When practicing in the golf sim I use driveway markers. I think I bought them at Home Depot a long time ago.
They’re always getting bumped by us or our cats. Another issue is one marker lays on top of another so it’s end can be closer to the golf ball. Two problems that could easily be solved by an old piece of oak and a bunch of passes through the table saw.
In the photo above you can barely see the left side groove, which is for the first alignment stick and allows me to use the edge of the hitting strip as a reference line for everything. The two grooves running parallel to it give me an option to place the second stick closer to my feet. I penciled in a line on the top side to extend the perpendicular stick, which I guess is no longer needed. A quick sanding eliminated any sharp edges.
Solving a problem doesn’t always need a complicated solution. Quick and simple can often get the job done.
They learned their lesson by using sugar this time and completely changed the flavor from cherry-lemon to mango pineapple punch. These things gave me hope, especially since I’m a mango pineapple fan; at Tropical Smoothie I get the Mango Magic, which includes both fruits.
I have to say, they did a good job with this one. There’s the sweetness of the fruit flavors with a gummy worm kick on the back end. I give it a 7.5 and might consider buying it again.
I’ve been entering the lottery for Masters tickets since 2010 and each year get an email with a subject similar to “2025 Ticket Application Update” with a message along the lines of “Unfortunately, your entry was not selected this year.” It’s expected. Tickets are extremely hard to get.
On July 21st last year, I saw an email with the subject “Your Ticket Application Was Selected.” I figured it was some kind of joke until I opened it and saw the image below.
I was able to purchase four tickets for Wednesday of the 2026 Masters Tournament, which gave us access to the practice round and the Par 3 Contest. They were $150 per ticket, which is very reasonable for an elite event. I asked my wife, dad, and brother to go and of course they accepted. The tickets arrived about two weeks before tournament week.
We decided to make it a two day drive down from Michigan and got hotel rooms in Columbia, South Carolina, about an hour away from Augusta, Georgia. We hauled our golf clubs with us and played a couple of 9 hole rounds on the way, which I wouldn’t do if making a future trip. It’s just too hard to plan out tee times when you don’t know where you’re going to be depending on traffic and stops along the route. I think I’d also try to stay closer to Augusta.
On the morning of, we left our hotel just after 4:30 a.m. It took about 70 minutes to get to the course and traffic was a non-issue. We pulled off Washington Road, followed the signs around a Publix and came to the parking lot. It was still dark out, so we could see headlights coming in from five or six directions and every line of vehicles kept moving. It was the most organized parking situation I’ve ever seen. The Masters experience had begun. By the way, parking is free!
We grabbed our tickets, tossed our phones in the glove box, and got in line. The gates weren’t opening for over an hour. About ten minutes before the line moved towards the ticket gates I realized I didn’t have my wallet, since it attaches to my phone. I ran to the car, got my wallet, and within minutes of jumping back in line, we started moving. Lucky timing because my family would have had to get out of line to wait for me, or there would have been no way I’d find them again.
I have to mention it was awesome not having a cell phone all day. We were present with each other and the experience. The Masters does allow you to bring in other types of cameras for the practice rounds, so we bought a couple of cheap ones to get some photos. To be honest, after the day, I wish they didn’t even allow that. I was still too focused on getting some photos, most of which turned out poor because we’re so spoiled by the awesome iPhone camera, which makes it extremely hard to take bad photos.
While waiting in line, we got moved up in sections and then right before a small group of patrons was released to the ticket gate one of the workers gave a quick announcement. Getting through the gate was a breeze and we rushed to the North Gate’s merch shop. We got in line but were never stationary for more than a minute; it kept moving and we were inside in about 20 minutes. Since we were early enough, all four of us were able to get the 2026 Masters Gnome.
The merch shop is a bit overwhelming, but as expected it’s extremely well organized and run. There are different counters for sweatshirts, hats, and golf shirts with a bunch of volunteers working at each. Behind the workers are columns of cubbies with the different sizes of items and the choices are all up high on the wall with numbers on each design. You walk up and tell the volunteer the number and size of each item you want.
Throughout the shop are shelves with other items and accessories. Most of the smalls are near the checkout lines. In my two trips through the shop, I spent about $950. My wife picked up a lot of items for other people, so spent even more. After walking out, we immediately got in a line to check our items. This line also kept moving and took about 20 minutes. Here’s Brandi with her first haul as we stood in that line.
Here are my purchases.
With most of our shopping out of the way, we could see the first fairway, but it was time for a restroom. In the “gentlemen’s” line, they had volunteers splitting you up based on 1 or 2. Or as a volunteer later in the day put it, “back 9 or front 9” haha. Even the bathroom lines were organized! There were volunteers in each restroom with a little squeegee, periodically wiping water off the counters back in to the sinks.
