Merry Christmas

I'm 13 years old today!

Finally I'm a teenager now. In 3 short years, I can start driving but first I need to get a cellphone. I thought I might get one this birthday but sadly no. One of these days it'll happen. In the meantime, this has been an interesting past year. Luckily we did a ton of traveling at the end of last year with trips to Hawaii, New York, Seattle, and Disney World because the past few months we have been sheltering in place at home. I've been busy with school assignments, playing games with my family, and giving Chester, our cat, lots of love. I also got braces on again for phase 2 and hopefully the last time. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to show you a cellphone in next year's photo. :)

I'm 11 years old today!

I'm officially a tween as they say. I've been binged watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or TMNT as the cool kids say during this whole stay at home quarantine. All my other activities have been cancelled. No soccer season and most likely no swimming season this summer. I've been mountain biking more and luckily haven't hit any cactuses. I've been playing minecraft and coding on scratch. I've shared a few games and racking up some views on them. I've also determined over this past year that I'm going to be an Mechanical Engineer.

Merry Christmas!

I'm 12 years old today!

My last year before becoming an official teenager. I still didn't get a cell phone this year and supposedly according to my parents, I won't be getting one till I'm 21 or something. I finished my first year in public school and despite homework and tests, it wasn't too bad. My parents had a harder time adjusting than I did. I also tried track and field. I did hurdles, high jump, and 4 x 100 relay. Some practices I had to be at school by 6:30 in the morning. After taking some time off from swimming, I'll be doing a summer swim team. My favorite event is still butterfly.

I'm 10 years old today!

Double digits!!! Yes that's right, the big 1-0! No more piggyback rides to bed for me. I think it's partly so my Dad doesn't hurt his back. I started playing AYSO rec soccer this past year. A lot better competition than the YMCA league where we mostly scrimmaged. I also stopped swimming at Gold Medal Swim School so that I could concentrate on soccer. I think the biggest change though from last year was attending a new school - the local public elementary school. I actually get homework and quizzes now. I also have my own account on the computer because I have to check my homework online. I might sneak a few computer games on the weekends before everyone is up.

New faucets to start the year

Finally got some time to install a new kitchen and RO faucets. Here you can see the finished product. The RO faucet needed an air gap so I found this one with good reviews on Amazon.


Here are the original faucets. The kitchen faucet has a terrible design in that the handle just channels water down the back of the faucet when you go and turn it off with wet hands. Then the water just collects on the counter. You can see the water ring around the faucet.


Here's the RO faucet. It started rusting at the handle and would leak water every time you turn it on.


My working quarters. After moving all the plumbing drains etc. it actually wasn't too bad to work in.


Here's a closeup of the build up in the drain pipe just after the trap. I didn't expect this would be there. This is probably 10 years of build up.


You can see the old valve stop I removed plus the drain gunk. You just turn them counterclockwise while pulling and they come right off. I put in proper 1/4 turn valves.


Here's a closeup of the hard water buildup on the counter.


Here's after I removed the hard water with a razor blade scrapper. It makes easy work of the build up.

Merry Christmas!

I'm 11 years old today!

Finally the last day of school wasn't on my birthday. This is my last year at a Montessori school as I'll be switching over to a public middle school. The days of no homework are over. I'm still doing gymnastics and swimming but I dropped chess this past year. I went mountain biking for the 1st time too. Hopefully I'll be able to go more when it cools down. No cell phone this year. One day. I am happy to report that we are going to Hawaii this year but it wasn't a birthday present. My grandparents are celebrating their 50th anniversary.

New garage door opener and wheels

My old genie screwdrive garage door opener finally died. I tried replacing the capacitor but that didn't fix the problem. The garage door opener was always so loud so I decided it was a good time to get a new, quieter one that was "smart".


Here's the model I bought from Sears (rebranded chamberlain). It's a DC motor belt drive system with a battery backup. It's also smart so I can control it from my phone.


Here's halfway through the installation process. Not too hard.


This is the new unit mounted. Unfortunately the old mounting brackets weren't long enough so I had to extend it a bit. Also the existing wires weren't long enough either so I had to extend those as well.


Here's the final product installed.


Even though our cars have homelink, it turns out that homelink changed their protocol so this garage door opener wouldn't work with our older homelink cars. So I had to buy a repeater that basically takes the old signal from our cars and then changes it to a signal the new opener recognizes. Added about $20 to the cost but so worth it.


