You can’t have too much garlic.
In a month or so, we’re hosting a family gathering, and it would be nice if all the gardens looked nice, so all the relatives will be impressed.
“We” attend to most of the gardens, but “my” garden is the ellipse, where I get to plant anything I want. In years past, I’ve planted it with flowers, giant pumpkins, pot, and a one-beat animation of a beating heart, using early, middle, and late tulips.
I think of it as a canvas that you paint with plants once a year.
I hadn’t decided what to plant there this year, but …
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe …
l built a ‘cold room’ in the basement in the spring. It came out good, as far as it got.
‘When the shit hits the fan,’ my thinking went, ‘and democracy goes away,’ I want a place to keep my food cold. In the winter, I can pump in cold air. And in the summer, I … I’m still working on that.
Bottom line is that a root cellar is no good without roots, so I decided to grow carrots.
Lots of them.
In the ellipse.
So, back at the ellipse, I waited for the daffodils to die back, and then I bought 4 packets of carrot seeds, and I tilled them into two elliptical rows near the border, with a soaker hose in between to keep them wet. It’s about 100 linear feet of carrots, and it ought to give me enough carrots to give the cold room a run for it’s money. What’s up, Doc?
And as long as I was planting carrots, I threw in a marigold every 4 feet, and a couple rows of beans in between the manholes for good measure. By the time the big party rolls around, it oughtta be beautiful!
Well.
The soaker hose wouldn’t soak, and replacing it made a mess.
The only marigolds I could find were root bound, and they didn’t like their new home. Most of them keeled over and died, and the rest look lucky to be alive.
I planted the carrots too deep, and not a single one came up. Not one fucking carrot.
The deer ate the beans while they were still sprouts.
And now, all that’s left is the soaker hose, the manholes, and some volunteer flowers left over from years past.
It’s sad. Very sad.
Then again, it’s not bad, either, and by the time the party rolls around, it’ll look like I planted it that way on purpose.
I need 2 mirrors on my motorcycle to pass inspection, but one of mine was broken.
I want to pass. I need another mirror.
You can buy mirrors on Amazon, but who wants cheap Chinese mirrors when you’ve already got 2 classic Japanese mirrors and only one of them’s broken?
The one that’s broken had it’s innard ripped out in a crash. The metal was torn, and the only way to fix it was to break the glass and then beat the body back into shape from the inside.
A little OCD goes a long way, and that’s exactly what I did. It came out great, but now I know that there’s a slick trick with a putty knife and some brake cleaner that would have made the job a whole lot easier.
How not to cut a circle
You can’t even tell which one’s which.
You can’t have too many onions.
The cold room I built is still just a room. I still need to make it cold.
It’s harder than it sounds. I need temperature and humidity sensors inside and out. I need relays for the fans. An override for the compressor, and a display with a knob.
I need a microcontroller.
So I dove into the Arduino ecosystem and I climbed the learning curve, and I built a daughter board that ‘ought’ to do what I want it to.
And of course, it didn’t work. At all.
Vin was not connected. Duh. I took it downstairs, did the fix, plugged it back in, and fried it. There were no sparks, smoke, heat, or smell, but my sensor was suddenly senseless, and I went back to the drawing board.
Toast
There are stupid mistakes, and there are subtle mistakes, and this one was stupid. I’d fed 18 volts to a 3 volt circuit, and it blew. You’d think I’d know better. It cost me fifty bucks to replace, and I probably deserved it.
I still couldn’t get it to work, though, until I finally realized that “qwiic runs on Wire1.”
And Bam!
Everything I’ve touched ever since has worked, first time.
Cold room controller v0.1
The boys turned 3.
Even the bathroom wasn’t safe.
The GL1000 was basically done. Everything works. Everything is either black or shiny. Nothing is missing. Nothing leaks. It rides like a bat out of Hell.
But the seat is torn in three places.
People see it and they say: “Pfft. Don’t worry about it.” But that’s bullshit. A torn seat on a shiny vintage bike draws the eye like a zit on a pretty face. We can’t have that.
Nasty
I’ve always wanted to try my hand at working leather. And with Dad’s leather StitchMaster all set up in the shop, I’ve been looking for an excuse to use it.
What a coincidence!
But fixing this seat looks really hard. It’s got 7 panels, 4 of which have quilted backing, and there are 2 sewn concavities, all joined at crazy 3-D angles. It is an insanely complicated cushion cover, and it would be absurd to make it my first project.
“Don’t do it,” said haloReid. “You’ll fuck it up.”
“Do it,” said devilReid. “It’ll be fun.”
I did it. I replaced 4 panels, made many mistakes, and learned a lot. It was hard.
Not too shabby.
Carrots. Try, try again.