Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Fantasy Football – Week 10

2015_week10_kirkcousinsIn all likelihood, the Seahawks have pretty much knocked themselves out of the playoff hunt with this latest loss. On any Sunday in the NFL, you have a hard enough time beating your opponent, but if you’re also beating yourself then you’re pretty screwed. The Seahawks destroyed themselves with penalties. They put a lot of points on the board but the defense gets credit for 14 of those. Sure there were a couple close calls and plays where the game could have gone the other way, but that’s the difference this year: they’re always playing from behind and hoping to get lucky.

In our league, Logan reinforced my loss from last week and got me thinking about the possibility of ending the season with a seven game losing streak. To top it off, I lost Julian Edelmen to injury. Earlier this season I also lost Arian Foster and Jamaal Charles. It’s hard to survive losing three superstars like that so we’ll see where the season leaves me.

Dad and Logan both won their games so they are just one game behind me with 4 games left until we start the playoffs. Austin continued his push from last week and is looking very strong. His optimal roster was over 180 this week. Speaking of optimal rosters, Andy almost started his optimal roster, but instead of starting Peyton Manning, he should have started Philip Rivers… who was on a bye. Peyton had -6.6.

Austin has now claimed the top spot in our power rankings and Jim climbs into 4th place.

1. Austin (+1)
2. Ben (-1)
3. Logan
4. Jim (+2)

Now on to the weekly awards.

This Week Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Austin had 152.68 Tim 200.51 (Week 3) Tim 200.51 (2013)
Lowest Team Score Andy had 62.50 Was Austin had 64.70 (Week 5) Luke 47.01 (2011)
Biggest Blowout Austin beat Tim by 48.43 Ben beat Dad by 111.43 (Week 8) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Dad beat Luke by 1.81 Ben beat Andy by 2.46 (Week 7) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Kirk Cousins had 36.96 for Logan Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (Week 8) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Austin has a 3 game winning streak Ben had an 8 game winning streak (Week 8) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Andy has a 4 game losing streak. Luke, Austin and Tim had 5 game losing streaks. (Weeks 5, 7 and 8) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 18, 2015 Fantasy Sports

DeWalt Planer

dw733-pOne of the last (haha) tools that I had on my radar was a thickness planer. If you have no idea what that is, it’s basically a machine that will make two faces of the board parallel with each other and will also thin a board down. In the past, Tim was nice enough to loan me his for a month or two while I worked on Tyla’s jewelry box, but I didn’t want to keep borrowing his every time I needed one.

My original plan was to save my pennies and probably buy one next spring. But on the woodworking discussion list at work, somebody offered up their DeWalt DW-733 for about 30-40% of the price of a new one. He said it was barely used and came with an extra set of blades. It’s probably not the model I picked (and you actually can’t even buy it anymore), but it was in the same category and the price was right. I also prefer buying used items from people at work because it’s more likely to be a good/easy transaction than when you go through Craigslist. So I went for it!

I’ve been using it on my latest project to plane down maple and walnut and wow, this thing works great! I think it would work better if I had a better dust collection system to pull all the chips away from the board, but still, it’s a great machine. I love how easy it is to dial in the exact height and to see how much wood you’re going to take off with the next pass.

It’s a great tool to use in conjunction with my bandsaw. I can take a 3/4″ piece of wood to the bandsaw, saw it in half (the thin way) to get to 3/8″ pieces and then plane both down to 1/4″ or whatever I need. Without the bandsaw, I’d be planing off 66% of the wood and that’s a lot of money being turned into wood chips.

I’m quite happy with this purchase. One of my next projects needs to be a cart for this thing though. At 80lbs it’s a beast to pick up off the floor.

benmartens November 17, 2015 Woodworking

Broken Window Theory

brokenwindowtheoryEverybody has their own mental bar denoting what a “clean” house looks like. If you’re happy with the state of your house and the amount of stuff you have in it, then you can probably skip this post. But if you’re not, there are a bazillion different books, websites, and videos giving you ideas about how to improve the state of your home. I’ll make it a bazillion and one by sharing my own thoughts.

I hate cleaning, but even more than that, I hate looking at a mess and knowing that I have to “waste” my time and clean it. So my basic approach is to ABC: Always Be Cleaning. (Every self-help article like this needs a cheesy acronym, right?) For example, when I finish making dinner, I don’t leave the dishes in the sink to greet me the following morning, I take 5 minutes and clean them up. Doing little bits of cleaning here and there feels a lot less painful than ruining two hours of my Saturday because the kitchen turned into a nightmare.

