Reuse is Second

There is a hack to get the plastic grinder off the top of these.  I'm going to refill it with some sea salt I happen to have in the cabinet, but other things are possible to be ground in these.  When it wears out I'll pull the top off for recycling.


In short, if you take a dull, rounded tip knife such as a classic butter knife, slide it up under the plastic lip, and start twisting the top, you'll stretch the plastic just enough to get it off.  If care is used and you're watching what you are doing you will be able to snap it back on.  The knife has to get past the glass lip.  There are two of them, the first is there to prevent you from doing this little hack.  The plastic bead that locks the top on sits between two glass lips.  You need to wiggle the knife past the one you see and coax the plastic over the other one.  Once you get it off you'll understand.  Just remember you're prying with a metal knife against glass!

Repair comes first

I went to trim my beard the other day and my cordless trimmer didn't even twitch.  The charger didn't light up, nothing.  So remembering that the manual said something about taking the battery out, I cracked the case open.  To my delight it had a standard rechargable AA NiCd.  Out came the intellicharger and the leads on the trimmer were just long enough to get it in.  Originally the battery was so dead the charger didn't register it.  A pair of jumper wires and a quick connection with a healthy NiMH woke the charger up and I started it off on a refresh cycle.  It took two days, but it looks ready to put back into service.

More Inspiration from Lifehacker

Another idea used from a Lifehacker article.  This was also a concept I considered when it came to organizing my spices, however the pocket to jar size ratio was ludicrous.  Much better for bigger things like all my workout supplies and and other odds and ends that were not space efficient left on a shelf.  Things like storage bags, rolls of foil and cling wrap.

The pockets are even big enough to fit that 500g bulk container of creatine monohydrate.  I did put two small thumbtacks through the organizer and into the door about a third of the way up from the bottom to reduce the swing when the door was used.

Once I did this, I moved my tubs of whey protein to the empty shelf I discovered during yesterday's project, which then left two fully unused shelves on the other unit.  So I moved my (very) few small appliances down from the very top which made the unit wobble less with the weight further down.

As a side benefit of having this stuff stashed in a flexible organizer, when it does come time to move, I can just unhang it, roll it up and drop it in a tote.  I may see if I want to organize the bathroom in a similar way.  Obviously the TP and towels aren't going to fit in there, but I'd say the boxes of band-aids, bottles of OTC's, and all the other assorted toiletries will go just fine.

Inspiration from Lifehacker Strikes

So I'm reading one of the posts from Lifehacker in my G+ stream, about hacking small apartments.  Anyone that's followed any of my posts across the social networks will know I have been streamlining things, and a current peeve of mine is some clutter I just cannot seem to permanently correct.  I present exhibit A, the before image:

Plastic food bins and things on top, fairly accessible, nested, a little chaotic, but liveable.  Spice shelf, bad jumble, cannot see half my stuff, and a time waster when cooking.  Bottom shelf, more of the same, with two sets of measuring cups, three sets of measuring spoons, and a tableware sorter piled up with things that don't fit.

What got me started was in one of the subarticles it mentioned the use of the ceiling for storage and magnets for smaller things in jars with ferrous lids.  This reminded me of an old Boy's Life magazine that suggested using baby food jars or mayonnaise jars to sort things like small nails and screws.  You could drive a couple roofing nails through the lid, securing them under a workbench.  Just look under the bench, see what jar has what you need, unscrew it take out what you need, and screw the jar back on.  No wasted workbench space.  So I got the sudden idea of grabbing some extra adhesive velcro I had laying around and was going to cut tabs, stick them to the lids of spice jars, and glue them to the underside of that top shelf.  Then I didn't have as much velcro as I thought I had.  It would have to wait until I go in to work, we have it in bulk rolls, and it's not a big issue to grab some.  We're always using it for the oddest projects anyway.  On further thought I decided that the whole side of the shelving unit was open, so I'd just put long strips of velcro on the side, mating strips on all the jars and just slap them on the side, freeing up the shelf even further.

Next I looked at the jumble of measuring accouterments.  They have hanging holes on the end, and I have a stock of cup hooks.  Those shelves are freecycled and will be again, so I got out my DeWalt cordless drill and started putting pilot holes in the particle board.  I hung up the good stainless set of cups and spoons and put the plastic ones off to the side.  I have long handled nylon spoons, drilled holes in them while I was at it.  Cup hooks went in the fronts of the doors and all the long stuff went there as well as my GSI Outdoors Fair Share Collapsible mug.  Next I noticed there was a lip all the way around the tableware sorter, so more cup hooks went in the underside of the shelf and the sorter became a drawer.

Well, I didn't feel like waiting to pick up velcro, and I remembered there was a scrap piece of baseboard trim laying outside.  I sold off my chop box, but I still had a sharktooth tool box saw.  So I used an old trick I learned years (25??) ago and made a mini-shelf.  Quick, dirty and free.

Here is exhibit B, the aftermath:

The two white rectangles you see on the left end of the first shelf are some labels I made, volume conversions for the common kitchen measurements.  I reuse many of the metric serving scoops that come with supplements (you can see a few extras on the shelf next to the knife block) but rarely are they exactly any of the sizes in typical cooking use.  For example there is a 33ml, 60ml, 90ml.  I just pick one that will do the job and leave it in the container.  If I want a different serving size, I just pick a different one, consistency is what is important.  Previously I had been looking at the other set of cups and spoons for the conversion which was printed on them.  The metal ones do not have metric equivalents on them.

