my mini life hacks

my mini life hacks may seem insignificant but they can add up to increase your quality of life.

table of contents:

I. using clear water bottles to organize

II. recycling socks and poking shower heads/toilet sprays

III. recycling water bottles towards calamity preparedness

III. fixing laptop chargers

IV. quick laundry when traveling

V. use large water bottles for trash cans

VI. using small water bottles as customized measuring cups

VII. don't remove cobwebs

VIII. home made gaskets

IX. miscellaneous fb posts

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I. using clear water bottles to organize.

for me cabinets and drawers are stupid. it's better to just have shelves and TRANSPARENT plastic water bottles to organize your stuff. just cut out the snout with a box cutter. you can see everything with just a glance. it's easier to find things and put them back to where they belong. it's also more sanitary because rats and cockroaches have nowhere to hide  (although it's very easy for me to not have rats in the house. i don't understand why it's difficult for some to live in a house with no rats. human beings are suppose to be way smarter than rats. rats don't have avenger powers. they can't pass through walls and window screens. i understand it's difficult to prevent cockroaches because they are small enough to pass under a closed door or through the drain covers. it's also very easy to solve mosquito problems without using cancerous insect sprays. it baffles me when i visit a supposedly smart person's house and i get overwhelmed by mosquitoes). 

example, i train my scholars that all school and office supply items (stapler, ruler, etc ...) go in one container and all electronic items (batteries, flash drives, chargers, etc ...) go in another container.

here's my hardware supply cabinet. of course not all stuffs make sense to organize in water bottles such as screws and nails. 

you can further organize the insides of the water bottle with zip lock bags. the important thing is they are transparent. it's much easier to find things. 

the great thing with water bottles is they come in all sizes. i use smaller water bottles for the sachet packs like left over fast food condiments (ketchup, mayonaise, etc ...) and seasonings especially when the sachet is already opened so the contents don't spill.

II. recycling socks and poking shower heads/toilet sprays

11/6/20 fb post:

more life hacks i wanna share - instead of throwing away busloton socks i put it in the floor wax rug bin (throw away the used ones). i'm probably the only one in the world who considers a safety pin as a bathroom shower essential. i keep one nearby to declog the holes clogged with calcium. also to declog the toilet spray. 

III. recycling water bottles towards calamity preparedness

with climate change, severe droughts and devastating typhoons that could disrupt water supply might soon be the new norm (https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2013/11/super-typhoon-retrospective.html). so instead of throwing away MY plastic bottles, i refill it with filtered tap water and collect it in a large drum. this is much better than those large emergency water supply containers that can easily get contaminated. also note i emphasized "my" because other people's plastic bottle might be contaminated with the ebola virus.

make sure the drum is covered if you store it outdoors because exposing the water filled bottles to the sun can cause algae buildup. you can even be creative and paint the drums and use them as landscaping features.

III. fixing laptop chargers

4/30/21 fb post

the mother of the girlfriend of my babygirl giving me a haircut. then my laptop charger stopped working. i fixed it in just 10 minutes because i know 99% of the time, it's just the base or pungango i have to solder (excuse me for the poor soldering job i don't have flux and i'm too lazy to go to ACDC in colon to buy one). if you have your laptop charger fixed by the technicians in emall, they just check it with a voltemeter and if there is no output, they tell you to buy a new one. but i fixed around 4 other laptop chargers of my scholars and the defect was always worn out connection at the base or PUNGANGO of the output jack. another life hack i wanna share is when you eat sineguelas or lumboy or cherries or lansones, notice some of them taste perfect and some of them are not that good. whenever you bite on a perfect one, set it aside don't eat the whole thing yet. save the best for last because sometimes the snow comes down in june and the sun goes 'round the moon. these mini life hacks can add up to increase your quality of life. for more of my mini life hacks, search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and click "my-mini-life-hacks" in the table of contents.

