This month marks the 25th anniversary of my purchase of the snewpy.com domain name. When I started this web site in 1996 the internet wasn’t very big, with only about 100,000 different domains. My site is older than Google, YouTube and Facebook, to name a few. I’ve been a blogger […]
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The latest site news
Rolling Pin Ring
My wife got a Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin that comes with several plastic rings to allow you to adjust the thickness of dough you are rolling. It’s a clever design, but curiously the roller is sold with one ring obviously missing, so I was asked to complete the set. […]
Experiments in Statistical Inference
When I was in high school I took a Probability and Statistics class. My teacher had this really cool setup that allowed us to perform experiments by using a big bowl of marbles in various colors and paddles with holes in them that could be used to grab samples of […]
Handy Andy Plying Tool
My wife is into yarn. Almost as much as I am into Legos. So there is lots of yarn around my house, and lots of tools for carding, spinning, dying, and knitting said yarn. But we didn’t have a tool for plying yarn. Until today. Now I’m not going to […]
Outdoor Garden Sink
My present to my wife this year for her birthday was to build her an outdoor sink – a place where she can clean off her garden tools and wash vegetables before bringing them into the house. We had an old washtub that we weren’t using and a bunch of […]
Poster Hangers
When I was a kid, I had some of these really cool poster hangers on my wall and on the door to my room. They had a really simple but clever design that used the weight of the poster itself and a small roller inside to clamp down and hold […]
I Want Candy
This is a really cool design for a Halloween candy dispenser that I found on Thingiverse. It took 14 hours to print, but it turned out pretty well, and works as advertised.
XBox One Vertical Stand
The Wii is starting to get a little long in the tooth, so it was time for an upgrade. My son had asked a while ago for a driving game, so when I saw an XBox One bundle on Amazon that included Forza 3, we decided to get it for […]
Topeak Bicycle Basket Latch
My wife has the Topeak QuickTrack system on her bike. She recently bought the Topeak MTX rear basket that works with the system, however, the geometry of the bike seat and basket are such that she couldn’t slide the basket far enough forward to engage the latch without hitting the […]
New Chicken Coop
Hard to believe it has been five years since we constructed a home for our first flock. Those birds developed a taste for their own eggs, and that is a very hard habit to break in a small flock, so we were forced to start over this year with new […]
My First Time Lapse
I’m spending time learning about my Creator Pro, and in the process, I’ve come across a lot of resources, including plenty of YouTube videos. One trend I’ve noticed is a lot of folks like to post time lapse videos of their printer doing its thing, so I thought I’d give […]
Kubb For Twenty Bucks
If you haven’t heard of the Viking game Kubb (pronounced “koob”) before, I don’t blame you — it seems to be fairly obscure. But the game sells for as much as $50 online which is crazy since you can make it yourself out of about $20 worth of wood. I […]
Trophy Shelf
I had looked for an inexpensive shelf to show off a couple of trophies, but couldn’t find any sturdy enough for a decent price, so I decided to build my own. For about $10 in oak from Lowes, and a couple of keyhole hangers, I was able to build this […]
All For A Cup Of Coffee
Hey, I know better than to get between you coffee-lovers and your morning cup o’ joe. That is hard-won knowledge that I understand and respect. But apparently Starbucks (of all people) didn’t get the memo. My wife uses one of their ceramic Pour-Over Brewers for her coffee. Or did, up […]
Requiem for Yellow Jackets
Your browser does not support the webm video format. Yellow jackets had taken up residence in one of my wife’s herb planters. So, after she got stung several times while watering them, it was time to declare war on the little critters. In an attempt to eradicate them without using […]
Family Room Remodel
It took me just over a year, but the family room is finally finished (including the train). I completed the shaker-style cabinet doors on either side of the fireplace and replaced the old carpet with new carpet tile. Now I can relax and enjoy our new room.
Extend A Vent For Five Bucks
If you have a room arranged in a such a way that the furnace vents are underneath your furniture, you might benefit from an Extend A Vent. But don’t buy one from Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter. It is hardly worth the $15, or $17, or $18 that […]
Gutter Shelves for Ten Bucks
My son has a loft bed and he is in the habit of keeping all of the books he is reading on his bed so he doesn’t have to climb up and down the ladder. Over time, the books accumulate to the point where there’s barely room left for him. […]
The Polar Express
Your browser does not support the webm video format. I’ve spent the last six months remodeling our family room. But the culmination of all of that work is a model train that runs around the perimeter of the room. Here’s a quick video showing the final product. By the way, […]
Using All Of The Space
If your house has more than one floor, chances are good that there is a lot of wasted space above and below your stairs that is just crying out to be filled with stuff. Shelves underneath the stairs are easy, and something that I added when we first moved in. […]
More Basement Woodworking
Earlier this year, I started building a cabinet in my basement on the wall opposite my new bar. As usual, I used Sketchup to draw up my plans, and I neglected to post these at the outset of the project. Sketchup is a powerful tool, and fairly easy to learn. […]
Garden Irrigation Project
In late April, we had a pretty impressive hailstorm, which led to us getting a new roof and new gutters. The timing was somewhat fortunate, however, since I had already started putting together a system for catching rainwater that we could use on our garden. I found a 300-gallon plastic […]
Bird Versus Bird
Your browser does not support the webm video format. I’ve mentioned before how much we like all of the wildlife we see on our property, but yesterday it was the source of some dismay as we watched this juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk try to make our chickens into a breakfast buffet. […]