One last stop for coffee and a snack, before heading to the course. Under the north merch shop, since it’s a real building and not a temporary tent as you’d see at most professional golf tournaments, is the first snack area we ran in to. There were a bunch of lines with everything being self-serve, even the drinks, which are constantly getting poured and set out for patrons to grab and go. If you don’t know, prices at the Masters are cheaper than any sporting event you’ve attended in decades. Here’s a picture I took later in the day at another snack shop.
I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular from the food, but it was pretty good. Over the course of the day I think I ate the breakfast, pimento cheese, Masters club, and pork bar-b-que sandwiches. I enjoyed the pimento cheese but the BBQ was probably my favorite. Unless of course you count the ice cream sandwich, which would be the winner. Their new candy bar was way too hard to chew, so not good. The chocolate chip cookie and the praline pecan were both excellent. The lemonade was great, coffee was good, the Crow’s Nest is a solid craft beer, and I had a so-so Arnold Palmer. I think we ended up with about twelve Masters cups.
Time to see the course. We got our picture taken right away by the big scoreboard along #1 fairway.
From there, we walked up the hill to #1 tee and walked the first nine in order, from tee to green. If you’re at all familiar with the golf course, you’ve heard “it’s a lot hillier than you can see on TV” and I can confirm it. Every hole is up and down or both. There aren’t many flat spots to even stop and stand. Looking down at the grass, it looked like artificial turf it was so perfect. When you walk around the greens it’s easy to see why the course is so tough. Even the greens have very few flat spots to land an approach shot.
We detoured to watch a couple groups skip balls on 16, but other than that, walked straight through the first nine. None of my course pictures can compete with professional photographers, but here they are. They’re not in order and a few of my brother’s pictures are mixed in.
We headed over to the par 3 course and spent over three hours there. It was relaxing and we even found a spot to sit on the ground for about an hour.
We left the par 3 course before the event was over and walked the second nine. It sucked that no players were out practicing and the grounds crew had started their maintenance. It was odd seeing the place so empty.
An amazing day! I’d love to get back for a tournament day, but it’ll have to wait because I wasn’t selected for 2027 tickets.
This summer had a special 18 pack release at Walmart, which included six cans each of Code Red, White Out, and Voltage. I bought two packs.
These are the same three flavors combined to create DEW-S-A in 2021. I’ve reviewed Voltage before and is a flavor I buy 10-20% of the time when I want a Dew. I was surprised to see I’ve never reviewed Code Red or White Out though.
Code Red
This one has been around since 2001, though I never buy a bottle. The flavor is good, just not my cup of tea, since it is a bit heavy on the cherry flavor. I’d give it a solid 7.5 though.
White Out
I used to buy a bottle of this all the time when it was in stores. It’s a very subtle citrus flavor. It wasn’t quite as good as I remember from the bottles, but would still be in my purchase rotation if they regularly made it. I give it an 8.0.
Last fall, a Facebook ad for Hamilton popped up. It was coming to Detroit and I’d always heard people rave about the show, so I bought us tickets as a Christmas present.
Brandi and I had never been to a musical (or even a play), so we didn’t have any expectations. On Saturday we drove down to the Fischer Theatre in Detroit for the 2pm show. What an incredible building, with staircases you could get lost in. Our tickets were in the first row of the Balcony and we had no problem seeing any of the action.
…the music draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes.
We were absolutely blown away. The singing and rapping was a little hard to understand from our seats at times, but it was so well done. The choreography of all of the actors really caught our attention too. It was cool how the action from scene to scene kept going, with actors always moving around props.
If you get a chance, go see Hamilton. We definitely won’t hesitate to see it again.
I’ll probably remember the time I bought this new flavor of Mountain Dew because it was the first day of our road trip to The Masters.
What a name for a new flavor. Dirty! I had read it’s not a limited release so they plan to sell it for quite some time. “Dirty” is probably what they should call the taste testers, because this is pretty gross and leaves a noticeable aftertaste. I’ll give it a 2/10 and never buy another bottle.
Not long ago the old JamBox sitting in one of my office display case’s caught my eye.
After picking it up I noticed it used an ESP32 development board, so I had to flash it for ESPHome. I downloaded the PixelOperator8 font and uploaded it to my esphome/fonts folder in Home Assistant. Then I figured out the following YAML to get the buttons, potentiometers (knobs), and LED Matrix working.
After installing the YAML and installing the device to Home Assistant, here are the sensors in the device UI.
Screenshot
The device has a ton of inputs with the eight buttons and five knobs and the 8×32 LED Matrix can display text or maybe a simple graph. I haven’t thought of a good use for it though. Do you have any ideas?
