MikeSpike.org » Hobbies

Fun Friday

Michael — Sun, 02 May 2010 04:10:11 +0000

So what better to do in this eco-lifestyle than to have a Friday night plant project. Last week I had purchased 3 tomato plants from the Duke Gardens Bi-annual plant sale in hopes to have luck at actually growing something with the least dent in my wallet. Anything you start always has upstart costs but reaps the benefit of reusing items in the future. My first thought going into this was to get the hardware needed from a pre-used source but I actually got these items pretty cheap. During the hardware scavenger hunt we where looking for some cheap plastic pots, I ended up getting 5 gallon paint buckets from Home Depot for $2.30 a pop, half as much as the cheapest plastic pot. GO JEN!! The whole project minus the purchase of the plants was slightly less then $30 which I thought was great.

Now with my new responsibility I’ll have to remember to feed them every morning. Not sure about playing music for them but I guess they get enough noise from the birds outside. Oh, and my back porch is perfect for the amount of sunlight that these green creatures need. The only other thing now is, I hope the little seeds planted in the three herb pots grow!

Spring is in the air.

Michael — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:36:22 +0000

As strange as it sounds, this past week had temperatures up into the upper 60’s for the whole week!! I definitely took advantage of the weather by getting out and mountain biking. Before I headed out though I did some good ole cleaning for the start of the new season. I tore down the rear section of my bike and cleaned all the gears in the cassette. Getting the cassette off in the first place was the hard part but with a lending hand, a pair of bird gloves, a chain off an old Raleigh and some muscle it would eventually give way.

Simple Green also helped with getting the dirt out of all the crevices. I never knew how much fun it was to take apart bikes but I love to work on cars too.

Hopefully there will be more warm days in the future than cold…

What’s happening to the moon?!?!

Michael — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:49:34 +0000

At 7:40pm yesterday I received a call from my friend while I was chowing down on some good ole Elizabeth’s Pizza and watching a good movie. My friend announced that the lunar eclipse was happening. Being that this doesn’t happen very often I threw down my greasy piece of pizza and ran toward the door. (I get too excited sometimes about things) Running outside I looked eastward and indeed the moon had a shadow almost a pacmac look. I had to get a picture of this so I scrambled for my car to get the tripod out which I have readily available at all times….well not really. As I was getting the tripod set up I saw this flash coming from behind me which lit up the whole area. I first thought…there aren’t any storms around here….it couldn’t be lightning. What was it…oh well keep working. Flash!! It happened again…it was a neighbor trying to take a picture of the moon from inside their condo standing in-front of a window. Using flash!!!! ahhhhhhh I say no more.Needless to say I got some descent shoots of the moon while using a 200mm lense WITHOUT flash. =)

Actual Picture

Top Gear…in Alabama??

Michael — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:58:27 +0000

So in my opinion, Top Gear I think is one of the best reviewer of exotic cars out there. For those who don’t know who Top Gear is or even what they do. Top Gear is two things, first its a television series aired on the BBC hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Secondly they publish an amazing magazine that will cost you about $8 by the time it hits the US newsstands. From the shows to the magazine, these guys have a way of describing exquisitely each ride that they partake in. You really get a sense of how it feels to be in what seems to be an untouchable hand-crafted piece of machinery.These guys have it all, or do they?I’m not sure who gave them the wild idea of heading to the US so that they could taunt the southerners…but they did. Their mission was to head to the Dixie Land in search of true rednecks. They actually did a good job of blending in by dressing the same even driving southern cars…a beatup white pickup truck, a blue Cadillac and an old Camaro. But what you don’t know is what they had written across the vehicles. You’ll just have to see to find out. …I don’t think they will be welcomed back.

MikeSpike v2.0

Michael — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:57:33 +0000

So yes I finally managed to get my site up and running. I’ve been working on projects and other websites but I knew those would spawn new ideas that I could apply to my own site. This time I went with a different system for my site called Wordpress rather than the clumsy and slow CMS system called Joomla. Yuck! The old system had a pretty big support community and plugins available but I wasn’t happy with the whole package. Nor did I like the company I was hosted by. See, when you have servers in a brownout prone area like L.A., the thought of having a generator makes you feel all safe doesn’t it? Well when the generators catch fire what else are you going to do?? Have a backup backup generator??What I plan to have on my website will be a little bit of everything hence the subtitle “un poco de todos.” I still have lots to do with this site but so far I have made my gallery fully functional. My newest hobby right now is photography and while I am still trying to figure who’s better Canon or Nikon, you can check out some of my pictures in the foto section. Hope you enjoy!