LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Gadget

At last we can agree.

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Lloyd and I both thought that the peach pulp would make some mighty fine popsicles. (He could eat popsicles for every meal.) I went looking at Wal*Mart for some of those plastic trays, but they didn’t have any. It’s my own fault for not shopping during the summer.

I lucked out on an endcap, though. This $30 popsicle maker was on sale for $10! I wasn’t sure if I should trust it – I once had an ice cream maker that was based on the same principle: freeze the entire base and then do your frozen confectionery thang.

This thing, though, this thing is golden!

Freeze the base, pour in your juice, wait ten minutes or so, and with the most satisfying ‘pop’ – out comes a beautiful popsicle.
I thinned it a bit with water.

You use the key - it's very complicated.

Well, looky there!

Delirious Boy seemed to appreciate it, though he doesn’t smile anymore.

I can't get a good picture of him since he's still sick.

I was so sad it was after 7 p.m. when I made it, because I really want to try one.

….. maybe for breakfast.

Like the clapper without the clap

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I admit that I have a little of my mother in me. Actually, it’s hard not to admit it with Lauren always reminding me. She says that it’s not a bargain if you don’t need it. But I maintain that if it’s over 66% off, you can find some sort of use for it.

These were 66.7% off, so I had to buy them.

There’s another part that’s not pictures. It plugs into an outlet and you plug whatever you want into the outlet. Then the switch turns it on and off from (and here I’m just guessing) up to 5 miles away. I’m going to hook one up to a flaky piece of equipment at school that needs to be reset about twice a week. When it gets flaky you just need to send it to time-out for a bit, but if you don’t have that much time, you can also turn the power off and turn it back on. The problem is that it’s not exactly in an easily accessible location.

But I can put the switch anywhere…

Solder is a stupid word

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Lloyd is working on his little project that I’m pretending to be interested in because when he wanders around thinking and talking about it I can get him to do stuff for me.

Lloyd: “See, if I can just get the protoromulator to spegork, then it will vortex at a greater speed.”

Lauren: “That’s awesome. Could you get me a soda?”

Lloyd (getting the soda): “Sure. All I need is to speborterate the hypergallum and – here’s your pop – then I can troom the glots.”

Lauren: “Chips?”

Anyway, part of this project with the albumin involves soldering some stuff together. We hit all the thrift stores, Harbor Freights and Radio Shacks in Lincoln on Saturday – looking for wire, switches and dials, but we really, really should have picked up more Band-Aids.

Can you see his burned thumb?

Soldering guns are hot.

Geekier than normal

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A few months ago some website let me know that the arduino was on sale along with a book: Getting Started with Arduino. I read the first few chapters of the book and looked very intently at the arduino, but that’s as far as I got for several months.

Then, for some reason earlier this week I wanted to start messing with it. I knew I would need some more junk.
It looked better with 3 of them

Some searching on the internet led me to believe that what I wanted were the things that fell out of boxes at the factory, were found under big machines and returned by other people. I figured that if I bought in bulk, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about buying the right thing. It turns out that someone sells just what I needed (actually, a lot of people like messing with this stuff, so it’s pretty easy to buy).

cheaper by the dozen

Anyway, a little explanation: the Arduino is that blue thing in the top picture with the USB cable coming out of it. It’s a microcontroler, a little computer that is good at interacting with the rest of the world. You hook it up to stuff and it either does things, or sends data to something else. I know that’s not a great explanation. Here are some examples: a touchpad, a display board, a laser controlled wireless automatic cat food dispenser.

Getting my geek on

I’ve got an idea that I want to try with this, but I’m not ready to share it yet.

Homemade Bed Fan

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Sometime in the middle of last week I came across a review of the BedFan. You should click the link and look at it – it’s pretty ingenious. It’s a fan that is made to channel cool air underneath your bedsheets so on sweltering nights (or if you get night sweats) you can sleep well.

I was hooked. Our footboard is practically screaming for a homemade version of this! I ‘built’ it several times mentally, and on Saturday I was ready to make it for real.

I went down to the basement and started to look for the pieces of wood needed to make this contraption: two narrow strips 20 inches long and a piece of thin plywood approximately 20 inches by 20 inches. I’d need to fashion a hook of some sort, and I’d need to get out the miter saw….

and look for some screws that were all the same size…..

I’d probably need sandpaper, too…..

and, um…..

I forgot to put on shoes and my feet were getting chilly……

Forget it. I grabbed a box instead.

I didn't even measure!

That was some good cuttin'.

Now, this was the point where I called Lloyd upstairs and told him what I was doing because I wanted some advice. He surprised me by not rolling his eyes and calling me crazy, but actually coming up with some ideas for a future, more-permanent installation. I told him to slow down – this was just a prototype. We decided on a ‘tunnel’ for a small fan instead of just a big hole for a bigger fan.

Good thing I bought a lamp for my camping place.

A little fan goes just under the tunnel. I made some channels inside to help direct the air.

That's clear duct tape, y'all.

The sheet goes over it, but here’s what it looks like from the bed side:
It's like a little tunnel opening.

It’s a good thing it was so hot on Saturday because I tested it out for a bit. The air output is meager at best. I liked having air blow on my feet, but I’m pretty sure the BedFan probably has a better breeze.

Lloyd insists that his design will be better, but I’ve already told him, “I make prototypes once. On to the next thing!”

New laptop!

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‘Cept it’s not!

I was looking for some stuff at school and came across the last bit of the stripey contact paper that I love so very much. I initially drooled over it at Target in 2007, put it up in my entryway in 2008, and shortly thereafter put some up at school.

Well, now it’s on my laptop making it all new-looking and incredibly snazzy. Seriously, I can’t stop petting it – which is a little disconcerting. I am saddened that no photograph does this striped wonder justice. Trust me, it’s simply heavenly.

A little wrinkled, but workable.

It went on surprisingly well.

I was going for a warmer background and better lighting.

I’m of course excited because it’s so pretty, but mostly because I’ve looked at laptop stickers before and thought they were cool, but wasteful. This way I’ve used up something that needed using, not making new trash! Oh, and it was free!! (Something you purchased 3 1/2 years ago counts as ‘free’ now.)

Love,
Lauren the Stripe-Loving Nut Job.