A recent project is leading my adviser and I to design and build a large, acrylic tank which will be able to hold several hundred litres of seawater. Since a tank like this will take both time and money to build, it is logical to develop multiple experiments to run in it. These experiments will […]
Category: Tallahassee
Master Bathroom Remodel
A couple week ago I decided to finally dive into a project that I’ve been thinking about for some time. My master bathroom, like the guest bathroom in my house, was obviously “refurbished” right before I bought the place. Starting at the bottom, the floor was vinyl, the vanity was a 32″ kitchen cabinet base, […]
Story Time or How I Found My House
There I was, standing in the airport terminal introducing my father to my new academic advisor, and wondering what this strange new city would bring. Tallahassee is the forgotten capital of Florida boasting no more than 200,000 people. I had flown down from Boston in order to meet with Stukel and to see first-hand what […]
Switching out a garage door opener
About a year ago I drove into my driveway after a full day at work and found my garage door open. Immediately I assumed the worst and my heart skipped a beat. For those of you who don’t know, I keep a lot of stuff in my garage including easily a couple thousand dollars worth […]
Why I’m looking forward to moving out of the south
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed my past year and a half, almost two years, living in Tallahassee. The often forgotten capital of Florida has served me well and I’ve made friends down here that I wouldn’t sacrifice for anything, yet I already know that my days down here are limited. After having grown up […]
The Concept of a Trial Week
I’m pretty sure I have never written anything that would be classified as self help; and while that section of the bookstore always repels me, the ideas and promises suggested are always quite appealing. For example, who wouldn’t want a “4 Hour Work Week” (link) or to know the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (Amazon)? It […]
Wood Florring in Tallahassee
Since starting on my kitchen remodel project last month, I’ve been uncertain about what to do with the floors. Currently the floors are simple, glued-down vinyl, which has worked great and makes a lot of sense over a slab foundation, but my kitchen deserves something a bit better. Initially I figured tile would be the […]
Year in Review
While it scarcely seems possible, it was just a year ago that I moved into my first house and started my graduate school career. If the passage of life, and the measure of that life, is to be defined by the events within it, then for the past year I have done a lot of […]
Kitchen Photos
Here are photos from my latest project. It is still a work in progress; new article will be posted when completed.
Independent Exploration: Picking a Model
At the onset of the semester, myself along with Taylor, Xu and Erick committed to setting up and running a 3d hydrographic model of Apalachicola Bay. Since the primary goal of these weekly meetings was to learn how to take a modelling project from start to finish, we needed to be deliberate about our choice […]
Kitchen Renovation: Measurements and Quotes for new Countertops
Over the past two weeks I’ve been running around town either before or after work in the hope of negotiating a fair price for some granite countertops in my latest kitchen remodel. Since I’ve found the experience frustrating and painstaking, I wanted to share my experience with the local businesses in case anyone finds themselves […]
Home Workshop
Over the last couple days I’ve been working pretty hard trying to get a home workshop together, and I wanted to share the progress I’ve made. My house has an attached 1 car garage which also houses both the laundry area and the trash bins, so space is a bit tight. Let’s jump right in […]
Patio Upgrade: Part 2
Ten days ago I wrote about my plans and progress in giving my backyard patio a facelift, Patio Upgrade Part 1, so today I wanted to show where we are at. Since last time I have been swamped in work (Mini Split Installation) and have scarcely even thought about the patio, much less done any work […]
Biting off more than I can chew, again
In a previous article I lauded the habit of tackling large, novel problems head on, so after my recent foray in HVAC, it seemed appropriate to demonize the same trait to ensure a well-rounded perspective. To begin this story, let’s start at the beginning. The Story Ever since I realized that my AC unit wasn’t […]
Designing a Pergola
Florida has a ton to offer, and so far Tallahassee has been treating me pretty well. The only complaint I have–and it certainly won’t surprise you–is about the bugs. Mosquitoes and flies are plentiful down here and make it a tad tricky to make full use of the great weather down here. One of the best […]
Patio Upgrade: Part 1
