$60 projector on a $0 screen; outdoor movie night!

I think I've lost my mind in quarantine. 

But I finally snapped at the thought of ESB being re-released in theatres last month to celebrate its 40th anniversary, and not being able to go see it again. After sulking about it for a couple days, I floated the idea of an outdoor movie night to the wife and kids. Despite not having any existing setup, I got the okay to see if I could make it happen. So I did. 

First up was a projector. This model was decently reviewed and a 20% off coupon on Amazon, so that fit the bill. It arrived in a couple of days that I used to fill a micro SD card with as many star wars and kids movies I could fit on it. 

Next up was figuring out what to project onto. As luck would have it, we had both a plain white sheet and a black sheet in our basement that we would put on the couch for guests. But who's having guests right now, so fuck that. I had everything I needed for a cheap screen. 

After laying things out, I realized I had an extra board in the garage long enough span our basement sliding door, so I trimmed that in half to give the screen some shape. I stapled the black sheet to it, and velcro'd the white sheet onto that. 

After ironing it, I had a decent-enough looking surface to project a movie onto. 

Deciding what to watch and waiting for it to get dark enough was the hardest part of this whole thing. I wouldn't use this project for daily viewing, but for an outdoor movie night it did the job. Unfortunately ESB got voted down and we watched a different Disney  movie. 

Not the fanciest set up but it worked. 

Getting voted down just meant I stayed up later to watch the movie myself though, which meant I went to bed much more drunk than I initially planned. That seems to be a COVID theme. 

I loved outdoor movie night though. I should have thought of it ages ago, and I'm looking forward to doing this so often next summer we all get sick of it. 

What a dumpster fire

Well fuck 2020 folks. 

Not that it's been all bad. I finished my doctorate, although I'm still waiting on that diploma in the mail. No ceremony, since we were all sheltered in place and no one was getting in a room with more than 9 other people. Even got myself a new gravel bike as a quarantine present to celebrate. That was a challenge, apparently everyone is biking now. But the only thing that really matters is that we're all healthy at least. 

Not for lack of trying. But the kids are elearning, the wife and I are working from home, and my sanity is slowly slipping away. Are there things I could have posted about inbetween? Probably. Finishing my study was a big deal. Defending over a zoom call. Work opening back up. Honestly time has lost all meaning at this point. 

The only reason I thought to check in here was I have an idea for a project that I need the wife's buy-in on and I'm hoping to have something to do with my hands in the near future. It would be a nice change of pace. 

lightsaber(!) shelves

So. We went to disney over thanksgiving, and enjoyed ourselves very much. One of my favorite parts was obviously visiting Galaxy's Edge, where the kids and I each built our own lightsaber at Savi's. Talk about a semi-religious experience. Thank god we spent the past year putting points together to get the cost more palatable. 

Of course, now that we're home we just have these three awesome lightsabers sitting around. Power and control for the girl, elemental nature for the boy, and peace and justice for me. Red, purple, and good old fashioned blue. The boy picked up an extra kyber crystal too in yellow. I got it in my head to make shelves to display each of them, and I just managed to knock them out over the holidays.

I kept these very simple; bracketed floating shelves with a stand to display the entire saber. Apparently even just keeping the blade in the hilt will wear down the battery but why not display the entire thing?

Just like anything else, the plans for these changed from start to finish but I like where they ended up. I found different brackets I liked, so the shelves are just inverted boxes open on the bottom. Simple and messy glue up for mitered edges.

Simple scrap holders for the hilt.

Proof of concept, ready to go!

The brackets are heavy L brackets in studs. I kept my shelf unfinished minus a couple coats of poly. But I love it!

On the wall, not bad. 

Okay, I absolutely love it. My desk is a little SW crazy right now. 

Both kids wanted shelves to match their crystals, so I used the red I had left over from the beds for the girl and the boy picked out a yellow he thought would work. His got spray painted, which wasn't quite as clean but looks decent.

Two more. I did not mind having the work at this point. 

I put a small bit in to hold the boy's extra crystal.

