Missed "Stair Day"

Belle and I drove out to the oldest daughter's place for the oldest granddaughter's birthday party.
She and her man rent this place.

I've no idea who built this house but they were apparently sick on the day " Introduction to stair building" was taught.
Now in their defense, math is hard, especially when all you have is a tape measure in feet and inches.

I am operating on the assumption that a tape measure was actually available.

Aside from the issues with that bottom riser not quite working out quite right,

 twice,  the 12" high steps are a bonus for a daily leg workout.

Missed the top riser on the porch stairs by just a smidgen there too.   Watch your step there, that will peel the sole right off your penny loafer if you catch it just right...

Buckets, String, Rubber Bands and Paper Clips part 2

Rubber band cable management.

The Wrong Way

Next time you unwind it, it comes out accordion like.

Coil the cable and loop the rubber band over one end

wrap the rubber band around the wire

loop the free end of the rubber band over the same end of the wire**

Done.

Easy Peasy. No more kinks in the wire.

Got a big cable? Get a big effing rubber band.

**This is a scalable solution, skill level high. Your mileage may vary, do not remove under penalty of law, void where prohibited.  The BAR editors assume no liability should the user fail to follow the instructions implicitly and loop the free end of the rubber band over the same end of the cable, instead looping it over the other end of the cable in which it turns into a cable and rubber band clusterfuck.

Thank You.

buckets, string, rubber bands and paper clips part one

In the early years of our relationship, premarriage, The Lovely Belle and I came home on Friday night to find the temperature and pressure relief valve dripping from the water heater, getting all my good crap in the garage wet.
Belle is smoking a coffin nail in the garage, I'm hanging out eyeing  the dripping water heater.  (it's getting all my good crap wet. I need a way to keep the drip from hitting the floor, me thinks. Water is stressed, it has tension, tends to cling to anything nearby.)
 What do I have in the house to solve this problem? Ah yes.
So I head through the door into our townhouse to find a bucket and some string.
Belle asks where I'm going. "Just wait, you'll see".
So I came out with some string and the mop bucket. Belle asks, "what are you going to do with that?", as I tied a length of string to the TP valve on the water heater.
Cutting the string to about a 6 or 7 foot length, I tied the other end to the bucket handle, and walked it out till I could set it on the floor with the sting pulled taught.
Next drip hit the floor, so I rotated the string loop around the valve a bit till the next drip touched the string.
It went down the string, hit the bucket handle and dripped into the bucket.
Come Saturday, the bucket was almost full, so I emptied it. Sunday the same. Immediate problem solved.
 Monday, I called the landlord to tell him his water heater was leaking.
All my good crap in the garage dried out. Landlord sent a plumber and everything was right in the world again, until undocumented worker gangbangers started moving into the complex.
We moved.

Garagineering

CoolChange has a little project he's looking for ideas on. I posted mine. Go check it out and offer some thoughts.
I've re-purposed all kinds of things in my career, door hardware combined with micro-switches and Ipe wood keys to make "pianos" that play water features, floor drain grates Kynar finished to make refrigerant exhaust vents, you name it.  One of my favorite things to surf on the web is real life hacks. If you've never done so, google search "real life hacks" and go read.