IV. quick laundry when traveling

i remember a foreigner telling me that in america, doing laundry is easier because they have washing machines and dryers. i told him in the philippines it's more automatic because when our laundry basket becomes full our clothes just appear in our closet the next day already washed and nicely ironed (our maids do it for us. hehehe)i

of course i don't bring maids when i go on long travel vacations. and i'm not bill gates so i don't stay in  expensive hotels for 3 months where they pick up and deliver your laundry to your room. i notice it can take around a total of 45 minutes of my time to get laundry done including travel time and sometimes i need to wait in line if there are many customers. note you have to go twice - first to bring it there and then to pick it up, sometimes days later. i also see travel vlogs in youtube where the vlogger makes such a big deal about laundry services availability especially in those more remote and less commercialized destinations.

first, you have to realize that you are not 7 years old anymore so your clothes are not dirty because you wrestled with other kids in the dirt. the clothes you need to wash often are just your socks and underwear. pants and shorts you can wear for a month. shirts only need washing when it smells of your sweat. and note your shirt don't have dirt or stains stains. therefore there is NO NEED TO SCRUB. 

don't throw away a couple of your 10 liter water bottles. use a kitchen knife to cut out the nozzle to turn it into a bucket. then use it to soak the clothes you need to wash with laundry soap and water for about 3 minutes. then rinse and just hang it in the bathroom to dry. it may take 2 days to dry but some laundry shops take longer than that.

V. use large water bottles for trash cans

VI. using small water bottles as customized measuring cups

when you use a rice cooker to cook rice, the number of cups is usually fixed. to save time and hassle, cut out a water bottle to the desired fixed amount of rice and another water bottle to the fixed amount of water. this way you don't have to scoop many times with the measuring cup and after washing the grains you don't need to struggle lining up the water level with the markings inside the pot which is sometimes hard to see. just cut out the top of the plastic bottle, fill the bottle with the desired fixed amount of rice then mark the level with a pentel pen to know where to cut. for the water, make sure you first clean the rice grains (so that the left over water after rinsing is taken into account) then fill the pot to the desired water level then pour all that water in the plastic bottle and mark the level with pentel pen to know where to cut.

if you have maids or helpers train them to use this technology to make their work more efficient.

VII. don't remove cobwebs

it's time humans value and appreciate cobwebs because they trap mosquitoes. think outside the box, don't be a sheep that always follows the herd. the sight of cobwebs is just psychological but a mosquito bite is physically irritating and even dangerous if the mosquito happens to be a malaria or dengue carrier.

even if my house is mosquito proof, mosquitoes can still go in the house when it happens to be trailing a person going in the house. when i practice putting usually i see a mosquito hovering around me. i made this mosquito trap out of left over screen, pvcs pipe and couplings. i don't use the electric swatter because it's near the kitchen and having a gas stove an electric swatter is a very dangerous combination . i got lazy so i made a circle frame but it's better if you make a square frame. you can fasten the screen to the frame with any wire or string. if you are not a golfer you can just do yoga in front of the TV. then when you see a mosquito around you just drop the trap. you can easily see the trapped mosquito because it will wiggle around trying to escape. then just squish it. what's amazing is after i kill a mosquito there are no more mosquitoes bothering me for the rest of my practice session as if the mosquito i killed was the only mosquito in the house. of course this life hack will be useless if you don't fix the screens around your house.

VIII. homemade gaskets

the gasket of the p trap in the kitchen sink of delos was worn out and i was too lazy to go to the store to buy a new one so i just mcgyvered a gasket using a bike interior. IT WORKS !!! i did the same to replace the cap gasket for the diesel container for my 53 foot amel super maramu because the replacement i ordered in lazada was too small.

IX. miscellaneous fb posts

11/3/19 fb post:

i was jumping the z3 when i noticed the old and deteriorated jumper cable became so hot. we have a lot of spare standard household wire (14 gauge) and i got curious if it can hold more amperes so i created a jumper cable using the spare household wiring. while the battery was charging the wires never became hot. we have infinite supply of these household wiring and infinite supply of wire connectors so i can easily extend the jumper cable if i'm too lazy to move the cars around to get the 2 cars nearer each other. also note the slick container i carved out  of a water bottle. the transparency in government allows you to easily locate stuff after 2 years of forgetting all about it. this is another edition to my water bottle re-use saga.

