Archive for the ‘Happy Living’ Category

The top 10 Essential Harbor Freight Tools no Shop should be without.

October 13th, 2011 by joey | 1 Comment | Filed in Fun, Happy Living

Why Harbor Freight? Because it’s CHEAP and most of us amateur builders won’t wear out what they sell. One downside is precision, cheap tools just aren’t as precise as quality ones, but for most jobs they are good enough. Also, I believe Harbor Freight has been slowly improving the quality of their tools. To top it off with, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Make Magazine have two full pages of coupons one of which has always been (for the past year atleast) a 20% off one single item coupon. Every month when my popular science comes I rip out those two pages fold them up and stick them in my wallet.

On to the list!

#1 A Cheap Circular Saw with a Metal Cutting Blade

Armed with a circular saw with an abrasive blade, there isn’t very much that you can’t cut. I’ve cut cars, doors, made tools, etc… Next up to this tool is a cheap angle grinder with a thin blade. Good for slightly more precise freehand cuts without as much lost material, sparks, and noise.

#2 A Set of these giant 15″ crescent wrenches (or the 24″ if you can afford them).

These are some of my favorite tools for a few reasons. One, you can straighten (or bend) anything with them… Have a piece of angle iron you need to make a slightly larger angle? Just tighten the wrences over the edges, and give them a little push. Have a 2×4 That is warped that you want to straighten, just secure one end, and attach one of these to the other. A rash of robberies on your street? Just tuck one of these under each side of your bed. Oh, and btw… They are good for large bolts too.

#3 All In One Screw Driver(s)

You know, you can just NEVER find a screw driver when you need one… So, I started buying these any time they were on sale or I had some extra change. We now have 6 of them, and we can always find one when we need one now (although it can take a little looking sometimes).

#4 Reciprocating Saw

These go on sale for about $19.99 frequently, and they are just awesome to have around… Like the circular saw, you can cut almost anything with one of these. Putting in a dog door? Some pipe? Need to trim a stud? Cut off a nail? Severe a rusted bolt? Cut through a piece of wood without worrying about nails? Turn your car into a convertible? This is your tool. A skilled user could destroy an entire house in a few hours with one of these.

#5 1/2″ Chuck Drill

Sometimes you really really need a drill with a larger chuck. Some drill bits just won’t go into a smaller drill. This drill also has a gear box, slowing the speed of the drill bit while still applying full torque. Great for hole saws, wire brushes, Big drill bits, etc…

#6 Pull Stroke Saw

A finish carpenter I knew in Salt Lake let me borrow one of these once, and I was sold. Miter saw? Blech… A sharp one of these guys will cut through small wood like nothing, and larger pieces like a 2×4 without breaking a sweat.

#7 Multimeters!

Multimeters… If you do much electronics work, you know how valuable a multi meter is. Usually you don’t even need a good one, just an “Is there electricity here?”, “Are these two wires connected?” capable meter. Which these are more than qualified for. Sometimes you can find these on sale for $0.99 each. I bought 10 of them once, and gave them away, put one in each car, one in the shop, two in the house, and one in my tool bag, and still have a few left over to put with my electronics gear. A really good value when they are on sale.

#8 Digital Calipers

These are way cool. This is one of those tools you think you can do without until you have a set… After that, there is no going back. These are plastic, but they work great, and are still very accurate, I would say good to the hundredth of an inch. Building a potato gun and need to find a piece of pipe that fits perfectly? Need a hole the perfect size? Want to find a piece of flat material that is the perfect size to go under that coffee table leg? This is the tool for you.

#9 These Carpet Covered Moving Dollies

These things are so useful and versatile. I think we’ve gone through 4 or 5. Not because they break, but because they are the cheapest way to get 4 good caster wheels… You can grab these on sale for about $8 a piece almost any time. I put one on the bottom of a big scroll saw we have, one under the wire-feed welder, I used one to put wheels on my air compressor, and another to put wheels under a cheap cabinet we got from Ikea that we roll around the porch and garage as a work station and we have another one that we use for moving heavy objects. So buy two, and set one aside for when you permanently mount the other one.

