It’s time for an update, and it’s a good one. After a surprisingly short amount of work, I got the Triumph running, and running somewhat better than I expected. I regret not taking any pictures during the process, but it wasn’t really that exciting. I have a few things to address before the car is road-ready, but they shouldn’t present much trouble.
The first thing I did was remove the alternator and take it to a local place for a rebuild. Last time I was working on the car, I hooked up a jump pack backwards and smoke came out of the alternator. After taking it off and spinning it, I found the bearings a little stiff, so it was probably time for a refreshing anyways.
Next, I replaced the head gasket. I figured the gasket needed replacing due to a compression test from the last time I worked on the car. All the cylinders had compression, but it was low and very inconsistent. I expected to need most of the day to prep the head for removal; in fact, it took barely over an hour. I was ready to remove the head at around 11:30am, but no one was around to help me (with both manifolds attached it probably weighs 70-100 pounds). So I decided to work on something else I’ve been meaning to get to.
I’ve wanted to remove the engine-powered cooling fan and replace it with an electric fan for quite a while. I’ve had a fan and a controller kit, plus an engine fan eliminator kit ready to go for a few years. While waiting for my wife to get home to help with the head, I went ahead with the electric fan installation. The fan I bought was too thick to use as a puller behind the radiator, but luckily it was reversible, and thus easily mountable on the front of the radiator. I used the supplied zip ties to mount the fan to the radiator, and then connected the controller. After getting the car running, I discovered two problems with the controller: one, connecting it to the ignition coil doesn’t provide enough power, so I’ll probably connect it straight to the battery; two, the included push-in probe that sticks in the radiator fins sucks and doesn’t with with my radiator. I ordered a screw in replacement that I’ll put in a metal tee in the upper radiator hose.
I still had some time leftover, so I gave the carburetors a quick clean up and refresh and bought some supplies like coolant and a battery.
Once my wife got home, we took the head off, and to my surprise the gasket appeared to be in fine shape. I was expecting a missing chunk or something like last time. The block appeared in good shape also, and so did the head and all the valves. I don’t have a straight edge, so I didn’t check flatness, but I don’t think it’s an issue; I’ve never had coolant and oil mixing. I put the new gasket on and we set the head down on it. The next day I took maybe two hours or so to button it up.
Once everything was bolted together and filled up and plugged in, it was time to fire up the car. It took maybe half an hour of trying to get the car started, and when it did finally get going, it would only stay running with my foot holding the throttle open slightly. Yesterday, I mostly fixed the hard starting problem by adjusting the choke, which wasn’t doing anything at all. Now the car will run unattended, but only with the choke on. That seems to point to some kind of vacuum leak. I tried to track one down last time, but to no avail. Currently, my top potential culprits are the EGR valve, which I plan on eliminating, or the rocker cover, which is kind of out of shape. I plan to address that with a bit of RTV silicone. Hopefully that will take care of things and I can get the car registered and on the road in a week or two. I’ll be sure to add some pictures to the next post.
After five years of sitting, I’ve decided it’s finally time to get my 1974 Triumph TR6 running and back on the road. In 2016 (I think), I had it running after repairing a damaged head gasket. That fix only lasted a handful of miles. I did a compression test at the time, and determined another failed head gasket is likely the problem. I think they keep blowing because the engine overheats. The radiator is full and the water pump is good, so I think the ignition timing is the culprit. To cover all the bases, I have a 160° thermostat to put in to keep things cooler.
It took so long because I haven’t had the right combination of money and time until now. About a year ago, with pandemic benefits coming in, I bought almost everything I needed to get the car going. I couldn’t get rocker shaft studs though, so the project was put on hold again. I rounded up the remaining parts today and ordered them. Hopefully they’ll be in by next week. In the meantime, I need to get the alternator rebuilt, which a local company can probably handle. I’ll be dropping it off tomorrow.
Once the parts are in, the whole thing should probably only take a few hours, potentially spread over two or three days. I have a vacuum gauge to accurately set the ignition timing now, so hopefully I can avoid overheating this time.
