Best Debris Shelter I’ve Seen

I’d much rather build something like this than a single person shelter you have to crawl into, or a lean-to that’ll get you wet if the wind turns.

The Boys and I will try this one of these days.

Hoozyrdady.

Where’s the Shack?

Good question. A year ago I posted about undertaking my most ambitious project ever. Here we are in March of 2009 and nothing has been done.

Here’s the deal – Mom & Dad have been off again on again about selling their land and relocating closer to town. Up until last week they had decided to stay put, so Project Shack was back on again.

Lo’ and behold, up popped an 80 acre homestead located just outside of town and within their price range.

Project Shack is now Off again. Once the muck dries up I’ll be out on the present acreage clearing deadwood and chopping it up for firewood, at the same time I’ll keep an eye out for a good spot, just in case. Maybe I’ll buy a few acres from my folks.

Meh. We’ll see.

Hoozyrdady.

Samurize

It’s about time I posted some of my projects. This one here is something I work on when server maintenance gets boring.

I first read about Samurize on Lifehacker.com. I run this setup on my secondary monitor at work. It’s big, taking up allot of screen space, and a work in progress. I made all but the weather stuff; it’s a config that came with the Samurize install that I’m slowly tweaking to match the rest of my setup. There are loads of plugins and such available for download, but I’m challenging myself to make do with the installed bells & whistles as possible. The weather.2004 stuff was proving to be a headache so I cheated. Hey, why kill myself reinventing the wheel?

On the left I have CPU, Memory and Network info, the current weather, a 5 day forecast and the latest radar image. On the right there’s running services, a work log and a section for notes on the bottom.

T’would be cool if I could get some images displayed randomly from My Pictures, and there is a plugin for that, I just haven’t played with it yet.

In the future I’ll work on a setup for my main home PC and laptop. Since I only rock the single monitor in the Underground Command Center that config will be way more compact and I’ll try for a more stylish, sci fi look.

Like this guy’s -

Click the picture to visit his flikr page.

Both the home and laptop displays will monitor vital stats like temp, loads, battery power level, Wi-Fi signal strength, so on and so forth. Maybe I’ll run an icon less desktop.

Stay tuned.

Hoozyrdady.

2009 Darth Update

Late last Fall I found and purchased an '88 donor suburban with a hopefully strong running engine. The test drive was fun, the brakes were just about non-existent. The wrecker hauled it off to the garage.

Red spoke with Mech Dude around October and work was being done between priority (i.e. paying) work. Y'see, I'm broke so Darth can sit at Mech Dude's for a little longer.

The donor's interior is shot. A missing rear window guarantees the cargo area is fun-kay.

The upholstery defies description. What the hell - It's as if a nudist, backwoods meth head with a soap allergy moved in for a year and rubbed every inch of his bare flesh up and down all over the place.

Besides the engine, the only thing I can think of salvaging is some of the glass. Oh, and other assorted odds and ends like bulbs, lenses, maybe the beat to shit grill guard. Connectors.

Future parts list, no particular order-

Glowplugs- 60G plugs. Part #12563554 - Better plugs but burn cooler. The burn time must be increased. There are hotter plugs, but these are available anywhere.

Manual glow plug contol.

Second fuel filter- If I start experimenting with alternate fuels, a second high performance inline fuel filter would save me much heartache.

Tachometer.

Tires- Darth is sporting new tires, but if towing an upgrade will be in order.

Roof rack.

Dual Optima red top batteries- any of ya'll in the market for a kidney? I've hardly abused it.

Hoozyrdady.