My book case - Non-IT

Ok, this post documents most of the remaining books on the book shelves.  The content mainly covers Christianity, Home/Repair, Metal working, Gardening, Mat and Science.

Here is a link to my previous post covering my IT related books.

I'm not going to document all the magazines and the remaining books - a combination of family "fun reads", cook books and other miscellany.

Here is my bible (I find the "New American Standard Bible" pretty easy to read) and a few other books we have.  One nice thing about God is that God doesn't need to change - one book tells it all. Oh, we do have other books because I like to understand historical context, etc at times as well.  For better or worse, I don't think I could ever consider myself a bible scholar though.  I find myself having to read a lot more IT technical books to keep up with the changing times.

Here are other Christianity related books on the other side of the bookcase. Most of these are my wife's.

I had a brief plan to do a bit of a career change from general IT into Bioinformatics but decided that the combination of a time consuming primary job along with the need to spend quality time with my family outweighed my desire for change.  On a different note, when studying material like this I find it hard *not to see* God's handiwork. 

For as many barn/shed books as I ended up with (cleaned out my fathers stash when they moved a while back... I couldn't say no), I should have built the workshop I planned.  Maybe after we get moved.. I found most of the deck books either had overly fancy projects or didn't really meet current construction codes - googling for stuff kept me code compliant but you still have to double check things.  The books on electricity and concrete work helped me out with a couple projects.

Here are a bunch of my "hobby" books.  I will say that I am hugely impressed with how much raw data is crammed into the "Machinery's Handbook" - it is purely a reference but helpful too in a sort of "find what you don't know" kind of way.  At some point, I would still love to build a CNC router and maybe work with some milling, cutting, plasma cutting type tools.

 Most of these math books are related to my math minor.  The more "business statistics" related books are my wife's.  On a rare occasion I pull one of these out because I want to remember how to solve some problem or another.  I had hoped my son might read these a little bit (he does like math) but these just don't have the draw of his fun reading or drawing activities.

 The physics are from my undergrad degree and the others are actually text books I got from my dad when they moved.  The old books are dated technology wise but still have some interesting things here and there.  It is kind of interesting to see the difference in writing styles between ~1960's text books and technical writing today.  The old text books are a bit dry in style but I have to wonder if the "easier reading style" nowadays isn't required because everyones attention span is so low. I did laugh at some article indicating that the average adult has around an 8 second attention span while a gold fish has a 9 second attention span.

Here is the last of the stuff I care to document. phew.  I do like gardening and hope I will still again have time to do some once I find an appropriate job and relocate as desired.

I hope you find something enjoyable out of all this.  Thanks for reading!
Scott

Proverbs 18:15
15 The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.

Electrical wiring project for RV & Welder

We recently bought an RV and I was not real happy with running an extension cord from a hard to  reach standard 15a outlet.  At the same time, I have been wanting a 240v outlet for my welder - was hoping it would reduce the tripping of the 15a breaker I was on in the garage (also sharing same outlet for RV).

I bit the bullet and picked up the materials I needed and got working on it.  Sadly it took about 5 hours total but a good chunk was fighting the wiring through the flexible conduit.  I would have bought the rigid plastic conduit if I had known how painful it would be.

Anyways, got my 240v 1 phase outlet with 50a double pole breaker installed (Yeah!).  I ended up using some 6 awg 3 conductor wire and surface mounting it in using the flexible conduit.  I know I didn't need 3 conductor wire but I may reuse it as part of a future detached garage where it may be useful.

The 240v outlet is only needed for my Thermal Arc 211i at the moment. I have hopes for a couple other tools in the future so may need to do more of this again later.

Did a  little welding with using the 240v and it could be my imagination but it does seem to work a little better in general.  Here is the 240v outlet compatible with my Thermal Arc 211i.  I put this near the edge of the garage door since I do most of my welding outside and this gives me the most reach.

I also installed a 120v RV outlet and 30 amp single pole breaker.  I used some 8 awg 3 conductor wire I got from my father recently.   Other than the pushing wire through conduit it was pretty straight forward.

Be aware that 6-8 awg wire is plenty stiff and can be challenging to weave through the breaker box.

The receptacles, box, conduit, wire and breakers were all at Lowes. 

For reference, here is a site with NEMA plug types.

NOTE: I am not an electrician but am somewhat handy and spend money and time making sure I can safely do a project.  If I don't think I can do something safely then I pay someone to do it.  Please be safe - electrical mistakes are not forgiving.