Holiday Break Nerdy Projects

I recently returned to work after a few weeks of very-needed vacations. We did not travel this year, so we spent them mostly at home. Apart from spending time with my wife and our dog, Max, my favorite part of the holidays is getting more time to do home projects. The folks at App Stories call it Nerding out for the holidays. They have a yearly episode in which they go over the energy projects they plane for the holiday break. On a similar note Devon Dundee wrote a similar post when he went over the project he did during his break, so I decided to write my own!

Movie marathon

With the company of the best movie partner ever, I could catch up on two franchises I wanted to watch for a long time: Die Hard and the MontserVerse.

I started watching Monarch on Apple TV Plus and was instantly hooked! I have never watched any Godzilla movies, so I was lost at first. So, I decided to watch all the most recent verse movies in Universal's chronological order. My favorites were Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla vs. Kong. They are fantastic monster mashup movies with passable stories. King of the Monsters was my least favorite because it took itself too seriously.

I watched an episode of Rick and Morty where they parody Die Hard. I could not believe I had not seen such a classic yet. I wanted to understand why it was considered a Christmas classic, haha. And now I'm in the same boat! It is now one of my favorite action movies overall! I decided to watch the rest of the movies, but they got worse and worse. Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Another Day were surprisingly good. But the last one, Die Hard...... was so bad. Sadly, they ended such a fantastic franchise on a low note.

When my wife was not working on the weekend, we also caught up on many Christmas classics and watched a few cheesy "Hallmark Channel" style Xmas movies.

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Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar

Lego creates yearly Advent calendars for various themes, Star Wars being one of them. Basically, you get to build a mini-set each day. I've been getting the Star Wars one for the past 2 years, and it has been super fun. They come with a mix of minifigures and micro-scale builds. This year's theme was Return Of The Jedi, celebrating the movie's 40th anniversary.

Analogue Pocket

I got the Analog Pocket for Christmas, and I love it! I was hesitant but pulled the trigger when they released the unique edition colors. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the hardware, and the screen looks gorgeous. Apart from playing, I organize my small GBA and GBC game collection on Sequel and Game Track. I also ordered a few games from Etsy and eBay. Etsy specifically has some really good copies of classic games like Metroid and Pokemon if you dont want to spend $100+ on old games.

Upgrading from Yeti Nano to Elgato Wave 3

I love Elgato products! The Stream Deck is one of my favorite desk accessories. For a while, I was using the Yeti Nano for Zoom meetings with an Elgato Arm. Still, I kept getting instances of bad-quality audio. So, I decided to switch to the Elgato Wave 3. To be honest, I cannot tell the difference in quality, but so far, there have not been any issues. I considered going with the Elgato Wave XLR, but I felt it was an overkill for my limited use case.

Upgrading my nightstand

I'm always looking for ways to help me play more and see if I can keep up with my gaming backlog. I keep most of my handhelds on my side so I can easily pick them up and play when I'm winding down at night with my wife. Depending on the mood, I like to use the Nintendo Switch both on a handheld and on a docked. The problem was that I had 2 docks on the nightstand to charge and on the TV. I decided to get a really long HDMI cable and just connect the dock on my nightstand directly to the TV. That way, I only have 1 dock and can play both ways without having to get up from the bed.

I also got a few new accessories. I got a new charging stand that charges both my Apple Watch and my AirPods. Even though I love Standby I still prefer to keep my phone lying down at night. I also got a new Hue Dimmer Switch to control my bedroom lights and a new Elago holder for the TV remote that we kept losing around the room.

On the gaming in bed note, I got a cheap wireless audio transmitter to use the Playstation Portal with my old Airpods Pro at night. It's not a pretty solution, but it's way cheaper than getting the $200 Playstation Pulse headphones, which are constantly sold out, btw.

Homekit blinds for the bedroom

Another upgrade to the bedroom was the new Homekit Blinds by Blindsmart. It is a simple roller tube motor that goes inside the blinds tube. It is battery powered but comes with a They were a pain to install and set up, but the result was worth it! We have daily automation to close the blinds a few minutes after sunset. We don't always wake up at the same time, so we open them via Siri. Of course, the Lutron and Eve blind remotes

I also designed custom labels and printed them on label paper so we can repurpose an old Hue Dimmer Switch into a wall control for our AC and new blinds.

Rooftop maintenance

This last project is not as "fun" as the other ones. We live on the top floor of a 3-story walk-up, so we have access to the rooftop. That also means we are responsible for the maintenance of the same. Last year, I took upon the project of fixing a ton of leveling problems and also cleaning and sealing the whole thing. It took me the whole break week, so It's something I don't look forward to doing again.

This year, I pressure washed the roof, and it was considerably easier than last year because the sealing helped keep the roof clean. However, I noticed that the AC consoles had the water drainage just spitting the water on the roof, and it was damaging the treatment. After some research and countless trips to Home Depot, I created a makeshift drainage system that used pipes to guide the AC water pump directly onto the drain. It might not look pretty, but it works for now.

Looking back

That's it for the projects! After writing this, I feel I was able to accomplish a lot on the break while also spending quality time with my family. I definitely needed a break from all the meetings and the design work.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and break! Let me know if you could get any cool things done during the break. Please share!