As promised, I have an update on the aeroponic garden. It took a little longer than I was expecting, but I suppose plants are kind of slow and I’m a bit of a procrastinator. Here’s the new set up in the basement:
I’ve got a shelf that should be able to hold up to six bins total, plus another identical shelf in pieces behind this one. I have unfortunately few plants in the garden currently, thanks to the cats and my own horticultural inexperience. The cats managed to murder a few of the plants I was getting started in the egg carton and glass cups, and the egg carton started decomposing and growing mold. So, note to self, don’t use egg cartons for this thing again. Additionally, I was worried about over-watering the plants, so I accidentally under-watered them causing them to sprout very slowly. I have a second bin that I plan to fill with dirt to start more seeds and grow underground things like carrots, it’s just full of stuff right now. I’ll probably just buy another bin.
The lights are regular LED shop lights, recommended by someone on YouTube. They’re nice and cheap and very bright. The plants seem to be enjoying them so far.
The rosemary and peas up front seemed to stall out in the last week or two, but I’m noticing some more growth on both of them today. They both had brushes with the cats early on. The garlic continues to grow like gangbusters and the other peas are going nicely. I think I need to get something better for them to climb though. I reduced the amount of nutrients in the water this week and I think it’s been helpful.
Roots are looking great!
The reason for the delay in getting this garden in the basement is that there was only one inconveniently placed outlet available, and it’s already fully utilized. I added a new 20 amp circuit and six outlets (12 plugs total) myself. It took me some time to research how to add a new circuit and then wire up the outlets. It was pretty easy, and whether this garden is permanent or not, we needed additional power in the basement.
Some of the outlets I added. The timer controls the lights, and the thick wire goes to a power strip with another timer for the pump.
I’ve also started adding some overhead lighting, which needs its own circuit. I’ve decided to take a break from that for a week or two, and I’ll probably finish it soon. The lights I bought should be able to screw directly to an electrical box, but I couldn’t find the right type, so I’m doing the ye olde string and nails thing. Someone else can fix it in the future.
I’ll continue to update on this project as needed. I hope to start seeing some fruiting in the next month or so, and I’ll be getting more seeds started in the next week or so.
A while back I thought an indoor garden would be nice so I could have fresh herbs and vegetables year-round. I thought a hydroponic or aeroponic system would be best so I could eliminate plant pots and increase the number of plants I could keep. I decided against it at the time for a few reasons: first, the only spot in my house that gets any direct sunlight is the landing on the steps, which isn’t a large area. I assumed that the yield of fruits wouldn’t be high enough for it to be worth my time. Second, I have cats, and cats love to mess around with plants, so I’d have to come up with some kind of cat exclusion system. Finally, it would cost a decent amount of money that I didn’t really want to spend at the time and it would take a long time to design and refine.
A few weeks ago at my parents’ house, my mom was showing me her plants and I realized I completely forgot about the existence of grow lights. I had a little Jimmy Neutron brain blast when the revelation that I could create a vegetable and herb farm in my basement hit me. I could set up a couple of shelves with grow lights, and the plants would get plenty of light and no trouble from the cats. I set to work doing some research and development.
I knew I wanted an aeroponic garden over a hydroponic one. Aeroponics is basically an advanced hydroponic setup with less complexity. In an aeroponic garden, plants are held in the air above a pool of water where nutrient-laden water is pumped through nozzles aimed at the plants’ roots. There is no dirt or other growth medium involved. There are many different hydroponic setups, but you can build one with the same nozzle setup as the aeroponic systme and add rocks for the roots to grab onto. My research seemed to indicated that hydroponic gardens are popular, and aeroponic gardens are a thing, there was a lot less information out there on the latter. For both kinds there was a dearth of how-to type information. The best aeroponic DIY resources I found were a couple of YouTube videos. I roughly followed them and I have the beginnings of a garden now.
