I had one of those crappy spirit levels with a LASER in it. It was a piece of junk. It was falling apart. It’s been sitting in the tool box for over a decade. I was cleaning some stuff out and was about to throw it out, but I can’t just throw away a LASER. What to do with it? Read More...

Have you seen the new trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2? If you pay close attention to the opening scene, you'll see Starlord holding some kind of handheld scanner. I took one look at it and knew it was an old video game. I just had to have one. Read More...

My son’s really into the game Starbound. The Matter Manipulator is the tool that you start off with in the game. He’s been making paper craft Matter Manipulators for weeks. I figured since he’s really into it, I’d have a go at 3D printing one for him. Read More...

I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but it’s better than just throwing it out. Maybe it’ll come in handy one day. Just remember, never throw anything away unless you’ve torn it apart first! Read More...

We're going to Disney! That's right. We have a summer vacation booked for Orlando, Florida. It's going to be awesome! Between Scotland, and 3 states in the US, we're all going to converge in Florida for one huge family vacation. This calls for a commemorative t-shirt, since a family reunion of this magnitude has not been seen in years.
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I picked up a new USB 3 hub for my Mac, but I wasn’t happy with it at all. Despite it costing $30 bucks, it was a cheap piece of junk. I sent it back to Amazon. In my search for a better model, I came across Anker. Their stuff looks awesome. Not only did I pick up their 7-port USB 3 hub, but I also picked up a 4-port USB charger and a 2-port 10000 mAh external battery. Read More...

Say hello to the November, 1972 edition of Playboy magazine. What’s so special about this edition? I’ll tell you.... Lena Söderberg - The First Lady of the Internet. Read More...

Snapfish had a 99 cent print sale the other day. My wife asked me to go nuts and print a couple hundred 5-star pictures of the kids. I figured while I was at it, I’d throw in a couple of my renders just to see what they looked like printed on photo-quality glossy paper. They came out pretty damn good. Read More...

My 7-year old’s class has been reading the Flat Stanley book in school. Each kid in the class had to color and cut out a Flat Stanley character and send him to a relative who lives out of town. My brother lives 3,000 miles away in California, so he seemed like the obvious choice for who Flat Stanley should visit. The pictures he emailed back were so great that I decided to make my son a book in iPhoto that he could show off to the class. It would also be a nice keepsake for him, as well as a nice present and thank you for his Uncle.


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Seven months ago, I started a photo restoration project commissioned by my mother-in-law. Part 1 of the project consisted of scanning in and digitally restoring 166 vintage photos. The photos varied in size from 2x3s to 8x10s. Part 2 of the project was to then create a book in iPhoto to showcase them all. My mother-in-law was so impressed with the collection of books that I’ve made over the years for my wife, that she wanted one to. Read More...

I had some Christmas cash that was burning a hole in my pocket. I decided to hop on SparkFun and see if there were any goodies to be had. I already needed a few things for some upcoming projects, so I figured I'd try and see if I could get my order up to $60 bucks so that I'd qualify for free shipping. Read More...

My kids had a Guitar Hero guitar that was falling apart. I was about to toss it out when I though to myself that I should tear the thing open and salvage some parts from it.
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We cut a tree down a few years ago, so the roots must be starting to decay. We had a week of intense heat followed by a period of rain, so it’s been pretty humid and gross out. The perfect mushroom growing conditions. Read More...

I’ve been commissioned by my mother-in-law to put together a book of old family photos. She was impressed with my work on the last one I did for my wife. Can you blame her? That thing looks AMAZING! Unfortunately, a lot of them aren’t in any condition to be showcased in a book of “favorites”. They will all, for the most part, need some sort of photo retouching. Read More...

I unearthed some of my Dad’s old drafting supplies. It’s amazing I’ve had these as long as I have and I haven’t really used them. I’ll have to try my hand at drawing something with these leads. Read More...

I was digging through my memory box when I came across this old plate of chips that my Dad gave me years ago. These are back from the Pico days. Who knows what they are? Could be calculator microcontrollers, could be from an Accutrac turntable. Read More...

Look at that! What a treasure trove of goodies! Most of this stuff is from my childhood. There’s been a few recent additions, but most of it is as old as I am. Usually when I add something, I just open the lid, toss it in, close it, and forget about it. I don’t really go through it. I do that maybe every 5 years or so. I sit down with it and thoroughly go through it and take a walk down memory lane. Read More...

In 1987, we were interviewed by Electronic House magazine. I was 12 at the time and had been very much into electronics and computers for years. The magazine people fell in love the minute they saw my room. I had a TI-99/4A and a Commodore 64 next to my bed. In 1987, I guess that was unheard of for a kid. I loved a good game of Spy Hunter, but I also loved programming in BASIC. They loved my room so much, they put it on the front cover.
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I started collecting Zippo lighters in 1993. Here you see the collection in its heyday when I still lived with my parents. You can’t exactly have all that stuff set up when you have a wife and 3 kids. Who has the space? I consider myself lucky I still have a computer room. Anyway, Apple’s releasing a new Mac Pro this fall and something tells me I’m going to need a spare $3 grand. Time to eBay the lot of it!

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My kids got iPad minis for Christmas. They absolutely love them. They never put them down. I figured they’d get a kick out of my Speak & Spell. I wanted them to see that the Speak & Spell was my iPad of the day and that as simple as it was, it was as good as it got. Read More...

Don’t get me wrong, I love SparkFun and Adafruit and all those guys, but there’s definitely something to be said for buying in bulk. There’s definitely also something to be said for buying in bulk from Hong Kong! True you have to wait an extra week, but it’s so worth it to save this kind of money. Read More...

My twins just had a birthday and they received 6 of those cool birthday cards that play a greeting. I spent a good $40 bucks on the SpeakJet board, but Hallmark somehow managed to do the same thing for $3 bucks, and squeeze it into a card? What’s in there?
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I’m planning on making a really small 7-segment LED clock. I plan to make it really small by making the switch to SMD parts. I’m basically using this project as a learning tool for SMD development. Read More...

I’ve always wanted to find a praying mantis, but they seem to be so rare. There I was standing on the front porch when I looked over to see a giant praying mantis just sitting there. Read More...

You can read about it in books all you want, gloss over it in science glass, but there's something deeply satisfying/moving about being able to witness the whole process first hand. It really is something beautiful.
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Time for a LEGO project! Let’s make a Happy Mac!
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I started this rubber band ball a good 15 years ago. Maybe even longer. I know it was in the early to mid 90s. It could even be as close as 20 years old.

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