2022 Christmas at Triangle Park Euclid Holiday Lighting Event

 Here's my contribution to the 2022 Euclid Holiday Lightning event at Triangle Park at the intersection of Lakeshore Blvd, Babbitt, and East 222nd St.

Fixing "You have no pending friendship requests" in BuddyPress

So you're getting the "You have no pending friendship requests" error in BuddyPress when you have Components - Extended Profiles enabled.

DIY Built-In Spice Rack in Unused Wall Space

Little spice racks are expensive. The last time I bought one from Amazon it held about half of what I needed and I had to drive to FedEx to pick it up for some reason.  

We have drywall over our ugly chimney (you can see I dig the brick, just not that brick) and with a few measurements, we realized we could build in a very nice spice rack!

Painting Shutters + Awnings on a 1941 Small Cape Cod House

Our little cape cod needed some exterior updating. The siding is white and the aluminum shutters and awnings were white with a teal trim. It wasn't the worst color choice but it was starting to chip and it was clearly brush painted, so it never looked great. We labored and stressed over colors before going with Glidden Premium Glazed Granite Exterior Latex Paint in flat finish.

2019 Christmas

Pic Spam!

A Powered Sod Cutter

We had to cut out some sod for a patio and a temporary (Intex) pool. I feared we'd be at it all day and then some but we cut 3 good sized areas and had the thing back in 3 hours!

The sod was super wet since it's been raining for months now, so really moving the rolls around was the toughest job.

Next we gotta level the spots we cut, finish cleaning up the sod rolls, and install pavers and the pool.

12 x 12 Paver Stone Walkpath Install

Took us about 4 hours and we were only sore for a week. #weekendgoals

Our 2019 Garden: Seed Starting, Hardening, + Free Gardening Spreadsheet!

So Guy and I, along with the help of our very interested 8 year old niece, are attempting a small vegetable garden this year, and we're starting with all seeds!

I put together a spreadsheet (that I'll share, so you don't have to format one yourself!) with what I'm planting, dates to start the seeds indoors, day to start hardening, day to transplant outdoors and more.

Grab the free gardening spreadsheet here.

I bought seeds from Walmart. We started the seeds in a Jiffy 72 seed starter greenhouse.

Trying to keep everything organized

Half Story Attic: In the Books, Finished

Well, is anything ever really finished in a house I'm living in?

No, the answer is no.

But this is darn close! It's lots of storage, a home theater, and a home office.

 

Guy the Great Versus the Pussy Willow Tree

Well here's something I forgot to upload... Guy hacking down our pussy willow tree. 

I have a theory that this pussy willow tree was planted as 2 small bushes many years ago, and went wild long before I moved in.

Creating an Ultrastar Deluxe Song - Part II

Part II: Basic Text File Edits

If you are completely new to this, you should refer to Creating an Ultrastar Deluxe Song - Part I: Generating a Text File first, as this will walk you through getting a text file made to edit. I also recommend reading my write up about the text file, UltraStar Deluxe - Understanding the Text File.

If you already have a text file ready to edit (these text files can be downloaded, and are usually, but not always, ready to be used with minor edits), read on.

You will not need to have UltraStar open yet. This first part is all done outside.

In your UltraStar Deluxe directory, there is a sub-directory called "songs". This is the directory your songs are stored in.

Make a new folder for the track you are going to create. If you'll remember, mine is Genesis - The Carpet Crawlers '99.

Creating an Ultrastar Deluxe Song - Part I

Part I: Generating a Text File

This is my attempt at a walk through, in English, for the purpose of creating an UltraStar Deluxe track from scratch.

I'm assuming you already know that UltraStar Deluxe is a SingStar style karaoke game that is played on the PC (Mac, Linux and Windows supported). I'm assuming you know you need that software and a microphone compatible with the game (such as the SingStar microphones you can buy pretty much anywhere, including the Internet.)

You can get the latest stable release of Ultrastar Deluxe here. It's free and open source and AWESOME.

AliExpress (Chinese) LED Solar Street Lamp Style Motion Lights

36 LED solar motion lights!

These solar lights are marketed as "street lights". They can be ordered with or without a post, and I've been looking at them for a while. I paid about $13 a piece without the extension rod, and tonight we put them up on the dark side of the garage that has NO light whatsoever.