Yearly Archives: 2021

New cork on my clarinet

Crisis - a piece of cork on my clarinet broke, and it needs to be repaired. Furthermore, I don't want to bring the clarinet in for repair in a shop in Denmark. First of all, there isn't a shop nearby, so I have to drop the clarinet off one day and pick it up the next, which isn't optimal. Second, I was quite disappointed when I had the cork on my saxophone neck replaced a couple of years ago.

Last fall, I attended the Virtual Saxophone Workshop, which was arranged by Chad LB. One of the sessions was about saxophone repairs and was held by Jay Metcalf, who is a professional musician and repairman. He showed how to change the cork on a saxophone neck. I studied the video and thought that it didn't look that difficult to do. Actually, it would be easier to change the cork on my clarinet than changing the cork on a saxophone neck.

Luckily, I had all the ingredients needed for the repair: A hobby knife, a ruler, a piece of cork, contact cement, and sanding paper. The result can be seen in the picture and I'm very proud of the result - especially because I did it in 1 try.

The ingredients for changing cork on a clarinet
Before the repair
The result after changing the cork on my clarinet
After the repair - well done, right?

Another wire stripper

Earlier this year, I bought a wire stripper that works perfectly. However, I haven't found out how to use it to remove the outer insulation, so I decided to look for a wire stripper for that purpose.

When I received the wire stripper, I couldn't get it to work as expected. I talked to a friend and told him that I couldn't get it to work and that I was sure that I did something wrong. My friend didn't believe me, but heI would have a look at it.

Sometimes I feel very stupid even though I shouldn't, since I'm not born with the knowledge of how everything works. It didn't take my friend 1 minute to show me what I was doing wrong. I expected to be able to remove, for example, 5 cm of outer insulation in one piece. That's not possible because it requires a lot of force to move that much insulation. Instead, you have to remove smaller pieces, and then the wire stripper works like a charm.

My friend also took a look at the first wire stripper I bought, and he also showed me how to remove outer insulation with that - damn. But I'm still happy that I bought the new wire stripper because it is more suitable for removing outer insulation than the old one.

Wire stripper

Wall stickers

Last year I decorated a room that I can use for playing music when the living room gets too hot in the summertime. One thing I don't like in the room is the color of the walls. The color is very light green, and it is difficult to see the green color, so it more or less looks like a dirty white color. It helped a little when I put a blue sofa and a couple of small brown tables in the room.

I'm considering getting someone to paint the walls in a different color. Until I make a final decision on that, I've found some wall stickers.

After a couple of hours of work, I'm proud of the result. It looks much better than I expected, and it entirely changes the impression of the room. At the moment I don't want to change the color of the walls.

Wall decorated with stickers

T-shirts from Amazon

Usually, I buy The Mountain T-shirts. I don't like solid color T-shirts because I think they are boring and have no soul. The Mountain T-shirts typically have animal and nature motives, and it's fairly easy for me to find motives and colors that I like.

At the moment I need some big T-shirts that I can wear when sleeping. I don't want The Mountain T-shirts for that purpose since they are not cheap. Therefore, I started looking for T-shirts at my favorite shopping site - Amazon.

To my surprise, I quickly found some T-shirts that I liked, so I purchased two. Currently, I've tried out one of the T-shirts, and I like the fabric very much, so the purchase was a success. I now have to find a couple of T-shirts more and then I'm set for the next couple of years.

T-shirt
T-shirt

Thingies for shoes

I can't stop being amazed about the number of things out there. There must be a lot of people with a lot of great ideas. I appreciate that very much because it benefits me. Sometimes I look around on Amazon and stumble upon useful things I didn't know existed.

Are you familiar with shoe trays? Those plastic things you put your dirty shoes on? I never really liked them. I think they are too big and difficult to clean unless you take them outside.

On Amazon, I've found some shoe-formed thingies with similar functionality. I have a patio door with a doormat in front, where I have a pair of shoes standing that I use when I go outside to feed the birds. I often drag a lot of empty seed pods in on the doormat with those shoes, which doesn't look good. When I saw these flexible shoe drip mats, I thought that they would do a good job at the patio door. I also hoped that they would be easier to clean. The last thing is still untested, but they do a great job of keeping the empty seed pods away from the doormat.

Flexible shoe drop mat

D-Link support

I'm still very happy with my ASUS WiFi mesh system, but I was also annoyed because I had a brand new router from D-Link in my closet, which didn't work as expected. Therefore I pulled myself together and created a support case at D-Link. My immediate opinion was that I must have overlooked a setting causing my Skype calls to fail. Furthermore, the connect button for the L2TP connection didn't work. To connect the L2TP, I had to reboot the router.

A week after I created the support case, I finally got a reply. They wanted to let me know that they were sorry for the long wait and that they would start looking at my case. A couple of days later they told me that they couldn't reproduce my problem with Skype. They asked if they could have a copy of my configuration, which I send them. The next message from D-Link said that they were able to reproduce the problem with Skype with my configuration file.

The next step was that they got permission to use my configuration for further troubleshooting and use it for creating a new firmware version. A week later, they send me a beta version of a new firmware that I should test. And now everything works.

I must say that I'm very impressed by the support from D-Link. Of course, it took some time to correct the problem, but they did it. And since it appears that no other customer than me has reported the problem I think it is incredible that they spend so much time on my problem. I felt that they took me seriously, and I'm not afraid of recommending D-Link products or buying their products the next time.

