As a designer, Pantone’s annual announcement of their Color of the Year is usually just an interesting tidbit of information that, once digested, gets half heartedly tucked away in my brain. I’ve never used it as a basis for a design, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen it influence design trends in general. Until now.

← This is the fancy new ski shell from Flylow I’ve sported this year that, unbeknownst, has shot me into the Pantone trendosphere. While it may not be a perfect match to this year’s color (Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango) it’s close enough that I see folks point and nod, marveling how a simple ski shell can be such a harbinger of the times. Oh Pantone, you know us so well.

Regardless of the color, this shell is far and away the best I’ve worn. It’s comfortable, durable, and dry. Flylow is sneaky good. Solid gear, and ON IT with color trends. Get sum: http://flylowgear.com/

PS: And no, I’m not pushing Flylow because I work with them. Yet.

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It was a short run, but Off the Grid is now kaputz. It was meant to be a place to write about life and adventure – kept separate from the design and web related posts I normally write about here on the Spigot blog. But it’s simply too much to keep up with both, plus our kids blog.

But while we’re bringing down the curtains on OTG, it’s not necessarily good night. I thought for a while of starting a Tumblr site for these posts because I’d like to get to know the software. But all I’d be doing is extending the same issues to a new learning curve. So instead I’ll be be posting them here, on the Spigot blog. Where they were really meant to be in the first place.

To keep up with these posts, let Life (category) be your guide. Or if your RSS savvy, get the Life feed.

Good night, OTG, and good luck.

Our son Tory got to bring his preschool class’ pet Bearded Dragon, Shiny, home for the Christmas break. Surprisingly cute. Eats mealworms and crickets. Our cat Ollie was briefly interested in a protracted staring contest through the aquarium glass, but thankfully he’s moved on. Also thankful he lacks the dexterity to open the lid.

I woke up early this morning to find the moon looking a little funny. A quick search on the Google told me it was a lunar eclipse!

Kari and I have been canyoneering for many years now, and it’s one of the main reasons we decided to move back to Utah. We were lucky to get a few days away recently and headed down to North Wash to help Tom Jones celebrate his birthday.

Allison and Bryan Godlewski (Park City friends) joined us on Friday for a hike down Boss Hog canyon. This was their first time technical canyoneering and proved to be skilled naturals. Boss Hog is a beautiful, tight slot that requires a bit of stemming high up off the ground – typical of what you’d find in the area. The high stemming isn’t hard, per se, but if you make a mistake a fall would be a big bummer to say the least. It was a slightly chilly day (in November, imagine that…) but we warmed up quick with all the scrambling and stemming.

We got in a couple more canyons over the weekend, but we’re still missing a point and shoot camera to take on trips like this. Thanks to Allison for bringing one on this day, it’s been a rare treat for us to get decent canyoneering pics.

We don’t get out on the town as much as we used to, but Grandpa and Grandma are here, so we must take advantage. We headed down to The State Room in Salt Lake with a bunch of friend and danced our butts off to March Fourth Marching Band.

20 plus musicians, acrobats on stilts, pumping and thumping – it was definitely a fun night. Maybe a little too much fun…

So you know when you’re at a club, and there’s one guy up near the stage dancing a little to much? Jumping a bit too high, throwing his body around and making somewhat of a fool of himself? There’s always that guy right?

Well, last night, that guy was me.

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After suffering complete failure (due to climate and critters) with our 4×4 gardens last year (click here for a picture), we wentall out this year with a new system. It’s bigger, raised up a bit more, and most importantly, completely covered.

The cover is made of Solexx, a double walled corrugated plastic material that kicks some greenhouse butt. We put it on a hinge to be able to get in easily, and added windows on each side for venting and watering. It’s not too heavy to open, but it’s enough of a PITA that the windows make watering so much easier. Here’s why Solexx is so awesome:

• Diffused Light. The harsh Utah sun gets naturally diffused in a really soothing way . Plants don’t get burnt and the light gets spread out equally, without shadows.
• Insulation. We’re expecting to get an extra month on both sides of our pathetic 60 day growing season. For you mathophobes that’s doubling our season!
• Protection. Keeps out both the critters, and the dry wind that blows up East Canyon Creek.
• Durability. This will outlast plastic sheeting. At least I expect it to.