4/20/21 fb post:

me and my babygirl went to this nice hidden beach in aloguinsan, just an hour and 45 minutes drive on my tesla. we stayed in a nice P800/night aircon room just 2 kilometers from the beach. we bought mango shake. i used the straw to hold my phone while i watched yt videos on the toilet. just like delos, my tesla always has duct tape and essential tools for emergency. i thought i've seen everything but when i watched "deadliest roads nigeria" by free documentary, i was blown away. i was also blown away by "deadliest roads tajikistan". i thought it was one of those lame videos but it really rocked my perspective towards life. for more of my life hacks, search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and click "my-life-hacks" in the table of contents.

4/24/21 fb post:

my helmet strap broke and i have so many urgent errands to accomplish so i just mcgyvered it. just takes a second to tie and untie, thanks to my knot tying prowess from sailing SV delos and my boy scout days. 

5/13/21 fb post:

MOAT is very important !!! i only buy stocks with a moat because competition is the number 1 stock killer. my favorites are the railways (unp, csx) because nobody can just build a railway system overnight. it's also in fashion right now as a recovery stock. credit card visa has also been my bread and butter for the last decade. and of course tech stocks with patent protection such as amd, nvda, xlnx, aapl, amzn, goog. the caveat to my strategy is that once it is establihed that a stock has a moat, it is already very expensive. i'm always too late to the party. but i don't care because my time horizon is 20 years and my moat stocks will surely outperform the market. most of the time it even gets hit with a profit taking correction as soon as i get in making me look like an idiot. but i always get the last laugh because when it goes down i happily buy some more and range trade. a strategy only works if you are the only one doing it and i'm pretty sure nobody will ever follow my strategy because it looks so stupid on the surface. hahaha !!! for more of my stock picking tips, search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and click "stock-picking-for-dummies" in the table of contents. the moat also prevents ants. i also put a small amount of detergent to prevent mosquito larvae or ngoyongoyo (which i used to collect in canals to feed my aquarium fishes). for more of my mini life hacks, search "ian's knowledge bombs" on the web and click "my-mini-life-hacks" in the table of contents. enjoy !!!

9/12/21 fb post:

all my life i had very annoying dry and itchy scalp. then i saw this yt video "shampoo is a lie" by a trustworthy ytuber named johnny harris. i tried his advice. i haven't shampooed my hair in the past 3 months i only wash it with water. holy cow my scalp feels so good it's not dry and itchy anymore and i love caresing my hair. it feels soft and smooth. i also let my girls smell my hair after i wash it with water and they said they can't smell anything. i sold all my proctor and gamble stocks (PG) just in case this knowledge bomb becomes viral. also the last time i combed my hair was i think 15 years ago when i noticed combing or brushing my hair worsens my dry itchy scalp problem. 

4/23/22 fb post:

don't buy a tesla. it easily breaks. while i was playing ungkol ungkol golf a future olympian toddler training for the uneven bar gymnastics used my tesla for training. the wiper switch handle broke while she was executing a double tucked salto then the backview mirror fell right before dismount. luckily the backview mirror was just a slip mechanism and it was easy to put back. but the wiper switch handle broke. i called my friend elon musk to send me a replacement but he said it will take 2 weeks to arrive. i heated the tip of an alambri until it glowed red and it pierced through the hard plastic like hot knife slicing through butter. problem solved !!!

4/5/22 fb post:

second coating the next day. i don't paint the outside of my car because it's the inside that counts. look at me i'm very good looking but i'm miserable because my soul is ugly. if i don't paint the baggage the spare tire might fall through after years of corrosion due to sea water from my rubber boat.

2/22/22 fb post:

the gasket of the p trap in the kitchen sink of delos was worn out and i was too lazy to go to the store to buy a new one so i just mcgyvered a gasket using a bike interior. IT WORKS !!! i did the same to replace the cap gasket for the diesel container for my 53 foot amel super maramu because the replacement i ordered in lazada was too small.