A quick aside into why you might want an aero/hydroponic garden seems in order. Both aeroponic and hydroponic systems can grow larger, healthier plants more quickly than dirt can because of the control you have over the whole system. You can easily adjust the nutrient mix and concentration, amount of light the plants get and the amount of water they get. Additionally, the roots of the plants have much better access to oxygen than they do in the dirt. Because you don’t need a pot for each plant you can, depending on you setup, fit more plants per square foot than you could with dirt. Hydroponic and aeroponic systems are a really efficient way to grow plants. Plus, throwing seeds in dirt and waiting just feels a little to neolithic to me.
A couple of pictures can probably describe my garden better than words, so here you go:
Top of the garden, showing net pots and collars for the plants. Seeds are trying to start in the egg carton and glasses. The lemon peels are an attempt to keep the cats away. The garden was fashioned using a cheap 17 gallon bin from Home Depot
The interior view, showing the manifold with nozzles on the bottom, and the net pots on the top. You can see the roots of the garlic plant. The green box is the pump.
I have the pump connected to a basic outlet timer that mists the roots for 30 minutes each hour, and then turns the pump off for 30 minutes of rest. The garlic seems to be doing very well so far. I have an oregano sprout coming up, so hopefully that will be in a net pot next week. The other seeds haven’t shown anything yet, but I remain hopeful. The germination time for most of them was 10-28 days, so I should start seeing something in the next couple days.
Everything is working perfectly so far, I just need to get some more plants into it. I noticed a mildly foul smell when checking the pH this morning, so I may have to black out the lid eventually, but I’m going to wait and see. It might just be wet garlic/plastic. This one bin is a proof of concept that, if it works, will be scaled up into several bins on a shelf in the basement. I’ll update when I get another plant or two into the garden.
It’s been almost a month since my last post, so I figured an update is due. It felt like nothing worth reporting has really happened in the last month, but after thinking about it there are three things that are worth a mention at least. First, and least interesting, I started my second to last college semester and things are going fine so far. There is a good bit more group work than I’d like, but it seems that most everyone else in my classes is interesting in pulling their own weight.
Secondly, I have a totally new TV set up in the living room:
A terrible picture of the new TV, speakers and other equipment.
I was browsing Slickdeals mindlessly late at night a few weeks ago, and I saw a deal on this set of speakers. It was a five-speaker package of Jamo’s best speakers for $379 at Adorama. After some quick research, I decided it was a reasonable deal and ordered them. I think $379 was a good price, for an average of about $76 each. The normal price for the package at Adorama was a little over $1,000, which I think says more about the markup on home theater products than the quality of the speakers. I think there’s definitely $379 of sound here, but I would never spend $1,000 on these speakers, or probably any speakers for that matter. Which brings me to a little rant/ramble.
I mostly listen to music through Spotify, which while compressed, sounds totally fine to my ears. I really doubt that I could tell the difference between high-quality Spotify and a lossless source, and even if I could, I think it would be impossible to hear the difference between a $400 set of speakers and a $10,000 (or more) set. “Audiophiles” are probably the only group of people who are worse than camera people. I definitely love cameras and taking pictures, but I don’t have the best gear and I definitely don’t have all the skill. It’s very easy to feel inadequate in the photography world when it feels like every review or forum post or comment is talking about how you just have to have this new super sharp $5,000 lens for your vintage Leica so you can take make amazing pictures photographs/the next great American “photo essay” (whatever that is) in some lush tropical destination. Anyways, it’s a tough community to be in and deal with. Audio equipment feels about the same. If you don’t have a $10,000 Marantz amp connected to 50 different $2,000 speakers from a brand you’re not rich enough to have even heard of are you even watching the movie? Or if you’re not playing a 5000 gram vinyl record through a vintage grass-fed organic tube amp are you really listening to the music? Both hobbies can easily make the regular Joe feel like it’s not worth bothering getting started if they don’t have an unlimited budget.