This was designed and built by Kari and I. Cost was around $400. Mostly for the Solexx – it’s not exactly cheap, but we’re hoping it will last for years and pay for itself. Heck, with the amount of kale we harvested this year it’s already paying for itself!

After years of nagging, my sister Sarah is allowing me to upgrade their flash-based website (that I built) to modern standards. They’ve got some great new photos and I just wanted to share this one with you. Check them out at:sassafrasgardens.com.

Update: Off the Grid is now Off the Air. All the stuff that was being posted there is now being posted here. No need to update two sites, friends. You can use the Off the Grid tag to grab all past and future OTG posts. Happy Camping!

I’d like to formally introduce Off the Grid, a new blog that I’ll be keeping updated with personal things, life things, and maybe even some family stuff.

The reasons for creating this are two-fold really:

1. Create a place for people and potential clients to get to know us
2. Create a place for us to write about all the awesome things in this world that aren’t design/web related.

Here are some examples of things you’ll find there:

• Natural Spider Killer
• My current favorite paper airplane

I’ve enjoyed writing about the web, design, and the other topics you can find here, but I’ve never truly had a place to write about the things that go on away from the screen. And now I do :)

To find Off the Grid again, look in the footer of this site, or in the ‘Click Tap About Spigot’ drawer under Life.

With a 4-year-old boy in the house we make a lot of paper airplanes. This is one of our favorites.

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All told it’ll be nearly two months without a decent camera. Here’s a picture to hold me over until it comes back:

ESSENTIAL OIL MIXTURE

• 2/3 bottle of Tiger Balm Liniment 
• 3 tsp peppermint essential oil
• 3 tsp rosemary essential oil
• 3 tsp lavender essential oil
• 60 drops red thyme essential oil

WHAT YOU MIX INTO YOUR SPRAYER

• 2 quarts water
• 1/4 cup Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap (peppermint)
• 4 tbsp of the above essential oil mixture.

Mix it all up in your sprayer and apply it inside the house and out. And don’t worry, it won’t stain your walls!

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Here’s the ingredient list:

• 1 Bag ‘Specialty Grains’
• 1 lb Rice Syrup Solids
• 1 lb Muntons Dry Malt
• 3.3 lbs Coopers Light Malt Extract
• 1 oz German Perle Hop Pellets
• White Labs German Ale / Kölsch Yeast

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Thank you tvfool.com, thank you!

Our family has never been much for watching TV – we’ve seemed to get by ok with watching movies on a laptop, and now that Netflix streams directly, well… But I am a fan of the NFL so it was time to get this TV thing figured out.

Note: This post definitely breaks the 300 word rule. Skip down to the TV Fool Goods for the meat of the matter: Where to mount an antenna and which way to point it.

Cable or Satellite would have been the easy way to go, but we still don’t watch enough to warrant the monthly cost – so it was over the air broadcast for us. Luckily the nation went all digital last year so the picture quality and sound should be just as good as cable or satellite (or not, I really don’t know how they all compare – for my level of sophistication anything that isn’t coming in as half static will be acceptable).

Rabbit Ears and Tin Foil!

Ok so I know better than to think that a set of rabbit ears will get me anywhere these days, especially here in Park City. I assumed I’d be required to get an antenna that could pull a signal from Salt Lake, over the Wasatch range. Ha! Ha! Ha hahh aa hahahaha h ahaha! Yeah. Right. So I went and bought a digital antenna that had a range of 50 miles or so, just to cover my bases. Actually here’s the full rig I purchased:

1. Antenna
2. Preamp
3. Mounting pole

The mounting pole figured to be a better option than just tossing it up onto the roof.

When everything arrived the air in the house buzzed with excitement. We were going to have TV! Weeks later, the equipment sat in their original boxes in the garage – I really had no idea how to set it all up. Where should the antenna go? On the roof? In the attic? Did I need to get an 80 ft mast installed? Where do I aim the dang thing?

