American Optical - A military classic

These sunglasses are well made using real glass (think Panama Jack and Serengeti) and are put together with excellent welds and fit to last a long time. The military no longer uses AO but the glasses remain a classic. Here is Robert Di Nero in Taxi Driver talking to Harvey Kitel. You can pick these up off Ebay for around $35 shipped.

Direction

I have not posted anything in awhile, I think that Facebook as stolen my focus as a output. I need a new direction. Well I am thinking about it at least.

Update on Katrina Cottage

Well its been awhile, I have most all of my studs. I am short on some of the beams. So I need to make some effort there. My lot got hit hard by Hurricane Ike, some clean up will be required down there. It turned out good that I had not been able to make more progress, or I would have probably had my work trashed.

I quit my job earlier this year, and started my own company. It has taken a significant amount of my time to get the ball rolling, but it is going extremely well.

In addition my first son was Born on August 8th, I am very pleased with Elias, and he weighed a whopping 11 lbs 4 oz.

I will continue to collect materials, I am still needing the rest of the beams, a few more windows, and roofing materials.

Katrina Cottage Plans

I purchased plans to build my lake house. It is designed by Eric Moser, and is provided by Lowes originally to provide affordable yet smart stylish housing in Katrina affected areas. But Lowes made the plans available nationally. I am modifying the plans to some degree, it calls for balloon framing and 2x6 studs, which is a bit over kill for my inland lake house. I am going to forgo the metal roof and go with traditional shingles. The materials sheets run the costs to be around $40,000 to build this. I am aiming to get the whole thing done for less than $10,000, which will be a hard feat to pull off, but so far I am about $365 into it and I have a sizable amount of materials.

Here are some images of the model home of the Katrina Cottage 697, which features A vaulted ceiling in the living room and sleeping loft define the open feeling of this plan.

High School Gym Floor makes great sheathing

I ran into a great deal on craigslist from a guy who redoes floors for school gyms, I picked up 90 7/16th inch OSB 4x8 panels, which will be enough to do all of my roofing, siding, and attic subfloors for $130, from Lowes with tax it would have been $564. This was a significant savings. These things weigh 44 lbs a piece or 3960 lbs total. Thus it was quite a job to load them into the trailer. Fortunately Skip, Judy, Janaya and David all helped me unload this monumental amount of lumber into the shed. Glad they had a pool too. It was hot

Stainless Sink

Being quick to watch craigslist on Saturday, scored me a stainless steel kitchen sink with faucet and spray for free. Not bad.

Free CRAPer

I picked up a new window off of Craigslist this morning, for $25, it's a nice double paned window.







Later I went scavenging for wood again today, but unfortunately the disposal service had cleaned up all my favorite spots, so I brought home very little, a few 2x4's of varying length. Maybe a dozen pieces total. Late in the day I got a big prize, I saw a free Toilet listed on Craigslist, best of all it was clean late model, and packaged into new boxes. That was a huge savings right there. To date I have spent a total of $25 on materials, I now have a toilet, a $200 window and about $300 in lumber.

Scrap Lumber

I've been scanning the scrap lumber at construction sites, It's tough work, mud, nails, sharp stuff, and not to mention it is hot, close to a 100. I've gotten off to a pretty good start. Removing the nails, and power washing some of the muddy boards took some time.

The Cabin that Craigslist Built

I'm building a cabin on some land I aquired in March of 2008.

It is a small lot in a community in South Texas near Houston. At the moment, there is nothing on the lot except for some tall pine trees.

I only paid about $2,500 for the lot, which I have paid off. My goal with this project is to build a decent sized cabin, with nice amenities for under $12,500, that includes the price of the land. I am going to utilize Craigslist, Amazon, Ebay, outlet stores and clearance items to reduce the cost of materials as best I can.

I have started off this project, by cleaning out my office, which had 10 years of computer junk stored up in it. I sold this stuff off, and have bought the following tools.


Dewalt D51321 Heavy Duty Roofing Nailer
Got this for a phenomenal $141 with Shipping off of Amazon
It is a highly rated Nailer, it Runs around $220 + Tax at the local Lowes.














