I'm not bernie madoff, but I do have screws on my desk

Well, it's been quite a day. Got up at the crack of dawn because the guys came to turn on my sprinklers at 730 this morning and for some reason, when people come to my house, I feel the need to be showered and stuff. Not that they care.

Then I moved my old shelves out of my office and put together my new ones. Very cool.

green matches my treadmill desk, sans glitter

Then I began the project to create a frame for my white board. Note to self, do a search before attempting to paint a white board on the wall. I found a bunch of suggestions for just taking a picture frame, putting a cool pattern in where the picture should go, and then writing on the glass. Cheaper, and a lot less work than my project.

Should have done a search before hand...

In any case, I've never built a frame before. I went to home depot and the only wood I could find was a thick pine but I got it anyway. And, while I was driving to hd, I saw the car in front of me hit a guy on a bicycle at the junction of Colfax and I-25 (exit ramp). He was okay but his back tire was mangled. Stupid bitch talking on her cell phone.

Where was I...oh yes, making the frame. I wouldn't suggest this process, but here's what I did:

One side of my white board is an inch shorter than the other (shut up Bob and Steve - YOU try leveling painters tape by yourself) so I decided to put the frame on so I could exactly measure where all the pieces needed to be cut.

so, um, that's my manual saw and crappy plastic mitre box - and my cutting surface is my as yet to be installed swamp cooler

fucking board kept moving around, and I have no idea where my clamps are, so I improvised with zip ties and zip tied each board to the mitre box before cutting it

switched to using my DWR desk that used to be in my office because the swamp cooler was not cutting it (haha) and then realized I cut one of the boards at the wrong angle...redo...glad I got all the boards in the same size so I used the mis-cut board for the (shorter) side and an as yet to be cut board as the replacement for the mis-cut board

ends sanded...ready to assemble...

are you fucking shocked? me too - it WORKED!!!!

Now all I have to do is staple the frame together, prime it, and then paint it with the glitter paint. Hopefully the staples will work...and not exactly sure how I'll get it on the wall by myself...but I'll think of something.

BTW, fitbit only gave me 500 steps for spending an hour sawing. Fuck you fitbit.

tools at the ready for mounting the white board...

lemon oatmeal bars and no bake oatmeal cookies - more disasters from my kitchen

My neighbor Carol sent me a recipe for oatmeal lemon bars to help me with my cooking skills. I decided to make them last night, as well as some no bake oatmeal cookies (I like oatmeal) that are supposedly so easy to make that they're on a web site for 6 year olds who want to cook.

I gathered all the ingredients...

...and realized I was looking at the wrong recipe. Different ingredients.

The lemon bars were supposed to go in an 8 x 12 inch dish. I used a 9 x 13 because that's what I have. And it said to butter the dish before putting the bars in it. I had doubts whether just butter was okay with a glass dish, or whether I should add flour, and whether the recipe writer assumed I'd be using a non-stick dish...in any case, I decided fuck it, I'll just butter the dish. My hand mixer looks like it's dying of exhaustion because it took almost 7 minutes to mix the butter to the point where it was squishy.

Lemon bars, assembled. I had to cook them for 4 extra minutes, not sure if that was because of the glass, using a different pan, or just a general fuck up on my part. The recipe said to cut them after I took them out of the oven but then to let them chill in the pan before removing them. I wasn't sure if that meant to put them in the refrigerator or if it was more like a Jay Z chillin thing. I put them in the refrigerator. When I took them out of the pan the bottom of the lemon bars were stuck to the pan but I figured out how to get them unstuck by using a knife and a spatula. Overall, they are good, but think a denser bar would be better. Should have waited until I had the right pan.

To make the no bake oatmeal cookies the recipe called for a cookie sheet, which I don't have, and parchment paper, which I don't have either. Wasn't parchment paper replaced in the middle ages? I used the top of a tupperware container and some wax paper.

So, the first step in the no bake recipe was to bake something. Odd. I had to melt butter and milk together. I used powdered milk and guessed what the powder to water ratio should be. To be honest I just threw a tablespoon (since one was already on the counter) in with some water and decided that was good enough.

It said to bring the milk and butter to a rolling boil. Not sure what that meant but once the milk and butter puffed up I assumed it was rolling.

The milk and butter mixed in with the other crap. And the recipe said to work quickly forming the mix into balls and dropping it on the parchment paper. Well, it was really fucking hot and hard to work with. Like trying to make balls out of boiling tar. Maybe they assumed that little kids cook so slow that if they didn't say hurry up the kids would take hours playing with the batter (or what ever you call the above mess) and not end up making any cookies.

I switched to this 8 x 8 metal pan because the tupperware lid wasn't working out very well. And at this point I realized I left out the 2 cups of sugar the recipe called for. I was like fuck it, I'm not going to try to add it in now.

Who pooped in my pan????

Completed food. Actually, both are pretty tasty. And now I don't need to cook for at least a month because that's how long it will take me to eat all this...

Van de Graaf generator

I got this from my brother Bob regarding my shocking treadmill:

You've made a pretty effective (and large) Van de Graaf generator.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/vandeg.html

Be proud, not many people build these anymore.

