Collections moving..

I'll need to post pictures later. But so far I've sold the Razor Squeeze, and the Univega.  Both were bought by enthusiastic riders, so I hope they get used.

Cheap Aircraft Building Techniques.

First off, Bob Hoover is (well was.) awesome.  I first discovered his website a couple of years ago.  Sadly, mere weeks before his passing.  (Not entirely unlike my discovery of Sheldon Brown.  For those geniuses in the wings, you don't want me to find out about you..)

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/flying-on-cheap-wood.html

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/flying-on-cheap_16.html

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/cutting-aluminum.html

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/av-flying-on-cheap-fabric.html

http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/av-air-brush-trick.html

Moving on to a sonari site, also recomedned by Bob Hoover.
http://users.lmi.net/~ryoung/Sonerai/Toolbox/Toolbox_Warmup_Project.htm

http://users.lmi.net/~ryoung/FBNKRBlog.html

And just inside the directory is good: http://users.lmi.net/~ryoung/Sonerai/

And amazingly, he even covers my favorite sandwich, the Ruben:
http://bobhooversblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/reuben-sandwich.html

Enough for now I think.

You can still buy a Sovereign? Proof is in the pudding, I now own one.

I was in a hard place, and I really wanted a new Autococker.  The last one I bought was a Chinese after run of the dye ultralight series... and while the Dye guns were trash, the Chinese ones are worse.

As of yesterday, I'm the proud owner of a Blue Sterling Sovereign. Yes, it's blue.  My paintball stuff is always blue.

I ordered it directly from the people here: http://www.powerball.co.uk/Sterling_pump_guns_sovereign.html  And paid full price.  With shipping, it cost me a few cents more than $300
Shipping was quick, three days to my door. 

See, seriously, made in england.

The pretty side.


The working side.


So here are the important bits:
Sliding trigger.
Wire nubbin detent.
WGP inline reg clone.
The ram is part of the bolt.



I did a unboxing, and kinda sorta review of it. 


I haven't shot it yet, that will need to wait for the weekend.  I have half a case of paint, and a chronograph, so we can really see what the gun does.

An unconventional Dishwasher Install

If it wasn't obvious by now, I have an unusual house.  It was originally built in 1949, and has had one or a few moderate remodels and reconfigurations over the years.  I'll cover some more of those in other posts. 

The kitchen has one of those "all in one" cast steel kitchen sinks, on a metal set of cabinets.  This, does not lend itself to a dishwasher install.  Especially with that steel cabinet butting up against the stove and a lazy susan in the corner. 

So.. that really leaves a portable dishwasher.  And.. as a gift, the household received one this year.  But portable dishwashers make me angry.  First, I don't like rolling a mini-fridge around the kitchen every time I want to run a load.  Second, they tie up the sink while they're running.  Third they tie up the middle of the kitchen. 

... Long story short, I wasn't having it.

Now, what my house DOES have, is a central utility closet.  In that closet there's the HVAC, water heater, and importantly, a utility sink.  The back of which faces exactly where I want to have my dishwasher. 

Well that means I have hot water, and a drain to hook up to.  Sounds easy doesn't it?  Well... in theory, yes.  But there were a few stumbling blocks.  First, since this dishwasher was the portable model, it didn't come with standard hoses.  And as we discovered, the fittings on the machine itself are non standard. 

That led to this:

Spliced hoses.  Those don't really instill confidence.  At least the hoses "I" provided are good.  The black hose is the hot water supply, and that is a washing machine hose.  The drain is normal fiber reinforced drain line.

Those run behind the fridge, to a hole we drilled.  And they pop out here:

I love how the spacing worked out.

While we're on this side of the wall, lets take a look at the supply line and return line.

See all that copper?  That's a result of all of the galvanized pipe being a big pile of problems.  I'll post about that some other time.  Lets just say that in the next year, I'm going all copper. 

I am quite proud of my hose clip.  That blue wire used to be a clothes hanger.  My buddy picked up the 90 deg pex clip to make it point in the right direction. 

And here's what the dishwasher looks like in it's proper place.  The top is being used for drink storage because.. well.. it's not rolling anywhere.

Not bad if you ask me. 

The Slow Carb Diet - Tim Ferriss's the 4 hour body.

First things first, I must give credit to the original author.  And here's a link to his original blog post:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/06/how-to-lose-20-lbs-of-fat-in-30-days-without-doing-any-exercise/

Now we have that out of the way.  Here's the program with the fat trimmed.  (This is aimed specifically at one friend of mine, who's having trouble, uh... swallowing the plan.  I suppose I am too.)  This is trimmed down from about 30 pages from Ferriss's 4 hour body book. 

Follow all of this six days in a row:

Rule 1: Avoid white carbohydrates.  Or anything that can be white.  (potatoes, bread, rice, etc..)

Rule 2: Eat the same few meals over and over again. 

Rule 3: Don't drink calories.  Also, stay away from aspartame, as that can trick the body into acting as if something sweet was eaten.

Rule 4: Don't eat fruit. 

And on the seventh day, go nuts.  Eat a case of oranges.  Eat everything in sight.  Importantly, you CAN NOT skip the weekly cheat day.  It's important to keep your body from switching to starvation mode, and attempting to store calories again.

