Studio711.com – Ben Martens

2024 Year In Review

As I sit here staring at this blinking cursor trying to remember what happened in 2024, I’m thankful that I keep this website going. I don’t post every day like I used to, but it is nice to have a record of our trips, my projects, and other family events (with some nonsense posts in the mix of course too.) So let’s flip back through the posts and see what happened this year:

We usually try for one big (I guess that’s a relative term that varies by family) vacation per year, but this year had two because Tyla got to go on her AGE-REDATCED’th birthday adventure to Leaping Lamb Farm. We had been there in 2022 for the first time and Tyla immediately wanted to schedule a return visit so we booked spring break week this year. We had to wait a year and a half for the trip but it was worth it. There were baby lambs and baby goats hopping and falling all over the place.

I took a solo trip in May to the 2024 PacNW Men’s Retreat and promptly returned home with food poisoning. Not only was that a horrible experience but I was really bummed to miss Pastor Dave Scharf’s talks. Little did I know I’d run into him later in the year… (Also, I’m happy to say that the restaurant that got me sick is now permanently closed. There appeared to be some serious health code violations, and I should have just walked away.)

We took a quick day trip down to Portland to see a professional disc golf tournament. It was such a fun day for all of us that we already have a tournament on our calendar for 2025. It’s a small sport but big enough that the pros are mind-bogglingly good. It was amazing to see in person what they’re capable of instead of just watching it on TV. Elijah also got to watch his disc golf teacher play and then got to take a picture with her on the first tee!

Pretty much every summer we try to make it back to my parents’ house in Indiana for some pool fun. They surprised us this year by installing a diving board and it got a lot of use! Given how far away we live, I’m thankful that Elijah gets to spend so much time there and get a little taste of what it was like where I grew up.

Our “official” big vacation was a cruise to Alaska. This was the third cruise for Tyla and me, and we knew Elijah was excited to see Alaska, but when we told him it was a cruise, it was a hard sell. He really didn’t want to go. Ask him what he thinks about cruises now! I’m thankful he kept an open mind, and he has now done a complete 180. It wasn’t nearly as relaxing as our previous cruises, but it was fun to experience it through his eyes.

We squeezed in one more quick family trip to Moses Lake in central Washington so we could drive up to the Grand Coulee Dam. We wanted to show it to Elijah and we were also able to snag a couple more counties as we try to color in the entire map of Washington counties. I think we’d all agree that the highlight of that trip was our ride on the tiny Keller Ferry. Our cars have been on a lot of boats, but never one that small!

As you may have noticed, pretty much all our trips involve all three of us, but in October, Tyla and I took our own trip out to New Ulm, MN for a weekend at Martin Luther College. We’re getting more involved with supporting the school and were involved in some meetings. A huge thank you goes to Megan for staying at the house and watching Elijah!

Then finally, this year we spent Christmas in Indiana. Two trips to Indiana in one year! I know it’s a lot of work for my parents to host us all, but we really appreciate being able to spend Christmas with everyone.

At home, I felt like I had a lot less free time to do projects. I’m not sure if that’s because I was a lot busier with my volunteer work at church or because I was lazier in the evenings. It’s probably a combination of both. My woodworking Instagram account does remind me that there were quite a few projects even though none of them were huge. I made a walnut trash can with some interesting angles, a keepsake box made with wood from an old cross with Elijah’s school logo on the lid, a walnut tissue box holder, a coat rack, a kids bakery sign, a cat bed, and an updated silverware tray. There are some big projects underway now but those will probably land in 2025. And while it’s not woodworking, I replaced the rotten wood backsplash in our kitchen with tile. It was my first time doing tile and it makes me smile every time I do the dishes because I’m not staring at something I need to fix.

I think the biggest change for me personally this year was mostly dropping off of social media. I still post my finished woodworking projects to Instagram and I post for our church Facebook and Instagram accounts, but I have broken the habit of doomscrolling and it feels amazing! I removed the Instagram icon from my phone’s home screen and left that spot blank. It was shocking and scary how many times I would pull out my phone and click that spot. That just reinforced my desire to stop. I set a rule for myself that I would only go through what the people I follow had posted once per week on Friday nights, but now I find myself going multiple weeks before I remember to check in. This feels much healthier and certainly removed a lot of pointless screen time from my day.