Coupled with that, I also force myself to clean up the area before starting any project. Even if I clean up at the end of a task, the area slowly gets messy again. This is especially true out in the garage. So before I start that next big project, I pick up all my tools, clean off my bench, and organize the piles of wood. Then I’m excited to work in that nice clean area instead of tripping over stuff on the floor and never having room on the bench.

My approach can be neatly summed up by the Broken Window Theory. If you read that linked Wikipedia article, you’ll see the theory summed up like this:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

 

Or consider a pavement. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of refuse from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.

It’s pretty easy to tell when an area is clean. I feel an emotional response to setting that first piece of junk in the nice clean area. But then I get used to seeing it there and it doesn’t bother me so much. In fact, it gets easier and easier to just throw more junk in that area because hey, I have to clean it out anyway, right? Pretty soon it’s a huge mess and now I have to do one of those big huge cleanouts and my quality of life is negatively impacted because I’m annoyed by the thought of that big cleaning event coming up.

It’s surprising how often this theory applies. For example, we talk about it regularly at work when someone proposes a less than beautiful piece of code. Just take the time to fix it now because your hack will open the floodgates for more hacks until we’re left with a nightmare that we don’t have time to re-architect. If you want to get a little geekier about it, you might propose that messes grow exponentially.

If you’ve already got a system that works for you, then stick with it! But if you need a little more encouragement, remember the broken window theory.

benmartens November 16, 2015 Commentary

End Loader

For the past years, every few issues of Wood Magazine have had plans for a construction toy. I recently purchased the plans for the End Loader and completed it. It was another big learning experience for me. Aside from the quick planes I did recently, this is the first toy that I’ve built. The biggest thing I learned is that precision matters. You can’t be too precise. I made a large number of these pieces twice just to get them perfect. I also spent a lot of time sanding to try and get it as clean and smooth as possible. Because it’s so small, people look at it very closely and even small flaws will stand out.

Along with the plans, I also purchased the kit that contains wheels, smokestack and the hardware needed to complete the project. I don’t have great equipment for making those circular pieces so buying the kit let me focus on the rest of the loader.

It took me about two weeks to complete and I’m thrilled with how it came out! One of the hardest parts was getting it all sprayed with lacquer. Lacquer is supposed to be sprayed above 65 degrees or in low humidity. I couldn’t spray it in my garage since the fumes are so intense and they can actually ignite from the pilot light in the furnace. I set up a pop up tent on the back patio, hung tarps from three sides and hung a space heater from the top, pointed down at the table. I also brought all the pieces and spray inside to let it warm up to room temperature. That setup might have been overkill, but I didn’t want to screw this up after all the time I put into it.

I’m very happy with how this turned out. It will end up being Elijah’s Christmas gift. Last year I built him the table and this year he gets a toy. I think it would be fun to build something for him each year but we’ll see how that holds up.

The next project or two will be quicker and easier but I think I might do one or two more of these toys. I have plenty of walnut and maple leftover from this project.

endloader1 endloader2 endloader3

benmartens November 13, 2015 Maker, Woodworking

Zion School Fire

My brother-in-law, LukeS, is the principal and upper grades teacher at Zion Lutheran School in Toledo, OH. He had a rude awakening around midnight Monday night. The school was on fire! The boiler room is a complete loss and there is water damage throughout the school. The local news has two video segments (1 and 2) showing the result of the fire and there is a LOT of work to do to get the building back into shape.

It’s going to take a long time to get the building fixed, but this is obviously the middle of the school year. They are hoping to get some portable buildings in place for a temporary school location, but their insurance will only cover $10K toward that. To help cover the large price gap, they have started a Go Fund Me page. Please consider helping them out with a donation, and whether you donate or not, please keep them in your prayers.

zionfire

benmartens November 12, 2015 Commentary

Fantasy Football – Week 9

2015_week9_mariotaI was up by less than a point against Luke at the end of the Cowboys Eagles game on Sunday night. If the Cowboys missed their field goal, the game would have been over and I would have had 9 games in a row. As they snapped the ball for Dan Bailey to kick it, the announcer said that he was one of the best in the game. Perfect. A jinx! The kick went up and started curving left. He was going to miss! CLANG! It hit the upright… and fell through. The game went into overtime and my streak ends at eight wins. It was fun while it lasted. Kudos to Luke for starting an optimal roster.

