If you’ve been following the news you know that we got hammered here in Wisconsin on Monday, July 27. A massive storm system roared through here about mid-day with grapefruit sized hail, high winds, downpour rains and tornadoes. The town of Menasha (just 10 miles from me) and the surrounding area got a direct hit from an F2 tornado with winds of up to 135 MPH. Massive damage, buildings destroyed, streets blocked with uprooted trees, power outages for over 100,000 people in the area. Miraculously it seems that no one was killed by the storms but there were some people hurt. At least one large facility, Christ the Rock Church just outside of Menasha opened up as a storm shelter for those displaced. Making things worse was the heat with temperatures well above 90F.
The worst of it missed us, thankfully. Power went out around 1 pm but we hardly noticed because of the solar power system. We can’t run the central AC system off solar but we do have portable AC units that run off the solar system in the bedrooms so we had a place to retreat to when the temps in the main part of the house got intolerable. So all things considered, we were extremely fortunate. The internet was down but we still had cellular service so we could keep track of friends and family and keep updated about weather conditions.
Meanwhile…
I’ve been busy cleaning down in the basement, moving things around, putting things I haven’t used in a long time in storage, etc. to make room for the 3D p Put up new shelves for storage in the main part of the basement.
I don’t plug a lot of products here but I have to mention these Origami shelving units. I have about 8 of these things now and they’re fantastic. Takes just a couple of minutes to assemble them. Basically just unfold them, screw in the wheels and they’re ready to go. All steel construction. No flimsy plastics. They hold an astonishing amount of weight. We have them packed full of canned goods, equipment, paint cans, electronic equipment, you name it. Yeah, they are expensive but damn they’re good. And even better they show up on Woot once in a while for almost half price for some reason and when they do I generally snag a couple more even if I don’t need them. So I had three of them out in the garage still in their packing cases that I got off Woot when they went on sale a few months ago at half price so I set two of those up in the basement to take care of the overflow. One is now dedicated to just holding supplies for the lasers: various bits of hardwood, plywood sheets of various thicknesses, plastic sheets, coin blanks, etc. Also stuff associated with the lasers like the rotary tools, sliding table, paints for the airbrush, and all that fun stuff. I actually should have done that long ago because it makes it a lot easier to find what I need when I need it instead of having it scattered around wherever I could find room.
If FedEx can find my place the 3D printer should be here today. It’s a Bambu P2S with a 4 spool filament changer. The spool holder on top also doubles as a filament dryer so the filaments don’t absorb moisture. A lot of the filaments for 3D printing absorb moisture from the air and that is not a good thing.
This thing makes my old Flashforge look like my Buick compared to a Model T Ford. 3D printing technology has advanced enormously in just the last few years and this thing has capabilities that I could only dream about when I was running the old Flash Forge. And it costs less than my Flash Forge did on top of it all.
Okay, I do remember that once upon a time I swore I would never get another one of these but… Well, things change, okay? My priorities have changed.
When we first moved into this house back in around 1998 or so, one of the rooms in the basement was reserved for my model railroad. I had an HO scale railroad that occupied almost the entire room. But the house also needed a lot of work and having all of my woodworking tools out in the garage just wasn’t a viable option, especially in winter. So the railroad came down and the room became my woodshop and it’s been that way ever since.
Priorities change, as I said. I’ve lost interest in woodworking for a variety of reasons. I don’t foresee having to do major carpentry work on the house in the future, and for some reason I want to get back into model railroading again. And that’s one of the things I’ll be using the P2S for, making models and parts for that. That’s also partly why I got the laser, to cut out parts to make structures and accessories for the upcoming railroad.
Of course considering how I procrastinate and how lazy I am I’m probably going to be, oh, 90 or so, by the time I actually start building the railroad….
GoPro stuff
I really want to like GoPro cameras. I’ve had a couple of them over the years even though I don’t dabble much in videos. But I did buy an older model on sale early last spring with the intention of putting it on the bike. Well first my hip and then the smoke and heat dome and all of that shut that down. But now I’m feeling up to getting out on the bike again and after the storms the weather has cleared.
GoPro’s have their problems. The most notorious is heat. Every single one I’ve had, no matter what model, had heat problems. You’d have thought that they’d have figured out how to deal with that by now but they haven’t.
The other is battery life. For what is supposed to be an “action camera”, battery life is, frankly, abysmal. They claim a battery will last up to 75 minutes. That is a lie. I’ve never gotten more than about 30 – 40 minutes life out of the batteries.
The batteries also self-discharge at what I feel is an alarming rate. Every battery, no matter what its chemistry is, self discharges a bit. That is, they lose power when they’re stored even if they aren’t being used. I can charge the goPro batteries to 100%, set them aside for a week or two, and when I want to use them I find that they’re down to 75%. There is simply no excuse for that with modern battery chemistries.
I’ve reached the point where I don’t think I could ever recommend a GoPro camera. Not unless you can pick up an older model at like half price. There are cameras out there with longer battery life and capabilities almost as good for a heck of a lot less money.
grouchyfarmer 
Despite owning some number approaching 10 digital cameras (half never used now) and as many old film cameras, (none used at all) Go-Pro units have never really interested me. Perhaps if I still had a motorbike I would have got one. Sorry to hear about the weather and the hail, that sounds awful. I like your shelving units a lot. I have piles of boxes stored randomly in the garage, which has not been used to house one of the cars for 14 years now. That shelving might well be the answer.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I’m not really into video either but this was an older unit and I got it at a huge discount because it’s discontinued. I thought it would be interesting to mount on the bike to get video of the scenery I see out in the countryside as I ride around. I see flocks of wild turkeys, cranes, herons and other birds. Occasionally I encounter turtles, foxes, etc. I have it on a handle bar mount with a magnetic quick detach so I can get it off quickly to track something. There’s a remote control I strap to my wrist which comes in handy. And the dopy thing is voice controlled as well. I didn’t know that until after I got it. Motion stabilization on it is absolutely amazing. The roads around here are absolutely horrible but the videos are almost always look like I’m riding on a smooth surface. If only the battery life was longer and the thing didn’t overheat and shut down on a regular basis.
Those shelf units are fantastic. Just unfold them, screw in the wheels and that’s it. Amazingly sturdy. We can a lot of fruits, vegetables, pickles, etc. and those glass jars are heavy. We must have 500 pounds of jars o that one and it isn’t even straining. I’ll never buy one of those cheap plastic units or the ones it takes an engineering degree to put together again.
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