Homemade magnetic dog flap nirvana

"Sometimes I have to pee in the middle of the night. Sorry."

We've got a very large dog and a correspondingly large doggie-door. The rubbery flap that came with the door, never great, warped and wore out over time so the metal magnetic contacts that held it shut no longer lined up. We found the manufacturer of the door was no longer in business so replacement flaps weren't an option. Worse still, the door size was in between the sizes for other doors, so replacement wouldn't be easy.  Our options seemed to be buying a new kitchen door, putting an even bigger hole in the existing kitchen door, or building a frame inside the existing frame to hold a smaller doggie-door.

After hours of fruitless googling, with banshee winds howling through the kitchen nightly, I racked my brain to figure out how to replace the manufactured flap with a homemade version, and wandered the aisles of the hardware store until finally inspiration struck. With about $20 of materials, a few hours of tinkering and some false starts, I made a magnetically-sealed flap that was far superior to the original: It worked reliably and sealed as tight as a drum! I was really proud of the replacement flap but had blown the chance to document how it was made for the next despondent googler.

A year later, when our new kitten came home and we locked the dog out of the house for a while, she chewed up my lovingly hand-crafted door and we were back at square one. Ungrateful bitch! On the other hand I was happy because I knew just how to replace it and now I had the chance to document how it was done... You want to know, am I right?

The joy of parenting

A fun exchange with my 3.5 year old son last Saturday morning...

"We need some Saran Wrap at the store."
"What's Saran Wrap, Daddy?"
"It's that sticky stuff we put over bowls when we put things in the fridge."
"What's it made of?"
"It's entirely made of Saran Wrap!"
"No!"
"Yes! Do you know what apples are made of?"
"What are apples made of, Daddy?"
"They're entirely made of apples!"
"They are!" *pleased*
"Do you know what cheese is made of?"
"It's made of cheese!"
"No, it's made of milk."
"That's not true, it's cheese, Daddy!"
"I guarantee you, come look..."
*pulls out cheese, makes son sound out M-I-L-K as the number one ingredient*
"See, it's milk!"
*son looking very doubtful*
"Do you know what Soylent Green is made of?"
"What is Soylent Green made of, Daddy?"
"IT'S PEOPLE! Soylent Green is PEOPLLLLLLLE!"
"No it's not! It's not people!" *laughing*

It was a fun morning. I only regret that we ran out of time before I managed to convince him that yelling "SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!" is fun.

The Tale of the Muntz

Someone asked me about this recently and I thought it bore writing down for posterity.

When I was a starving student in my final year at Cal in '95, I got word that my grandparents were moving from their mobile home park into a "retirement community". I was asked if I'd want to take their big-screen television, since they wouldn't have room for it in their new place. Naturally I jumped at the chance... What college student wouldn't love to have a big screen TV?!

Now keep in mind that I didn't spend a lot of time at my grandparents' place, and if I'd ever seen the TV on, it was probably when I was visiting as a young child and any memories I had of it were pretty hazy. My roommate Dave and I practically raced down to San Jose in a rented Ryder truck to pick it up.

It was larger than I'd remembered... Much larger. Think oh-my-god large. My grandfather practically purred over it, crooning about how they just don't make them like this now, that this was one of the first ones, that it was invented by this guy named Muntz who invented all sorts of things, see, here's the 70s-era brochure with a picture of him talking on a rotary phone in a car wearing a pirate hat... "A genius, I tell you! Mad Man Muntz, they called him! Way ahead of his time." He stroked the wood lovingly. "Look at that finish. I think this is mahogany." Dave and I looked at each other doubtfully... It was pretty clear it was painted particle board. This was our first sign that perhaps we weren't getting what we'd thought.

Goddamn, that thing was heavy and unwieldly. It wouldn't fit into the elevator, so we sweated and cursed the thing up the tiny stairwell into our apartment in Berkeley, with particle board shearing off the corners and giant wood staples stabbing us in the palm at every turn. Finally, with great anticipation, we sat down to watch my bootleg of the laserdisc version of The Empire Strikes Back.

The first sign of trouble was the THX logo, which was somehow seated inside a blue oval rather than a blue rectangle. The opening crawl of yellow text was unmistakably warped, with the lines drooping down curvaceously as they entered at the bottom of the screen, then curving upwards by the same amount before they left the top. Worse, the screen was completely washed out, only really visible with every blind in our apartment closed. Even then, we found we practically had to sit on each other's lap to both be able to see it at the same time, because if you sat off angle the screen reflected nothing at you. We ended up sitting bobsled-style, one on the couch and one on the floor. It suddenly occurred to me why my grandparents' recliners were practically a bowling-alley length away from the TV... So they could both see it at the same time!

