The Garden Rake

 

We have this garden rake among our yard tools. It is small but it is not a toy. We use it in tight spaces.

Alas, here it is broken. As you can see the way how rake is attached to the handle is not very sophisticated.  I would tell it was designed to fail.

I decided to proceed with the fix by modifying attachment method. First I have bent tip of rake rod under prime angle.

I took another handle slightly wider than original, with chisel I made grove at the handle end  and drill the hole to fit the bended rod tip. In my box I found suitable fragment of metal pipe and put it on to the handle, than I inserted rake rod into the grove with bended tip deepen into the hole.

After that I moved pipe to cover the rod, drilled the hole through the pipe and put screw there. Fixed. Hope this garden rake  will continue to serve my family for a long time.

Rainbow

 

Yesterday there was the rain in Bay Area. Most likely it is the last rain of the season.  March is almost over and there are not that many rains after. And this final rain got the perfect closing: rainbow.  Here it is (photo made out of our backyard).

Five Years Later

 

These two photos of our house are separated by five years. Upper photo I made today, and bottom photo I made in 2017, when we finished conversion of our lawn to yard.  (I published post about that conversion project at corresponding time:  https://www.jumbleview.info/2017/12/ten-months-apart.html )

Obviously there are a lot of changes: mulch lost its shiny look and reddish color (time to add some fresh mulch), but brushes and trees grown higher and wider.  Some plants did not grow well and needed to be removed, but some new plants replaced them.

When I started the project I have no idea how I will maintain yard (my experience with landscaping was near zero).  How I am doing? What do you think?

Do not Drink This

Any healthy food advocate tell you that sweet drinks are bad for your health. I myself do not consume Coca-Cola but this post is not about it. I just got knowledge that, while a lot of USA companies cut there business ties with Russia, Coca-Cola does not follow this path. At least that what I found on the TASS page. I am putting screen shot here, not link, because link works erratically.

If you in doubt of my finding please go search yourself. As soon as you confirm this fact stop buying Coca-Cola products. If you can't  live without sweet drinks find the substitute. DO NOT DRINK COCA-COLA!

03/10/2022 Update. Looks like there are some changes. Here is link to BBC news:

https://www.bbc.com/news...  

"War in Ukraine: McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks halt Russian sales."

Not Politics

Generally I do not post about politics in any form. But this is not politics anymore.

This building belongs to Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. (photo taken from Fox News site).

It was hit by Putin army invaders. Stop Putin! Support Ukraine!

Office Space

Several years ago I published this  post about making DIY sit-&-stand computer station. Do I still use it? Yes, I do. And  I am constantly modifying it. Since the beginning of COVID pandemic I work remotely and unlikely will ever return back to the office. If two years ago I spent in my home office several hours per week now I am spending  there ~ 50 hours.  Here is how my office looks now:

My nine years old computer (CPU Intel Xeon E2-1230 V2) is still OK. Mostly I use it to run Remote Desktop application to get access to my job machines, but it is sufficient to run browsers, compile small and medium sized hobby projects and do some photo or video editing . I upgraded it several times: now it has 32 GB of RAM, its main disk is 1 TB SSD (plus couple of TB in regular hard drives), and it has NVIDA GeForce GT1030 2 GB  video card.  Obviously spec is not impressive but good enough. As my main movable display I use Philips  252B with 1920x1200 resolution ( higher resolution creates too much strain on my eyes). As peripheral display there is Lenovo   LI2323swA with 1920x1080 resolution.). Lenovo monitor in this set up is not movable and it is OK to accommodate on its screen applications with which are am not working at the moment.

Here is how it looks when Philips is in UP position.

Honestly speaking most of the time I work sitting, so it is important to have comfortable chair. When work became exclusively remote we allowed to take home some furniture from the office, so I took chair.  It is comfortable and convenient and serves me well.

The only problem was that its armrests (made out of some artificial leather) started to wear down.

So I substituted original armrests with DIY wooden. 

I can tell you that after modification chair becomes even better. For comparison I made a photo of the old, worn out armrest.

I hope this office set up will serve me for some time.

With the Help of a Soda Can Tab

 

I have several precision screwdrivers. They are from different vendors  and have different length. All of them are of decent quality and deserve some good care. For screwdriver to be in service for a long time it is important  to use them with proper match: right screwdriver for the right screw.  To make selection of screwdriver easy I made myself the screwdriver stand.

On the picture above there is elements from which I made the stand:

• Several wooden pieces (made out of redwood)
• Ten soda can pull  tabs.
• Long screw for wood.

And here is the stand.

Now I can easy select whatever screwdriver I need. 

I have found that soda can tab to be an valuable item  in my hardware inventory. I even created instructable    with description of its various usage . Will free to borrow whatever you find suitable for your needs.