We've been trying to take a trip like this for years now. We actually booked a roomette from Chicago to Arizona several years ago, but the concierge at Chicago station failed to tell us our train had arrived, and then had left. Yes yes it's "our responsibility to know", but this was our first time, and there are no train arrival departure screens in the fancy high end waiting room they had us in. It was the employee's job to tell us when to leave.

We asked the staff several times, showed them our tickets, the whole works. They just said get your stuff ready and sit over there. So we did. Eventually, one of the several times I went back up and asked, they said "your train left, you missed it".

The whole thing was a debacle. The guy was incompetent. I can write up a whole story on it, but man, it really soured me on Amtrak.

We got refunded, but that was it. It took literal YEARS to get any extra compensation out of them for the horrendous treatment one particular employee gave us, and the last minute plane tickets we had to buy (we still had to get to Arizona).

Now we're using the voucher we got from that experience, to try again. And you better believe I'm gonna be watching that arrival time on my phone, like a hawk. And I'm gonna pester those workers, in a kind way, but I won't be forgotten again. I want to know exactly when the train is boarding, and I want to be there when it does.

Is there anything else I should know?

I've read to bring an extra blanket, and snacks, and drinks. Is that excessive? My SO does get cold, and snacky.

I plan to bring a power adapter for chargers, and some handheld gaming devices for when the views aren't amazing, or it's dark out.

I know not to trust the arrival time, so I'm gonna reserve a car rental at the airport in Sacramento for 24 hour pickup, and our hotel is prepared for late check in.

We plan to drive to calavera to the big tree park to look at Sequoias the whole day, then get dinner, and drive back to Sacramento the next day to catch a flight home.

The trip is really just an excuse to ride the train, and see the sights. But we can't take much more time off to do anything else in CA. We like nature and hiking so I think it'll be a good fit.

Previous owner said they always had huge icicles off the back of the house. This would be why.

.75 inches of fiberglass, where there should be at LEAST 8 inches, and code for our area more like 15 inches.

Combine that with the uninsulated, unblocked floor cavities in the upstairs floor joists, that lead directly to the uninsulated attic space...

And combine THAT with the 4(!!!) access points to the attic that were not only completely uninsulated, but also had no weather sealing, and ⅛-¼ inch gaps around all edges.

This house was literally leaking warm air like a sieve, all winter long.

I'm only putting in 8 inches of fiberglass batting. And sealing every crack and joint I can find, as well as the gaping holes 🤦‍♂️

It'll still be under code, but, insulating it properly with spray foam would cost literally SIXTEEN TIMES MORE than just using the batting. And considering that our long term goal is to condition the attic space by insulating the roof deck, obsoleting the insulation I'm putting in now, I'm not eager to overspend.

I'll settle for only blocking 95% of heat flow, instead of 99.

Edit, update: I took a few days off, the temp outside went up, and it was sunny, so the attic got real hot real fast. No thanks, I'm not in that kind of rush.

But I got all of one side done yesterday, still need to put the boards back down, and insulate the gappy door, but it's sealed.

First time VR user.

Got my frame today, and tried to get the SO excited about it.

Problem is: what games are available?

I had talked to them prior to purchasing, explaining the state of the industry, there aren't thousands of titles available, and the ones that are available aren't all super long and engaging etc etc.

The frame is new, and trying to push the industry forward, so it'll get better, but for now it's rough. This was understood fully.

Here's the problem: Actually FINDING the currently verified games.

I don't care if there's only a couple dozen, I want to see them in a curated list. But as far as I can tell, that doesn't exist.

I know it's still early, and proton db doesn't have a list yet. But Valve could've done it easily. In fact, they got halfway there.

Trudging through the menus in the steam store, I did find a "great on deck" list. And googling the subject I found several people talking about the "great on frame" list that exists, but I could not find it.

Searching for "great on" showed a number of lists, including "great on deck" but no "great on frame". Why on earth not?

Eventually I fumbled my way to the steam frame product page, and found a tiny single word little blue link. Clicking that brought me to the fabled "great on frame" list. And to its credit, all the games there were marked as verified great on frame onboard etc etc.

Great! Right? Wrong. That list includes ALL great on frame games, including all the non VR ones. Which is fine, we need a list for those too, but there should be two lists.

So I had to go through one by one and try to find games that were both verified on frame, AND VR enabled. The first one we downloaded that matched that criteria? Opened in non VR mode and there was no clear way to make it work. Very frustrating, lots of lost time.

Eventually we found a few that looked fun. Moss, red matter, and I expect you to die. But by that time we were so done that we just put it away for the night. Didn't even try to play them yet. We did play a little beat saber.

I'm not trying to complain too much, I know I'm very lucky to both be in a position to buy this thing, and to have gotten one so early. But it was an expensive purchase that, while my SO agreed to and as excited for, was very frustrating and disappointing first experience.

Clunky and cludgy, no clear way to find what we're looking for. The SO was navigating the store with the frame for a bit and kept losing the ability to navigate the store because they'd click on the wrong thing or press the wrong button, and end up highlighting some button in the corner of the screen. And no joy in finding anything to play when we actually got it to work.

Maybe there's a better way? And we both missed it? But... If two people can't figure it out.. you might have a user interface problem.

The software side will get better with time. Little things will be fixed. And I explained that. All is well.

But Valve should've known better. I got a deck at launch, I know the pains we had then, and I figured they would've learned from that.

Hopefully by the time everyone else gets there's, they will have resolved this issue.

I'm still really excited for this thing.

Thanks for coming to TED talk.