 

Well, go me...I guess.

my brother advises me on how to avoid shocks

me (to my brothers):

When I walk on my treadmill (in my running shoes) I keep getting shocked. Also, twice when I've touched my laptop the shock was bad enough to shut it down.

Any ideas?

I walked 10 miles at work yesterday...

my brother Steve (that's Dr. Steve to you, I can still call him just Steve):

Rubbing a rubber balloon on your head generates static electricity.  A treadmill is basically a very big version of this.  There are some static generators that are a rubber piece moving along a metal bowl in dry air.  Know any place with dry air?  

Your treadmill should be properly grounded and oiled that will reduce friction, and therefore electron exchange.  But if you are doing 10 miles a day and you are overwhelming it then you need to go to other measures: Look at #1: http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Static-Electricity

Consider a personal ground, before you fry your computer: http://www.overclockers.com/personal-grounding-are-you-and-your-components-static-safe/ or http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Anti-Static-Wrist-Adjustable-Grounding/dp/B00004Z5D1/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1397060633&sr=1-1&keywords=grounding+strap

Potentially your house has a poor ground.  I don't have an earth-ground tester, but many electricians do (they are only around $4k, we all should have one). Rather than hire an electrician to test your ground and install a rod, it might be cheaper to add a new grounding rod, just make sure that it's not in soil, that it's grounded in rock.

Every time I get my house fixed up to the point where I think I'm done, someone comes up with something else...now I'm worried about my house not being grounded properly...

and the winner is...me!!!!!!!!

I am shocked to report that I actually won an auction on eBay (for less money than I was willing to pay on top of it!)!

I am soon to be the owner of two great white shark teeth (and one megalodon fossil thrown in there too).

best self present - EVER

I guess it might sound strange but I am REALLY excited to receive these. Should come by Tuesday at the latest. Ever since I was 5 I've always wanted a REAL great white shark tooth. No idea how Sea World got these (that's where the owner bought them, back in the 80s). Hopefully they didn't kill a shark.I'm calling these teeth an early birthday present (eBay waits for no one and doesn't care when your birthday is).

Hopefully my arts and crafts neighbor might be able to help me figure out how to do a little display case for my teeth.

In other news, I've been taking a course on financial markets and have applied some of what I've learned to my eBay auctions. Here's a weird thing. I had three items that didn't sell, one because the bidder canceled the bid after she won the auction. In any case, I thought I had them priced right (about 50% below the market value I determined by looking at similar items and how they were priced) but I lowered the prices of all of my items and now have bids that exceed the expected price I was hoping to get. In the case of the item that I had to relist because the bidder fucked up, when I relisted I lowered the price by $5 and currently have a bid that is $10 higher than I would have gotten had the original winner not canceled her bid after winning. So by listing an item WAY below market value I'm actually getting way above the market value.

Financial markets are crazy because people don't always use logic when it comes to money...

Random fact - the reason that exchange rates between countries fluctuates so much is because the US is not on the gold standard anymore and many countries tie their currency to ours. And hedge funds were designed to REDUCE risk for investors. That didn't work out so well. And there are assets that you can only invest in if you have $1 million dollars in assets (minus your home) because someone determined if you have a million in assets you must be a "savvy" investor. Hm...

some badges I'd like to give to my fitbit

First, let me say I DO LOVE my fitbit. I like to be encouraged and get badges and shit. But sometimes I feel a little annoyed when my fitbit tries to push me to do more than I have. Weirdly, it's like I'm letting my fitbit down. And it's not even a person. It's just a piece of plastic that gives some people rashes.

Anyway, I made these badges for my fitbit:

adventures in moving and mulch

While it might seem that I've been slacking off lately because I haven't updated my blog in a while, it's quite the opposite. I've sold all my stuff on ebay except for two items (only one doesn't have a bid). And I've also made my first bid ever (for a collection of great white shark teeth with a known provenance - sea world in the 80s of all places).

AND, I moved my treadmill desk to my house and redid my office:

treadmill desk, pre-glitter paint

office, before

I added a white board to the wall using that white board paint - it was messy to work with so it better fucking work or I'm going to be pissed - can't write on it until tomorrow

treadmill desk in my office!

desk is cooler now that it has glitter on it

it's a little tight but I can vacuum on both sides of the treadmill AND still have room for my shredder and printer

The other thing I did was re-mulch my lawn with that rubber mulch. Supposedly it keeps the bugs away, doesn't break down, and is better for the plants because it doesn't retain moisture and get moldy.

On the potentially negative side, I am a little worried my yard will smell like tires come this summer. Which is still better than my neighbor's yard, which smells like dog shit because they never clean up after their dogs.

50 bags of mulch and three trips to home depot...the last trip an employee named Pedro felt sorry for me and helped me pack this last load of mulch in my car - when I offered him money he looked surprised and said "no, it is my job to help you" - for the record I did it on the down low so he wouldn't get in trouble for taking it - Pedro is a good guy

the mulch mobile...

I guess this picture would have been more interesting if I had taken a before shot so you could see how crap the yard was looking