With that out of the way, I knew I was going to need a new receiver to work these speakers. I already had two receivers, but neither was up to the task. First, I have a late 1980’s JVC quadraphonic receiver, which works perfectly fine, but is just too old to be relevant anymore. I also have a mid 2000’s era JVC 5.1 channel receiver, but it can only work with Dolby Digital signals from a single optical input (no HDMI or anything like that) and the buttons on the front are messed up and don’t work properly anymore. Initially, I was willing to spend a little extra money to get a new receiver that can handle variable refresh rate through its HDMI ports, has Spotify built in and can do Dolby Atmos. After reading some reports that suggest all recent VRR capable receivers have a hardware problem, I decided to get something cheap for now and then maybe upgrade in a few years.
I settled on a refurbished version of Denon’s least expensive receiver, the AVR-S540BT. It can do all the normal Dolby Digital and DTS formats except Atmos or similar, it has five HDMI inputs and two optical inputs, with five speaker channels and two subwoofer outputs. It switches sources automatically when possible and chooses the correct output mode 99% of the time. I’m very happy with it, and I really doubt a more expensive receiver could give me better sound quality. I am interested in an Atmos setup at some point though.
I knew I was also going to need a subwoofer, and in a bid to save some money, I grabbed an old unused JVC sub from my parents’ place (it came with the 5.1 JVC receiver). My parents retired this one for the same reason I eventually did: it has an automatic sleep/power saving function, but it’s much too eager to enter the sleep state. This means the bass cuts in and out almost constantly and always very noticeably. After a couple days I decided to get a new subwoofer. The internet says the Dayton Audio SUB-1200 is the one to get if you don’t want to spend a ton of money, so that’s what I got. Just like the speakers, I’m sure there are better ones out there, but to my untrained ear it sounds fantastic. I could foresee upgrading to the 15 inch version of this sub if space allows in the future, but the 12 inch is an incredible upgrade over anything from a home theater in a box.
I got the receiver set up with my five-ish year old Vizio 4k TV via the HDMI ARC connection. This presented a problem right off the bat. The TV is old enough (and cheap enough) that it only has one HDMI input capable of 4k at 60 Hz. Having a refresh rate of at least 60 Hz is totally essential to using a computer on any screen, and at least strongly recommended for everything else. Unfortunately, the HDMI port with ARC is not the one with 4k 60 Hz capability, so I had to keep all my video sources plugged into the TV and then rely on ARC for audio output to the receiver. This got the job done, but I was plagued by the video from any source cutting out and flickering for about ten seconds at unpredictable intervals. On the PS4, I could just pause the game, but watching TV though the computer was frustrating. The cut would happen at really inopportune times and occasionally the audio would return but the video would not, so I’d have to stop and restart playback. My assumption was that this was due to conflicting HDMI versions between the TV and receiver, but I didn’t put too much effort into solving the problem. Instead, I set my sights on a new TV, one that I’ve had my eye on for a year.
This time last year, in the before times, I was very interested in a new TV, and TCL had just what I was after. They had just debuted their 2020 line, which included a 55 inch QLED TV, with HDR, variable refresh rate and Roku built in, for an excellent MSRP of $699. I kind of forgot about to thanks to the turbulence of the world, but it popped into my head a few times and I read the reviews, all of which just about said it was the best bang for your buck TV in 2020. Thanks to this glowing reception and manufacturing problems due to coronavirus, supplies were short and demand high for much of 2020. I decided I was going to buy one from Best Buy once they had stock available near me, preferably at my local store. I also opened up Walmart and Amazon pages for the TV to up my chances of snagging one. And it’s a good thing I did, because one afternoon I refreshed the Walmart page on a whim, and found the TV on sale for $578, well below the usual $650-$700 price. I grabbed it before it could disappear.
