Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Tips For Building A Fence

I am far from an expert on fence building so after reading a bunch of articles on the web and enlisting some help, I built one wall of my fence before starting on the rest of it. This turned out to be a good decision because I could make all my mistakes on a smaller scale and then move more quickly on the rest of the fence. Here are some of the tips I picked up along the way:

  • I used 10ft pressure treated 4x4s. You can get away with shorter posts but you have to be really careful about the depth of your hole. I prefer to leave them long and then saw off the tops at the very end of the project.
  • Set the corner posts first. This allows you to string a line between them and make sure the interior posts are all perfectly aligned.
  • Once you’ve determined where your posts sit (roughly every 8 feet), dig a hole that is roughly 10” in diameter and 3 feet deep. Dig so that the post will be centered in the hole once it’s lined up with the string.
  • Put a few inches of pea gravel or clear aggregate at the bottom.
  • You’ll need two people to line up the post. Attach a cheap 8ft piece of wood to the post, pound a stake in the ground and then screw the wood to the stake while holding the post perfectly straight in that direction (use a 4ft level.) Repeat for the other direction. Do this all the way down the line.
  • Mix your concrete and pour it in being sure to push the concrete around the post and work out any bubbles. Let them dry for at least a day before continuing.
  • I bought pressure treated wood for the rails, but you can probably get away with something else if you want to save money.
  • String two lines between your corner posts at the height of each rail. The bottom rail is about a foot off the ground and the top rail is right at the top of your planks.
  • Make sure you get those rails level or you’ll have a goofy looking fence. I used a nail gun to attach the rails to the posts. I was able to do this step by myself because I screwed in a temporary board on the opposite post to hold the rail in roughly the right spot until I attached both sides.
  • Attach the planks. This is where a nail gun really comes in handy. I’m using a 15-gauge finish/trim nailer with 1-1/2-in. galvanized nails.
  • If your planks but up against trees or bushes, consider staining that side of the planks before installing them. Some sites recommend staining ALL of your boards before you install them but I’m not going that route.
  • Once everything is installed, let it sit for a week or two. The boards will dry out and shrink quite a bit. You should have installed the planks so they were tight against each other but after they dry, there will be 1/8-1/4” between them.
  • Stain! I won’t give any tips since I haven’t stained the fence yet, but my plan is to use a sprayer with a semi-transparent natural cedar color stain. I’ll have to rig up some tarps to avoid overspray in our tight quarters.
benmartens June 25, 2014 Home Improvement

Yard Project Update 3

It’s hard to see a lot of change since the last update, but we’ve been working hard! The major accomplishments last week were installing French drains, installing downspout drains and getting the first part of the irrigation in the ground. That meant a LOT of trenching and some of it was through some incredibly compacted dirt. I took the day off Wednesday and spent a good portion of the day with a pick axe breaking through it. I was sore that night! It feels great to have this all in the ground and hidden away though. Our back yard should be significantly drier now. It had previously been a swamp any time it rained, but a majority of the water that falls on my property will now be piped away. And I’m very excited to have irrigation! Given the layout of the yard and the water lines, we actually started with the parts of the yard that need irrigation the least but that’s ok. We’ll get to the rest of it.

And I should also mention that Don came over three days last week to help me set fence posts. Thank you! We put cardboard tubes in behind the wall to hold back the rock and give us a place to set the posts. Those cardboard tubes started to fail a bit in the rains so Don helped me get them set. There are only three more posts to dig and set before I can start building most of the rest of the fence.

Our neighbors have been super nice during this project, and that’s a good thing since we feel a lot closer to them with this fence removed! They even asked Tim to come take a look at their back yard when he’s done. We had another neighbor stop by and ask for Tim’s card too. He does great work and people are noticing.

The next steps will be finishing the irrigation in the other half of the back yard, filling in all the trenches, setting those posts and then building the fence. The majority of the work is behind us but there’s still plenty to do.

Update 1 and Update 2

benmartens June 24, 2014 Home Improvement

Indiana Trip Recap

There have been a few posts that mentioned our trip to Indiana, but I haven’t talked about the overall trip yet. We went back over Memorial Day weekend so that Dad, Luke and I could attend the Indy 500. Tyla and I were unsure how Elijah would handle the flight, but he did really well. We got a direct flight into Midway and then Mom and Dad picked us up so that we’d only have one flight to get through. It wasn’t as easy as our trip at Christmas, but we couldn’t have asked for much more from a one year old who just wants to walk and crawl everywhere.

The weather was pretty nice so we spent quite a bit of time outside going on walks or just pushing Elijah around in a little car that belongs to his cousin David. That thing was a huge hit! Luke, Rachel and David were there for the weekend and Grandpa and Lynnette came for a day too. Since it’s rare to have everyone together, Mom organized a family photo.