Elsewhere in the league, Tim defeated Logan and Dad beat Andy so Logan and Dad are once again tied for second. Austin has sole ownership of 4th and everyone else is tied for 5th with five games left until the playoffs start. Week 10 features me against Logan, Dad against the streak killer (Luke), Austin against Tim and Jim against Andy.

In the last two weeks, Austin has moved up 5 spots in the power rankings. Could he be making another run like he did at the end of last season? And after two weeks out of the top four, Tim has re-entered the list.

1. Ben
2. Austin (+1)
3. Logan (-1)
4. Tim (+3)

Now on to the weekly awards.

This Week Season All-Time
Highest Team Score Austin had 143.59 Tim 200.51 (Week 3) Tim 200.51 (2013)
Lowest Team Score Andy had 92.73 Austin had 64.70 (Week 5) Luke 47.01 (2011)
Biggest Blowout Luke beat Ben by 16.07 Ben beat Dad by 111.43 (Week 8) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Tim beat Logan by 9.52 Ben beat Andy by 2.46 (Week 7) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Marcus Mariota had 41.34 as a free agent. Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (Week 8) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Austin and Luke have 2 game winning streaks Ben had an 8 game winning streak (Week 8) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Andy has a 3 game losing streak. Luke, Austin and Tim had 5 game losing streaks. (Weeks 5, 7 and 8) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens November 11, 2015 Fantasy Sports

Hulu Plus Review

huluplusI was happily enjoying all the Parks and Recreation episodes (great show!) on Amazon Prime Instant Video when suddenly that stopped being available as part of Prime. I was about halfway through the fifth of seven seasons. What to do?

I didn’t really love it enough to pay ~$25/season to watch the rest of it, but it was available as part of Hulu Plus for only ~$10/month. I found a coupon for a two week trial instead of the normal one week and fired it up.

It was my first experience with Hulu Plus, and, while it was nice that it worked on all my devices (Amazon Fire TV, Xbox360, Xbox One, and Windows Phone), I wasn’t impressed. First of all, the ads are annoying. Yes, it’s less than normal TV, but I don’t watch ads in normal TV because I DVR it. Here I’m forced to sit through a small selection of commercials over and over again. They do have a new price tier that lets you get rid of commercials for a few extra bucks. That would definitely be worth it.

The commercials were annoying but I knew I could pay money to get rid of them when the trial was up so it wasn’t horrible. What really annoyed me was the failure to remember not only where I was in an episode when I stopped watching but even what episode I was watching. I switched from device to device regularly and it seemed like it worked properly only about half the time. The other half of the time I’d have to flip through all of the episodes, figure out which one I was on, and then fast forward through the episode until I got to the point where I stopped before.

In a world where we are talking about 4K high dynamic range content coming soon, Hulu still streams their content in stereo like it’s 1950. Where’s the 5.1 that every other streaming service offers?

And finally, when I watched from a desktop PC, the video would stutter every few seconds. This PC is a beast and it easily handles YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Instant Video. Why does Hulu have to stink?

Hulu was around before Netflix or Amazon Instant Video and what do they have to show for themselves? It’s the same story they’ve always had: it’s almost something awesome, but it’s still not there yet.

I cancelled my subscription before the trial ran out. Thanks for letting me watch Parks and Rec.

benmartens November 10, 2015 Commentary

DIY Home Security

homesecuritySome of you know that I installed a security system at our house instead of contracting it out to ADT or one of the other popular companies. I never blogged about the project, but it was a major project for me. The physical installation wasn’t very hard, but it took a ton of time to research what I needed to buy. I’m not going to go into specifics on this public site, but here is some of the basic info in case you’re interested in this for your own home.

The main reason you would probably want to consider this is that you can save a lot of money on your monthly bill. I think ADT is currently charging $37/month for their basic package. By doing it yourself, you can get the same monitoring coverage for $10/month. You don’t have to be a math whiz to know that saving $27/month adds up quickly.

Our house was previously serviced by ADT but there was no active service when we moved in. The panels that ADT uses are locked down. While they are standard models, they are tweaked so that you can only use them with ADT. The sensors that are already on your doors and windows are probably reusable. In our case, all of the sensors were hardwired and those are extremely simple to reuse. The “only” thing I had to do was replace the main control panel and the keypad.

In retrospect, I could have saved myself some time if I had just bought the exact same panel that was there before. It would have been obvious how to wire it up! But I went with a new panel mostly because I didn’t think of that option, and also because I wanted to be able to support wireless sensors. I’m glad the wired sensors were there, but I wanted to quickly and easily expand the coverage of the system.