It showed up on Friday, and just like the speakers and receiver, I’m sure there are better TVs out there for more money, but I don’t know that I could see the difference, and I don’t think the performance per dollar is beatable. Even the regular SDR picture is an enormous improvement over my old Vizio, the built-in Roku apps are great as usual and the modern HDMI inputs on the TV mean I can route all my stuff through the receiver first, then into the TV. To be honest, HDR (both HDR 10 and Dobly Vision) isn’t as life changing as I expected, but after watching a few episodes of Our Planet and Planet Earth II in 4k HDR, SDR content just feels like it’s missing something. It’s kind of like cooking without salt. It’s alright and it works, but just a dash of salt takes things to the next level. This TV has a 120 Hz panel and will do VRR, but unfortunately I don’t have anything to take advantage of that. My living room computer has a GTX 1080, but it can’t quite make 1080p at 120 fps, and Nvidia is stupid and doesn’t support VRR over HDMI on cards older than the 3000 series. Forza Horizon 4, my typical couch game, looks amazing in 4k 60 fps with HDR. I suspect playing at 60 Hz on a 120 Hz panel has some benefit because the action looks much smoother than my 4k 60 Hz monitor in the office. The PS4 Pro, in contrast to contemporary Xbox models, has no VRR capabilities. It will do a sort of fake 4k at 60 fps and it’ll do HDR, which I’m satisfied with.
I’m really pleased with my new set up and the value it offers. It’s just nice. My third thing worth mentioning will come in my next post, and is a lot more interesting than this I think.
It feels like forever ago that I mentioned I ordered a new laptop. I was expecting to get it before Christmas, and initially at least, the post office agreed. It quickly made its way from Long Island to a post office distribution center in New Jersey. Where it then sat for almost two weeks. It appeared to be lost in transit. Eventually, someone must have tripped over it and got it on the right truck, because it showed up on Saturday. It’s pretty much what I was expecting so far.
I picked an excellent condition open-box option, which saved about $70. The computer arrived in its original box, and appeared to include all the original items, which was just the charger and a couple papers. My HP Envy x360 15″ is equipped with and AMD Ryzen 4500U, 8 GB of RAM, a 256 GB NVMe SSD and a 250 nit 1080p display. I ordered a 16 GB RAM kit which should be in some time next week. I picked a Ryzen system to take advantage of the excellent on-board graphics capability, and I’ve been pleased with that so far.
I’ve only tried out Civ 6 and Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but both have been completely playable at 1080p on medium settings, getting 30-45 fps with no trouble. Neither of those are terribly intense games though, so I’ll have to try out something heavier in the near future. I should also try them out on the old Surface Book to see what a big leap it is.
Other things I like: the keyboard is excellent, and it has a number pad which is nice. It has a little cover for the webcam that’s electronically controlled. The display takes up almost the entire lid. The battery life is good, and it’s very quiet. It’s a new computer, so of course it’s still speedy and uncluttered. I almost love the trackpad. Its clicks are great, and it’s a nice large size. It would be perfect if it was glass instead of plastic.
Which brings me to things I don’t care for: The overall construction, while solid, appears to only use metal on the lid exterior and it doesn’t feel nearly as nice as the Surface, or my wife’s old Lenovo Yoga, which are both all-metal. The screen, which does have nice colors, seems kind of dim to me, but it’s not problematic indoors. This particular laptop has the lowest-end 250 nit display, and there are 300, 400 and 1000 nit versions available. I couldn’t find a 400 nit version anywhere for a reasonable price. Maybe some day in the future I can swap in a used one. The display is of course in the 16:9 format, which frankly sucks for a laptop. It’s way too wide. The 3:2 of the Surface is maybe a tad narrow, but it’s so much better than 16:9, especially for writing. My Surface pen works perfectly with this computer, but with the screen so narrow and ridiculously long in portrait mode, it’s almost pointless to write on it. I don’t think there are any Windows laptops other than the Surface line with a 3:2 screen, and they’re just too expensive now. Dell offers a 16:10 format on there higher-end stuff, but they’re a little too expensive for me. Personally, I think the 4:3 format of the iPad is probably the ideal for non-television screens.