Update: The second part of this article can now be found at Patio Upgrade: Part 2. While thinking about the backyard today I realized that there’s been a project that I’ve wanted to do for a while yet it always seems to slip my mind when I have time for it. Before we get to […]
Golfing
Today was the first biannual Tsunami Invitational Golf Tournament which is to say that a group of oceanographers and meteorologists got together for a round of golf. The game was best ball and there were ten people including me. Everyone there was considerably older than I which actually worked out quite well since I really haven’t […]
Saturday Gardening
Since the forecast looks like they’ll be plenty of rain in the near future, I figured that this morning would be a perfect time to fill in some bare spots in my garden out back. Continuing off of my plan from a couple months ago, I had hoped to find some low-maintenance, ornamental plants to […]
Climate Change
When I moved to Florida from Boston, I knew there were be a few cultural differences that I would have to work around. That goes without saying, and one of these differences surrounds the whole issue of climate change and anthropogenic carbon emissions. While I like to think that most people are pretty open minded […]
Measuring a dye patch from a drone
While my interests are, admittedly, quite broad, I’ve always been fascinated with signal processing and remote sensing. Just imagine the technological marvel that we can accurately measure the amount of chlorophyll, a grove of marijuana or the amount of snow from a satellite whose travelling 1,000s of miles per hour around our planet. If that’s […]
Cycling down to St Mark’s Lighthouse
Last weekend I decided to try out a new cycling route since I’m not finding the St Mark’s rail trail as novel as I once did. Now don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy the route quite a bit, especially since it makes for a great way to get away from some of the less friendly […]
A quick upgrade for the Jeep
It’s no secret that I’ve been heading down to Apalachicola National Forest every chance I get, and my jeep will attest that the roads down there are quite “rural”. Depending on how the preceding weather has been the roads will either greet us with clouds of dust or deep-rutted mud. There are ditches, rocks and washed […]
Month in Review
Although I look at my calendar every day, this date still managed to sneak up on me. It has been one month now since I moved into my new house and started a new life here in Florida. One whole month. In that time I have started work towards my PhD, found a love of […]
Kayaking the Sopchoppy River
Catalyzed by my successful visit to Lake Talquin yesterday (post), I decided to make a trek up the Sopchoppy river in the Apalachicola National Forest this morning. I had never really ventured into the park before and my only experience with it has been my cycling visits to the St Mark’s Rail Trail[ref]If you are […]
Kayaking in the Winter
Florida, I have to admit, is quite the place to live. Well, I might just be a tad biased considering that this winter is giving most of the country nothing but blizzards and freezing temperatures from coast to coast. Today I headed out from university early[ref]It is a Friday after all…[/ref] to make full use of […]
Weekend Yardwork
Continuing my progress from a couple weeks ago (see here), I decided to turn my attention towards the backyard and start making a more inviting and useful space. The patio area–and most of the backyard–is pretty much a blank slate with lots of possibilities so I’m looking forward to see how it turns out. Giving the […]
Wild in Tallahassee, or the local chain movie theater
Tonight after my first full day since moving to Tallahassee I had some free time, so I decided to reward myself for getting some paperwork sorted out (as well as some other odds & ends taken care of). [ref]Note, how should I rearrange the grammatical arrangement of this sentence to fix the terminating preposition?[/ref] Since […]
Real Estate Research in the Real World
With the explosion of online research tools such as the MLS, buying a house has certainly changed from the days of thumbing through the local paper for new listings. Since I’ll be moving down to Tallahassee in January to start my graduate school (see here), I figure it might prove useful to compile a summary […]
Tallahassee, First Impressions
Tallahassee, the forgotten capital of Florida, is one of those places which everyone has heard of but for which few can claim experience. Last week I was fortunate enough to gain the opportunity to check out the city for myself–and in preparation for moving down there for graduate school starting in January.
Becoming a Floridian, again
Since some of you know of my exotic childhood of being raised in the Florida Keys, I wont dwell on that chapter of my life for too long. I lived for over fours years in the tropics and hurricane-prone chain of islands that extend off into the gulf of Mexico. While I was quite young at […]