Some important notes: 

Since you're consuming mostly veggies and meat, you'll run into some problems.  First, protien, and veggies are less calorie dense.  A slice of bread is 75-150 calories, while a similar serving of spinach is more like 7 calories.  If you don't eat enough, you'll feel lazy, and tired.

Fat an salt are ok to consume. 

You will gain weight on your cheat day.  As much as 12lbs.  Most of it is water weight, and water that gets pulled in to process the mass of carbohydrates you sucked in.  If you feel the need, positive progress can be made if you have two cheat days a week.  Progress will be slower, but you will most likely still see progress

How about a quick list of foods that are ok:

Meat, anything really.  Pork, Beef, Chicken, Fish.  Breading is a no-no.  Sweet sauces are a no-no. 
Eggs, ideally organic. 

Veggies: Spinach, Asparagus, Peas, Green Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Cauliflower, Sauerkraut, Kimchee, Avocados, Tomatoes, Onion.

Beans: Lentils (Dal, Daal), Pinto Beans, Black beans, Red Beans, Soybeans

Some sample meals from Tim:
Breakfast: Pourable egg whites, with one real egg, black beans, and mixed veggies heated and scrambled in a pyrex container.
Lunch: (Mexican restaurant) Beef, pinto beans, mixed veggies, and a lot of guacamole.
Dinner: A cut of organic beef, lentils, mixed veggies. 

A specific example that was brought to my attention was subway.  I can't say I have a recommendation for there, but along the same lines Jimmy Johns has their Unwich, which you could potentially order that doesn't have the bread.  Sadly, you'd need to order two if you planned on not having a hunger strike before the end of the day. 

A Chipolte meal:  Fajita Bol - peppers, onions, steak, tomato salsa, green tomatillo salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce.  (For the reader in question... take a Lactaid pill first.) 

And.. I'll add my specific recipes to this as I get going.  My friend wants to lose his gut, I want to be competitive on the bicycle.  Both would be solved by following this diet... I think.

While we at it, here's the Wikipedia link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-Carb_Diet

My Home Network.

So, my house is slowly becoming mine.  This place is pretty good.  But.. yaknow.. a geek like me needs some hardware to back himself up. 

Since this is "my" house, and I get to do what I want.  I decided I needed a decent home network.  I'm not going to go crazy like some of my friends, and former coworkers who have full on ISP grade networks in their house.  Which while impressive, and drool worthy, just aren't what I need. 

Here's what I've arranged for myself.  I have a good Wi-Fi router, a 5 port Gigabit Switch, a PogoPlug, (for now) a 1.5Tb drive, and a 20meg internet connection courtesy of Comcast. 

The D-Link DIR-632 has a built in 8 port 10/100 hub on top of the WAN interface.  Which is nice.  And I could have forgone the Gigabit switch.  But there's something silly about having a media sharing network in your house and not getting as much bandwidth as you can.

Cutting to the chase, a couple years ago I read about this wonderful little device, called the Pogoplug.  A bit of incredible bit of industrial design that's backed up with a moderately powerfully linux computer and a nice little cloud offering by Pogoplug.  https://pogoplug.com/  Obviously, visit them when you can. 

As an aside.  I think this is where I first learned about them.  Gizmodo Article about the PogoPlug

Since I am paying for my own power now, I figured going low power would be to my advantage.  And while running a server is cool... running a cool server is cooler.  (Sorta reminds me of Zod..   That reminds me, I need to do an article about my webserver.) The PogoPlug was going to be just that.  I bought it with the idea that it would be ready, straight out of the box to do my bidding.  Sadly, it doesn't do everything I hoped.   Heck my $15 Chinese network enabled USB device did more.  But, this is an open device, so.. I can make things happen. 

From the PogoPlug website, you can get yourself a login to your pogoplug.  Root access!  Got that, you get root ssh access!  So, I followed this tutorial on how to install other packages: http://aaronrandall.blogspot.com/2011/03/customising-your-pogoplug.html  Which was a good start.  Now my big goal was to be able to mount drives directly on windows boxes. 

Step, the next, was to install samba.  Oh look, a tutorial on installing samba!  http://aaronrandall.blogspot.com/2011/10/installing-samba-on-pogoplug.html 

And right out of the box, it worked.  Well.. "right out of modding box." 

I think I like it.

The latest addition to the Paintgun Stable

Well, there we go.  I bought something smart parts.  This is the Epiphany.  It's a factory upgraded Ion.  So far I like it.

What makes it different from an Ion?

First, it runs at a higher pressure, so there's less dropoff, and higher efficiency.  From the factory they came with spacers to fill the valve chamber to keep the pressure up at lower velocities.  Sadly, the PO didn't give me those with this gun.

Speaking of air delivery, the factory ASA is an on/off one. 

Third, the body is a magnesium alloy, as is the reg cover.  The blue bits are all rubber.  It's quite a classy setup.

The gun also comes with a freak barrel, including a .693 spacer.  That's quite a bit over an ION. 

And finally it comes with the ultralight bolt.  So the gun basically doesn't kick. 

It needs a new board, a cocker threaded breech, and a QEV.  So far I'm happy with it.