Anyways, I really like it so far. I’m eager to get the new RAM installed and see if that makes any difference to gaming. Task manager showed that all 8 GB were used with Lego Star Wars going. Despite it’s foibles, I think it would be hard to do better for the price.
Over the last couple days, I’ve acquired a whole bunch of TV shows with the HEVC codec. Not really a problem, but a lot of devices, like a Roku or Fire TV thing, can’t play it directly. That means it has to be transcoded. I use VAAPI in Jellyfin to trancode, but it doesn’t really work with HEVC. I found out the drivers that Debian provides are version 18.something, and I need at least version 20.1 for VAAPI to transcode HEVC video on an AMD graphics card. Those drivers are available in the testing repositories, but the dependency requirements are a little too complicated to make installing them worthwhile. I also put together a VM with Ubuntu 20.10, which has those drivers as standard, but it failed to boot up when I had the GPU passed though to it. The LTS version worked, but like Debian, the drivers are too old. Hopefully the newer drivers make it to Debian’s stable repos sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’m fine for two reasons: First, I usually watch stuff through Kodi on a computer, which means I can direct play everything; second, my CPU can handle transcoding a couple streams at once, so it’s not a huge problem.
In other news, I ordered a new laptop today. I was eyeing a few during the black Friday week things a couple weeks ago, but decided against it. Today, I was at my parents’ house taking care of some school work. I had my Surface Book (first gen) hooked up to a 1080p monitor for some extra work space. I had Excel, Word, about a dozen Firefox tabs open while playing music on Spotify. It felt a little sluggish and not as responsive as it should be. In fact, when I scrolled though my RSS feeds, the music skipped when it was loading images. CPU usage was 80-95% when watching a 1080p Youtube video with the other stuff open in the background. This isn’t something I do often, and this semester is coming to an end, but I still have two more to go, and it is nice to take my work with me if I want to.
The touch screen on the Surface has also been broken since the summer. It sometimes experiences phantom touches along the bottom inch of the screen. That’s disappointing, but livable. I don’t really use the touchscreen. More unforgivable though, is the stylus situation. It won’t work along the edges of the screen, even after repeated calibrations, rendering it useless. I bought an iPad and Apple Pencil in September to pick up this slack, but I haven’t used it much. I haven’t felt the need to take notes in my classes. It feels like I kind of wasted the money on that, but eBay shows that I should be able to sell the stuff for almost as much as I paid for it if I want.
These issues got me looking for laptops this afternoon. I first turned to Slickdeals to see if there were any good deals out there today. First, I found an HP Pavilion that seemed like a good deal. It had a Ryzen 4700U CPU, 8GB RAM 128 GB NVMe SSD and a 1080p display for $450. Someone left a comment comparing it to a similar Dell. The Dell seemed like a better deal, with a better charging system, two M.2 slots, and 1x 8GB RAM stick (making the upgrade to 16GB easier). I found out from another Slickdeals post that there was 12% off Dell stuff with a sign up at a third-party site. I did that and was ready to order a 15″ Inspiron 5000 for about $500. I read and watched a few reviews, and decided the display and build quality would be too big a step down from the Surface, so I moved on.
I gave Best Buy a look and set my only criteria to an AMD processor and a 1080p display. Another HP popped up, but this time it was an Envy x360 (that means the screen flips all the way around). This one was equipped with a Ryzen 4500U, 256GB NVMe SSD and 8GB RAM for $629 new. I learned in the Best Buy questions and through some research that the RAM and SSD are able to be upgraded, and it’s compatible with an active stylus, like the Surface pen. The upgradability is a must-have for me, and the stylus compatibility is a huge plus. I waffled for a couple hours, but decided to buy an excellent condition open-box one for about $570. It should be in by December 22 they say, but of course I’m hoping it arrives earlier. The AMD processor bests more expensive Intels and has pretty good integrated graphics. I should be able to run some games at 1080p medium settings. It totally murders the i5 6300U in the Surface Book (11,286 passmark score vs. 3,269). The Verge called the 13″ version the best sub-$1000 laptop. I think I’ll probably keep the 256GB SSD for now, but I’ll definitely be upgrading to 16GB RAM as soon as possible. I’m really looking forward to it, and I’ll update when it comes in.