#10 Canvas Tool Bag

This bag is the perfect tool box. It has enough pockets around the outside to fit a set of both SAE and Metric wrenches (you just have to double up the smaller wrenches on the ends. It also has pockets between the outside set and the canvas the handles are attached to, these are perfect for pliers and one of those multi screw drivers and it has enough room inside to drop a smaller bag that contains your 3/8″ socket and ratchet set, a roll of electrical tape, some Teflon tape, a multi meter, and other odds and ends you find useful. It is also EXTREMELY well put together. Pictured below is my bag minus the screw driver and pliers we are using inside right now. When fully equipped this bag alone contains what is required for almost any job (seriously, not just saying that). Including the wrenches, a crescent wrench in case you need two of one size, or a slightly larger wrench than you have, a 4 in one screw driver, a set of deepwell SAE and Metric 3/8 sockets, a set of spark plug sockets, a few extensions, a 3/8″ drive ratches, linemans pliers, dykes, wires strippers, channel locks, needle nose pliers, multimeter, electrical tape, teflon tape, a set of both sae and metric allen wrenches, and random odds and ends in the bottom collected from other recent projects.

If I could afford it I would buy each of my brothers and my dad one of these bags fully stocked. Another great thing is that because it is canvas and not plastic you can throw it into the trunk of a car, behind the seat, squish it behind a truck bench seat, hold it in your lap, drop it on a tile floor, etc… And you never have to worry about breaking or scratching anything. I’ve had mine for about 5? years now and it has held up amazingly well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my list. Now go out and build/fix something!

The Secret code for Gated Communities, Copiers, and Home Depoty equipment safety pads…

January 27th, 2011 by joey | 2 Comments | Filed in Fun, Hacks, Happy Living, Ingenuity, really cool

Have you ever faced a situation where you need to guess a numeric code of somekind? Perhaps you’re delivery pizza in a gated community, or you need to make a copy at work, but it is protected with a code and you don’t know it?

I enjoy people watching. It’s fun to see what people do and don’t do. For instance, have you noticed no one every hides the keyboard when they enter a pin / password? It just doesn’t happen. I started a practice at Home Depot of looking when they enter the code to start those protected machines just for kicks. I was astonished to learn that they are almost always the same (even if different parts of the country). I bet you can guess it on your first try… Ready… That’s right, it’s 1234 (* or #).

I have another friend who always uses #1010 to get into gated communities, he said it almost never fails. If you add 1234, 1111, 0000, 4321, and a few other codes, I think you could enter 90%+ of the gated communities in the world.

Copy machines with codes… I once spent time in a work environment where all the copiers had codes, and you had to get your code from a supervisor to make a copy… This allowed them to keep track of who was making copies for what to control copy expenses. Well… A 4 digit code isn’t that difficult to discover. The same practice as gated communities usually works, and if not, you can enter about one code every two seconds if you are fast. It is likely the copier has 10+ codes in it, meaning that you only have to try about a thousand before you find it.

Anyways, I’m not writing this to encourage hacking copier codes, entering a community to rob it, or using dangerous equipment without a store associate. I just find it interesting, and helpful for that awkward situation where a friend gives you the wrong gate code or you forget it.

TBOLITNFL – Duece Lutui

November 23rd, 2010 by joey | No Comments | Filed in Amazing, Happy Living, Infusionsoft, Life, really cool

TBOLITNFL is a life changing acronym. You may not be a believer in faith, personal internal commitments, and affirmations, but let me tell you. There is power there.

Duece Lutuni came to Infusionsoft today to talk mingle with us for a few minutes. Duece’s story is about him making a personal internal commitment to be “The Best Offensive Lineman in the NFL” And he doesn’t just say it. He is living it. With help, he has come to believe in himself in a way he hasn’t since he was a kid and his Dad encouraged him. Duece is The Best Offensive Lineman in the NFL. Because he decided to know he was the best, it has been easy for him to realize that decision. He went from being mediocre to now having to go out of his way to “find work” the other team now plans plays AROUND Duece. He has to go to the right, or left, or deep to find someone to hit.

I’ve never really enjoyed watching sports or following celebrities. But Duece Lutui is the exception. I respect him not for how popular he is, or how much he is paid, or his performance on the field but for the change that he has made in his own life in the last 2 months. I got a picture of Duece because I want to be associated with a giant of a man who believed in himself and became great. I want to remember Duece.

Ofa atu Duece.

Read the TBOLITNFL story: http://www.tbolitnfl.com/p/deuce-lutui-story.html

Why I Love Working at Infusionsoft!

