 3/4" to the stack height.

The only real option I had, short of eliminating one of the crates from the stack, was to cut one of them down. I cut down the bottom crate by 1-1/2", about the height of one of the slats, so it actually looks like it was built that way on purpose. The result was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

Here's the finished unit, without the big paper organizer in place. The tan-colored bits you see on the shelf are felt pads like you use on the feet of furniture. They keep the organizer from scratching up the shelf - or vice-versa.

One thing you can't really see in that photo is how I supported the left edge of the shelf. I used two 3/4" diameter lengths of steel pipe and threaded flanges on each end, screwed into the shelf and desktop. The cool thing about using threaded flanges is that I could use them to level the shelf before screwing them down.

Here's the finished unit with the paper organizer in place. I'm very happy with it! Please note, my desk is about as clean as it will ever be, at least until it's time for a new computer....

Here's a closer look at the pipes supporting the left end of the shelf. I bought 3/4" diameter x 24" long steel nipples, which come threaded on both ends. Unfortunately, they were just a little too long - by about the same amount I had to cut down the bottom crate - so I was faced with the problem of cutting (easy) and threading (not so easy) the pipe. I was going to rent a thread cutter from Home Depot, but a very helpful employee told me that they'd cut & thread the pipe for me for free in plumbing department. Oh, happy day!

Like I said, I'm no Bob Vila, but I was very happy with how this project turned out. Bit by bit, I hope to continue to Steampunk-ify my man cave as time and budget permits.

A Glowing Display!

A while ago, I took my kids to a Mineral Show. We can't really claim to be serious mineral collectors or anything, but we like cool rocks and fossils, and it sounded like fun. It was, and I even found a couple of things that I couldn't resist buying. One was a fantastic fossilized fish (how's that for alliteration - my English teachers would be so proud!). The only fossils I ever found were ferns and other plants. Cool, but not as cool as a fish! It's not very big, about 4" wide x 2.5" high.

I also got a fluorescent rock that glowed red & green under UV light. It looked like granite. I was very disappointed when I got home and put it under a black light, though. It didn't glow anything like it did at the show. Drat!

I found  a nice little shadow box display frame, as you'll see in a moment. It has one big section that would accommodate the fossil just fine, and three smaller sections below. I wasn't sure what I'd put in those. Unfortunately, that decision was slow in coming. Time passed, and the fossil and display frame got buried under the stratified layers of stuff surrounding my desk in the man cave, out of sight and out of mind for maybe a year.

As luck would have it, I ended up buying a new computer, which necessitated buying a new desk, which necessitated a cleanup - nay, excavation - of my cave. There, under the accumulated detritus of human activity, did I find my treasure. And, I knew exactly what I wanted to put in those pesky little sections on the bottom!

When I was a kid, one of the favorite displays in Boston's Museum of Science was a glass case containing a bunch of fluorescent mineral samples. On a timer, the display case lighting would alternate between white light and a black light (or so I thought), and some of the specimens were absolutely dazzling. Here's a photo of such a display, though this isn't the one from the Museum of Science.

I decided to try to find some rocks that fluoresce under black light. Well, it took some digging, but Google didn't let me down. I eventually made my way to geology.com and learned a few things. First of all, I found out that what we call "black light" is longwave ultraviolet, UV-A, with a wavelength in the neighborhood of 365nm. There are minerals that fluoresce at that wavelength, but there are more that fluoresce under shortwave ultraviolet, UV-C, with a wavelength in the neighborhood of 254nm.

You can't get shortwave UV lamps in the party store, but you can at geology.com. I actually got one with a switch to select between shortwave and longwave UV. And equally good, their online store carries a Fluorescent Mineral Collection for a reasonable price! Apparently, I'm not the only one that likes this stuff!

I was like a kid on Christmas morning the day the package arrived. I opened up the mineral collection, put the batteries in the lamp, put on the safety glasses of course (UV-A is bad for your eyes & skin), and had a look at the rocks I bought. I tried the longwave UV first, and was disappointed because only a couple samples fluoresced. I expected that, but plain old blacklight would make displaying my treasures easier, since I could buy UV LEDs or a black light bulb or something.

Under short-wave ultraviolet light, though, two of the specimens fluoresced beautifully. And they were a perfect fit for the display frame, so I mounted them immediately. Those are the two in the middle & left spaces. The third one, on the right, fluoresces a little bit, a deep red, but is disappointing compared to the others. That one didn't come from the mineral collection I bought, though. It came from a bag of tumbled rocks I bought for my son at the Polar Caves on vacation a while back.

The specimen on the left is Opalite, from New Mexico, and  glows a nice green. The little bit of glowing blue that you see is actually a number label that I couldn't manage to remove. The middle is Willemite-Calcite from New Jersey, and glows red and green. I'm not sure which is which, but it looks great. I've no idea what the specimen on the right is.

Oh, and that other rock I bought at the mineral show, the one that didn't glow under ordinary black light? It fluoresces a brilliant red & green under shortwave UV, so I suspect it's another sample of Willemite-Calcite.

Having finished securing everything in the display frame, I now needed a way to mount it. I figured it would look nice hanging on a wall, and didn't really want to use a boring picture hanger. I'm a huge fan of Steampunk, so I started casting about for a way to Steampunk-ify my handiwork. I did it by making a leather hanging strap for the frame, attached to it by brass buckles.

I bought a strip of black leather from a craft shop, and cut it to size. The buckles actually came from the scrapbooking section of the same store. Apparently, folks use them as embellishments on their pages. I've no idea how they'd to that (my wife would - she's an amazing scrapbooker), but I like the way it came out.

Here's the finished product, hanging on my wall. Don't mind the cords and things; my workspace is definitely a work in progress!