There seemed to be such a lack of information – www.dtv.gov was of no real use – The FCC Map Page was of similar use. AntennaWeb came the closest to giving me the answer, but it only showed one station, and recommended getting a ‘directional’ antenna.

TV FOOL!

Finally I somehow came across tvfool.com – and the heavens opened and a bright light shown and there was much glorious singing.

The site itself isn’t much to look at, but with the information that’s available you won’t miss the polished edges. Just browse over to the TV Signal Locator page and you’ll have found your glory. The image above is a directional map of all the stations I can pick up from my location. The site will also give you a ton of information on each station – how far it is away, what direction, if the transmission tower is in Line of Sight or not – and a bunch of other signal items that I never quite figured out.

The biggest thing the site told me was that there’s a major broadcast station located on Quarry Mountain, that hill on the east side of Highway 224 between Kimball Jct and Park City proper. I’d always wondered what those towers were up there, and now I know. And now my antenna is pointed in that direction – 147 degrees from my location, exactly. It’s nice to have a compass on hand for such occasions.

Attic Mount

The best bit of info TV Fool gave was the fact that I could mount the antenna in the attic! Glory be! The attic, where access to 120v power was already available. A coax cable could be run through pre-exisiting access to the basement. No hole would have to be drilled in the side of the house and I wouldn’t have to climb up on the roof. None of these things would have been a deal killer, but it’s nice when easier becomes sufficient.

Preamp Necessary

If the antenna was mounted on the roof and had a clear path to the Quarry Mtn towers a preamp might not be necessary. Without it on we get crappy reception however, so it’s a good thing we have it. I keep it on a main floor switch so it isn’t using juice when we’re not watching.

Hope this helps someone. Good luck.

Rest in Peace Shane – you’ll be missed.

If you want it done right, do it yourself

This, for most of my life, has been my motto. The person you pay to do a thing for you, will never, never care as much about that thing as you do, right? Doing things yourself also brings skills you never would have had otherwise. Plumbing a bathroom, changing the clutch in a car and building my own split-board are skills I now possess. 

A DIY mini-story

Our first house was a ‘fixer-upper.’ We gutted the thing, from the ceiling to the floors, even knocked out a wall or two.  For nearly two years we lived in a constant state of remodel. When we got around to hanging the sheetrock back up, it felt like we were finally starting to get somewhere. It took me two weeks to hang it, on a nights and weekends basis. And then came time to apply the ‘mud.’ This is a skill I thought I most certainly would excel at, since it’s more art and finesse than brute force labor. Well not so fast there, partner.  I actually really stink at it. When you watch a pro, it looks so easy and quick. I, on the other hand, found myself going over the same area again and again in failed attempts at getting it smooth. After two weeks trying, I gave up and called in the cavalry. A pro agreed to finish the job for $400 – and he had it done in two days, while I was at work. 

If you want it done right, hire an expert

As I was paying the sheetrock pro, he said to me, “You should have called me sooner, I would have hung the sheetrock too for another $200.”

What?

He did a better job, did it faster – and would have saved me even more time and heartache had I called him sooner. Here’s where you see a lightbulb pop up over my head. I had my first lesson in a motto I’ve come to call:

Let the experts do what the experts do.

I still do quite a bit of DIY stuff – I still haven’t taken my car into a shop – but these days I pick and choose what I can do myself, and what might be better left to an expert. 

Things to consider in DIY vs the Expert

It’s usually pretty easy to decide which way to go when I consider these two things:

1. How steep is the learning curve for the task
2. Is my time better spent doing my real job

If the task is only going to take an afternoon to figure out, or if the ‘error’ portion of trial and error won’t cost too much time and effort, then I’ll tackle the task myself. This is usually the case, as I’m not afraid to fail at something, learn from the mistakes, and get it right the second time. 

If, however, I can hire an expert, pay them say, half of my hourly rate, then it’s time to let the experts do what the experts do, every time. I save myself the trouble, the task is done right and probably in half the time.

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Today is a different story. The sight of all those people on the Washington D.C. Mall was breathtaking.

I’m now hopeful again.