Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Compost – Part 2

    Here is a video tour of my compost bin (I promised a video). The bin is over a year old now, and hasn’t shown any sign of material or design flaws. It may have dry wood termites in it, but there is enough redwood that it might take a decade before they do any harm…

  • The 1954 3-speed rolls again…

    I finally got the bike restoration project moving forward. It’s nothing special right now, but I went out for a test ride to make sure the brakes were working this morning. It felt good having this thing actually roll around after the time I’ve put into it so far. Having it come back to life…

  • A holiday miracle – Attempt #3

    I was cooking pancakes this morning and my face just showed up in one of them… it’s a holiday miracle!

  • The Road to Electrification

    This holiday my family spent a lot of time on the road traveling. It gave me a lot of time to think, which was nice, since thinking is one of my favorite things to do. Sitting in a car for all those hours inevitably got me contemplating cars, travel, and our problems with them. I…

  • A lost craft work from my childhood

    I found this Thor Hammer Mug in a box of toys I had been keeping from my childhood. It is the first ceramic piece I ever made and had fired. I remember making it at age 12 during a summer art camp. I was in to Thor comics, so between my seventh and eighth grades…

  • Re-post from Aug., 15 2005: Warning labels and Mexico

    I was vacuuming today and noticed that the bottom of the vacuum cleaner had a notice sticker and a warning label. It was a good thing cause I almost lost a toe while vacuuming. The warning label was the only thing that saved it. Well, not really, but it got me thinking about how many…

  • Another object from the back yard.

    This one came from the old shed in the back yard I took down last spring. There were a whole bunch of little bits of things that ended up there from the various occupants and users over the years. This one stood out as something odd to find in an old wooden shed. Let me…

  • The view from the back

    Here’s the view from the bike trailer. My son carries around a little camera and comes up with some interesting views of the world. I think I might turn them into a book.

  • Compost – Part 1

    Compost is a great topic with all sorts of room for discussion and investigation, so I am going to take on the topic in parts. It is also a BIG topic. Understanding compost requires a few layers of biology, a layer of agriculture, a layer of physics, and some thrown in construction, environmentalism, gardening, and…

  • The Urban Orchard

    The urban orchard isn’t one of my ideas of course, but it is one of those secret little treasures that people discover when they have a bit of land, and have an interest growing food. Besides the fact that I inherited the beginning (or maybe the end) of an orchard with our house, I have…

Got any book recommendations?