In addition to changing the opener, I also changed out the wheels from metal to nylon ones. Here are the new nylon ones. You can buy a set of 10 on Amazon for like $12. Instead of unscrewing the mounting brackets holding the wheels, I found this video on Youtube that shows how to change them out fast. You always have to bend the track to change at least the bottom wheels because they are tied to the spring so this video basically uses the same method for all the wheels. He also shows how to use a standard hammer to bend the track out. It's a really good technique that makes the job super easy.


Here's the old wheel.


Here's the new one.

I'm 9 years old today!

Time sure does fly by. I'm finally 9 and yes my parents still have me sitting in a booster seat. I don't mind so much since I get to sit higher up in the car. I've lost a few more teeth and even had surgery to remove an extra tooth growing upside down. Crazy. I'm still playing chess and I've moved up to the champ section for tournaments. I've joined swim team level 2 that swims 2x a week now. I'm still playing YMCA soccer although I've topped out on their age range. I'm planning on being a mechanical engineer and want to drive a cool muscle car.

Merry Christmas!

No knead bread!

After watching Mark Bitman's video on a no knead bread recipe almost a decade ago, I've always wanted to try it. I mean who wouldn't want to make bread that looks and tastes gourmet without any hard work.



Here's my dough after mixing in all the ingredients. This step takes about 5 mins. I followed this recipe here which called for 4 cups of flour versus the original recipe of 3 cups. I also added in 1/2 tsp of sugar based on this recipe here. As you can see there's no shortage of folks that have tried this recipe and have added their own tips.



Here's the dough after 12 hours.



This is the dough after I folded it over several times and let it sit for another hour or so. Total time again was about 5 mins. I used a silpat for ease of cleaning.



Here's the bread after cooking in a 7 qt dutch oven. I also put in parchment paper so that I could easily remove it. Not sure how it would be without it but it was very easy to remove with the paper.



Here's the finished product. It tastes as good as it looks.

I'm 10 years old today!

Last day of school on my birthday again. 2 years in a row. No phone to show this year but any year now. :) I love to read, swimming 2x a week, doing gymnastics, and still playing chess. I can now do a back handspring with a spotter. I asked if I could go to Hawaii for my birthday but I have a feeling that wish isn't going to come true.

I'm 8 years old today!

I finally lost some teeth this past year. I wasn't sure it was going to happen. I have my adult teeth and I'm no longer required by law to sit in a booster seat. I'm pretty sure my parents though will still have me use one till I'm 9. I've been playing more chess tournaments and have gotten pretty good but more importantly, I can beat my dad pretty easily now. I also started swim team 1 and competed in my first swim meets. I didn't think I would like it but I love competing.

Surge Protection and Faster Networking

Here's a whole house surge protector that you install at your circuit panel and the idea is that it'll protect all of your electrical devices without needing surge protectors at every device. I'm not sure if they really work but it makes sense and wasn't too difficult to install.



Here's all the tools and materials that I needed. Since I didn't have room in my panel to fit a a double pole breaker, I had to buy 2 tandem breakers and make room.



Here's the surge protector mounted to the bottom of my circuit panel box.



Here you can see the two tandem breakers and then the double pole breaker right above them. Since there are two 120V buses in the panel box, the double pole makes sure the surge protector is wired to both of them.



Here's the panel after the install. Ideally you want to place the surge protector breaker as close to the main lines at the top but since I had to mount the protector at the bottom, that's as far as the wires would reach.



Here's what the normal breaker box looks like.



The other electrical project I finished was running CAT6 cable from the network panel to my bedroom TV area. There's already a cable going to the bedroom but not to the right spot so I thought it would be easy to just run a new line. Bought this cable from monoprice.com.



Here's my network panel. I used my fiberglass poles as seen in this post to snake the wire up through this panel and up in the attic. I then ran the wire to the bedroom and snaked it down the wire to the right spot.



This was the hardest part. Fishing the wire out of the wall and through the opening. Luckily I was able to reach the wire without having to cut any holes in the wall. I just had to remove the existing wall plate and junction box.

Twas the night before Xmas....

Zoo lights

We checked out Zoo Lights this year and although it was crowded, it didn't disappoint.


Here's a picture of the kid's and the grandparents. Christy was off to the left as this was the most people I could fit in since I had my prime 35mm lens on and couldn't zoom out anymore.


These lights were all choreographed with music.


Photo op with the komodo dragon. Cole did a research project on it for school this year.





Never too old for the carousel.


The bright butterfly is actually a huge lego construction.