Next I purchased this Flooring Nailer off of Amazon, based on it's 5 Star rating. It was $219 with shipping which is far less than what most good Flooring nailers go for. This is a Hardcore Tools pneumatic nailer.














I'm all in favor of good power tools, so I traded an a computer I wasn't using for this Hitachi NR90AE Framing nailer and a nice Hitachi air compressor. I also bought a $80 box Hitachi framing nails, 7200 3 1/4 inch nails for $5! Can't beat that clearance price.


















I already had a Porter Cable compressor, that I found was full of water, I didn't realize these allow water to condensate in them. Now that I know that, I bought a filter on clearance at Lowes for $11, that will remove the water from the line, so it will keep the tools from rusting hopefully, plus I now know I need to drain these things!

Here is my Porter Cable Finish, Brad and Crown Stapler.. The Porter Cable compressor didn't have enough power to keep up with the Hitachi Framing Nailer.



















Here is the Kolbalt inline Water remover I picked up from Lowes






















Next up I swapped a guy a bunch a SCSI cables, sold a bunch of junk on ebay and picked up this generator for onsite power. I got this generator from Amazon as well and it came highly recommended, it is a Chinese brand, but uses a clone of the Honda OHV engine, it should handle all the power tools I throw at it. Amazon shipped it to me for free, and no tax! It came surprisingly quickly about four days after I ordered it. I'm glad I didn't hold off on getting this, it was up $40 in price, when I went and grabbed the stock photo of it from Amazon.










I have plenty of hand tools and various drills, saws, that I already own. The only thing I am on the look out now will be a Duraspin Screwdriver, to help with the flooring and Drywall installation.

Idol Gives Back, But takes 2.5 hours

I was going to reply to you last week about AI, but I forgot to, or got busy, something. So I wrote this little bit over lunch.. I hope you watched it, if you didn’t then my recap won’t make sense. Okay so here goes:

David Cook is looking sooo much better now that he fixed his hair. He’s my favorite now. Glad that MicroAsian chick is gone. I think Sayesa is next. I don’t think Brooke had been very good the last few weeks so she is probably in trouble too. The Idol Gives back, had lots of awkward moments, it didn’t have the oomph that the one from last year had. I actually felt bad for Simon, despite how rich Idol has made him, I think Jimmy Kimmel making fun of Simon was not funny, nor was it very tasteful. It just seemed mean. I know, I know. But still, it somehow didn’t seem appropriate. I like Robin Williams, but I think all those serious movies he made, he has lost some of his comedic touch. He was kinda of funny. The broke back comment was funny, but now that I think about it, he might have been serious.

And we had to suffer through Miley twice. Again very poor comedic performance by Billy Crystal, I’m sure he didn’t believe in the skit he was having to perform. It was PAINFUL. And Miley can’t sing so good. I was uncomfortable watching a 15 year old be sexy. It’s just not quite right, she is in that tough adjustment phase, sure. But this is American Idol, which is about the most family show on TV.

I’m so glad I had Tivo, this still took forever to watch. When I was watching Maria Shriver, she sort of looks a little bit like her Husband.. You had to love Snoop’s massive bling, he could probably save a nation or two in Africa with that thing. What was up with Kobe Bryant’s face. Now the bit with Teri Hatcher, I kind of liked, it was cute and different. She sings just okay, but was fun to see the guy from Desperate Housewives, and Greg Grunberg (from Heroes) on the drums, I think there was some guy from House on the bass. It would have been better though if Carrie Underwood had taken over about midway through. But when Carrie did sing later, her dress and voice were both AWESOME.

I like Bono, now that he is not hiding out under his shades all the time, I wish he would bring himself/U2 and do a song on stage. Okay next I was wowed out by Fergie’s performance, she really sang great, and had those great summersaults. Not normally much of a Fergie Ferg fan, as most of her music is retarded.

They cut to Sayesa a million times, I was annoyed by it. I enjoyed the piece with the Mannings, LOL, those kids didn’t look like they knew who they even were.

