Rim Repair

Last spring I decided to take care of a problem that had been bothering me for quite some time. I had not been taking care of my rims very well, and the aluminum was getting pitted and corroded around the edge. I decided to try to fix the problem myself. It turned out to be a bigger project than I had planned.

Corrosion

First week: World Junior Champoinships of Hockey

 

So, for the first week my thing I've never done before was go to the World Junior Championships, being held here in Calgary. I've never been to an international hockey event, I've never been to a Team Canada game, and I've never seen a gold medal game of any kind before. I went to 6 games in total, including the two semi finals, and the gold medal game. One of my favorite moments in the tournament was being under the giant Canada flag that made it's way across the seats in the upper bowl of the dome. Don't think I've ever done that before.

The Team Canada game was so loud. It was like a playoff game, one of the loudest games I've ever heard. Canada eventually lost to Russia in a disappointing loss. They just weren't playing the same game as the rest of the world, their game was much more physical, and it got them in trouble. Still, and amazing experience.

Thing a Week

Ok. So, with the new year, I tend to do a resolution. My resolutions are a little different from most people, though, in that I strive to have a positive resolution. Instead of "stop doing something I shouldn't be doing", or "do that thing I should do but hate", I try to use the resolution as a kick start for those things I always wanted to do, but have somehow put off. One year, I attempted to read more. Another year, I kept a log book (primarily for work). Last years was to start a blog. As you can tell, my track record isn't perfect, but I do give it a shot.

This year, my resolution is to try to do something new each week. Sometimes they will be big things, other times they will be a little more mundane. I read somewhere that for kids time seems to pass more slowly because they are constantly experiencing new things, and that the best way to prolong your life was to get deeply into something new every 90 days. OK, so I'm not going to commit that heavily, but I like that concept, and want to try it out myself. Even if it is on a smaller scale. So here we go.

So, what counts as a new thing? For starters it shouldn't be too close to a variation on a theme of something I do all the time. "I've never seen THAT episode of Seinfeld" won't cut it. Obviously, as you can tell, making things will factor heavily in my goal, but it certainly won't be limited to that alone. And if I do, I'm hoping that my technique I use will be the primary "new thing". My goal for this experiment is two-fold. To gain new experiences, and to gain new capabilities. These will hopefully help me choose the new thing to do. If other people comment, I may take those suggestions into account.



Oh, and if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm using this as an excuse to also do one of those things that seems like a chore - update my blog more regularly. That, however, doesn't count as a new thing for the week.

The Ten Commandments

For Christmas, my family likes to make gifts for each other. I love the idea, as do most of my brothers and sisters. Some years it is difficult to make the time needed to make a gift well, but other years you find both the time, and the inspiration you need. We draw names as well, as I have a large family, and it would be very hard to make everyone something of quality.

This year I drew my sister's boyfriends name. As they live in a different city, it was difficult at first to know what to make him. One of the things I DO know about him is that he has his undergraduate degree in Religious Studies, and was trying to get a job working for a church. So, I thought about what a guy like that could use. It seemed obvious to me he could use his own copy of the Ten Commandments. So I set out to make them.

Divine Inspiration?

This is not my garage

Never Ever

From Funny Aussie Signs

TV Repair - $7 vs. $2000.

So, early last year I started having a problem with my TV. The TV wasn't brand new, but I had only had it for about 5 years and was a nice HD flatscreen TV that I spent considerable money on, and it was a little frustrating. At first the TV wouldn't immediately turn on, it clicked twice before finally starting. After awhile, it took two sets of clicking before it would turn on. It seemed like it needed to cycle through something before turning on, and over time the number of cycles increased significantly. The day before it finally stopped entirely, it took 20 minutes of clicking before it turned on. Needless to say this was frustrating, and I didn't want to have to deal with this problem again when I went to get a new TV. So I went online to look to see which brands were the most reliable. Frustratingly, Samsung (the brand I owned) was one of the highest rated televisions. I chanced upon Youtube, with a video with some guy with clicking problems with his samsung TV as well.

The thing is, below that video I saw a video on Samsung TV Repair. I was interested. After all, I am pretty cheap, and don't like the idea of throwing something out. Replacing the TV would have cost $2000, fixing it would have cost $600 to $800, and I didn't really want to do it. The thing about the video that I liked the most was the fact that the guy doing the fixing had his little kid on the video, kinda making it seem less finicky, dangerous, or cumbersome. Besides, I figured - can't break something more than broken, right? Nothing to lose.

Wedding Centerpiece Display Case

In 2009 I got married to my wife Jenn. One of the things about weddings is that there are a lot of decorations that get accumulated in the process of pulling off the big event. Once everything is said and done, something needs to be done with those decorations. Often, people store some of the decorations in their basement, disperse them amongst their friends and relatives, or find other ways to get rid of them. When our wedding was done, we had 18 centerpiece boxes left over. My cousin Darrell had made the boxes, and they were very nice pieces. During the reception they were filled with pink flowers and placed on each of the tables that the guests were sitting around.

This is the idea I had in mind.

This is what I had to start with. A picture of the centerpiece on one of the reception tables