Mods – Page 3 – Modern Anachronist

Ladder (Ger) rack for the trailer.

So, I CAN fit our entire camp setup in & on the excursion, but doing so means loading some heavy bits on the roof. I’m starting to see that this is not worth the risk.

It also means squeezing the kids onto the left & center seat and they’re starting to require a bit of space between them. (Teenagers apparently require more personal space than toddlers.)

So I bought the trailer. And now it’s time for the second phase of the modular trailer to be built.

Adding tie downs to the utility trailer.

Everything is ~~ball bearings~~ eyebolts these days

When I bought this trailer almost three years ago, I was amazed by how few good tie down points there were (just four). After an unfortunate accident on I-295 over a decade ago, I have an obsession with securing my cargo.

Modifying the utility trailer

Last year I bought a utility trailer. Mostly because I was tired of putting Yurt bits on the roof of the Excursion. But also because I knew I was going to need to haul things I didn’t want inside my baby.

Today, I needed to hail a cubic yard of gravel, but the open sided utility trailer was just the wrong tool for the job.

I think I’d get home with almost zero gravel.

Re-lamping the upstairs hallway.

In which I attempt to correct the poor decisions made 50 years ago by the lowest bidding electrician; five years ago by a corner cutting house flipper; and ease the unease of a 9-year-old boy; all with an overly complicated hardware and software solution.

The Power of Iterative Engineering

Or, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I’m an over planner. There’s no arguing it.

My very first boss drilled into my head “We never have time to do it right, but we always have time to do it again.”

It is Finished

Finally, six months behind schedule, my living room wall is finished.

First attempt at rust repair.

It’s been bugging me for a while that there is rust visible around my tow hooks, so I decided to try to make my first (of many {Never buy an East Coast truck}) efforts at rust repair.

The panel around the tow hook was black when it left the factory , now it’s rust, with black highlights.

Adding smarts to an old house

This summer, as I invoked Siri to light up the dinner table on the patio, my father-in-law’s girlfriend said, “You have a smart house?”

I’ve never really thought about it, but I suppose I do. I’ve got lights that are tied to sunset & sunrise. I’ve got lights that turn on if the wife or I come home after dark. I can control the HVAC system from anywhere in the world.

It’s not something that I consciously set out to do, it just slowly happened over a course of several years. In this post I’ll describe some of the lessons about “smart homes” that I’ve learned the hard way over the years.

The toys that make noise*

*hat tip to Dennis Leary for the title.

With an eight-year -old and a six-year-old, I can’t believe how long it took me to figure this out. Anyone with children knows the pain of loud toys, especially early in the morning.

Driver’s side grab handle

The Excursion didn’t have a grab handle on the drivers side. Pulling oneself up bu the steering wheel or door is a sure way to damage the truck over time. I’m usually good about grabbing the pillar, but when it’s rainy, that metal is slippery, and now I’m at risk for hurting myself.

A bit of eBay shopping and I found a pair of pillar covers and handles in the right color, with bolts & bolt covers.