Build, Hack and sometimes Fail

2010-05-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

Washing suede in the washing machine.
Can a dead lamb take a bath?

One of my neighbors threw out this nice suede jacket.
It is just my size. However it had these white marks on it near the lapel and a strange smell. I did a search on the net and almost everyone said you must have it cleaned professionally. I don't want to pay $20 for a free jacket. A few people online said you can wash it in the washer on the delicate cycle. Well hey! Why not try. The worst that can happen is I will toss it back into the recycle bin.

I turned it inside out and zipped it up. I put it in the washer with a blanket to make the washing more delicate. Tossed in some detergent and turned on the machine. Regular wash cycle.
swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur, swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur, swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur, swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur, swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur, swishy swashy, splosh splosh, gurgle slop, rur rur,

Here is the jacket as it came out of the washer. It looked fine. I hung it up to dry.

Once it was dry It still looked fine. The spots were gone as well as the smell. If my neighbor sees me in the jacket and says, "Hey that's mine." I'll say,"Yours had some white chalk marks on it and a weird smell. Your wife threw yours out last month."

So: Can I bleach this stuff to make it lighter?
Hmmmmm

The perfect breadmaker bread recipe

2010-04-03T02:27:00.000-07:00

I got my breadmaker about three years ago. For a couple of months I was amazed that I could make bread at home by just filling the machine and pushing a button. The bread was great as long as it was fresh. I can't quite eat a loaf in a day myself though and day old bread from my breadmaker was stale and hard. I tried adjusting ingredients, searching the Internet, adding eggs to my recipe, and adding potato water. That potato water helped a bit but what I wanted was a bread like they sold in the store that stayed soft and fresh for three days. After a lot of trial and error and eating two years worth of crappy bread I was ready to give up when I finally got a couple of loaves to come out right. Since then eating and making my own bread has been just what I thought it would be like 2 years before. Here is the recipe:

Exactly one cup of water (250ml). Heated to hot coffee temperature in the microwave. (Not Boiling)
One teaspoon of sugar. (5ml)
one quarter teaspoon of salt. (1.25ml)
One tablespoon of oil. (15ml)
Once the liquids and solubles are in the bread pan then we can start with the powders.
Three cups (750ml) BREAD flour. NOT all purpose flour and not noodle flour. Bread flour has more gluten so it is stickier. The flour you use makes a big difference.
2 and 1/4 teaspoons (12ml) of dough improver. This is what the bakers use in their bread. The amount used is 1.5 to 2% of the amount of bread flour used. If you can read the label on the package then you know why I prefer to make my own bread.
About 3/4 of a teaspoon (7ml) of instant yeast.
Now the bread pan can be loaded into the breadmaker and the breadmaker turned on. After a few minutes it should be mixed into a nice little ball of dough.
My breadmaker takes about 3 hours (4.3 sectors in metric) to run to completion.
Then the bread should be put out to cool till it is almost room temperature. Make sure you turn it so it doesn't sit on one side getting damp as the hot steam comes off it. It should be crispy all around. I usually then slice it and place it in my seal-able breadbox so it is ready to eat with my homemade strawberry jam.

Inject water into your printer to get that page printed.

2010-03-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

I found an HP Deskjet D2460 that one of my neighbors threw out. I hooked it up to my Ubuntu computer and waited the few seconds for the printer to be recognized. I then threw some paper in the printer and printed a test page. It came out mostly white with a few colored lines here and there. HP 21 and 22 cartridges can be refilled but I was too lazy to go out and get some. I'm also too cheap as I don't want to spend $40 on a piece of trash I found than might not work at all. I went to the kitchen and got a glass of filtered water and went to my toolbox to get a syringe.

I always have a syringe in my toolbox as they come in handy from time to time.

I sucked up about 2cc of water and gently injected it deep into the the sponge in the cartridges.
Once the cartridges were back in the printer I tried printing to see how it did.

Success! The printer prints well enough to do my homework on till it goes dry. Then when I'm feeling not so lazy I can go pick up some more ink.

The inks in these printers are miscible with water and I don't really need all that photo quality I just want to print something sometimes.

&%$ crazy glue bottle won't open again

2010-03-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

I always have a bottle of crazy glue sitting on my desk. It is very useful stuff. I can do everything from fix the kid's toys to seal that cut on the end of my finger. However the bottle always only lasts till the top glues itself on. Then I have to get two pairs of vice grips to take the top off the bottle every time I need it. I don't want to keep two pairs of pliers on my desk all the time. Then I had an epiphany. When I close the bottle I don't have to screw it on fully tight. Now after using the glue I screw on the lid all the way and then back it off a quarter turn. The lid has stopped sticking. When it does stick a bit I can tighten it and crack the glue bond without getting out the pliers. Hopefully I can use my current bottle of glue to the last drop.