My birthday was last week, which is whatever. I don’t get all that excited about it, but it is nice to have some cake and a birthday dinner prepared by my mom. This year I was a bit more curious about my birthday present than usual. My wife said she came up with the idea a few months ago, and she thought it was a great idea. The day finally came (or actually two days before my actual birthday, just because it was easier), and I opened it up.
It’s a new grill, something I’ve been pining for since last summer at least. My old grill was fine I guess. I mean it cooked the food, but other than that it kind of sucked. It met the minimum requirements of a grill, like having a spot for a fire and racks above it, but that’s about it. It didn’t allow for much temperature control and it was incredibly hard to light charcoal and keep it going in temperatures below 65° or so. Plus it was old, probably coming from the late 1970’s or early 80’s.
A couple years ago, my parents got a kamado style grill, and it’s been fantastic. Maybe a little tricky to get used to, but once you do the results are great. Temperature is very controllable, and since the fire can be smothered when you’re done, it saves charcoal. I’ve been wanting to get one for myself for a while. The only catch is that many of them are very expensive. Like over $1,000 expensive. That’s out of my price range (and probably out of range for a birthday present too), but there are some decent ones available in the sub-$500 range.
The grill sits right outside my back door. I think I put the legs on a bit wrong, but I’ll fix it in the spring.
The model I got is a Char-Griller Akorn, which seems to be a popular choice for grill enthusiasts on a budget, much like the Ender 3 is a common choice in the 3D printing community. It’s definitely not the best at anything, but the price more than makes up for that.
I’ve used it once so far, on my actual birthday. There’s going to be a bit of a learning curve to the temperature control. I had some trouble keeping a stable 350°-400°, but I’m sure I’ll get it with some practice. It was in the high 40’s or low 50’s that day, but I had no trouble starting the fire or keeping it going, which gives me hope that I might be able grill through the winter. It’s been raining here since then, so I haven’t had another opportunity to use it. Next week looks clear, but cold, so we’ll see how it goes.
Since the whole “lockdown” thing, I’ve been spending a lot more time in my home office, just like everyone else. I’m taking four classes this semester, two totally online where we don’t see the instructor in person and two in Zoom meetings where we do see the instructor. I’m sitting in the office pretty much all day, especially when my wife is working from home. I began to grow tired of my cheap Ikea office chair I bought several years ago over the summer, and I decided to look for a replacement.
I’ve had a new chair on the way back burner of my mind for a while now, and I occasionally check Slickdeals to see if there’s anything out there for a decent price. Most everything that pops up there is a Staples or similar house brand, which is fine with me, but comments always indicate the chair is falling apart after a few years of light use. My $60-ish Ikea chair has held up great, even with two cats in the house. I’d be disappointed if a nicer $150-$250 chair couldn’t do the same.
I figured it might be a good idea to look into actually office chairs. You know, like you’d have in an office. The two top brands there are Herman Miller and Steelcase. I discovered that while the chairs are very expensive new (sometimes over $1000), they can be had for only a couple hundred used or refurbished. I googled around and found several online retailers dealing in refurbished office equipment, but going on reviews of the places on Reddit and other sites, I just didn’t feel confident ordering from any of them. Everyone on the internet said there are used office furniture dealers in every city and that would be the best place to look, so I did. The first place I went to was closed, and the second had mostly no-name brand stuff that was overpriced. I was really hoping to find a Steelcase Leap or Herman Miller Mirra or Aeron there, but no luck.
In a happy coincidence, a writer over at Ars Technica was facing the same trouble as me. He wrote an article on using a gaming chair in the office. I gave it a read, and decided to look into gaming chairs. I’m pretty sure that gaming chair companies have nowhere near the R&D budget of Herman Miller, but people must buy their chairs for a reason. They look neat, but if they were uncomfortable, would people keep buying them? After all, pretty much every streaming personality out there has one.