Shiny. 

I love it. 

Not as crazy about the yellow but the concept is good. 

These kept me busy, which I needed over break instead of stressing about school. At some points I was really wishing these were functional and I could slice a motherfucker, but it's probably for the best if they're just for display.

DIY gifts for my staff

The year is almost over, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least offer a recap of the project I managed to squeeze in at the end of the year. I had been thinking about making everyone on my staff some tree cookie coasters this year from a couple of branches that I had been saving for a while. Moving into the interim position meant I had to make a few more than expected but they actually turned out pretty nice.

A couple of them ended up as live edge slab coasters vs rings b/c of the size of the branch, but some of them were dry enough to stay flat so they worked out.

Notice all the extras that weren't quite right on the left side there.

Months in the making, and I still had to work late into the night a few days before I wanted to pass these out. Nothing like saving thing for the last minute.

I was getting pretty tired of these at this point. I made about 50.

All in all I thought these were worth giving, at least I didn't feel too stupid handing them out. No more so than I would have with gift cards at least.

So that's it for 2019, and even though I'm working on something fun right now my record of actually posting results is pretty poor right now. Hopefully the final projects are worth sharing. We'll see!

DIY Disney pin shadow box

Well, November came and went and all we did was spend Thanksgiving week at Disney having an amazing time. And it came at the perfect time, dealing with a ton of stressful work and school shit. Spending 6 days walking 10 miles a day and doing all four parks was the perfect way to decompress and have fun.

The kids had an absolute blast, and the boy got seriously into pin collecting. I would say pin trading, but it was more about spending his souvenir budget on every pin that caught his eye. The wife started us all out with some mystery pins to get ready for the trip, and while I ended up donating mine to the kids' trading efforts I did come away with a handful of pins I wanted to put up when we got home. Thankfully, I had a spare box sitting around from a while ago and some leftover foam, so I threw it together while we were recuperating from our early-ass flight back.

Looking at the blank box now, I can't believe I just butted the corners. Oh well. I liked the natural look of the wood at least so that would work fine.

Put some cardboard under the felt to give the pins something else to grab onto, trimmed and stapled in the foam and viola, one shadow box.

Going for simple, I drilled out a spot for a nail so it would hang flush on the wall.

And then the pins!

Two from the droid factory, one from the opening. 

Clearance pins from 2014, still $10 a pop. 

All the pins I bought were Star Wars-related (surprise), either for Galaxy's Edge opening or a sequence of older pins that were on clearance. We also built lightsabers (more on that likely later), and there was a pin from that.

I did trade for a couple of pins too. The only one that I kept from the mystery pack was the ziggystar-trooper. I particularly liked the "bummer" pin, even though the trip was the total opposite.

Good times. Fun to get some use out of something that's been sitting in the garage looking for a purpose. Now I just have to build two more for the kids.

Surprise Star Wars day

We were out today and made a surprise stop at the Disney store at the nearby outlet mall. The kids were thrilled, but I was happy to see a Black Series stormtrooper on sale for $10. And when I paid with my fancy Darth Vader card, the guy at the register also slid me a leftover pack from Triple Force Friday with lithograms for the next movies, the Mandalorian, and the new game. Fun surprise.

I've got a pretty strong Star Wars corner going on my desk right now, with the lamp, a poster from Solo I've got to put somewhere, and now the trooper.

He doesn't look thrilled.

He's posed better on the box but I like it.

The lithograms are cool too, I think the Mandalorian looks good enough to shell out for Disney+.

We have a Thanksgiving Disney trip completely booked, and the kids don't know a thing. It was awfully hard not to spoil something today...

Thank goodness it's almost apple season

B/c I could use some homemade comfort food.

Not a whole lot going on, just my boss leaving and me stepping into an interim role while I'm trying to get feedback from my dissertation committee chair and feeling like I'm behind schedule. I could use some pie.

The dog's got the right attitude though. I could learn from her. Actually, I think I could use a drink. And that might be on the agenda for this weekend. 