October 27th, 2010 by joey | No Comments | Filed in Business, Happy Living, Infusionsoft, Ingenuity

Simple… Check out out: http://www.infusionblog.com/entrepreneur/5-reasons-why-infusionsoft-is-awesome/

Making a quick vertical material rack for your work shop.

October 25th, 2010 by joey | No Comments | Filed in DIY, Fun, Happy Living, House Projects, Organization, really cool

If you didn’t know already… My wife and I LOVE to build stuff. We’ve been collecting more and more left over material from various projects, and we have this one corner we just lean things in. (Like long pieces of pipe, steel, 2×4′s, etc…)

In a quest to reclaim some more space I built this quick vertical material rack. Made entirely out of scrap, It took about 15 minutes, and cleaned up “the corner” immensely. It is composed of 2 7″ pieces of 2×4 and one old piece of something… (We found it in the house when we moved in ).

Check it out…

And a detail shot of one end…

What Motivates People (Specificaly technical people)

July 21st, 2010 by joey | 3 Comments | Filed in Business, Happy Living, Life, really cool

Here is an AWESOME video (with cool drawings) about how people are motivated.

The world without America

April 10th, 2010 by joey | 3 Comments | Filed in Happy Living, Life

I found this video today, it is fantastic, and reminds us of what a fantastic place we live in.

The United States – The Greatest Country

April 10th, 2010 by joey | No Comments | Filed in Happy Living, Life, Politics

The following was sent to be by a friend of mine that was my Scout Master a long time ago. David Johnson. His email is quoted below in it’s entirety. I 100% agree with everything said, and am making changes myself to not be as pessimistic. I would encourage you to do the same.

–Joey

The information below was forwarded to me, and I felt that it needed to be passed on. What is said here are things that we have all heard before. However, I think we need to read this often. It gives me hope; may it do so for you, as well.

BRUCE R. McCONKIE

“It is our firm conviction as a people that the stars and stripes will be waving triumphantly in the breeze, as a symbol of the greatness and stability of the United States of America, when the Lord comes. This nation was established to be the Lord’s base of operations in this final gospel dispensation. From it the gospel is to go to every other nation and people. The greater its influence among the nations of the world, the more rapidly the gospel spreads. But the Lord has told us that all nations, the United States included, shall cease to be when he comes.”

(The Millennial Messiah, 491).

JOSEPH SMITH (as quoted by Ezra Taft Benson)

“We are fast approaching that moment prophesied by Joseph Smith when he said: ‘Even this nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground, and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin, this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean, and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction” (Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City, July 19, 1840)

(The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 623 – 624).

JOSEPH SMITH

Words of James Burgess: “In the month of May 1843, several miles east of Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Legion was on parade and review, at the close of which Joseph Smith made some remarks upon our condition as a people and upon our future prospects, contrasting our present condition with our past trials and persecutions by the hands of our enemies; also upon the Constitution and government of the United States, stating that the time would come when the Constitution and government would hang by a brittle thread and would be ready to fall into other hands, but this people, the Latter-day Saints, will step forth and save it. . . . I, James Burgess, was present and testify to the above”

(The Words of Joseph Smith, 279).

EZRA TAFT BENSON

“The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith there would be an attempt to overthrow the country by destroying the Constitution. Joseph Smith predicted that the time would come when the Constitution would hang, as it were, by a thread, and at that time ‘this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction’ (Journal of Discourses, 7:15). It is my conviction that the elders of Israel, widely spread over the nation, will at that crucial time successfully rally the righteous of our country and provide the necessary balance of strength to save the institutions of constitutional government”

(The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 618 – 619).

On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Daniel Kelly Ogden

wrote:

There are some extraordinary and very timely thoughts from President Harold B. Lee (speaking in October 1973) circulating on the Internet. I looked into the quotation carefully and have confirmed that the words below are accurate; at the end I list the sources. Latter-day Saints and all Americans need this right now. (Someone might even want to forward this to Glenn Beck; he needs to see it!)

HAROLD B. LEE:

Men may fail in this country, earthquakes may come, seas may heave beyond their bounds, there may be great drought, disaster, and hardship, but this nation, founded on principles laid down by men whom God raised up, will never fail.

This is the cradle of humanity, where life on this earth began in the Garden of Eden. This is the place of the New Jerusalem. . . . This is the place where the Savior will come to His temple.