Annie Lennox did a great job, she can really project! She is amazing!

Oh god Gloria Estifan she’s like been in her 40’s forever now, I think she stopped aging. But that song grates on me, Fast Forward.

Who else was there, I missing a bunch, I know there was the Beckhams, Keifer, Silverman (bleh), etc. But Reese Witherspoon is a nice person, she seemed kind of awkward, but I give her props for caring, she seems genuine!

Brad was wearing his stupid hats, but he gets mad props from me for what he has done down in New Orleans. I like liberals who actually put their money into the causes they want us to all support. I thought it was funny to see Bill Clinton with the shovel, he looked like he was searching for where the camera was for the photo op.

My tivo shut it off short of the end, but It probably was just as well.

Writer's Strike is Over, Elbo's Blog has been renewed

Hey all (2) of my fans! I'm back to putting stuff here again.

First Kirsten Dunst now Tobey is Frugal too

Maybe that is why the stars of theSpiderman series of movies don't get along, they are both cheapskates. From an interview with Parade magazine via AHN,

Maguire said: "I feel like you could drop me anywhere in the world,anonymously, and I'd figure out how to survive. If you stripped away everything I've got - the money, the fame, the possessions, everything - I know that I'd find a way to get along, because, basically, that's what I've had to do all my life."

"When I first started being successful at this, financially speaking, I was very conservative with my money. That was definitely a product of my upbringing. You know those Lotto winners who win big and then blow all the money? That would never happen to me."

My American Idol Prediction:

Next Round: Phil Stacey is voted off
(reason: Haley picks up Gina's Votes)
The Top Seven
Blake
Melinda
Jordin
Chris
Sanjaya
Haley
Lakisha

Next Round: Haley is voted off, leaving:
The Top Six
Blake
Melinda
Chris
Jordin
Sanyaya
Lakisha

Next Round: Lakisha is voted off, Jordin picks up Haley's Votes, leaving:
The Top Five
Blake
Melinda
Chris
Jordin
Sanjaya

Next Round: Sanyaya is finally voted, off, leaving:
The Top Four
Blake
Melinda
Chris
Jordin

Next Round: Chris is voted off
The Top Three
Blake
Melinda
Jordin

Jordin gets Voted off, leaving Blake & Melinda

Blake wins American Idol

I think Blake ultimately wins, because he will capture more votes from
other casted off Contestants, than Melinda will. Even though Melinda is currently
the front runner. Melinda has been getting a little bit boring.

Change your Airfilter Save $

I've been monitoring my house with a BlueLine Energy monitor. It's a device that watches how much electricity my house uses in real time. Well it came in handy in determining how to save a little money on the air conditioner. I have very expensive air filters in my home, they are sized 25x24x4 and run about $30 at Lowes or Home Depot. I tend to try to let them stay up there and run as long as possible. I noticed once they start getting clogged a bit, I can begin to hear the air conditioner work harder, and hear a slight whistle when it gets really clogged.

Well I had calendered to change it out at 6 months, which would have been February, so two months later, I did a baseline cost of running the a/c with the dirty filter which was .35 cents an hour. After putting in the new filter, the cost was now running at .32 cents an hour. This doesn't sound like much, but over the span of a month during the summertime with both of my filters running part time, that is going to be a savings of between $14 and $20 a month. If I was to delay a filter change over the summer, it is false economy to stretch the filter life by very much, plus the extra wear and tear on the fan motors.

Retrocausality Universe

We have grown up and lived in a causality universe, at least that is the way we interpret the world around us. Everything in our entire lives has been the result of cause and effect. Can you think of a single thing that occurred, that didn't have a reason for the event to unfold. Thus we live in a universe of causality. Now in the physics that underly quantum physics, we find that the rules don't seem to behave the same way as they do at higher, more physical levels that we have tangible access to. Thus some interesting possibilities might be at play, and the potential for some surreal inventions may lie in wair for those that can unlock new understandings of a possible universe that may have retro-causality. Events that happen not from past events in time, but future events in time!

