Ben's Journal

Times are tough. Toilet paper, eggs and even flour are scare around here. School is canceled and we're effectively sheltering in plac...

I've had the idea a number of times: I bet I can make my morning hot chocolate more nutritionally significant by adding whey protein p...

Last Friday Shira, the little one and I logged a 6 mile walk along the Virginia side of the Potomac. It was a perfect day and signs of Spr...

COVID-19 is turning our world upside down. It seems only appropriate to jot down a few notes to my future self. Self, when you recount thes...

The Canjo is a one stringed instrument that uses a can as a resonator. It has a reputation for being easy to build and easy to play . ...

Last week I got the Android 10 update on my Galaxy S9+. Whoo! Then, a few days later, I went to update a Tasker action that used the Sprea...

I'm walking through Gravelly Point when I notice a plaque affixed to a tree: It reads: This is the Isle. Devoted, Dedicated a...

Looking at the periodic table , you could imagine that each cluster of elements would have some sort of story behind them. And you could i...

Two weekends ago we schlepped out to Gaithersburg for a truly unique experience: indoor skydiving at iFly . Ever since we passed the oddly...

Now that our days are all about eating, sleeping and pooping , I wanted an easy way to track this. Of course the simplest thing to do would...

It was a fleeting thought. And certainly rhetorical. I didn't mean anything by it, I promise. The thought: look at my precious ba...

I've struggled to find the best way to carry sunglasses . More often than not, they end up at the bottom of the main compartment of my ...

Let's say you wanted map a relatively large area (a few miles square) and had no GPS. How could you create a scale sketch of the area u...

What should a runner eat? The Internet, you won't be surprised to learn, has every conceivable answer. From, whatever you want to noth...

Last week I was psyched: the Google Photos API had added the functionality I needed to allow for command line album management. No longer ...

I think it's interesting to see how my gear choices have evolved (or not). So here it is, a bag dump as we head in 2020. Much of this g...

Shira's been a fan of the Garmin Vivoactive 3 watch for years, and with her recent upgrade to the Vivoactive 4, it meant that I coul...