Archive for the ‘General’ Category

For the past several months I’ve been working hard to convert a corner of our basement to a shop. Kelly and I painted the floor with two coats of 2-part epoxy paint (color, then clear coat), and then I framed, wired, dry-walled, Kelly painted (thanks sweety!), I trimmed, finished the electrical, and today I finished the suspended ceiling. Complicating each step was a multitude of plumbing and duct-work obstacles that had to be laboriously worked around. I wanted to make sure it was ready for whatever I was likely to throw at it, so I put in 2 20-amp 110v circuits, 2 30-amp 220v circuits, central vac, shop air, ventilation, and ran conduit from my future workbench location and from a wall location to my server room for network cables for my computers (for the CNC router) and phone. All that’s really left now is to build a workbench for my CNC router, computers, and reloading equipment, and then I can start moving in the equipment!

I can’t wait to have this finished up. It’s been a long time in the making, and during that time whenever I wanted to make something on the router, I sat my butt on the concrete floor on the other end of the basement for hours on end. Having a nice workbench and comfy chair is going to rock! Once things get settled, I’ll gradually work on tool and material storage as well until it’s a fully equipped, comfortable work area!

Check out more pics at http://www.chembal.com/v/projects/basement_shop/!

Shop from Door

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We had fun at the zoo yesterday!  Check out the pics at http://www.chembal.com/v/critters/zoo2010/!

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OK, winter, you can leave now.  I’m officially sick of you.  I was pretty irritated when I got snowed in a couple weeks ago and lost power.  I was more irritated when I bent my plow arms clearing the drifts.  But now, plowing in vain with a plow that won’t level against drifts that won’t stop in wind that bites my face, I’m officially ready for you to stop.  Please go.  Please.

Thank you,

Brad

Deck Snow Drifts

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As a big fan of SparkFun.com, I was greatly upset when I found out that Sparc International sent them a nasty cease and desist letter. For those of you not familiar with SparkFun.com, they’re a really cool company in Colorado that produces all kinds of electronic goodness for electronic tinkerers like me. I’ve used their products on a lot of my projects, including their handy serial LCD on my Drag Racing Christmas Tree project, and their various ZigBee accessories on my Mailbox Monitor project, to name a few.

The situation made me upset enough to write the following letter. I just hate seeing cool companies like SparkFun getting bullied by the big guys.

from Brad Hanken
to sparcinfo@sparc.org
cc spark@sparkfun.com
date Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 12:31 PM
subject Pleadings of a saddened customer regarding your recent communications with SparkFun.com

To whom it may concern,

As a dedicated fan and advocate of both Sun and SparkFun.com, I was recently saddened by learning of the C&D letter sent to SparkFun on behalf of Sparc International.  I make my living programming in Java, (much of my code even runs on Sparc-based servers), and I have great respect for the Sun family of companies in general.  Away from work, I blow off steam designing and working with embedded systems and hardware, often supplemented with the great products SparkFun produces.  I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone would confuse Sparc International and SparkFun.com.  Count me among those in the “relevent purchasing groups” completely baffled at the suggestion that I would ever confuse Sparc International and SparkFun.com.  Beyond the fact you both like semiconductors, you’re nothing alike, and you needn’t fear I’ll confuse the two of you merely because you both use the ultra-common phonetic “Spark” as a component in your respective trademarks.

Sparc produces server hardware.

SparkFun facilitates embedded systems hobbyists and engineers by providing easy to integrate components and tools to further embedded projects.

There is no overlap, and certainly no confusion!

Please live and let live.  Please don’t replace my current image of Sparc International as “cool member of the Sun family of companies” with that of “another trademark bully to avoid and urge others to avoid”.

Most sincerely,
Brad Hanken,
proud customer of both of your companies

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