1/3/22 fb post:

one man's trash is another man's treasure. this piece of wood will prevent me from sleep walking out the window and falling down 9 storeys. i don't have to tie my legs to the bed anymore.

12/27/21 fb post:

turning a damage into a water source asset. this also buys me a lot of time to fix the roof. first i reconfigured the sheets to redirect the water to a more centralized location. then i catch the water with a 10ft x 12ft tarpaulin i bought at handyman in elizabeth mall for P357. the water will then converge to a drum. when the drum is full i will swap in an empty drum until all the drums are full. then i will swap in the drum which has a 4" pvc drain pipe which drains the water away from our house.

the next problem i need to solve is i hear people playing with firecrackers to celebrate the new year. this is a problem because the highly flamable dried leaves and branches around other people's houses makes it a recipe for disaster. the solution to this problem is to pray to God it will keep raining until new year's eve so the leaves and branches won't be flamable and houses won't burn down.

12/26/21 fb post:

problem solved !!! i finally had a good night sleep. i had trouble sleeping because i'm on the 9th floor and i was afraid i might sleep walk out the window. so i tied my foot to the table. i am used to sleeping with a rope tied to my foot because when i was a kid me and my friends Titus Tagalog and Eric Villamor would go biking at dawn and we wake each other up by tying a rope to our foot and let the other end of the rope protrude outside the window so whoever wakes up first will wake the others up by pulling the rope.

12/25/21 fb post:

the person i was paying to line up at the gas station told me gas stations are no longer allowed to accept containers that are not certified for diesel. i also learned the gas stations don't sell the special containers and the stores don't sell them. BRILLIANT !!! i'm very impressed at how our government is doing whatever it can to make the lives of typhoon victims easier. so i asked my friend to just fill up the tank of the SUV. i drained the tank and was able to get 55 liters, enough to run my generator for 5 days (12 hrs/day). note that since the 90's car manufacturers put a protective screen to prevent anyone from siphoning the fuel. one of my containers don't have a cap luckily one of the water bottle caps fit perfectly.

12/21/22 fb post

the generator in my condo went down but it was a blessing in disguise because i found out i can sleep comfortably without electric fan or aircon as long as i leave the window and door open for the cool breeze to pass through and i put on a mosquito net. by now i should already have a very painful soar throat, flu and asthma because of no aircon but by the grace of our good Lord above, i discovered a natural prevention (https://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2018/08/i-just-won-a-billion-dollars.html). after witnessing folks all over my town suffering because of no water, and because i can now sleep well and not get asthma even without electricity, i strapped my generator to the back of my tesla convertible, and volunteered my generator and diesel reserves to provide precious water for my fellow human beings. cebu has lots of ground water wells but no electricy to pump it up because the super typhoon permanently damaged the power lines. i'm 100% sure cebu will never have electricity till the end of time. don't worry i could be wrong i'm just a stupid idiot. i wonder if a manual pump can be installed on any deep well to serve as a backup when there is no electricity. candidates for the upcoming elections should campaign to put tabays (manual pump deep well) in strategic locations. but don't tell them you care for them you will come off as plastic and the voters will be turned off. tell the voters "i won't put electric pumps just the manual ones because you people might steal the pump motor". you might think you are insulting the voters but they will actually laugh and love your sense of humour and you will come off as more authentic. i drove my tesla to the house of my babygirl's father who has a tabay to show my facebook friends what on God's earth is a tabay. the day after the typhoon i noticed the lines in the gas stations would extend for miles and i saw facebook posts saying they had to wait in line for 6 hours. i knew my fuel reserves would run out soon so i asked one of the gas station attendants what time they will close. i visited the gas station again right after it closed and i made a deal with one of the attendants so i never have to fall in line. he told me to just text him ahead of time and leave my containers behind the plants and stay away. after he fills up my containers, he will leave it by the pump but he told me to wait 5 minutes before picking it up so it won't look obvious. i don't mind waiting in line for an entire day because there is so much work i need to do on my laptop. i'm developing a lechon sharing app using ruby on rails. i'm writing a golf tutorial. i enjoy watching history videos and reading novels written in russian. but it would be selfish of me if i fall in line for an entire day because my God given mcgyver skills, foresight, and foreskin can help a lot of people during these crucial moments. my arrangement with the gas attendant went well for a while until today when the cellphone signals were down so we had to communicate using hand signals. i learned to communicate using hand signals from the lost command rangers in mactan in 1989. i was in cebu for my semestral break and i used to rubberboat around the remote beaches of punta engano when i met very scary looking army rangers with long hair. i befriended them and one of them even rode on my rubberboat. i noticed they are always far apart from each other and they would just use hand signals to communicate from a far distance. so i asked them to teach me. then we got invited to lunch by the owner of a nearby beach house named angel rodriguez who later became the barangay captain. i think he also ran for mayor in lapu lapu city. then i saw in the newspaper that the lost command rangers were being hunted down by the military so i never went back there again