No more jumble, but not excessively organized.  Much more efficient.  Another expense free project completed.

Solstice Recap

Looking back and seeing if I accomplished anything within my goals over the three hundred-sixty odd days just passed.  Looks like I've done a lot.

• I'm a bit more than a year into the 52 month debt management program, which means roughly a quarter of the debt I had when the rug was yanked out from under me is paid down.
• I am still not missing a desktop PC, nor am I missing a hard wired internet connection, I've had a 3g wireless modem for two years now.
• I have a solid extended camping/disaster preparedness kit assembled which contains one temporary and one sustainable method to recharge a smartphone.
• I have unloaded about two thirds of my total possessions through yard sales, gifting and freecycling.  Of what is left I plan to unload two thirds over the next year: books, gaming materials, tools, my Harley and most likely the Suburban.  The volume depends heavily on the living situation  which depends on whether work recognizes my value.
• I have attempted to get back into the dating scene.   One meetup through mutual friends which exploded spectacularly three hundred-fifty-seven days ago, one meetup from an internet matching site which never progressed beyond "coffee dates", one hookup from getting pounced at an SCA event which became a massive letdown after a few months of exclusive dating.  I have profiles on Geek2Geek, Fitness Singles, Plenty of Fish, and HerWay.  None of which have gotten so much as a nibble.  I will be revamping all of them and reevaluating around Memorial Day.
• I have finally dug out all my archive CDRs, parsed them all together on the hard drive, and gotten all the MP3s plugged into iTunes.  Some of these files were originally on 5.25" floppies, backed up from my original IBM clone (Tandy) 486DX2/50.  Nothing from my Apple programming days nor Linux nor C++ have made it to today.
• I don't buy paper books when they are available from Google Books
• I don't buy batteries anymore, I use NiMH cells almost exclusively.  I have a scale which uses a 9V which will be replaced by one that uses AAA's when the battery and the spare I have expire.
• All of my plastic water bottles have been replaced with stainless bottles (discontinued items from Gander Mountain), my heavy ceramic mugs have been replaced with type 5 polypro insulated tumblers (GSI Outdoors).
• I have two recycled PET plastic grocery bags (ThinkGeek) and they see regular use.
• I have started using Open Office and migrating documents created in proprietary formats.
• Starting yesterday I am donating CPU time to BOINC projects, currently I am processing data for SETI, MilkyWay, and Einstein.  I also signed up for the Large Hadron Collider and uFluids but there are no data packets currently available.  I last ran data for SETI when I had the Linux platform, the data being processed today is the data that got first pass analysis back then.
• I use paperless grocery lists (android widget), workout logs (smartphone app and Blog), to-do lists (TaskSmash.com) and internet banking with e-statements.
• To prevent paper clutter I immediately shred receipts, bills, statements, mail and anything else the shredder will safely handle as soon as they are identified and recorded as appropriate. 

Short test of self sufficiency: Power Outage

Yesterday the electric went out.  It was cool out, enough that heat is nice to have, but no real danger of pipes freezing.  No wind, storm or anything I was aware of that it could be blamed on.  The laptop never even twitched, though I was bummed to be without my constant companion music.  Easily I made an assessment of what supplies I had, how long before I would have to move my refrigerated and frozen goods to other storage, water saving measures I would apply and how I would get my music back on.


First, I put a fresh cylinder of propane on the camp heater and got it going to maintain the warmth in my area.  Next I opened the closet where my encampment was stored.  The miscellaneous locker was the top of the stack, and I took out the camp battery and the 100W inverter.    That got the music going and kept up the charge in the laptop.  A quick search told me the power outage was not on any maps, so it had not been called in yet.  This informed me that the outage must be extremely local, and town should have power, and thus any store I would go to for water or ice.  I had a sink of dishes that needed to be washed, and my reserve of drinking water was insufficient.  My reserve of propane was enough for cooking and heating water, but the camp heater is a fiend when it comes to fuel consumption.  A check of the weather revealed that it was supposed to stay around 40F all day and drop to the mid-20's during the night so ice would not be needed.


Shutting down the laptop to conserve power, and unhooking the camp battery, I took the battery, a multimeter and the charge cable for the powerstation up to Blur and hooked up the battery to charge during the town run.  Voltage checks confirmed it was charging from Blur.  Quick run up to Maul Mart where I grabbed eight gallons of water (enough to fill one empty storage shelf), and two tanks of propane (filled out the row on the shelf where I kept my reserve propane).


Getting home, as I was beginning to set up camp protocol for dish washing, the power came back on.  I was disappointed.  However I still discovered you can get two flushes with one five gallon bucket of used wash water.

Repurposeable: McCormick small spice bottle

With my new smaller lunch bag, I do not have the room for the 4oz Glad reusable/disposable containers I used to pack mixed nuts in.  I pack one ounce of mixed raw almonds and raw pumpkin seeds every workday.  It was such a waste to use a ziplock bag even if I was reusing them.  Then while measuring out ground cloves for an oat spice cake it hit me that the small spice container might be just the right size.  So the next time I had an empty one I put it on the scale, and sure enough there is just a little room left over.  The only thing that would make it better is if they switched to a type 1 or 2 plastic so I could recycle them.