plun – Patrick Lundquist

BirdNET

BirdNET is a project that provides automated detection and identification of bird species from bird sounds. A Shazam for birds. And, when linked with Flickr, I get to see an image of how the species looks whenever a bird is identified. I’ve had a BirdNET station running for a few months now. It was quickContinue reading “BirdNET”

Race Report: 2022 McDowell Mountain Frenzy 50 mile

Last week in Phoenix, AZ, I ran my first 50 mile race with friends and support from our loved ones. The race was the McDowell Mountain Frenzy put on by AravaipaRunning. Part of their desert race series. Coming into race week, I felt undertrained in part due to some hip and knee pain that limitedContinue reading “Race Report: 2022 McDowell Mountain Frenzy 50 mile”

Denali Expedition 2018: a very late retrospective

About 5 years ago my friend Jason raised the idea of training toward the goal of climbing Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. At the time our experience amounted to a few weekend mountaineering trips to Mt Shasta. Going from that to a 3 week long expedition sounded like a huge hurdle to overcome. Nonetheless withoutContinue reading “Denali Expedition 2018: a very late retrospective”

Grill fired pottery

Rescued a thrown out Weber charcoal grill a while back and tried using it to fire some wheel thrown greenware. It is supposed to be similar to pit firing without needing to dig a trench. Progress shots below. I tried some thicker walled pieces (1/2+ inch) and thinner walled ones (~1/4 inch). The clay bodiesContinue reading “Grill fired pottery”

RAP/ROAM/NARM Reciprocal Membership Map

A number of gardens and museums provide “family” level memberships which come with a reciprocal membership benefit that provides access to a set of other garden/museum institutions. RAP, ROAM, and NARM are three such reciprocal membership programs. I was a bit frustrated by the tooling/materials provided for seeing the qualifying institutions. The respective program websitesContinue reading “RAP/ROAM/NARM Reciprocal Membership Map”

Rhubarb and Indigo

I recently purchased a towel with an interesting waffle texture. Unfortunately it only came in white, which I find a bit boring. We had an aging indigo vat sitting outside through some frosty nights and held some doubts whether it survived the weather. I also had a pile of rhubarb leaves leftover from a harvest.Continue reading “Rhubarb and Indigo”

Water Reuse for Fun and Profit

There are a number of ways homeowners can reduce their water usage. Take shorter showers. Take fewer showers. Use water-wise drought tolerant landscaping. Those are ways that may come at some personal inconvenience. But there are other ways that have a small upfront cost but little or no inconveniences. Here I’ll share ways and ideasContinue reading “Water Reuse for Fun and Profit”

Home Wall Build

One of the responses to the pandemic this year was the closure of rock climbing gyms. And for some months, parks were closed as well which closed the door on outdoor climbing. Plus the stay-at-home order meant not travelling far from home. Stuck at home, I was presented with a good opportunity to find replacementContinue reading “Home Wall Build”

Urban Forestry

I started off 2020 with the Our City Forest Tree Amigo volunteer program. Over 5 weeks we learned about urban forestry, nursery best practices, tree planting, tree care and stewardship, and water conservation. The program was fun. I learned about native plants and met like-minded folks, all while planting and pruning trees. Although the yearContinue reading “Urban Forestry”

Reviving an Old Chromebook

I had an old Chromebook (Acer C720) sitting unused beside the cat tree for nearly a year. It hit EOL in mid 2019, meaning it can’t get any more ChromeOS updates including security patches, which was a great excuse to buy a spiffy new one. The old one had slowed down to a crawl anywayContinue reading “Reviving an Old Chromebook”