We have harvested our 2017 crop.

This is an interesting year, as we had a late start to the season, and less sun than normal.  We’ll have even less sun in future years, as a new condo building is going up in front of us and will certainly reduce the amount of sun received by our balcony.

• I’m not sure what happened to our corn, but we only had a couple of very sad looking cobs.
• As the corn didn’t grow very well, the pole beans didn’t have anything to climb, so they didn’t do very well either.
• The tomato plants did well
• We grew more carrots this year - they were amazing
• All the flowers did well

My daughter has been making some really impressive earrings using Sculpey clay and earring hooks and studs sourced from Michael’s.  Lighting them up, like these studs, would take it to the next level.  Light up earrings present an interesting challenge, as size and aesthetics constraints conflict with a battery holder, light, and wiring.

We built a simple design we found on YouTube which uses painted googly eyes to hold the battery and a small container with sparkles to diffuse the light.  There is room for improvement, but they turned out OK - they look great in a darker room or from a distance, but crude up-close.  We may refine them further.

On the Internet, it’s quite easy to find people with similar interests.   When I first started thinking about building out a mesh network in my neighborhood, a quick search led me to the Toronto Mesh, a very active group which actively contributes to the global mesh building community.  But no active members live near me.

In a smaller area, you might know all of your neighbors, but it would be unlikely that you would find someone with the same interest.

August 2017 UPDATE: I have taken down my node as I was not able to generate enough interest.  Please reach out if you’re interested in building out the mesh.

A mesh network is a network where all participants can communicate with each other, with each participant cooperating with the transmission of information.

Although I can’t think of a practical application for myself, I think it would be fun to build, and I would like to start a wireless mesh network in Willowdale/North York.

In the car, I like to use my phone for playing podcasts and directions.  My work phone was recently upgraded, and I was looking for a practical way to mount it.

As cars are kept for years, and phones change regularly, I didn’t want:

• anything permanent
• anything that used adhesives (they never come off!)
• suction cups
• anything that blocks vents

The neatest design I’ve seen so far is a steering column mount on Thingiverse, which I had been thinking of modifying for my phone.  As my car has a two-tiered dashboard, I thought I would just create a dock that fit my phone in the lower tier.

While in high school, I bought a really cool rack mount amplifier at a garage sale.  It was branded Queon, and had lots of inputs - it was great.  It was supplemented during my university years with an 8-track player/amp combo, acquired from Value Village.  The Queon met its end when a roommates’ cat knocked over a vessel of water that had been rested on top of the amp.  The 8-track player/amp combo met its end in a post-university move.