Now scientist are hoping to to prove that retro-causality is possible, by a experiment that is designed to create a change in the current time from something that is started upon in the future. Ironic as it sounds, they will know the results before they start the experiment. Radical as it sounds, if they can prove it, it may be a fundamental leap in unifying Einsteinian physics with the Quantum physical world. I'm already a big fan of the unified string theory, that is currently holding that there may be eleven dimensions, and unlocking one of the first mysteries, may allow for the future invention of gravity defying hover craft much like we have seen in movies such as Star Wars. Currently the mathematical models for gravity are somehow flawed, as by every calculation, gravity should be much more powerful than what we experience. It should crush us like bugs, yet, 1+1 does not equal 2. It's a bit weaker, and we are all granted the luxury of standing up right. Where are all the extra gravitons going? String Theorist, theorize that they are transferring into another dimension.

Wild stuff, but once the dust settles, our universe is going to be turned upside down by the possibilities.


If you interested check out this article covering the intriguing reverse causality experiments that are planned.

The Sound of Temperature

Riddle me this. Each morning when I take a shower, I first turn the shower water on, and wait for it to warm up. The shower naturally is the furtherest it could be from the hot water heater without being outside of the house. Thus it can take a minute or two to warm up. However I have become accustomed to know exactly when it is time to step into the warm water without even looking at shower for steam or touching the water. I can hear the pitch change in the flow of the water. However this morning I finally started thinking of the physics behind why this must be!

I am having a hard time grasping what must be at play to change the pitch. Is it the doppler effect, perhaps changing the the way sound waves travel from the water as it emerges from the shower head? Or does the water perhaps change the pattern of it's flow as it heats up? I will have to investigate and report back here.. But if you have the answer post a reply!

Private rocket reaches space!

Former Paypal creator Elon Musk launched a private rocket from the Marshall Islands, and it had a successful launch and did enter space, although it was lost once it started wobbling short of it's intended full ascent, it has still surpassed many of the most difficult hurdles for the private space market. These companies are going to in short order get the problems solved soon, and when they do they are going to be extremely profitable in getting goods and satellites into space. What for IPO's on some of these companies!

Check out their cool website

NY Times Article
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/21rocket.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Note, that NY Times is so negative on everything, they give the article a negative spin. If the ship had reached and maintained orbit. The article, would have been titled, "Private Space Companies still face Challenges"

Elbo endorses: Jordin Spark's for American Idol

She did a tremendous job tonight, and won over new fans I'm sure. She's goofy, and a bit clumsy, but she doesn't have an agenda and she is just sweet! Go Jordin Go! And yeah, I'm too lazy to actually vote.

Billy Dodd! Posting on my blog is fast!

That's right! I can blog goodness in the time you can brew a pot of coffee!

Now Macs Save Money

I hate those new Apple commercials with the two guys, but the one about Vista is rather funny, and true. If you have worked with Vista and kept the default security settings, it will annoy any power user to death! Working in the IT field, and at one time in graphic design, I'm familiar to Mac's and their is a ever so slight shift to move business systems to Macs. While overall I find that PC's in general are much more versatile, running a much larger variety of applications. It may in some instances be beneficial to switch your business to a Macintosh environment, although their is going to be somewhat of a learning curve.

The main things Mac benefits are fewer crashes, probably due to fewer hardware configurations, and a much lower profile when it comes to suffering from viruses and the like.

I think the mentality that is leading the way to a resurgence of Macs in the workplace is directly related to this statement; "Less is more At one time, loading on more features was the mantra. When the iPod came out, critics said it didn't match rival devices, which boasted FM radios and bigger hard drives. But users wanted fewer features, and better ease of use. "That's why the iPod succeeded where its predecessor products bombed," Read the full article here.

But still overall the deployment to most offices is just not going to work due to the limitation of available workplace software. And running mixed environments is hard on the IT staff. Not to mention the training costs involved. However if Unbuntu or another flavor of Linux ever gets to be easy to use as as a Macintosh, then I can see a mass migration into Linux. Just based on cost savings alone.