I was gifted some walnut slabs. Actually, the truth is, my friend didn't want them and threw them into a bonfire, and before the flames could devour them I pulled them out and loaded them onto my trailer. You see: he considered them to be waste because they're not flat on both sides. One side is flat and the other is nothing but live edge bark. It's the side of the tree trunk, basically. But I knew that they were not trash, I knew I could find some sort of creative use for them. So I stowed them in my workshop, and waited for an idea to spring to mind. Then, one night while lying awake in bed unable to sleep, it hit me. I knew exactly what I would use these for—and you'll have to continue reading to find out. ;)

Surprise! We bought a house! Overall I think it's a very very good starter home for a couple like us. It's a fixer upper, however, but it will be a great fixer-upper for first-time fixer upper-ers. 

I'm getting ready to finish some walnut live-edge slabs and I wanted to test some different finishes and techniques on a scrap piece first. 

The newly-renovated website for the Kansas Rural Center is complete! Head on over to https://kansasruralcenter.org/ to check it out.

The Jeep -- which I'm now calling the CheroKeeper because it's a keeper ;) -- is finally in my hands! Just as suspected, it has the venerable Christler 8.25" rear end w/ 29 spline axles and np231 transfer case. The mechanicals are in virtually perfect working order. I took it on it's first ever off-road excursion and I was actually surprised at how smooth the jeep conquered those rather large ditches and mud holes. The 4wd worked flawlessly and there was even a little mud to play in.

I'm buying a site-unseen '97 Jeep Cherokee XJ for $1,500! This thing was owned and garage kept for the last 19 years by a nice, older lady who never abused it and maintained it religiously via the dealership, and the Jeep comes with a stack of service receipts as thick as pea soup. That's the only way I would buy any vehicle with 244,000 miles on the odometer...

I made a coffee table!

Here's how I did it...

Last week, my girlfriend and I decided to pick a project out of my collection of Mother Earth News magazines and just do it. Last month, they published an article on cold frame gardening, and that's what we choose. We went to the hardware store, gathered some supplies, and proceded to get our hands dirty! 

The old rims on my 1974 Honda CL200 had seen better days. They were dented, out of true, scratched, a little rusty, and no longer safe. So I ordered some new rims: shouldered aluminum ones. Here's how I installed them.

This is how I painted my old, used motorcycle wheel spokes. The same process should work for bicycle spokes as well. The bike is a 1974 Honda CL200. The spokes are cadmium plated steel (I think). I did this before lacing up the new rims.

This free, online tool helps you choose the right colors and patterns for you and your wardrobe. Experiment with different color combinations right here online before you go shopping. Test out ideas before trying on the suit at the store. You're the designer now!

Just picked up this awesome bike! A 1978 Honda CB750. And a box of parts to go with it.

After building the new webiste for Kansas Public Radio using Drupal 7, I needed a way to export all of the old articles from our Joomla website to the new website. I could have experimented with the Feeds module for Drupal or another Joomla to Drupal solution, but our installation of Joomla was sooooo old and outdated that I couldn't trust anything. I decided to write my own bit of code.

WowBox is a jquery plugin that adds some HTML5 canvass magic to any div on your website. With just a little bit of code, we can make some really super cool 3D effects. 

It was time to stop ignoring the problems with the engine and fix them propery. 

For my This Old Three-Wheeler project, a 1973 Honda ATC90, I needed to make a seat. I didn't care much about looks, I just needed something function and inexpensive. That's why I decided to try and make it myself. For my 1974 Honda CL200, I had a hot-rod upholstery shop make the seat and they did a terrific job and the seat is gorgous. This seat, however, is not.

This is how I was able to remove the clutch from my 1973 Honda ATC90. I believe that this method should also work for ATC110s, CT90s, CT110s, etc. 

Here's my new-to-me 1973 Honda three-wheeler. Going to do what it takes to get this guy running nice and reliable. 

It all started when a humble statistician from Wichita State University wanted to audit the voter machines in her county to address a statistical annomily that she discovered, suggesting that the voting machines where being sabotage.

Bernie was given a 0% chance of winning Iowa when he announced his campaign. But I decided to get into a van headed to Des Moines and see if I could change that. The revolution starts now.