Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Pellet Trap

Mom and Dad got me a great CO2 powered pellet revolver for Christmas. I’ve had fun shooting it but instead of shooting cans in the yard and dumping a bunch of little lead pellets into it, I decided to build a pellet trap. You can buy them premade on the Internet and people often use them for indoor shooting, but I wanted to build my own and I figure I use it mostly outside.

I headed up to Monroe to make it with Tim and we basically designed it on the fly using scrap wood. The basic design is there’s a clipboard with the center cut out that holds the target and lets pellets pass through. The box is a little taller than the clipboard and about 8” deep. On the inside of the box, the back is lined with some metal tie plates and then covered with about an inch of duct seal. It’s all glued and nailed together but the top is screwed on for easier access in case I need to change out the duct seal.

After about a hundred test rounds, we give it two thumbs up. The pellets are stopped by the duct seal and either stick in to it or fall to the bottom of the case. The clipboard does a good job of holding the targets and a handle on top make it easily portable. It was a fun afternoon project and I think we were both amazed that one of our projects turned out about how it looked in our head.

benmartens April 5, 2013 Sports

Goodbye Grandpa

Earlier today, Grandpa Martens lost his battle against cancer and won his seat in heaven. At 94 years old, he had been fighting complications for quite a while and was ready to go home. This leaves a big hole in our hearts, but it’s comforting to know that his faith was strong to the end and we’ll see him again.


Grandpa holding me in 1980

benmartens April 4, 2013 Commentary

Church Sign Progress

Our church has been trying to get a new sign for years. It must have been three or four years ago when we raised the money for it, but for one reason or another, it never got completed. Late last fall, the project got kicked into high gear. TimS got the permit from the city, we moved all the landscaping back to it’s new location on a work day, FrankL did the masonry and TimS designed/ordered the sign. It finally arrived and last weekend I helped Frank install it! There’s still a little masonry work left on top and a two line reader board will go in at the bottom, but it’s getting close to being done. We’re having a workday in a few weekends to finish the landscaping around the sign too. I’ll post more pictures when it’s done, but this is pretty exciting for us after all these years of waiting so I wanted to get it posted.

benmartens April 4, 2013 Commentary

March Powder

As we came back from our vacation last Wednesday, I checked the forecast and saw that it was dumping in the mountains. I immediately emailed work, told them I was going to extend my vacation by one more day and recruited a friend from work to come with me. (Safety first, ski and ride with a buddy on deep days!)

We headed to Crystal for the first big powder day since December and we weren’t disappointed! They had received about two feet in the last day and a half and roughly 8” overnight. We started by going towards High Campbell but it wasn’t open yet so instead of waiting in line, we took three untracked runs down the Forrest Queen lift. Then we headed over to check out Green Valley and poked around there until Northway opened. Once the Northway light turned green, we headed over to gate 5 and dropped into Paradise Bowl. That has probably been my favorite run all season, but Thursday was by far the best I’ve ever seen it. The snow was bottomless and untracked. My new skis were completely fantastic in the deep snow and I flew down to the bottom with snow bouncing up into my face. For our next run we clicked out of our gear and took the hike up to the top of Morning Glory bowl. Another run of fresh turns were a nice reward for the hike. Before we knew it, it was 2pm and we decided to call it a day. The GoPro was out for just about every run and if I do a season edit then I’m sure some of these runs will make it into the video.

It was easily the best day I’ve had since December and one of the best days I’ve had all season. Thanks to AndyM for coming along and sharing it with me! Looking at the forecast this might be the last big powder day of the season.

benmartens April 3, 2013 Skiing

March Madness Brackets

I still haven’t sat down to watch much of the tournament, but I think I’ve seen some of the highlights like Wichita State taking out Ohio State and Kevin Ware’s broken leg. I wish I hadn’t watched that second one as it will be forever burned into my skull.

It looks like our bracket race is AndyC’s to lose. If Louisville beats Michigan in the final game, Jay and I will end up in a tie breaker. In all other scenarios AndyC wins. No matter what happens, over half the field is treading water. Logan, Luke, Jim, AndyD and Tim all picked the final four completely wrong. This is probably one of the worst years for our group predicting the final four!

By the way, if you bet on “Andy” to win from the start, you’d have a 33% chance of being right.

benmartens April 2, 2013 Fantasy Sports

Facebook Privacy

Even though Facebook has a billion users, there are still new people joining and at least one of the people who joined recently is reading this blog post. So I thought it would be good to do a blog post about my thoughts on privacy and Facebook.