ESP32 G -> CAN Board G -> RJ45 Pin 8 -> Capacitor stripe side
ESP32 3.3 -> CAN Board 3.3 -> Capacitor non-stripe side
ESP32 Pin 4 -> CAN Board TX
ESP32 Pin 5 -> CAN Board RX
CAN Board CANH -> RJ45 Pin 5
CAN Board CANL -> RJ45 Pin 4
Start with this YAML for your ESPHome device:
# Add your standard esphome, ota, api, and wifi sections here at the top
logger:
level: DEBUG
esp32:
board: esp32-c3-devkitm-1
framework:
type: esp-idf
canbus:
- platform: esp32_can
id: can
tx_pin: GPIO4
rx_pin: GPIO5
bit_rate: 125KBPS
can_id: 0x05
use_extended_id: false
on_frame:
- can_id: 0x000
can_id_mask: 0x000 # This catches EVERYTHING
then:
- lambda: |-
std::string res = "";
for (int i = 0; i < x.size(); i++) {
char buf[5];
sprintf(buf, "%02X ", x[i]);
res += buf;
}
ESP_LOGD("ALORAIR_FINDER", "Received ID: 0x%03X, Data: %s", can_id, res.c_str());
# ====== Periodic Polling to Request Status ======
interval:
- interval: 10s
then:
- canbus.send:
can_id: 0x123
use_extended_id: false
data: [0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00]
This will test sending and receiving. After you flash the device and have it connected to the dehumidifier, open the ESPHome device log and look for lines like below.
If you see errors after the send or don’t receive messages back, try changing the bit_rate from 125 to 50, install, and recheck the logs.
If you do receive messages back, make note of the value after Received ID, which is 0x123 above. Then open up the ESPHome device’s YAML again and replace everything below type: esp-idf with the following.
If your ID was different than 0x123 (0x3b0 seems common), change the can_id under on_frame. Update mobile_app_YOUR_PHONE for your phone. Install this new code to the device. Go to Settings -> Devices & services -> ESPHome. If your device isn’t already listed, add it, and click through to see the entities. Hopefully you see the Controls and Sensors with data.
Try to toggle the power and change the setpoint. If it’s working, the dehumidifier should respond. Good luck! If all is working, I suggest adjusting your logging level to WARN. There is some stuff in the YAML to alert if the unit sends data that isn’t recognized, because there might be flags or statuses not implemented.
If you install the stack-in-card via HACS, here’s some YAML for your dashboard. Make sure to update the entity names to match what you have.
The first winter in our house was a challenge figuring out where to set the house humidifier connected to our furnace. How do you balance comfortable humidity against the risk of window condensation? I really had no idea and it was common to see water or ice on the inside of our windows during the coldest days.
I had wired our house humidifier through the furnace so I could use the Ecobee thermostat to control it. The Ecobee has a setting called “Front Control,” but it does a poor job balancing for comfort.
Screenshot
Remember this recommended humidity level for later.
Screenshot
Going from 36% to 45% is a large difference. From my testing, the humidity reported by Ecobee is 4-5 percentage points too high, which is also part of the problem and makes the air even drier. I wanted to do better and let Home Assistant handle everything.
Since we don’t use the humidifier all year, the first step was to create a Toggle (or Input Boolean) helper. I’ll manually change this when I enable/disable the humidifier in the Ecobee settings.
I installed the Thermal Comfort integration to calculate the indoor dew point and the OpenWeatherMap integration with their One Call API 3.0 for fetching weather forecasts. I use a trigger template in templates.yaml to store the forecast every hour and whenever Home Assistant starts.
The forecast is important because I don’t want to set the humidity too high and not have enough time for the house to dry out when a cold front moves in. I added another trigger template in templates.yaml, which grabs the low temperature over the next 12 hours, estimates window glass temperature, calculates an ideal indoor humidity, and determines an offset between the trusted and Ecobee humidity values. It does all of this every 15 minutes, when Home Assistant starts, and whenever there is a change to various temperature or humidity values.
With this data calculated and saved, an automation takes care of updating the humidity setpoint on the Ecobee thermostat. Whenever I have the Humidifier Enabled toggle on, it’ll update the setpoint every 30 minutes and whenever the Calculated Ideal Humidity changes.
alias: Set Thermostat Humidity
triggers:
- entity_id: sensor.calculated_ideal_humidity
trigger: state
- minutes: /30
trigger: time_pattern
conditions:
- condition: and
conditions:
- condition: state
entity_id: input_boolean.humidifier_enabled
state:
- "on"
- condition: template
value_template: >-
{{ state_attr('sensor.calculated_ideal_humidity',
'ecobee_compensated_target') is not none }}
alias: Ecobee Compensated Target is not None
actions:
- target:
entity_id: climate.thermostat
data:
humidity: >-
{{ state_attr('sensor.calculated_ideal_humidity',
'ecobee_compensated_target') | int(35) }}
action: climate.set_humidity
mode: restart
I added a card on my dashboard to see the status of everything. This was invaluable when I was testing and tweaking for several weeks.
Remember the Ecobee’s recommended 36%?! If I went by that, the actual humidity in the house at this time would have about 32%, a whole 10 percentage points dryer! Here’s the YAML for the dashboard card.
