2017-01-22 : politics, fear, and folly

“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

01/22: Vietnamese rock and soul

I have been listening to this compilation of Vietnamese rock and soul songs the whole weekend. It’s so good!

Awesome guitar playing and drums are killer all over it.

Totally worth a listen.

Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968-1974

01/21: indoor planets

I setup up a scene for my Hue lights for each of the planets in our Solar system.  It’s more fun than I thought picking which planet you want to “be on”.

01/20: presidential transition

Trump was sworn in as President today. There is a large protest planned in St. Paul tomorrow at Noon and protests all over the country tomorrow.

For someone who was in front of the camera on a major network for so long, you’d think he would have the public speaking thing down. His speech had a really odd tone to it.

“From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.”

While statements like this play well domestically, millions of Americans live and work outside the United States. It is hard enough to maneuver in another country without words like this. You are making their lives just that much more difficult.

01/19: Radish and Butter Tartine

This looks amazing.

Bread, butter, radish slices, and coarse salt.

Layer.

Eat.

 

01/18: new MacBook Pro update

TouchBar: Do I use it? Yes…a lot. The amount I use it depends on the app. The biggest “whoa” moment, so far, happened today with the GarageBand update. Having all the controls available as sliders rules.

Keyboard: I love how fast it feels to type on it. When I go back to my old MacBook Air, it feels clunky.

Charger Cable: I miss how you were able to wrap the old charger cable around the charger.

01/17: the merge

I migrated an older Tumblr blog to this blog. Still trying to figure out if it was a good move or not. It’s fun to go through the old stuff but some of it needs to go. Going through it reminded me to post more music links.

01/16: on the radio

Christian (mpls ltd) and I were on the radio tonight. We were promoting the upcoming Bug Fix show on Feb. 6th on the Spin with Cyn show on KFAI. It was good times. Hideo showed up too halfway. We both brought a bunch of random records to play and talked about random band trivia we know.

Listen here…it is the 01/16 show.

01/15: wood hooks

I saw these wood towel hooks on the Merrythought site and thought they would be a perfect project for today. Woodworking in a garage in the middle of January in Minnesota isn’t the warmest. We could set up a space heater in there but it is much easier to find a project that is appropriate for the basement.

These hooks use dowel screws which are also called double ended screws or the British name of handrail bolt. They are my new favorite item in the nail/screw aisle. Knowing they exist now opens up a whole new world of project ideas.

The hooks turned out well. They look great and are very strong. We screwed one into an exposed stud and I could hang from it. My hooks turned out like their hooks so if you want to see them, check out the photos on their site.

01/14: woodworking prep

Sunday is woodworking day for me which means Saturday is researching tomorrow’s project. Usually it is a palette wood project. There is an allure for me making packing/shipping materials into things. Palette wood is also good for trying out ideas before you make something out of the more expensive woods.

I’ve been noticing that palette wood projects make me say ‘whoa’ or ‘eww’. There isn’t a lot of middle ground. This table set goes in the ‘whoa’ column for sure.

I am a big fan of the white paint/natural wood vibe lately. I am also a big fan of the way the stools all fit under the table and are hidden on the side.