It was a nice trip and a good vacation. We relaxed a lot, visited some fun places, and spent a lot of time with my family.

benmartens June 23, 2014 Travel

The Psychology Of Perfection

While very often I believe that “done is better than perfect”, trap shooting is not one of those times. Don, Logan and I headed to the range for the first time in about nine months. I generally hit around 18-20 out of 25 and my best round ever was 23. I thought I’d be pretty rusty, but on my first round I just kept hitting them. I was able to stay pretty calm until I got to the last position of 5 clays. 20 in a row. Wow. Just a few more. As I hit, one, two, three, and then four of them my nerves really started to take over. I had 24 in a row, already setting a personal best, and I was now one trigger pull away from the elusive perfect round. It’s not as difficult as bowling a 300, but it’s still pretty rare. You get a badge from the gun range and the envy of your fellow shooters. All those thoughts were swirling through my head. I tried to clear them out, take some deep breaths, focus on just one more shot like I had been doing all morning. I called “PULL!”, the clay flew out and I thought “Oh good, an easy one!” I moved the gun along the flight path pulled the trigger and… instantly knew it was wrong. I’m pretty sure I led it too much and the clay sailed to the ground unharmed. 24 out of 25. A great score, but it was obvious to everyone that I choked under the pressure.

As with many other sports, once you figure out the mechanics, trap shooting is mostly a mental activity. Can you stay focused? Can you keep your nerves in check? Can you get into the zone and let your body do it’s job? It’s a very interesting challenge because the only way I’ve found to get better is to train and be in that situation. Faking it works to some extent (pretending you have a prefect run even if you’ve already missed) but it’s not the same. The pressure is getting easier over time and that’s what keeps me going. I used to freak out when I was close to getting 20/25 and now I am almost blasé about it if I’ve already missed one.

Will I get to 25? I know I can do it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a few more great runs to get me there so I can conquer these nerves.

benmartens June 20, 2014 Sports

Weight Loss Data

Yesterday I wrote about the process of losing weight, but I only alluded to data sets. Let’s dig in! My data sources were the Fitbit API (for both number of steps and weight) and some weather history which I’ll explain later. This all came into through Power Query.

First of all, here is a chart showing my weight over time and then which days of the week. I usually gained weight on Sundays (our days to get together with family), Tuesdays (taco day in the café at work) and Fridays (the day we sometimes go out to eat.)

Next up are some charts showing the number of steps I took each day. The chart on the left shows how often I took a certain number of steps. The chart on the right shows the total number of steps each month. Note that we’re only halfway through June so that bar is shorter.

I fully expected to see a correlation between the number of steps I took on a given day and the amount of weight that I lost. Nope. Here’s a scatter plot showing no correlation. I think that walking is good for weight loss if you’re very overweight and you don’t move much. But there’s a point where walking is just too efficient to do much additional good.

I then started looking for other possible data correlation. Maybe the number of steps that I took was related to the temperature? Nope.

We’re in a wet part of the country so maybe the amount of rain we get in a day dictates how many steps I take? Not really. My really big days have happened when it doesn’t rain, but just because it’s dry doesn’t mean I’ll walk a lot.

In the end, I took all the various data points and ran them through Excels correlation algorithm. Nothing came out showing any real correlation. The biggest one was one of the charts you see above: the bigger the high temperature, the more steps I take, and even that was only a 0.48 correlation. That’s skewed quite a bit too because I’ve been doing a LOT more yard work lately and it has been warmer.

Even though I didn’t find a scientific way to lose weight, I did learn lots of things that AREN’T related and that’s interesting too!

benmartens June 18, 2014 Geek

Weight Loss

On January 1, I weighed 227.2 pounds. Last Friday, I weighed 201.8. I originally set out to get down to 210 but then decided to get to the point where I was no longer classified as “overweight” according to the government BMI charts. That meant getting under 205. I’m pretty proud of this process because it’s the most weight I’ve ever lost and the longest I’ve stuck with anything like this.

I don’t remember what I weighed when I graduated from college but I think it was right around 210. For most of the years, I fluctuated between 215 and 220. When I hit 227 after the holidays, I knew I needed to make a change and tackle the problem while it was still manageable. Then I kind of got into the groove and just kept going. On the last day of the diet, I woke up and weighed 205.4. Knowing I was so close, I basically starved myself and ended up losing 3 pounds that day. Ha! Obviously I gained some of it back but I declared victory. I’m going to try to keep it under 210 and I think that’s pretty feasible given the improved habits I’ve formed over the last 5.5 months.

Everyone wants to know how I did it. Before I give any answers, I’ll say that this is the diet that worked for me. This is by no means a recommendation for you or a commentary on your choices. That being said, there are two parts to the question: what did I change with my eating and how did I stay motivated?