We are living in a time of great crisis. The Country is torn with scandal and with criticism, with fault-finding and condemnation. There are those who have downgraded the image of this nation as probably never before in the history of the country.

I plead with you not to preach pessimism. Preach that this is the greatest country in all the world.. . . It is the nation that will stand despite whatever trials or crises it may yet have to pass through.

We must be on the optimistic side. This is a great nation; this is a great country; this is the most favored of all lands. While it is true that there are dangers and difficulties that lie ahead of us, we must not assume that we are going to stand by and watch the country go to ruin. We should not be heard to predict ills and calamities for the nation. On the contrary, we should be providing optimistic support for the nation.

You must remember . . . that this church is one of the most powerful agencies for the progress of the world, and we should . . . all sound with one voice. We must tell the world how we feel about this land and this nation and should bear our testimonies about the great mission and destiny that it has.

If we do this, we will help turn the tide of this great country and lessen the influence of the pessimists. We must be careful that we do not say or do anything that will further weaken the country. It is the negative, pessimistic comments about the nation that do as much harm as anything to the country today. We who carry these sacred responsibilities must preach the gospel of peace, and peace can only come by overcoming the things of the world. Now, we must be the dynamic force that will help turn the tide of fear and pessimism.

(Excerpts from a talk given at Ricks College Devotional Assembly, “Have Faith in America,” October 26, 1973, and printed in two sources: Ye Are the Light of the World: Selected Sermons and Writings of Harold B. Lee, 340, 350-351, and The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, edited by Clyde J. Williams, 365-366.)

Provident Living

March 20th, 2010 by joey | 1 Comment | Filed in Happy Living, LDS, Life

Being content with what you have and controlling wants is hard. But it is worth it. This is a talk given by a man that I have great love and respect for about being provident providers and living within our means. It’s good.

My wife and I do several things to be more provident. Recently we switched to a cash budget. Actually seeing how many dollars you have left as a real thing instead of just a number helps us control spending. Also, we setup automatic deposits into our savings account (try ingdirect.com, we LOVE them). We also take no income tax credits throughout the year, forcing us to live on less. Than at tax time, we always get a huge tax return, most of which goes straight to the bank, or to pay off debt.

Why you NEED sunlight lamps

November 24th, 2009 by joey | No Comments | Filed in Happy Living, Ingenuity, Life, really cool

Lightbulbs… A wonderful invention that’s been around for over a hundred years. Did you know how many different times Edison tried to make the lightbulb and learned how not to suceed? The numbers vary from 100 to 10000. I suspect it’s somewhere in the middle. Imagine, something as simple as the lightbulb we all know just waiting to be discovered.

A few years ago, I begin investigating different ways of overcoming a bad mood. I was in Salt Lake during a winter, and felt absolutely terrible. I did some reading and learned that the sun makes us happy. Amazing. Someone told me it is because the Sun creates Vitamin D, which affects seratonin uptake or something like that. Anyways, there is lots of supporting evidence that sunlight make people happy.

Enter… The sunlight lamp… Light is usually measured by it’s “temperature” see: Color Temperature. In a color temperature scale, you have incandescent lights at one end, and sunlight at the other. Incandescent light is yellow… (Because the light is generated by a glowing hot piece of wire, duh). Whereas sunlight bulbs are bright white light. They vary from 5000k to 6500k in color temperature.

Sunlight lamps are so good at re-producing sunlight, that when my wife and I first got one (A 200W huge desk lamp), we plugged it in and my brain said “Whoa! Where’s the window that all of this light is coming from?” And I turned my head to look out the “window” before I realized it was the lamp… Now, I feel my mood lessen when I walk from a room lit by sunlight lights and a room lit by regular lights.

So, how much does it cost?? Home Depot has a good selection of lights. Look on the box, and try to get ones that are 5500k, they have a lot of cheaper 5000k, these are good, but 5500k are better. It’s about $5 for a 60W equivilant 5000k light, but they are CFL’s, so they last forever anyways. If you buy one light a month you’ll have all the lights in your hose replaced before long! I suspect that as they get more popular (which they will) eventually they will be almost the same cost as regular CFL’s and the good 5500k ones will be just a few dollars each.

So, are you stressed? Wish you were a little happier? Or, just curious? However you feel, you’ll feel better with sunlight lamps, and you’ll never go back.