Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Faux Scrollbar Shimsham Banner on Adsense

I've got a lot of experience running direct response campaigns, but this banner running through Google Adsense caught me by surprise. I tried out the scroll bar to see what was up.

Was the creative size wrong for the placement?

Bingo, bango, I'm off to the advertiser's site.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Ikea to the counter top rescue

With our family cabin counter tops hitting the 30 year mark and a replacement cook top leaving a dangerous six inch gap for food and cooking utensils to fall through - it was time to replace the counter tops.
formica kitchen counter top with cook top

We picked up some nice hardwood countertops from Ikea and proceeded to remove the old ones. We needed to cut out for the sink and stove top.

I quickly found out that my father's Sears circular saw was no longer working, it was down to the basement to find another saw. Sure enough the only one there was a Stanley circular saw circa 1950. It was the saw he used to build the other house. After many years of sitting in a damp basement, it still worked. It lacked many of the standard safety features you'd find on saw today. The safety feature I particularly liked was a separate grounding wire. You were supposed to screw into the outlet center screw, luckily we were plugged into a GFI outlet. If things went really wrong I was trusting that this metal saw would trip the GFI before I got too electro-shocked.

Here are two quick videos in case you want to try this at home.


I had to do a few plunge cuts and use a jigsaw to cut out the corners but in the end it came out well. The only piece left to complete is the back splash. I'll use the counter cut outs and rip them with a band saw to cut them down to 3/4 inch then glue them together.

The finished product.
Ikea countertop with cooktop and sink
installed Ikea countertop

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Movember Update

It's Movember and my mustache is really starting to take on a life of it's own. Just this morning when I went to purchase a Diet Dew, it whispered buy TAB. My stache seems to to be from the seventies.
If you'd like to donate to fight prostate cancer click here.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Fall Feeding For The Bees (Second Update)

The weather is finally starting to turn cold and my hives still didn't feel heavy enough for their wintering. This past weekend I picked up 50 lbs of sugar at Sam's Club and made up some heavy 2:1 syrup to feed my six hives and one nuc.

From my last feeding I learned that you have to use boiling water if you plan on doing the 5 gallon pail/paint mixer power drill combo. It's the only way to ensure all the sugar dissolves -the last batch from the previous update still had small crystals in them. You'll see in the pictures below that it crystallized in the feeding trays.

The hives were very active on the 8th, although it's hard to see from these pictures.

There was definitely some pollen sources around as you can see the pollen on the hind legs of the bee at the top of this photo.
honey bee with pollen

The photo album below shows the feeders and the bees feeding.

I found this video in my normal reading and thought it might be interesting if you wondered where those boxes of bees come from. No commentary from Diana in this video.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sunday, November 08, 2009

This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled.

This weekend I thumbed through a photo album from my bachelor party and came across a few pictures of the late Jon Alsop. When I searched to see if his memorial video was up on YouTube I found the audio was pulled due to copyright.

Jon's probably chuckling right now over his copyright infringement.


At least this video avoided any infringement.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

It's Movember

Since my father is a prostate cancer survivor I thought it would be fitting for me to join the Movember movement.

This month I'm growth a mustache to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer.

Join me in growing your own or please donate.

I'm looking forward to enjoying my mustache culture.