via GregEnslen.com | Greg’s Ramblings: More Life Hacks: More of my favorite life hacks…
Life Hacks
I run across a lot of fun “hacks” to make life a little easier — or a little more fun. I think I’ll start collecting those and passing them along. I find many of these on Lifehacker, Instructables and Buzzfeed, two excellent sources for these types of helpful hints. Try at your own risk!
Here are a few more from Buzzfeed, including some from their list of “22 Things You’re Doing Wrong.” (http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/22-things-youre-doing-wrong)
- BLT Done Right — Like eating BLT sandwiches but hate that there’s only bacon in a few bites? Take three slices of bacon, cut them in half, and lay them out on a baking sheet in a three-by-three grid, interlacing the pieces together. Bake and enjoy bacon in every bite!
- Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs — I hate peeling the shells off of hard-boiled eggs. I don’t know if this life hack actually works or not, but I’ll have to try it — they suggest adding one teaspoon of baking soda to the water when boiling eggs to make the shell come off easily. I’ve also heard you can hard-boil eggs more easily by baking them in the oven (on a cookie sheet, obviously, or that might be one messy oven) — I might have to try that!
- Peeling a Potato – Again, I don’t like peeling things, and this time it’s a potato! I’ve heard of blanching vegetables to stop the cooking process, so this is what I always do with broccoli and such, but Buzzfeed suggests blanching the boiled potatoes but leaving them in the cold water for five minutes to make the skins twist right off. Can that possibly work? I need to try that ASAP!
- Pool “Floaty” Ice Chest — need ice cold beverages in your pool? Try combining a plastic bin with some cut up pool noodles to make a floating ice chest…very clever! http://www.instructables.com/id/The-199-Noodley-Beverage-Boat/
- Pool Noodle Light Sabers – Again, another use for cut up pool noodles: decorate the bottom eight inches with silver and black duct tape, then paint to make the handles for fun light sabers. http://laughingsquid.com/star-wars-lightsaber-pool-noodles/
- Adult Slip and Slide – And last, this one looks a tad dangerous, but it could also be some great fun. Slip and slides were a mainstay of my childhood, so it’s nice to see someone bringing them back again. The folks over at “Geek Dad” came up with a homemade slip and slide made up of plastic sheets and pool noodles — am I sensing a theme with this week’s column? “This project involves building the basic concept of the slip ’n’ slide (SNS) using durable over-the-counter materials. All you need is a $30 roll of heavy plastic, ten $2 pool noodles, a $10 sprinkler hose, and a couple rolls of peel-and-stick Velcro (about $7 a roll). So what is a slip and slide at its core? It’s simply a long expanse of material that gets slippery when wet. It should have some kind of guides or berms on the sides to keep sliders from slipping off while traveling down its length. And it needs a water source.
Next Time
Feel free to drop me an email at ramblings@gregenslen.com or use the “Contact Me” page on my website if you’d like to let me know about what you think about Children’s Hospital or share your lifehacks with me. And hopefully I’ll talk to you soon!