I guess I will be buying new tires sooner than expected.

I got in some rainy commute rides last week, and as I was doing some chain maintenance this weekend I noticed a concerning amount of tire wear.

That looks concerning.

Oh, that looks worse!

Yeah, I have no idea where these came from but I would guess the gravel access road I take for around a mile to get in and out of the Arb have not been kind. Which is why I'm wondering if I should trade in for a gravel bike at some point. In either case I guess it's time to order a new set of tires.

It's the little things

I don't have much time to spend with my not quite as new anymore x-box, but when I played some in between classes this spring the downstairs tv being a little off was driving me crazy.

With the dog in the house the basement isn't really getting much use as our ready-space for the kids, so we brought the fancy TCL upstairs and put the older LG downstairs. I reconnected everything, but the placement of the basement tv was off. It was never quite straight, but it was a little too high on the wall too. It shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did since we weren't getting much use out of it anyway, but I guess my brain was looking for a distraction b/c I could not let it go.

So I re-hung it this weekend and I feel so much better. It's actually kind of worrying me how satisfied I feel just moving the tv down a few inches and reconnecting everything. I need to get out more.

This summer's big project

Just one post a month this summer? I guess it's a lot harder to do work around the house without Friday's off and a dissertation to write. So what's been eating up all my project time this summer? A new cooler box, or as I liked to call it the worst project I've ever been dumb enough to take on.

This started so innocently. Our neighbors were moving, and offered us their outdoor bar set for a halfway decent price. A bar/cooler with six bar stools for $40. Like an idiot, I said okay.

It sat in the yard as I wondered what I had done. 

Sat and collected a shit ton of rain water. 

The bar was just a big plastic cooler they had screwed some boards to and built a shoddy bar jutting off the top. And it was on the rustiest rack of wheels I had ever seen. One day into having this crap in our yard and I was feeling pretty damn dumb. 

First supplies run

But I was pot committed at that point and with a $100 home depot card burning a hole in my pocket I thought I'd try to make the best of it. Demo'd the "bar" off, took the wheels off, and muscled this plastic piece of crap up to the deck on my own.

These looked square at least. 

Getting this piece of crap up the steps convinced me it still needed wheels.

Without the wheels it was too low for a bar, so I built a frame to attach to the bottom on casters thinking I'd want it pub table height. But with all the rain we got through May and June, that collapsed as soon as I tried to move it around. It went back on in a much shorter fashion.

I thought 30 5" cedar pickets would be enough to wrap the damn thing, either my math or the board lengths were way off b/c I needed 15 more. Thankfully they still had some out at home depot after the initial trip. For all four sides, this meant taking off junk that was screwed onto the plastic, and putting something else on to use as a contact point for the boards to get glued/screwed to.

It stopped raining and got hot as balls at this point. 

With the cedar on it's not looking too bad, and I thought hinged lids would be easy enough to make to keep it functional but also good for storage. I was thinking tile but the wife suggested peel and stick to keep the weight down, which I thought was a good suggestion.

Mitered and routered to fit a 1/4 plywood panel. 

Again, doesn't look too bad. 

Of course my math was off on that too, and I needed to order a second set of supplies. 

Bought 15, ended up needing 25. Dammit. 

For weight these are fine, but there's not as nice as real tile. 

At this point I was ready to burn the fucking thing down. But the peel and stick wasn't hard to work with once I had enough. Getting the lids aligned right to put the hinges on was an adventure too, but at that point I was beyond taking pics and just wanted to be done. Thankfully all I had left after that was a quick run of caulk to tie the thing together and it was done. I'll have to stain it in the future with the same stuff we used on the fence but that can wait. 

It's already full of crap in this picture; two coolers & a tub of outside toys.

Whew. Now that it's done I don't mind it, but that was one of the most painful projects I've done around the house. The extra storage is nice, it's holding our two coolers and a few other odds and ends, and it does actually make a halfway decent bar top with people over. I might want to epoxy over the top in the future, but that's going to wait until I build my patience back up.