After about five minutes of wincing, we turned it off, then took it apart to see what was inside. There was a 10-inch tube TV, a Zenith, I think, with a wire from an IR sensor messily soldered to the channel-changing buttons, laying on its back. The screen was practically a fishbowl to begin with. Then on top there was a black hood with a white interior, leading up to two gigantic, thick lenses, about an inch thick each, one concave and one convex. There was no lighting other than that the 10-inch TV itself put out. The screen, which was made of pretty much the same stuff as your typical home Super-8 projector screen, was curved to try to remove some of the distortion introduced by the multiple lenses and the original screen... for all the good it did.

Dave didn't speak about the TV anymore, just charitably avoided the subject and tried to keep from laughing at me about it. We continued to squint in the luxurious glow of my tiny 20-inch decade-old Sears monitor (bought to go with the C-64!) as it cowered in the shadow of the silent, behemoth Muntz for the rest of the year. We didn't even acknowledge the Muntz was there after a while.

Then the end of the year came and it was time to move out, and Dave turned deadly serious. "I am not moving that goddamned thing out of here. You cannot pay me enough to do that again. No way." I believe there was way more profanity in there than I'm quoting.

After I moved everything else I owned out of the apartment, I sat in the empty room contemplating the Muntz. I did not want it. No one else could ever, ever want it. There was no way for me to get it down the stairs by myself. I had no money with which to pay others to do it, much less cart it away to the dump.

There was just no recourse but to destroy the fucking thing.

I grabbed my hammer and a prybar, and started working the Muntz apart. When I ran out of good edges to pry at, I just started hammering and tearing at the particle board. Over the course of an hour or two I smashed and broke it down to manageable chunks, and started carting them to the dumpster. I can't remember if Dave come home during or after; he may have even participated. I just remember sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end covered in the Muntz's viscera: splinters of particle board and sawdust, with just the huge lenses on the floor in front of me like giant corneas removed from the corpse of some enormous beast. The carpet was a minefield of fragments and staples and other sharp jabby things daring anyone to walk in it barefoot. I think Dave's first words were "So we're not getting our cleaning deposit back?" but he was clearly relieved that it was gone at last.

I think I still have the lenses somewhere. I wish I'd kept the brochure.

Update: There's a Wikipedia entry on Mad Man Muntz, and in particular it has a description of this TV. (Looks like it was a Sony inside, not a Zenith.)

We're so tired we don't know who we are

We're so tired we don't know who we are
Originally uploaded by Main Monkey

Say hello to our little friend! Josephine aka "Joey" was born May 4th, 2008 at 6:05pm, 7lbs 2.1 ozs, after 19 hours of labor and 20 minutes of pushing. She surprised us all by showing up 11 days early. She has dark brown hair like Daddy, and curly pinky toes like Mommy. Colin is taking to the big brother role very quickly, excitedly showing visitors to see the new baby as soon as they walk in the door. Penny is snoring in the corner, no longer concerned about protecting the pregnant lady, and Zuul just wants another banana.

Shoulder Rig

Shoulder Rig
Originally uploaded by Main Monkey

If you have a torn labrum in your left shoulder due to repeated dislocations, then have someone go in and fix it, you might end up in this rig the next day. The blue tubes go to a machine which circulates ice water. The eyes go to a machine circulating Vicodin. Sorry for the wholly unnecessary hair in this shot. (And yes, this is the second time I've had this operation.)

Colin and Pumpkin II

Colin and Pumpkin II
Originally uploaded by Main Monkey.

We visited Ardenwood Farm in Fremont to pick out pumpkins for Halloween. They were just the right size for some Colin climbery.

She's the best one

She's the best one
Originally uploaded by Main Monkey.

This picture was taken before I ever went to get the camera... Looking down at her on the back patio, watching as she repotted "my" plant at the end of a very long and leisurely first Father's Day, I saw her as I sometimes do: young, old, every moment we've spent and will spend together overlapping at once, then gently eddying into that brief minute where the happiness and love we share is so clear and deep and present that I'm overcome. I will remember us in this moment forever.