3D Printing

For years, I’ve considering diving into the 3D Printing game, but for one reason or another I’ve always held off. But this week, I finally took the plunge and ordered a BambuLab A1 with AMS and a few other accessories. I’d been considering that exact model for a month or two, and I couldn’t resist when they announced their anniversary sale.

I know I’ll need to print a couple things for the printer itself first thing, but what are some things you suggest printing? I know I’m going to print some EDC stuff, a few household things, and stuff for the kids. I’ve also looked into some organization things like underware and gridfinity that I may play around with.

I’m open to any and all suggestions.

Plumbing Issues

We’ve been in our current house for over 5 years, and we’ve had constant issues with our kitchen sink not draining properly due to clogs. I believe it’s due to an in-wall (behind buit-in cabinetry) horizontal pipe that possibly isn’t inclined enough for drainage, but that’s a guess. I’m becoming a pro at snaking that one particular drain. Remove p-trap, drain, snake, re-attach.

We’ve tried all the easier stuff (Drano, boiling water, vinegar solutions, shop vac). To have it fully fixed appears like it’ll be a multiple thousand dollar expense, something I’m not ready to do.

Running Ethernet

Speaking of household DIY, I’m trying to convince myself to follow through on a plan to fully wire our house with ethernet. It’s not something I’ve done much, and I hate the find-the-place-to-drop-the-wire-in-the-attic step, but I think I’m about to just go for it. I think I’ll need to make 4-5 runs to have it like I want it. I’m thinking of ways to make it easy if I do decide to add more in the future (such as PoE cameras). I’m not good at terminating the cables, but I guess practice makes perfect.

Car Accident

Recently, while traveling to visit family, we were involved in an accident on an off-ramp. The other party was at fault (and cited), there were no injuries, and our car runs despite the damage. However, it was a work truck covered by some corporate style insurance that is intentionally dragging their feet. It’s an open-and-shut case in my expert opinion, but I’m assuming this is their standard operating procedure.

For now, it looks like I’ll have to go through my insurance and let them handle the subrogation process. Honestly, I’m just happy to learn a new word.

Bookmarks Experimenting

Lastly, I’m experimenting with sharing links/bookmarks through my blog in a semi-automated fashion. The idea is I can save a bookmark with Pinboard (or Raindrop, etc) with a certain tag. I then use Zapier to create a formatted RSS Feed that Micro.blog can read and import. The problem I’m currently running into is Zapier requires a <title></title field (even if empty). When Micro.blog sees that title field, it creates a title even if it’s empty. In my case, I want to post bookmarks as title-less posts on my blog, the Micro.blog feed, and in the RSS feed. I’d need either Zapier to relax their requirements (unlikely) or Micro.blog to bend to my will and skip over blank titles. 🤞🏻

Update: As it turns out, I can use a zero-width character in Zapier to have a semi-blank title. However, Micro.blog (correctly) sees that zero-width character as not an empty title. I need to figure out a different solution.