After a little research, I settled on the Secretlab Titan. It looks good, has the features I want and the price isn’t terrible. I bought one, and it finally showed up last week. I wish I could have tried it out before buying it, but I still really like it. It’s miles better than the old Ikea chair, and probably better value than a used Herman Miller or Steelcase. The packaging was excellent and assembly was no trouble. The chair itself appears to be very high quality, with lots of metal parts where you might expect to find plastic. It took me a little while to get every adjustment set up properly for myself, but now that I’m used to the chair it would be hard to go back to the Ikea chair.
I only have three small complaints: first, it took a while to get the chair. I guess Secretlab does a pre-order system where people place orders, then they make a run of chairs. I ordered the chair on October 17, but it didn’t get delivered until November 20. Secondly, I’m not sure if it’s the shape of the butt cushion or the height of the chair, but my feet don’t quite sit flat on the floor with this chair. That’s not a big problem, and I have a foot rest coming today that should fix this problem. Finally, the racing seat style of the chair is a little bit much for me. I have a light-up keyboard, and while my computer doesn’t have any RGB, I don’t mind it, but the racing chair might just be a little shark-jumping for a gamer. But no matter the looks, it’s comfortable, even though I’m sure Secretlab spends a small fraction of what Herman Miller does on research to make the chairs ergonomically correct. The Titan is expensive, but so are “real” office chairs, and if you’re sitting in the office for most of the day, I think it’s easy to justify spending some money on comfort.
Over the past couple weeks, I got around to assembling a few Lego sets I’ve had around the house for quite a while.
First up was the Mini, set number 10242. This was a really enjoyable build, with some super cute details like a picnic basket complete with tiny bread and cheese. Like the reviewer above, I think the steering wheel is kind of too big for the rest of the car, but overall, it’s a great set.
Next up, I repaired the VW Bus, set number 10220. This set was a birthday present from my wife, then girlfriend, three years ago. I put it together on my birthday weekend, and set it on the sideboard in the dining room for the night. I woke up to discover our three-month-old kittens knocked it over during the night, shattering it all over the floor. I gathered up all the pieces and put them in a box, which sat on a shelf in my office until about a week ago when I decided to put it back together. I took apart almost everything that was still together and built it back up. When I finished, I discovered I was missing a piece. Luckily it wasn’t a set-specific piece and I ordered a few on eBay. This is a great set, with a ton of fun little details inside the van. Totally worth whatever the asking price is these days.
Most recently, I put together the Ferrari F40, set number 10248. My wife’s parents got this for me as a Christmas or birthday present a few years ago. Like pretty much all the Creator Expert sets, this one was a fun build. I was especially impressed with how the set created the angled section of the car behind the doors. The actual F40 is pretty angular, so it lends itself well to a Lego set I think.
The yellow truck is set number 4404, also known as Land Busters. I’ve had this set assembled for a while, but brought it to my house from my parent’s recently. This set came out in 2003, but I’m not sure when it was retired. I got it when I was a kid and I remember my mom being annoyed that my dad bought it for me. At close to 800 pieces, it was beyond my ability as an eight year old. I finally got around to finishing it like 10 years later. It’s apparently considered a decent, but maybe underwhelming set, mainly due to a non-functional steering wheel.
I finally got around to using a Lego gift card my parents got me last year. I a month or so ago that Lego was re-releasing the Apollo Saturn V, identical to the original set, but with a new set number. I regretted not getting this during the original run, especially after I saw the completed set at my uncle’s house. To say it’s enormous is an understatement. It looks just like the real thing, and the building techniques are very interesting. 10/10, absolutely worth the price.
During this storm of Lego, I’ve learned that retired sets are often worth multiples of their original price, even in used condition. It makes me feel a bit more at ease about buying Lego sets, because there isn’t really such a thing as a cheap Lego set. Not that I ever plan to sell any, knowing they increase in value over time makes me feel a little better.
