simplify life
Sunday 06 September 2009 at 09:01 am
The kids enjoy swimming in the inflatable pool, however I do not enjoy inflating it. I don't believe I am the only one who also does not like inflating these things, at least without the proper equipment.
Last summer my in-laws were over and my wife asked her Dad to inflate the pool for the kids. We don't have a good air compressor, so this task isn't the easiest. Being the smart fella that he is he came up with a creative method of getting the task done with some items found around the house and a simple affordable trip to the hardware store.
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recycling projects
Thursday 17 July 2008 at 07:36 am
Growing up we had the cool TV. A Zenith Space Command System 3 console TV with Space Phone. I have no idea how many times I pressed the channel changer on that remote. I watched a good many hours of Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. This TV was very good to me.
One of the cool features of this TV was the Space Phone, a low-fi speaker phone that was built into the TV. While watching TV, the whole TV would ring and interrupt the audio of whatever you were watching. I'm pretty sure the speaker phone was single duplex, meaning only one end could be talking at a time; otherwise the other party would be cut off. When dialing the phone, the phone number would show up on the screen in a black box. All these features could be controlled by the "computer space command" remote. The microphone was on the TV, so you needed to make sure you talked loud. Friends were always impressed to sit around and talk to a TV, an experience that truly made you feel part of the future. (Note: if on the other end of the phone conversation your feelings were more of annoyance and frustration because the audio quality of the call was so poor.)
Well, this TV had a good run. It eventually ended up in my parent's basement in my Dad's exercise room, and after some time, the TV did go out. When this happened, my Dad impressed me and did a little console TV recycling.
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Sewing
Tuesday 01 July 2008 at 10:41 pm
With the raised concern of plastic water bottles with bisphenol A (BPA) many folks these days are switching from the plastic bottle made popular by Nalgene to a non plastic alternative to avoid the potential effects of the BPA chemical. Not all plastic bottles contain the BPA chemical, but many folks, like ourselves are feeling more at ease avoiding the plastic bottles all together. Our family switched to the Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottles
and have really been enjoying the switch.
Since the stainless steel Klean Kanteen is a much better conductor than a plastic bottle, the temperature of your favorite beverage will be noticed much more on the outside of the stainless steel bottle. So if you were to fill the bottle with icey water, the bottle would feel much cooler than it would with the hard plastic style water bottle. The Klean Kanteen also has more potential to be dented when dropped than a durable hard plastic water bottle. Thus, the BananaForce family created water bottle holders for their new fleet of water bottles.
The instructions below can be used to create water bottle holders for the 12 oz, 18 oz and 27 oz Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottles.
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