Model railroading has always played close to new technology. I mean, after all Lionel used an electric motor back when they were still relatively new to make the first electric toy train. I'm continuing in that tradition, but doing it at my own speed, making an electric toy train speed-control that I can control from the palm of my hand. That's right, from my phone!

We all love our pets, but nobody likes cleaning up after them when they "do their business," right? Well, I'm in that same boat. It's the reason I have a "Cat Closet," where my automatic litterbox is located. Trouble is, when he uses it, that thing gets to stinkin' - and pretty quick too! Thus, I've come to a resolution with a new home-automation system. I call it "ScentAssist." Let me explain...

Well. It was here, and now it's gone. The Idaho State Teen Association Convention, or STAC - as we fondly call it, has come and gone. It was a great week of little sleep, much excitement, and lots of smiles; but what's more, is that we had some technology wins and losses to talk about. Thank you, Python!

Over the last two years, I've become more involved as a project sponsor for some University of Idaho Engineering Capstone projects, and I'm very excited about their growth. Progress may be slow, but it's incremental, and we're approaching goals, which is always exciting!

Seems that, these days, there's an endless number of things that need to be automated for an "all-out" home-automation system. But how should we bring all of that stuff together? Well, I think I've got an idea...

It's spring; time for spring cleaning, right? Well, that's even more true if you've got half a dozen servers all floating around, waiting to be used. So I think it's about time that I get some of my new servers mounted in the basement to improve the general usage of my resources!

What better way to learn, then by doing. That, after all, is the ethos of 4-H. The very esence of how 4-H teaches youth effective life-skills every day. This "photo upload app" that I've been working on relies on some of the newest, prettiest, fanciest web framework technologies available to make the common user-interaction experience very smooth so that youth may engage in digital activities easily, without having to learn new hoops to jump through. Still, it's being built for youth, by youth, so wouldn't it be disappointing if there weren't aspects that were clearly touched by youth? Clearly inspired by them? Sharing their energy and creativity?

I've had a handfull of friends and colleagues ask about Tasmota; what it is, what it does, how to use it, etc. So I thought I'd put together a little article to tell you about this AWESOME open-source IoT firmware, why I use it, and how you can get started with it too!

Over the last few months, I've been working with a 4-H member to develop and build a smart, simple, and elegant web-application for 4-H members to upload photos they take while participating in a youth conference. Since I'm working with a 4-H member to develop the website, everything needs to have a focus on education, and I need to spend as little time as possible fussing with the infrastructure side of things, since that's not what we're focusing on. I decided that we should make a system using my self-hosted GitLab and Jenkins instances to automagically deploy changes so that the youth doesn't have to learn how that's done, and fight with the server all the time!

I recently attended the 2022 University of Idaho, Washington State University joint Youth Swine Field day in Asotin, WA. It's been a while since I've been very involved in swine projects in 4-H, but it's been good getting back into the swing of things. Admmittedly, I'm learning new things all the time, myself, but since the ethos of 4-H is "Learn by Doing," I'm always one for good, tangible, hands-on exercises to help engage youth while teaching. I thought it about time that I share a few of my ideas!