After looking around Homedepot and Lowes a few times I wasn’t satisfied with the price, size or color temperature of any of the lighting solutions I saw. Blam, Pow and Zap! DIY to the rescue.
All the batteries in my perhaps ten year old four handset cordless phone system are pretty much giving up the ghost. Out the door from CostCo I get a new Panasonic system with another four handsets for about eighty bucks. The technology has come a long way. These are so much easier to read. Plus the system is Bluetooth compatible allowing me to make and answer calls with my cell phone. Sweet!
Inspired by teardowns by nifty nerds such as EEVBlog and Fran Blanche I do my own tear down of one of the handsets – with a band saw! 
Pretty dull evening particularly for the band saw blade! r r r r r
(edit, added Eclipse pictures)
As a break to reading about XAML data binding in Windows 8 Metro applications I decided to make a solar observing telescope for the upcoming Eclipse around 5:30PM here at my Mom’s home in Los Angeles.
Meet Dottie (Doing Other Technology That Is Extensible) my BoeDuinoBot.Net Robot built on a Parallax Boe-Bot (parts kit) with a netduinoPlus (a netduino is in the mail somewhere…) rather than a basic stamp. Note the Parallax Li-ion Power Pack Mounted under my BoeDuinoBot.Net RCB (Robot Controller Board).
I’ve spent the last week learning about Fritzing to create printed circuit board art work. It’s a cool program with a quick learning curve. You might enjoy this quick video. It’s a great demonstration introduction. (Note: Fritzing is not limited to adduino)