First of all, there are a ton of knobs for controlling your data in Facebook. Allow certain friends to see certain info, keep some things private from everyone, or approve any photo your tagged in. The list goes on and on and the list changes fairly silently in the background. Putting secret stuff on Facebook and trying to control it with their settings is a recipe for disaster. That’s how you get the crazy stories about somebody posting something about their boss and then getting fired because it leaked out.

Here’s an easy way to make sure nothing that you consider private ever leaks out: don’t put anything that you consider private into Facebook.

This starts from the minute you sign up and you are presented with a bunch of data fields. What’s your favorite book? Who are your relatives? What’s your birthday? What’s your hometown? Stop and ask yourself why you’re putting any of this data in there. I fill in some fields like my religious views and some favorite things I enjoy, but in general, if you wouldn’t stand on a stump in a park and yell it out, don’t type it in to those fields.

This guideline should continue to apply every day you’re on Facebook. If you wouldn’t show that picture to your boss, a hacker, or your family, don’t put it on Facebook (or anywhere on the Internet for that matter.)

So what is the bar for things that are ok to make public? That’s one that’s different for everyone. I live a fairly public life. I’ve been blogging daily for over 10 years so the thought of posting some photos on Facebook doesn’t bother me. But there are still things that I won’t put on the Internet like photos or text showing that I’m on vacation and won’t be in my home for x days. However, that’s something that lots of other people do and don’t feel weird about. I also don’t “like” very many things because it’s just more data that can be used to profile me. You need to figure out your own line. The nice thing about Facebook is that you can join, enter very little personal data and then kibitz. Nobody says you have to post anything, but if you’re friends with people, you can still see what they are up to.

It’s a great tool, but it can cause you a lot of trouble if you start relying on anything in the privacy settings to keep certain info from certain people. As soon as you put anything in digital form anywhere on a computer, you are opening yourself up to the potential that the world will know about it.

benmartens April 2, 2013 Geek

Happy Easter!

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.  Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him.  Now I have told you.”  Matthew 28:5-7

Want more?

benmartens March 31, 2013 Commentary

Cirque Du Solei In Redmond

Every year, the Cirque du Solei show comes to Marymoor Park in Redmond and sets up their tents for a month or two. We’ve always talked about going and this year we finally pulled the trigger. We were a little hesitant because we’ve seen some Cirque-style shows on the cruises and haven’t been that impressed. WOW. I’m so glad we went to this! It made those other shows look like a grade school performance.

The particular show we saw was called Amaluna. The story line is something like two people who fall in love and are surrounded by people with freakish athletic ability and a lizard man. Spoiler alert: the lizard traps the guy in a giant tub of water but he escapes and marries the girl in the weirdest wedding you’ll ever see.

But seriously, there was some incredible talent in the show. From unicycles to slack lines and teeter totter acrobatics to some kind of crazy light twirling thing, this show had a wide variety of acts. There were definitely some boring parts like the two clowns that came out between acts, but overall the show moved quickly and was very entertaining. The video below gives you a rough idea of the show, but it doesn’t look nearly as impressive as it did in person.

One note for those looking to buy tickets: you can pay a LOT to see this show. The seats cover bout 70% of a full circle and the most expensive seats are right up the middle. We sat in the second section from one end and still had a great view at about a third of the price. We also saved money by sitting in the very top row. We were prepared with binoculars but didn’t need them at all. There are only maybe 30-40 rows in the place so it makes very little difference unless you’re in one of the first couple rows. I’d happily sit in the cheap seats again.

So even though I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy this kind of show, I can definitely recommend it now!

benmartens March 29, 2013 Commentary

Lowes vs Home Depot

I generally shop at Home Depot because it’s closer than Lowes, but as I wandered through Lowes recently, I wondered what is different between the two companies besides the colors. Here’s what a little internet research turned up:

  • Size: Home Depot has 500 more stores than Lowes
  • Original: Lowes started first but they lagged until the 90s when they decided to turn themselves into a nicer version of Home Depot. They tried to accomplish that with better service and better looking stores.
  • Money: Home Depot has a 5.91% profit on $73 billion in revenue. Lowes does 3.9% on $51 billion. Home Depots profit margin is one of the best in the business.
  • Growth: Home Depot’s stock has gone up 150% in the last five years. Lowes has gone up 50%.
  • Price: Price comparison are almost exactly identical when you look at a large project.
  • Products: Home Depot has more tile and toilets for your bathroom remodel but Lowes has more appliances for your kitchen or laundry room.
  • Returns: Both have almost identical return policies, but while Home Depot will only give you 30 days to return damaged goods, Lowes gives you 90 days.
  • Military: Both stores will offer discounts to military personnel (Home Depot and Lowes details.)

So as expected, these two companies really are extremely similar. It looks like Home Depot takes the edge in the business world, but the consumer probably won’t notice the difference.

benmartens March 28, 2013 Commentary