Once a year my friends and I would get together to camp in the middle of nowhere in one friend's private land.

No power, water, bathrooms, etc. Almost everyone in tents, myself included.

As a joke, I brought my espresso machine, an inverter generator, and a thick gauge 100ft extension cord.

It ended up being a hit, I've brought it 3 or 4 years in a row now. I become the on site barista in the morning, and I'm not mad about it.

These days I have a little folding table I set up, with a tarp tied to the car and some sticks, in case of rain.

The generator is so quiet while idling, you forget it's running. Until you start extracting and it kicks up to full tilt. But still, 100 ft away, down a slight hill, it's like your neighbor 3 doors down is mowing his lawn.

I should switch to a solar setup, but, eh. I keep this for emergencies at home.

I just wanted to try out the idea. I have no trees in my backyard, so this is both neat and useful.

I will try a tensegrity hammock stand next, which only uses 3 poles, but can hold 3 hammocks! I'll probably switch to metal for that 😅

Finally, maybe, I might try a geodesic dome for multiple hammocks. Though it'd have to be pretty big to be worth it over the first two versions.

My wife and I are camping in Mackinaw City for the bridge Walk. Tomorrow is open for activities.

My wife has never seen pictured rocks. My dad took me when I was young. I haven't been back.

When I went, we had a canoe we took out into the water (not smart, now I know, at least we stayed by the beach). But this time I don't have any of that. Just us.

Not afraid to put a few miles of hiking in. A waterfall would be nice too, but not as important as the Lakeshore and seeing the rocks. Heck, I'd even do a boat tour if people recommend it, but I imagine that might be booked up, we're going there tomorrow.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Unfinished basement.

At first the humidity was... Fine, ish, down there. Around 55, not great, but it came down to 50 when the AC ran. Upstairs was similar.

But the last few weeks have been much cooler outside, and more humid. Even though we keep the windows closed when the humidity is high, the AC still hasn't been running much. Especially since we keep it set pretty warm to save energy. The basement got to 73 degrees at 71% humidity! Yikes!

I knew I needed a dehumidifier, I had looked a few times before, but the options all suck, and everyone complains that they don't last long anymore.

They say if it lasts 6 months or a year, that's not uncommon. If it lasts 2 years, you lucked into a good one. If it lasts 3 or more years, go buy a lotto.

People are out there buying ones and returning them on warranty if they die early enough. And doing it over and over again, every couple years.

Very disheartening.

You get slightly more success if you pay a premium. But then comes the next problem: most these units are all computerized now, with buttons to turn them on. And not all of them will turn back on after a power outage. And I definitely don't want to sign up for another online account to access features that should be free.

So, I started looking for industrial models. They're VERY very expensive. Again, disheartening.

But then I found the alorair HD35P, which was only slightly more expensive than the fancy consumer ones with the fancy control panels etc etc. But with no tank to take up space, and auto power recovery. Plus a built in condensate pump to pump the water away to a drain. And a 6 year warranty. I almost bought this, but then I found its little brother.

I bought the HS35 instead.

It's the same unit, but just with a knob instead of a control panel. And no condensate pump (but people were having trouble with the screen clogging on that pump anyway).

I do lose granular control of the exact humidity I want. And I lose GPP mode, but I probably didn't want that anyway?

Who knows. We'll see. I'll try to report back if it dies on me.

In the meantime, my basement is now down to 49% humidity. I thought about going to 30, but we have wood floors upstairs, so I'm worried getting it too dry down there will do bad stuff.

On the other hand, I should probably get it extra dry for awhile and check my stuff for mold 😖

Saw it while driving a van for work. Spent my lunch break driving this thing back to my house.

It's got some rust, the existing paint is faded, and the thermometer is shot.

So I got a wire wheel for my grinder, a couple cans of high temp flat black paint, and a couple universal thermometers.

It's far from perfect, but it looks great from 10 feet away, and it only cost me like $20 n supplies!

I've never owned a grill before, believe it or not. Let alone a smoker, or anything to do with charcoal. But so far I love it.

Made lots of hotdogs to practice getting it hot and running it. Made steak for my friends, with some guidance, and the consensus was "tasty!"

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/65231458

Raised garden:

Kayak rack:

Work benches/storage:

(Don't judge my cluttered garage, that's why I built the benches, it's a work in progress)

And I've still got two pallets left! Plus some random bits and bobs.

Edit: removed some doxing info

Raised garden:

Kayak rack:

Work benches/storage:

(Don't judge my cluttered garage, that's why I built the benches, it's a work in progress)

And I've still got two pallets left! Plus some random bits and bobs.

Edit: removed some doxing info

Spoiler tag your answers in case others want to guess.

Long story short, I've been teaching myself a little bit of coding, trying to script kiddie patch openWRT's frankly ludicrous DFS handling. I did succeed there! At least enough for my needs.

But then I was bored at work, and I have an AP that I added to extend the Wi-Fi to the back corner of the shop (cinder block walls). So I decided to tinker with it.

Pointless, but fun! And educational!

Edit: AP is an EX6120 from Netgear. Basically e waste, especially it's stock firmware that requires an external account to configure 😵‍💫 I saved it from the trash. Plenty good enough for its purpose.

So I dug out a full cup of gravel and silt, along with a small foam ball, a penny, and a nail.

After flushing it with water to make sure it was good and clean, it flows great.

It had a threaded plug to block the cleanout, but it wasn't the right size, and besides the threads in the cast iron are all rusted away. So I filled it with a compression plug. Seems to be working well.

Before: