jtslay.com

Moved to Hugo

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This site used to run on MkDocs with the Material theme. It now runs on Hugo with the PaperMod theme.

Memorial Day Paddleboarding

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

LILYGO T-ECHO Antenna Spacer

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I designed this to fill the space between the antenna and the housing. This provides some extra support as well. I chose to print in an accent color which may be helpful if you have multiple devices.

Printables | Onshape

Recycle or Die

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tag soup

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Tag soup” is a humorous and creative way to repurpose a leftover deer tag (the official hunting license tag) when a hunter doesn’t harvest an animal during the season. While it’s not a traditional recipe, the idea is to turn the tag into a fun, edible “soup” or snack—often by incorporating it into a dish where it becomes a playful or symbolic ingredient. Here’s a lighthearted and safe way to do it:

When Cloudflare Fell from the Sky

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The web awoke with a startled frown,
When mighty Cloudflare tumbled down.
Packets panicked, routes astray,
DNS forgot the way.

Sites once strong began to crawl,
E-commerce dreams began to fall.
Devs refreshed with trembling hand,
Staring at logs they can’t quite stand.

Status pages burned so bright,
“Investigating” lit up the night.
Slack was chaos, Twitter screamed,
“Is it me?” each mortal deemed.

But soon the pipes began to clear,
The net resumed its normal cheer.
A thousand tabs refreshed as one —
The outage over, peace begun.

Coffee Mountain Sunset

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Snowy Lake

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pudelpointer In Snow

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Moonlit Campfire

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cloudy Plains

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

November Sunrise

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rocky Trail

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Alpine Lake in Summer

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Snowy Ridge

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Colorado Campfire

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Colorado Fall

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cheap Desiccant Setup

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

After doing some research, I discovered that there is an alternative to silica that’s more effective¹: activated alumina. It’s relatively cheap when bought in bulk and can be regenerated easily in a normal oven. I discovered others had gone down this path before me and that quite a few were using powder shakers as desiccant containers that were all-metal and therefore oven-safe. For around $2.50, you can make a super effective desiccant pack that compares with some retail options that are 8x the cost!² When they become ineffective at maintaining low humidity you can recharge them by tossing them in the oven at 400°F for a couple hours.

Upland Daydream

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

World War 3

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Heads in Sand

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Another end

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Snow Day

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today we got a little more snow and even colder temperatures.

Onshape: Adding threads with ThreadLab

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Coming from Fusion 360, I was a little disappointed to see so many tutorials for threads in Onshape going deep into the details of thread geometry. If you’ve never built threads this way, I’d encourage it at least once because you will learn a lot and appreciate how much complexity there is with threads.

Thankfully you don’t have to learn all of this to make perfect threads! The ThreadLab FeatureScript by Anthony Lu makes this about as simple as possible.

Crockett Turned 3 Today!

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a site reliability engineer and a Pudelpointer dad. Outside of work I like to stay busy—cycling, hunting, fishing, 3D printing, radio, and electronics are where I spend a lot of my free time.