Hydroponics 101: The Missing Manual

I recently had a conversation with someone who assumed hydroponic gardening was a bit more tedious than traditional growing. It isn’t, but there is one teensy problem for folks just starting out — the instructions that ship with boxed gardens and those beginner DIY videos are really meant to get 90% of new growers from point A to point B as quickly as possible with the assumption that conditions are perfect, nothing will go wrong and covering the bare minimum of details is good enough.

Here’s what they don’t tell you…

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Thought For The Day: No one promised that life would be easy

Remember when we started handing out participation trophies? Remember when grief counselors on college campuses were handing out teddy bears to comfort students who under other circumstance would have been considered adults? Remember when protesters were allowed to burn down cities because their rage was justified? Remember when organizations run by liberals and activists held company meetings where employees cried because they didn’t like the results of an election?Continue reading

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B: External Power Button With USB Fan

How I Got Here

I recently built a Printer-box enclosure for my Prusa i3 MK3S. My mantra is go big or go home, so I went for the whole package with low-voltage LED’s, exhaust fan, 4Gb Raspberry Pi 4B, Logitech C920 camera and modular control panel. My electronics skills are weak at best, so I followed a combination of the printer-box wiring diagrams and Colin Hill’s awesome videos.Continue reading

Alaska 2022

TL;DR This trip has been on my bucket list for a few years. If you’ve never been, I’d highly recommend you plan on changing that. So far, it’s one of my favorite adventures and I’d definitely do it again.

Tom and I aren’t really into glitzy cruise ship vacations — we’re more get off the beaten path, mingle with the locals travelers. So when we decided we were going to do this, we knew we’d spend a lot of time on the road.

Since you can’t drive to Juneau, we flew in to spend a couple of days, flew to Glacier Bay and back, then flew to Anchorage where we picked up a Wrangler that would stay with us for the rest of the trip. From Anchorage, we drove to Kennicott, Fairbanks, Denali and back to Anchorage with a few short side trips to Talkeetna and Girdwood. 17 days and we could have probably spent another day or two.

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Quick & Dirty Chili

I’ve always made my chili from scratch because those seasoning packets you buy in the grocery store are pretty underwhelming. Last night, I was tired, the spice rack was low on a few items… but I did have two packets of Old El Paso. I doctored it up and it was pretty close to my home made.Continue reading

Best Instant Pot Yogurt

If you’re interested in making your own yogurt to save money, this probably isn’t the recipe you want. On the other hand, if you love yogurt and you’re looking for a healthier alternative snack to replace that 1/2 gallon of ice cream in your freezer, you may have just struck gold.Continue reading