Eating changes:

  • Avoid carbs. I’ve blogged about it before, but carbs are the biological start of generation of fat cells. I was unwilling to cut out carbs completely (I love beer and rum!) but I did scale way back. Most mornings I scramble eggs and throw in onion, sausage or ham, and cheese. It’s a very low carb meal and because I have everything chopped ahead of time, it’s super simple. I also stopped drinking orange juice in the mornings. If you’re doing a truly low carb diet, you should shoot for around 30 grams of carbs per day. One glass of OJ has about that many carbs! I ate a lot more salads at lunch with lots of meat on them and we cooked a lot more low carb dinner recipes. Genaw.com is a great resource for easy low carb recipes that generally taste good. We also stopped buying chips and desserts as an easy way to halt those temptations. I started going to the butcher regularly too so I could buy lots of delicious meat for the grill. All that being said, I still eat lots of carbs. The difference is that now I know when I’m doing it and I can balance it out. Cutting them out completely would have demoralized me and I wouldn’t have stuck with it. I found a balance that worked for me to lose weight but still enjoy some rum and Cokes or a burger with fries.
  • Eat less. This is pretty obvious but eating less was a big key to success. More specifically, eating less at dinner is important for me. I can have large (but still relatively healthy) breakfasts and lunches, eat a smaller dinner and still lose weight. To help me eat less at dinner, I store the leftovers before we eat so I won’t be tempted by seconds and we use smaller plates. The upside of eating less is that each meal goes farther reducing the grocery bill and decreasing the number of nights when we have to cook.

That’s pretty much it. Simple, right? There are other things like shopping on the edges of your grocery store (produce, dairy, meat) and avoiding the aisles (processed foods, etc) but in general it all goes back to eating fewer carbs and eating less food. But how did I stay motivated? I’m a geek and I my day job is all about big data, so my motivation was data!

  • Fitbit. Our health plan at work gives us some money to buy fitness related items so I picked up a Fitbit at the beginning of the year. It has been a very interesting source of data, but not nearly as helpful in losing weight as I thought it would be. I’ll show a data breakdown in a later post that will explain why.
  • Scale. Every single morning, I stepped on a scale. It’s important to weigh yourself at the same point of your day every day because your weight varies dramatically over 24 hours. I’d always weigh myself as soon as I woke up before using the bathroom or eating anything. I logged that weight every day too. That was the biggest single factor in keeping myself accountable and motivated. I knew I had to write down my weight the next day and that I’d be disappointed in myself for splurging on food the day before.

This post is getting very long already so I’ll save the charts and graphs for another day.

A lot of friends and family have told me their losing weight right now. If you add up the weight loss from Don, Tim, Tyla and me over the last 6 months, you’d have over 100 pounds! Each of us is doing it slightly differently, but the results are all good. The “trick” is to define a sustainable plan that provides enough measureable improvement to keep you motivated. Don’t worry about following my plan or someone else’s plan exactly. Chances are, as you go through phases of weight loss, you’ll need to adjust your approach anyway. As long as you’re staying healthy and losing weight then you’re probably doing it right! (Or bonus points if you are already at your goal weight!)

benmartens June 17, 2014 Commentary

Back Home Again In Indiana

The longer I live away from Indiana, the more surprised I am when I step off the plane. On this last trip, I kept notes about things that caught my eye:

  • Billboards are everywhere! Uncle Dean calls them “litter on a stick.” Washington does a great job keeping signage to a minimum height.
  • It’s FLAT. Hills that I remember being huge are really just little bumps. I attribute some of this to my childhood memory and some to the scope of the hills that I see around me now.
  • People drive fast. In Washington, all lanes of traffic flow within 5mph on both sides of the speed limit. In the Midwest you might be flowing in traffic right next to a cop and you’re all going 20 over.
  • There are lots of potholes! Midwest weather really does a number on the roads. The Pacific Ocean keeps our temps mild out here in Seattle so potholes are pretty rare.
  • All of the trees around our house are so much bigger than I remember. It sounds silly because of course they have grown since I lived there, but it catches my eye every single day.
  • The clothing choices are different. In the Pacific Northwest, everyone dressed like they are ready for a hike.

Hopefully none of this sounds like I’m making fun of the area. Indiana will always have a special place in my memory!

benmartens June 16, 2014 Travel

Happy Birthday Elijah!

Today marks Elijah’s first year since his birth. In that time he’s grown from a tiny little baby to a little man running across the floor. It has been a wild ride for all three of us but I’m so thankful that he’s in our lives. This video captures a few moments from the last year. I love you, Little Man!

benmartens June 15, 2014 Family, Video

Power BI World Cup

I’ve been posting lots of quick, little examples showing off pieces of our Power BI offering, but now I’ve got a huge one for you. Our team recently acquired access to a HUGE data set of statistics. With the World Cup starting up, we decided to use World Cup statistics for a great demo.

It’s running now at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/powerBI/solutions/demo/qna/qna-demo-worldcup.aspx and I encourage you to check it out. Ask it any question about World Cup statistics and watch the magic unfold! The stats we used to build up the data model behind the scenes is super detailed so I think you’ll be surprised about what you can ask. Hopefully a bigger example like this makes it pretty obvious how useful Power BI could be operating over your own company’s data sets.

benmartens June 13, 2014 Geek, Links, Sports