Category: Misc Stuff

…I made an alcohol stove.  Here in England, I haven’t found a source for HEET so I tried test firing it with rubbing alcohol but it didn’t do too much.  So, I did some looking and yesterday bought some methylated spirits (basically ethanol that has anti-drinking agents in it.  Found out about it from Adventures in Stoving).  The stove finally lit and the holes on the outside got fire…but it wasn’t very much.  When I set a pot on top, the fire was snuffed out.

Well, I thought the problem was I didn’t have it together good enough so I pushed down on the top.  Long story short, I ended up and crushed it (the picture to the left is after I pulled it back out).  I decided it was ruined too bad so I’m going to make another.

Here’s some videos showing what I used as the basis for mine:

 

And because you tube videos have a bad habit of disappearing, here are local mirrors of pt1, pt2, and pt3.

[Update 2013-06-25 06:50:42] Here’s a link to my new stove burning nicely.

Cyndi and the kids got me a Tassimo coffee machine.  Costa was running a special:  £30 for the machine.  I then got a £20 off my first order of coffee from their web store.  That works out to £0.50 (aka 50p) each for some hot chocolate I bought and £0.25 (25p) for a coffee/tea assortment.

Now, I’ve always wanted one of the all-in-one espresso machines; however, I wouldn’t spend the money.  This offer for the tassimo made it within my price range.  So far, I’ve had the following drinks:

* Costa Americano
* Costa Late
* Earl Grey Tea
* 100% Columbian

The one thing I’ve found is that the coffee is rather strong if I don’t give it extra water.  At first, I was confused about how to do that.  The instructions seemed to indicate that you push the start button after the brew cycle for an extra “shot” of water.  Well, it turns out you have to push and hold the button and it “doses” hot water as long as you hold the button.

I give the machine 7 out of 10 overall.  I wouldn’t have paid full price for it; however, the special made it a nice purchase. I think once my major order runs out, I’ll buy my coffee direct from Costa.  I’ll get costa points and give the Redhill store some traffic.

Image from Tassimo Danmark via flickr

I remember my dad talking about how much fuel they saved with a one engine taxi.  This is really interesting. 

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/06/electric-taxiing-airlines/

Perhaps

http://hollowdocumentary.com/

Neat study on american English differences

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~jakatz2/project-dialect.html

I woke up at 4:30 am too pick someone up at the airport.  Holy cow….it was already daylight! Not dawn but daylight.  And we’ve got a month until the longest day of the year.  Wow

An a380 go over

As I got off the plane from agadir Morocco there were some border security guys there checking… just looking… at everyone’s passports.  I still had to do passport control like normal.

This was just out of the ordinary

{JoooidContent “type” : “map” , “id” : “1368028529380” , “width” : “400” , “height” : “300” , “align” : “center” , “latitude” : “51.45852” , “longitude” : “-0.44575” , “map_type” : “MapTypeId.ROADMAP” , “zoom” : “7” , “text” : “Heathrow Airport Terminal 4”}

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317548/Code-letters-sent-home-British-PoW-WWII-help-Allies-revealed-70-years.html

Neat article on kitee

Love at First Kite: How Pizza and Pente Led to One Oklahoman’s High-Flying Obsession