To combat the relentless acceleration of the calendar and ever-dwindling free time, I’m trying to be even more intentional with my time. Making task lists for each day, removing wastes like social media, and trying to schedule family activities on a regular basis are all helping. There’s also the problem of having too much stuff to cram into a week, but I haven’t figured that one out yet. There’s always next year!

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

benmartens December 31, 2024 Commentary No Comments

Wrapped

Lots of websites are doing these “Wrapped” style emails where they show statistics about your usage of their service. Here’s a sampling of mine:

Spotify

I listen to a lot of Spotify while I’m working and I found myself listening to a playlist of Christian radio songs that I listened to in the ~90’s. You can listen to it here (no subscription needed if you’re ok with ads.) That combined with our reading of the Wingfeather Saga got me into listening to a lot of Andrew Peterson music.

  • Listened for 51,049 minutes
  • Play 4,898 songs
  • Listened to 1,249 artists
  • Top songs (mostly because these are two of my favorite albums)
    • FFH – One of These Days
    • FFH – Big Fish
    • Caedmon’s Call – Thankful
    • FFH – Power In His blood
    • Caedmon’s Call – Table for Two
  • Top artists
    • Andrew Peterson
    • Third Day
    • George Strait
    • The Arcadian Wild
    • Josh Turner

Pocket Casts

This one was less interesting to me because I already know which podcasts I listen to regularly, but here it is anyway:

  • 23 different shows and 403 total episodes
  • 12 days, 17 hours, 5 minutes of listening
  • Top podcasts
    • Stuff You Should Know
    • Making It
    • Cordkills
    • No Dumb Questions
    • Wood Talk

Duolingo

I started doing Duolingo in 2020 as a way to make good use of the time I previously spent commuting and I’m still doing it every day.

  • Completed 2217 lessons earning 96,226 XP over 3201 minutes
  • Current streak is at 1529 days

Goodreads

There are so many books that I’d like to read that I really enjoy using Goodreads to keep track of them all. My Kindle syncs with my Goodreads account but given how old my Kindle is, it crashes every couple weeks and prematurely marks books as completed so I don’t put much confidence in the things like the number of days that it takes me to read a book.

  • 31 books read, 9827 pages read
  • Most common book read: Percy Jackson and the Olympians
  • Least common book read: Taboo (Read this!)
  • Highest rated book read: The Wingfeather Saga: The Warden and the Wolf King

UDisc

I played less disc golf than last year, but here are my stats.

  • Steps: 42,300
  • Holes played: 141
  • Total throws: 465
  • Distance thrown: 7 miles
  • Courses played: 6

Trakt

I use Trakt to keep track of all the movies and TV shows that I watch. It’s great for hopping around between shows and remembering our show progress as we add and remove various streaming services.

  • Elijah and I watched 121 episodes of Mythbusters
  • The show Tyla and I watched the most episodes of was The Chosen.
  • The show we all watched the most episodes of together was The Wingfeather Saga.

Untappd

I track all my beers and have fun seeing how many different ones I can experience.

  • I tried 112 new beers from 64 breweries covering 31 different styles.
benmartens December 26, 2024 Commentary No Comments

Merry Christmas

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

benmartens December 25, 2024 Commentary No Comments

Buy Another EV?

In December, EV and hybrid vehicle sales hit another record (this happens regularly because the numbers keep growing.) 8.9% of all vehicles sold in the use were battery electric and 10.6% were hybrids. EV skeptics sometimes will brush aside those numbers saying that people are dumb once but won’t be fooled twice. But check out this study of over 23,000 EV owners which states that 92% of battery electric vehicle (BEV) owners would buy another one and 4% would switch to a plug-in hybrid. Now, I take that with a grain of salt given that this group specifically exists to promote EV ownership, but we can at least take away that maybe there are a lot of people who really do love their EV and would not want to go back to a gas engine.

I often think about this for our situation. We’ve already put 55,000 miles on our Model Y in just 2.5 years of ownership and it is a perfect fit for our situation. In these posts, I repeatedly refer to making the switch because it was going to save us money over a Ford Escape. I do not mean to imply that it would automatically save everyone money over a Ford Escape, but in OUR situation, it’s a great fit. I would definitely replace it with another EV and it would probably be another Model Y. The price has come down since we bought it so the math is even easier. The only difference is that if we replace it after our son moves out then I might consider downsizing to a Model 3 instead of the Model Y, but we’ll probably want to replace it before then anyway given the 20,000+ miles/year that we’re putting on it.

