Indoor Garden

I saw something a while back where you could grow tomatoes by hanging them upside down, i thought i'd give it a try. So i grew one cherry tomato and one larger slicing tomato plant. And i thought i'd also try soy beans that i brought some home from the fields of Jackson and green beans that i grew in my garden this year. So far, so good.

Windmill

Several months ago i built a windmill out of a car alternator. My dream was to be able to collect so much electricity that the electric company would be sending ME a check every month.

My dreams were crushed.

A simple way of explaining it was that the wind would spin the alternator, charging up the car batteries, which would go to the DC to AC converter, which would plug into the house. Apparently plugging car batteries directly into an outlet in your house is not good... who knew?

So the windmill had been sitting in my basement in a pile labeled "crushed dreams" Other things were there like a hang-glider made out of a bed sheet and the human powered hydrofoil. I still haven't given up on the hydrofoil...it's too amazingly awesome:

human powered hydrofoil dream machine

Here's all the pieces before i put it up in the back yard.

Here it is all put together in the basement.

Still in the Closet...haaaaaaayyy

I had been meaning to build shelves in my closet for over a year now. It turns out that this was the day. It took about 5 hours and i still have to paint everything white.
And no i didn't go with HOOKS. It didn't work for Jerry Seinfeld and the virgin and it didn't work for me.

Exhausted

Only a small rusted exhaust came with the mower motor. It's really loud and might anger neighbors, so i tried making a new, quieter one.

There's many types of exhaust styles. There are high-tech noise cancellation mufflers, but the one i chose, which was also the simplest to make was just a straight baffled design. That's where the inner pipe is drilled out and insulation is wrapped between that and the outer shell.

Here's an example of the basic ideas i tried to follow
After removing the old exhaust i connected steel plumbing pipes.

Here's what the inner pipe looked like after i drilled out the holes
Then wrapped it with steel wool and fiber glass

Here it is on the mower. I'm still working on it because it's still pretty loud.

Garden - August

By this point it wasn't as much a garden as it was an area of my yard FILLED with weeds. Next year i'm using Preen for sure to prevent that from happening. I spent a good hour pulling enough weeds to fill a garbage can.

But lets start with the good stuff. The tomatoes, carrots, pumpkins and corn are growing great. Everything else isn't.







Here's what it looked like after pulling the weeds. Notice the big pile on the right.


and here's the new compost pile, maybe i'll end up with some good dirt for next year

Bored at Home

A while ago i made a stand to hang bananas. As usual i looked at a whole bunch of different versions and didn't like them. So i made this. The base tube is PVC and the arm and hook is aluminum.


I also bought a crock pot a while back and i've used it a few times. This was corned beef brisket with 2 soups and lots of vegetables, oh and as much garlic as Emeril would use. So far i've done beef, chicken and pork. The beef brisket was the best. Next i'm going to try just adding ribs and barbecue sauce. I've heard it's great.

MSU Cornhole

In honor of the Spartans making it to the Final 4, two years in a row i thought i would post the cornhole game i made a few years ago. For some reason i'm super proud of how this turned out. Probably because i though it would only take a few hours and it ended up taking a few weeks.
There are a lot of versions out there but the reason that this is far superior to them all is because it is strong and light weight. Most people use 1/2" plywood and 2x4's which is way too heavy. I made a frame out of 1 x 1/2" pine then used 1/8" hardboard.

More Window Garden

Tomatoes are slowly getting bigger

added potatoes although i had to put aluminum foil around them because one night charlie carried the potato in the back, the one in dirt, upstairs and was playing with it

So you want to own a house?

All winter when my furnace kicks on the water from the humidifier overflows. It drains to the sump and the pump has to turn on constantly. So yet again, on another boring weekday at home i decided to rig up this ghetto hose drain. It runs along the wall and drains to the sink. I'm almost sure it's not the correct way to solve the problem, but it seems to be working great. Oh and the white duct tape was only going to be temporary but will probably be there for years to come.

Wine Rack

After looking at hundreds of versions online of different counter-top wine racks i decided on this design. It's made out of PVC with a wood base. Pretty simple but it's balanced well enough to actually not need the base at all, it's just there for added support.

Hanging Plants

Well by the time i get home from being out of town i might just have tomatoes. They started blooming and getting pretty big.

DIY Cell Phone Holder - For Your Car

The other day on Lifehacker i saw how you could make a car cell phone holder out of a binder clip. It's used to hold your phone up while driving in the car.

I basically followed the same directions. But after bending the wires i decided to wrap them with yarn instead. And then so the phone didn't slip, i used Goop glue, which has similar consistency as rubber cement or hot glue.

It held the phone better then i thought it would.


So i tried it out while driving in the car and it worked fine. But it does depend what you are clipping on to. All i had in my car was the thin air vent, which didn't give much support and the phone wobbled a little.

But overall i think it worked really well.

It's a cheap and easy way to see if you like using a phone clip, before buying a fancy, expensive one.