I don’t like to carry around a plethora of hand tools all the time, I instead carry a well-selected multitool and a good quality multi-purpose folding knife… all the time.

My tools of choice are a Gerber F.A.S.T. Draw folding/locking knife and a Gerber Compact Sport 400 multitool. I go nowhere* without the two.

I’ve had coworkers comment that I’m prepared for anything because I’m never without those two tools.

Jeans? Multitool and knife.

Cargo shorts? Multitool and knife.

Kilt? Multitool and knife.

Cycling? Multitool and knife.

Jogging? Well, okay, just the knife in that case.

So, I’m in the datacenter today unracking a bunch of servers for our corporate datacenter relocation. Screws, rails, and locks are no match for my Gerber Compact Sport.

I had to bend a small 16th inch steel locking rod out of the way to retrieve a useable hard drive from an unuseable PowerVault… grabbed the Gerber, did the quick one-hand deploy, used the pliers to get a good grip on the pin and… thought I bounced a rock off my head

No, it wasn’t a rock, but was one of the jaws of my beloved Gerber multitool parting ways, bouncing off my skull, then skittering under a server cabinet.

After standing there for a minute trying to figure out how in the world I was possibly strong enough to cause hardened steel to fracture, and coming to terms with the fact that in nearly 25 years, I’ve never had a Gerber tool fail, I fished around under the rack to retrieve the severed appendage of my faithful friend and figure out how I could get along with my afternoon without her.

I suppose I’ll need to stop by Gander Mountain tonight or tomorrow to select a replacement.

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* Unfortunately, sometimes I do have to go places without certain types of tools. Those places would be anywhere there’s Security Theater: courthouses, police departments, commercial airports, etc. But that’s another post.

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Update: I lasted two days until I broke down and bought a replacement. Same brand and model but now it seems they only have a Wharnfliffe blade instead of a drop-point.

Update 2: Okay, I wasn’t going to share this part, but here’s the rest of the story at the request of the other engineer who was helping move hardware around.

This whole episode started because we couldn’t find the key to unlock the PowerVault (a shelf full of hard drives) to extract the hard drives from the failed Vault. Company policy requires that we separate hard drives from computers so they can be destroyed separately.

But we couldn’t find those keys.  We went through every key in the datacenter to find the one key that fit that lock. Nothing fit.

However, we were planning on just destroying the whole thing anyway, so there wasn’t any reason to be gentle about separating hard drives from enclosure. To aide with separation, we employed a small prybar to break the retaining rod that held the drives in place. The problem was that there was part of the lock that the retaining rod nested on that was still blocking one of the hard drives.

Then the whole episode above involving the 3/16″ by 1/16″ bit of steel, small blunt objects bouncing off my skull, and destruction of my beloved Gerber occurred.

Then — no, really, just wait for it. It gets better.

Then, we removed the PowerVault from the rack and while trying to stack it on the junk pile, we kept getting caught up on something. That “something” was the keys for the security lock; they were securely attached to the back of the enclosure.

We just stood there and laughed.

Why in world we didn’t bother getting a flashlight and looking at the back of the box to find the keys, we’ll never know. But that will be the first place we look for keys next time.

The word of the day is whiffletree.

A whiffletree is an early form of a mechanical Digital to Analog converter. It’s also a mechanism to distribute force evenly through a series of mechanical linkages.

Here’s why it’s awesome:

And here’s a bit more information about it:

Kinda makes me want to go digging through the company store room looking for an old Selectric so we can hack it a bit. OH! We could use it for systems alerting!  A complete waste of time, perhaps, but at least they wouldn’t hit the landfill.

I hear that phrase pretty regularly. I’ll pose a question — the topic isn’t really important here — but after posing the question, somebody will say, “You can’t do it. That’s impossible!”

In the mean time, I’ve already accomplished the impossible and delivered it to the customer. “But it’s not possible. No matter what you do, it won’t work.”

I’m sure everybody can come up with their own examples of first-hand or observed experiences like that.

That’s why I find this video and the concept to be most intellectually stimulating. The concept is Directly Downwind Faster Than The Wind.

The question goes something like this: Is it possible to construct a vehicle that is capable of traveling faster than the wind, but to be powered directly by only the wind?

At first, one would probably think, “Impossible! If the wind is the only power source, then obviously nothing can travel faster than the wind.”

Here’s the video to prove that not only is it possible, but it’s also possible to travel two to three times faster than the wind is blowing:

For that reason, I shall never again say to anyone, “That’s impossible!” without first pondering the concept, doing the research, and examining the facts.

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Update: Here’s a page from MAKE that goes into greater detail about the project as well. As an aside, I think the name Black Pearl would be a more appropriate name for a ship that runs faster than the wind.

From one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies — At World’s End, I think.

Hoist the Colors

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

The king and his men
stole the queen from her bed
and bound her in her Bones.
The seas be ours
and by the powers
where we will well roam.

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

Some men have died
and some are alive
and others sail on the sea
– with the keys to the cage…
and the Devil to pay
we lay to Fiddler’s Green!

The bell has been raised
from it’s watery grave…
Do you hear it’s sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
pay head the squall
and turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never say we die.

Arr! And it shall be me new theme song!

Some years ago, when Burning Man was just a youthful idea, I thought it would be an interesting way to kill a week. Create some interesting art, spend a few days in the desert, meet some interesting people. Neat idea. Kind of a creative, temporary dystopia.

I’ve never been.

The reason I’ve never been is primarily because, from what I’m told, these days, Burning Man consists mostly of middle-aged men flaunting their sunburnt penises.

So, no Burning Man for me.

What, then, is the creative desert-dweller to do?

How about a Wasteland Weekend? Granted, it’s only three days, but it’s three days of Mad Max reenactment in the SoCal desert. Presumably, this one is everything that Mad Max / Road Warrior were on the silver screen… though probably lacking the rape, corpses on grilles, and heads on pikes.

This one, though, is marketed as an adults-only event. No kiddies allowed.

What’s the difference? We know there will probably be some degree of nudity and some amount of naughtiness at this one, which differs from Burning Man, where it’s often promoted as a family-friendly event, that turns out to be a bunch of old pervs pedaling through the playa on rusty old bicycles.

Yeah, Wasteland Weekend sounds much more entertaining. Official site is here.