Christmas lights outside
I hope that the real birds aren't buried underneath the snow (the artificial birds are the glowing spots in the snow)

New cutlery

I bought my first cutlery set when I was still living at home with my parents. I still have that set and use it, and I'm very happy with it. It is not fancy in any way, but it works, and the knives are still sharp. When my ex and I moved in together, we bought a new and prettier cutlery set. We purchased two cutlery sets so that we had extra when we had visitors. I've never been satisfied with those sets since I don't think knives are very good at cutting anything. After ten years, they are useless.

Finding a new cutlery set is not easy because I'm very picky. Many modern cutlery sets have squared spoons, or the design has a higher priority than functionality, which doesn't suit me. I also don't understand why they are not allowed to be colored.

At some point, I was looking for Christmas decorations and by coincidence, I saw a cutlery set from Villeroy & Boch which was named Play. It is available in different colors and, to me, it looks great. I would prefer to see the set in real life but that is not possible since the stores are all closed here at the moment.

I had already decided that if I got anything extra in salary from my firm in January, I would buy a set for six persons. Luckily, I received a one-time fee because I had made an extra effort last year on the job, so I ordered the red set.

I received the cutlery set a couple of weeks ago and I started using it immediately, and I'm very happy with it. It is light and very well balanced. The set is also very pretty and the red color will do nicely at Christmas time. Now, all I have to do is decide which other colors to buy.

Cutlery set

New Wi-Fi again

I've never been completed satisfied with the purchase of my new D-Link router. Skype still doesn't work, and the connection is not stable. I'm not blaming D-Link because I haven't contacted them, and that is stupid. I had hoped that a new firmware would solve my problems, but that hasn't happened yet.

In one of the many news mails I receive, I found a review of a Netgear mesh system. Of course, it awakens my curiosity, and I start looking into mesh systems in general. Quickly, I find that Netgear systems are expensive if you want new technology. Instead, I find ASUS mesh systems, which cost a third of the Netgear systems, but they still use the newest technologies. Furthermore, I find the ASUS system on sale, and all of a sudden, I find it difficult not to buy a set.

When I want to get new electronic equipment, I always start by investigating which new technologies would benefit my needs. In regards to wireless systems, I want the newest technology - of course within a reasonable price range. I decided that the wireless mesh system should be Wi-Fi 6 system, and it should be a tri-band system with one 2.4 GHz band and two 5 GHz bands. That way, one 5 GHz band can be used as backhaul between the two devices. I also need the system to be able to create an L2TP connection to a different network. I also want to be able to disable Smart Connect. That way, I can create separate networks for 2.4 and 5 GHz, respectively. The reason for that is that I've experienced devices that are unable to maintain a stable connection with Smart Connect enabled. Finally, I want to be able to connect at least two wired devices to the Wi-Fi nodes.

ASUS ZenWiFi AX XT8 matches all my demands and then some. The devices are identical, which some reviewers don't like, but I think it's a great idea. It is possible to have multiple internet links connected, and it's even possible to have a 4G dongle connected and use that as, for example, a secondary connection. If you already have your house wired, you can use the wires as backhaul between the nodes. The system also has a built-in security package, which is free, but I haven't tried it yet.

Until now, I only have positive things to say about this mesh system. Everything works, and my connection is more stable than with the D-Link router. I still need to explore a couple of things like the security package, but from my point of view, the system is approved.

ASUS mesh routers

Artificial flowers

Artificial flowers have invaded my home ever since I bought artificial things for my Christmas decorations. The first small step was when I bought artificial poinsettia last year. I was very happy with my purchase, and when you have bought something from a specific category on Amazon, they send suggestions about related items.

It led to purchasing of several artificial flowers of different kinds. I bought flowers to create a flower bouquet, and I also bought a complete flower bouquet. Several other artificial plants have made their way to my windows sills. The flowers for one of the bouquets were missing some greenery. That made me go through the greenery I bought for my Christmas decorations. I had bought some that, in my opinion, were too light green for Christmas decorations, but they were perfect for the bouquet (see before and after below).

The last flowers I have ordered are heralds of spring. I'm talking about tulips. First, I wanted to buy them as a bouquet, but the two-colored tulips I wanted, was out of stock. Instead, I chose them as a kind of pot flower (see the picture below). I have not regretted any of my purchases, and I might buy more so that I can switch between different flowers.

Flower bouquet without greenery
Bouquet without extra greenery
Flower bouquet with greenery
Bouquet with extra greenery
Tulips
Tulips created as pot flowers

New towels

My towels need replacing, and I have been very satisfied with them. I bought them at Amazon a long time ago, so I, naturally, went there to look for new ones. Of course, they don't make my towels anymore, so I started to look for others. I don't want solid color towels because I think they are too boring. Instead, I looked for multicolor towels.

It turned out that the company where I bought my Christmas towels also make a lot of other towels, so I started to look around. In a relatively short time, I found some towels that I liked. Since I was ordering from the company again, I also bought the Christmas towels that I want for next Christmas. You can see the towels in the pictures below.

I'm very happy with the quality of these towels. They are soft, absorbent, and look stunning.

Christmas hand towels
Hand towels