But we also own an F150. Would I replace that with an EV if it died? Probably not. It is still nice to keep one foot in the gas world. We drive it very infrequently and only use it when the other person is already using the car or when we need the utility of the truck. But it’s still nice to know that we could use it if the EV wouldn’t quite work yet. For example, we’re planning a trip to Yellowstone, and it has been nearly impossible to find a convenient AirBNB with a good charging setup. I’d have to rely on the supercharger right outside the park. With the amount of driving we’ll be doing in that giant park, that might still be a place where we prefer to have the truck with us.

I suppose the skeptics would disagree, but I believe that the EV scenario is only going to get smoother and simpler from here on out. We intend to keep that truck for a very long time so maybe in 10 years the pro/con list will look a little different, but as of right now, we’re already in the “yes, we’d replace our BEV with another BEV” camp.

benmartens December 17, 2024 Electric Vehicles

Silverware Drawer

I don’t remember how long ago it was, but many years back I built a custom silverware organizer to fit inside of our drawer. I did it in solid walnut and box-jointed the edges. It has worked well and it makes me happy every time I grab a utensil.

Fast forward to more recent times and we bought new silverware. We went through a lot of options before finally landing on this set and everything was great about it except that the knives were just a tad bit too long for the organizer.

After just ignoring it for too long, I finally took action. The organizer originally had dadoes to hold all the slots in place but thankfully I hadn’t glued those in place. I took out the dividers, sort of filled in some of the dadoes as best I could, made new dividers that were the right size, and then glued and nailed them into place. It was a bit tricky to align everything without the dadoes and there were some mistakes that make me question how long this will stay together, but so far so good! I just repeated the original finish of rattle can lacquer.

benmartens December 12, 2024 Woodworking

Tesla Efficiency Update

Welcome to another Tesla Tuesday!

As you know if you’ve read these posts before, I have a lot of data and math about the efficiency of our car. Our purchased was because I believed we could tie or beat the price of the internal combustion car we would have purchased instead (a Ford Escape.)

I’ve had to update my calculations a bit. Since mid September (right at the point when our main warranty expired), the car stopped going into sleep mode. That means we lose a couple percentage points on the battery charge overnight. It’s not a huge deal and I imagine that many people don’t have their cars configured correctly to go into sleep mode anyway so I’m not expecting any major impact. If it was still under warranty, I think I’d press them for a fix, but I’ve had a couple (free) chats with their service team and they agree that it’s not worth looking into.

After the big storm, the cell connection from our car didn’t work for a week. It had been long enough that I thought all the area towers were back up and it still wasn’t working, so I scheduled an appointment. I decided I’d have them diagnose the sleeping issue too. But the next day, our cell connection was working again so I canceled the appointment.

Our car has actually gone to sleep a couple times in the last few weeks so who knows, maybe it will come back again, but for now, that efficiency gain I had been getting from our new tires is now roughly being offset by this lack of the low power sleep mode overnight.

We’re still on track to break even around the 100k mark but this is the point where one big repair bill could set us back. For now, at 54,000 miles, that service total is happily sitting at $0, we’ve already spent $8600 less on electricity than we would have on gas, and our total cost per mile for the Tesla is less than for our F150.

benmartens December 10, 2024 Electric Vehicles

Tesla in a Storm

Welcome to another Tesla Tuesday!

Yesterday I posted about our experience getting through the big storm, but I didn’t say anything about what it was like to own an EV during that time. You know why? It was … completely uneventful. If I had it to do over again, I would have been smarter about charging the car before the outage, but we entered the outage with around 65% and still had over 50% when it was done. We didn’t change anything because we had an EV. If we need to charge it, there were still plenty of superchargers in the area that were open and functioning normally. I heard about some lines during peak times but I wouldn’t have had a problem going during a quiet time.

Could I have charged it from the generator? Theoretically… maybe. The generator puts out 3.5kW which is roughly how fast I normally charge the car, but as I mentioned in my post yesterday, our generator doesn’t have an inverter and I’m not sure I want to risk hooking the car up to it. It would also be hugely inefficient versus just driving to a supercharger

Having an EV in a situation like this will hopefully be a big benefit going forward. Some EVs support standards that let you hook them into your house panel giving you a day or two of power before you have to recharge. That sounds a lot better to me than running a generator. Unfortunately Tesla isn’t on board with that yet.

benmartens November 26, 2024 Electric Vehicles

Weathering the Storm of 2024

No, this isn’t the title to my end of year post. We had a big storm come through Seattle and I wanted to document our family’s experience going through it.