Once I had the panel in hand, I carefully labelled all the wires on the old panel, disconnected the wires, and then reconnected everything. Programming is all done via the keypad and you’re interacting with 90s technology. Everything is done via long strings of numbers and you better have a firm grasp on the manual so you don’t get loss. It’s ridiculous, but it works.

I was able to confirm that the alarm worked locally so then it was just a matter of hooking it up to the phone line. You cannot use a VOIP telephone line (like the one you get from Comcast.) It must be an actual old-fashioned telephone line (POTS) or you can use a cellular monitoring system for a little extra money per month.

So is this a good DIY project? Ehhh… if you’re a geek and you’re willing to spend a lot of time reading manuals, you can figure it out. You’d also have the advantage of being able to call me up and learn from my mistakes. I’m thankful we have it but I spent a TON of time getting it going. I think a lot of that delay was because I was so nervous about dropping a few hundred bucks and then screwing it all up.

Our system has been rock solid and we use it regularly. We’ve only had one false alarm and that was attributed to a helium balloon slowly floating in front of a sensor. I love our custom solution because when I decide to add some more sensors, I can do it for $20-40/sensor. There’s no service call from a tech, crazy prices for installation, or additional monthly fees. And if I want to control it from my phone or hook it into a home automation system, it’s just some more research and purchases on my end. We’ve already added fire and carbon monoxide monitoring for a grand total of $0/month.

Is the system safe? Sure. I’m already using the layout that the “professionals” recommended for the house and then I’ve added more sensors on top of that. I can tell you that the fire sensors we got are exactly the same as the system that we put in at church for tens of thousands of dollars. A smart burgler could get through our system, but they could get through your ADT system at least as easily. I could spend more money to tighten up some of those holes, but at some point you just have to let it go. Having the sign out front is probably more important than the layout of our system.

I enjoy this kind of thing so it’s worth my time to save the money. Obviously the math is different for most people because companies like ADT are very successful!

benmartens November 9, 2015 Gadgets, Home Improvement

Getting Started With Woodworking

jigsawObviously I’m loving woodworking right now. It’s a very relaxing and satisfying hobby, and it’s a great one for me right now because I can easily do it in the garage when I have a few spare minutes. Any new hobby can seem intimidating at first, but woodworking doesn’t require a huge investment or training course to get started.

Theoretically you could do a lot with just a handsaw, but you’ll probably want some sore of power tools to get started. One of the best initial purchases is a jig saw. It’s small, easy to control, relatively safe, and best of all: cheap! There are plenty of options, but I have a $40 Black and Decker that still serves me well. Toss in some wood glue and sandpaper and you’re pretty much off to the races. From there just check to see what your specific project requires. You might need to add in a hammer and nails or a screwdriver and screws. You may end up wishing for a drill and drill bits too. Even if you bought all that stuff, you would have spent less than $150 to pick up a brand new hobby.

Now, what should you build? The best projects are ones that fill a need. Maybe you want something to organize clutter on your desk, a toy for your kid, or a place to hang your coats. If you want some more guidance, there are tons of great YouTube channels. I’ve covered many of them before, but specifically, check out Steve Ramsey’s list of videos for projects that require limited tools.

Making things with your hands is a wonderful experience whether you’re doing woodworking or some other kind of craft. Just try it out! The worst that will probably happen is that you waste some wood and you learn something.

[UPDATE] Great timing! Steve recently posted a video showing how to build a bed with just a couple basic tools. No fancy workshop required!

benmartens November 6, 2015 Woodworking

My First Car

cars_mustangLast week’s post about the cars we had when I was growing up got me thinking about the experience of picking up the first car that I ever purchased: a 2002 Ford Mustang GT. It was a beautiful car, and I bought it right after college. The dealer had to transfer it in from another dealership so I couldn’t drive it off the lot after making the deal. Mom took me to pick it up a few days later when it arrived at the dealer. After getting the keys, I sat down in the car to drive it away for the first time. I looked up and noticed about four sales guys watching me from the window. With my foot on the brake, I disengaged the parking brake, put it in reverse, slowly released the clutch and… stalled it. My face turned bright red as I restarted the engine and gave it plenty of gas to make sure I didn’t stall it twice.

It doesn’t sound so bad now that I write it out, but this event sticks out in my head as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I’ve stalled cars plenty of times, but never with all those guys laughing at me and my fancy new car that they probably thought my parents purchased for me.

benmartens November 5, 2015 Commentary