Author Archives: Jim Vanderveen

About Jim Vanderveen

I'm a bit of a Renaissance man, with far too many hobbies for my free time! But more important than any hobby is my family. My proudest accomplishment has been raising some great kids! And somehow convincing my wife to put up with me since 1988. ;)

Green commuting

Posted on 2014-01-07 by Jim Vanderveen

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to make at least half of my commutes “green”, i.e. bicycling or mass transit. I live in Sacramento and work in Davis, about 40 km (25 miles) away. Amtrak offers an excellent heavy … Continue reading →

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Garden expansion

Posted on 2014-01-07 by Jim Vanderveen

The Accidental Farmer has an eye-opening post on how much to plant for one year’s worth of vegetables. The numbers are daunting, but I think they’re accurate. We already grow most of our own tomatoes and peppers, and our numbers … Continue reading →

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Day 4 of 30

Posted on 2014-01-06 by Jim Vanderveen

Challenge #4 was pretty straightforward: Follow five new topics in the Reader, and begin finding blogs (and bloggers) you love. So I tried a few of my hobbies and found that these 5 gave some interesting results: Boardgaming Electronics Gardening … Continue reading →

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Challenge #3

Posted on 2014-01-05 by Jim Vanderveen

Challenge #3 of 30 Days to a Better Blog: write the post that was on your mind when you decided to start a blog. Frankly, I don’t remember exactly what I had in mind when I started this. I went … Continue reading →

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Day #2 of “30 Days to a Better Blog”

Posted on 2014-01-04 by Jim Vanderveen

The assignment for day #2 of 30 Days to a Better Blog was to edit your title and tagline, and flesh them out more in a widget. I actually found this much more difficult than yesterday’s assignment. When I first … Continue reading →

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Space Station visibility gadget

Posted on 2014-01-04 by Jim Vanderveen

Back in October I was thinking about how I might build a Space Station visibility indicator. Yesterday I ran across a similar idea at ISS Above, and it got me thinking some more about how I would implement my own … Continue reading →

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Day #1 of 30-day blogging challenge

Posted on 2014-01-03 by Jim Vanderveen

Ever since I began using FaceBook, I’ve kind of let my blog rot. It’s just too damned easy to post on FaceBook, because I hold my blog posts to a higher standard. And due to inertia and habit, I end … Continue reading →

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Homemade chorizo

Posted on 2013-08-11 by Jim Vanderveen

First time I’ve made this recipe: http://honestcooking.com/authentic-homemade-mexican-chorizo/ We couldn’t find ancho chile powder at our local Mexican market, so we substituted paprika+red chile powder+cayenne as suggested. I made a 2.5 kg batch (5x the recipe) because that was how much … Continue reading →

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BoardGameGeek widget

Posted on 2011-12-28 by Jim Vanderveen

I finally visited the BoardGameGeek site after a prolonged absence and got to fiddling with the widget generator. Here’s what I came up with: Thumbnails of the 5 games I’ve most recently played (and remembered to log on BGG!) I … Continue reading →

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Brian’s gingerbread cookie recipe

Posted on 2011-12-22 by Jim Vanderveen

Brian brought some gingerbread cookies in to the office last week, and they were amazingly tasty! I asked him for the recipe (and permission to publish it here), which he graciously granted. Following typical cookie recipe procedure, here are the … Continue reading →

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