The storm was a rapidly developing cyclone called a “bomb” cyclone because the rapid intensification is called “bombogensis.” Thankfully the weather models did a stellar job of predicting it and we knew it was coming. I won’t fully recap the storm because UW weather prof Cliff Mass did a great job of that:

I believe it’s the third time I’ve been through a storm like this out here. The other two were in 2006 and 2012. In 2006 around 700,000 people lost power and in 2012 the number was around 475,000. I think they’re still counting people but this storm looks like it landed at around 600,000 people without power. (It’s also unclear if all these number are people or households.) Winds in our area were gusting 40-50mph and a few factors made it extra bad:

  • There was a very high pressure system east of the mountains so that created huge winds flowing from east to west. That’s backwards of the way we normally get wind so that will always cause more damage.
  • The trees haven’t lost all their leaves yet so that adds more drag. Plus we have a lot of evergreens that never lose their needles.
  • This was the first hard blow of the season so there was a lot of dead stuff waiting to fall.

We lost power at 7:30pm on Wednesday night after having it flicker for hours leading up to that. I immediately headed out and dug the generator out because there was a lull in the rain and I didn’t expect the power to come back any time soon. I was thankful to do it during my normal waking hours instead of wondering if I should get out of bed at 2am to set it up!

We thankfully installed a 240v plug on the outside of the house that feeds directly into our panel using an interlock kit so you can’t accidentally feed power back into the grid or get fed by both sources at the same time. I keep a sheet of OSB in the shed for giving the unit a little shelter from the rain and I just screw some L brackets on the top to hold it together.

Our generator isn’t anything fancy. We bought it back in 2015. In today’s money it looks like something similar is around $530. It does have electric start but otherwise, it’s very basic. This theoretically puts out a constant 3500 watts with bursts up to 4400. The challenge is that there’s no readout which tells me how close I am to that limit. So my default behavior is to flip off all the circuits and then carefully turn on the few that I need. Thankfully most lighting is LED now so we were able to use a lot of the house lights and that in itself has a big morale boost. Beyond that I would generally pick two 15-20amp circuits to enable. We have two fridges so those got the power most of the time, but at some points I would turn those off and run the furnace. We have gas so the electricity just needs to handle the brains and the blower. Being warm and having light was a huge luxury!

Some notes for next time this happens:

  • I was able to run the indoor fridge and the furnace at the same time.
  • I was able to run the tankless water heater and the bath fans together so we could shower.
  • I ran the generator for 27 hours during our 40-hour outage and used about 5 gallons of gas.

The challenge for me was that we use this very rarely and I haven’t built up a lot of comfort with it yet. Our bedroom is on the other end of the house and I can’t really hear the generator running because there are a lot of others running too. So if something went wrong, I don’t know how I’d notice. I also didn’t have a good feeling for how long it would run on a tank of gas. All this led me to sleep on the couch both nights that our power was out waking up periodically to walk out and check the generator, etc. It wasn’t very restful but I was still thankful to have it.

We all took guesses about when the power would come back on and Elijah was only off by about 2 hours! I was just getting ready to drive to campus to do a little work and as I put the gas cans in the truck for a refill, the power came back on. It was perfect timing because our internet came back right away too and I was able to resume working from home. We felt very fortunate to get power back when hundreds of thousands were still waiting for it.

We’ve gotten great use out of this generator a half dozen times over the last 9 years which makes me feel like it’s ok to upgrade. The main features I want are some way to know how hard I’m pushing the generator and a good inverter that produces a clean power signal. (Read up on Total Harmonic Distortion in generators if you want to geek out.) But the quick summary is that our battery backups freak out if I try to charge them on the generator so I’m too nervous to hook up any sensitive electronics and I’m nervous that it’s going to fry one of our appliances. It’s hard to justify that much money when we already have something that works and we need it so rarely.

Even though we don’t need it very often, I was thankful for our twice yearly Survival Sunday routine. One of my tasks on that list is to change the generator oil when needed and fire it up to make sure it’s running smoothly. I had just done that in September so when I needed it during this storm, I turned the key and it fired right up.

I realize that we are privileged to have had such a relatively easy path through this storm and our prayers go out for those still waiting for power or dealing with much greater impacts from the storm.

benmartens November 25, 2024 Home Improvement