I recently went to Vegas, which is a very long trip (about 20 hours including stopover). I don't like flying that much, my ears hurt and it is very boring to be crammed in a chair for 10 hours, with a headrest that makes your chin touch your chest no matter how you adjust it. However, on this flight (and the one back) …

The big car manufacturers could have done this, but they didn't, because they are sponsored by the big oil companies. And your local governement is swimming in taxmoney that's added to your oil price. And no, they don't want to get rid of the cars, despite of what they say. The nicest thing for governements would be …

Recently my left headlight broke. I thought I'd change it quickly, but after half an hour of fiddling I decided to ask my dealer to do it for me, while I was looking. That was not a bad idea. It turned out to be not so straightforward after all, and you actually need tools (which you don't get when buying the car) to …

... maybe the title should be "Two Stupidities A Week", but since both stupid actions had to do with measurement, or rather the lack thereof, let's stick with the proverb. Stupidity #1 Last Saturday my brother and I went to a motorbike scrapyard for some advice, and maybe a new rotorpuller we could borrow. …

Last week I tried to pull the rotor by using a rotor puller, and a socket (from a socket wrench set) to block it. The socket burried it's way into the first thread of the crankshaft. After realising this, I tried to fit the rotor bolt, and it wouldn't go in. Since only the first thread was damaged, I carefully drilled …

For some strange reason, my brother's Kawasaki KLR Tengai dead-stopped. After starting it again, it made some strange noises. It also had lost a lot of oil somewhere along the way, so we decided to not run it again before we found the cause of the trouble. A few weeks ago we encountered a funny problem, we couldn't …

...or should I say "Fire prevention". Nowadays, more and more fires come from computers left running overnight. Sure it seems harmless, and you have probably gotten away with it for the past 10 years without anything happening. Still, chances are that it will happen someday.Fire is a simple thing. All you …

Today I found the first good use for the milling machine. I had this cast aluminum housing for an electronics project, with ridges on the inside. I made a hole for a connector in it, but I never got the nut on the inside flat to the surface because of the ridges on the inside of the housing. I decided to use the mill …

Yes, that's right. That's a mill you're looking at. And yes, that photo was taken at my workshop. Last week I took a couple of days off from work, and decided to do another workshop upgrade session. After buying some decent wrenching tools, I spent some hours on the web looking for a nice bench drill. I was thinking of …

Today I picked up my old moped at my parents house. Yes, that's right, I'm 33 and I still have my very first moped. It's a real special one. I belonged to my grandfather, who passed it on to my nephew, who passed it on to me when I turned 15. When I got it it needed a lot of work. I spent some months taking it …