A Not So Close Shave

...or years, not wanting to blow money on modern plastic razors, I’ve instead used an old-fashioned safety razor like the one above that has just one metal blade that lasts maybe two weeks at the most (you can flip it over and use the other side of the blade for another two weeks). To use it properly, you need to shave three times, down, sideways and up, lathering between each shave direction. It works great if you aren’t lazy and care about your app...

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A Better Garage Organizational System

...It does help to know which tools you need and to place the most frequently used ones close at hand. In my case that meant the measuring tools and hand planes were placed close to the workbench and the table saw accessories are on shelves next to, you guessed it, the table saw. Rolling with Stephens’ suggestion, I used French cleat hangers so that I could remove tool sets, such as my drill bits and chisels, from the wall. As you can see I made a ba...

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Saturday Tweets: A Difficult Week

...honor of fall, reupping this story of a Toronto neighborhood activist who used leaves to show how much excess pavement could be recaptured as people space. They called it a “leafy knockdown” https://t.co/I2XRSnuAdy pic.twitter.com/2BQ6UfjsqS — Streetsblog USA (@StreetsblogUSA) November 6, 2018 20th Century: “Cities are created by, and for, traffic.”—Robert Moses, Le Corbusier, et. al. 21st Century: “Cities are created by, and for, people.”—We, th...

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Digital Götterdämmerung

...ready, I feel like I’m regaining a long lost pre-internet memory of when I used to read more, learn new skills and get stuff done. Newport is flexible about what you abstain from during the one month period. He acknowledges that many people have jobs that require them to use social media so you have to write your own rules. In my case I gave up Facebook over a year ago but I’ve found myself spending way too much time looking at things like Twitter...

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On the Problem of Food Storage and Hoarding

...the utility room. Those shelves quickly filled with aspirational but never used ingredients such as tapioca flour as well as mediocre food preservation projects that I just couldn’t admit defeat on. Our kitchen’s ample built-in cabinets. When it came time for our painters to work on the utility room we decided to take down the shelves and try to live with the storage built for the original inhabitants of this house. Now I’ve noticed that when I go...

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