12/19/21 fb post:

time to refuel the generator. i have 50 liters left reserve and i just found out cebu ran out of diesel this means i will need to strategize for it to last 5 days. no more aircon just electric fan and only run it 5pm to 5am enough time to sleep, freeze the food in the freezer and the neighbors to charge their gadgets. after that if the diesel supply chain has not come on line i will have to stay in my condo in IT park. IT park will never run out of water and diesel for reasons that shall remain confidential.

my rain water tank will probably only last 1 week. i only use it for flushing toilet and washing dishes but the neighbors are getting water from this tank. if only they read my blog article i wrote in 2013 (search "ian's knowledge bombs on the web" and click "super-typhoon-retrospective" in the table of contents.

i have lots of drinking water supplies because in the last 5 years i've been refilling my water bottle with filtered water from the tap and putting it in a large drum. whenever my airbnb guests leave those 10 liter water bottles i ask my staff to refill it with filtered water from the tap instead of throwing it away. click "my-mini-life-hacks" in the table of contents of my blog for more details.

if the stores run out of cooking gas, i have ample supply of charcoal.

but you need very high EQ to stomach my ideas because in 2014 during the funeral wake of my grandfather i made the big mistake of telling people my calamity preparedness ideas and my uncle who is a mayor of one of the municipalities in the philippines was very angry at me. he shouted, "IAN !!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT !!!". hehehe. i'm surprised not everyone has unfriended me in facebook because i never stop posting my stupid ideas. maybe i have lots of friends with high EQ.

i'm starting to realize that leadership is never about solving problems. the role of a leader is like a girlfriend. girlfirends just need to be likable. girlfriends just need to look good and be good. and it's ok if girlfriends squander your money on useless channel bags and prada shoes as long as you enjoy their physical traits.

even if you suffer or your love one dies because of poor management or poor leadership, it's still worth it because we are all gonna die of old age anyway. in 130 years, everyone living today will be dead. 130 years is very short. i'm 50 years old and i feel i was just born yesterday. what's important is the voice projection and charisma of your leader makes you happy. just like millions of people across the world who donate a large part or their hard earned money to televangelists such as quiboloy. it's no different than me spending a lot of money on golf. what's important is we are doing something that makes us happy because life is short even if you have a perfect leader that does all the right things. it's like paying lots of money to watch your favorite rock band. the rock star does not put food on your table or prepare your community for the next calamity but the rock star makes you happy. a gay person suffering poverty will rather marry a jobless good looking guy than marry a rich miss universe.

11/27/21 fb post:

our sink doesn't have a grease trap because it's an old house so every 6 months when the drain starts to slow down i take apart the pipes then have our helper clean the insides. then i kulkugize the outlet on the wall with a half inch hose and flush it with water to make sure all the grease gunk has been removed. then i assemble everything back. easy 10 minute job. then i clean my own plumbing by sleeping with karin syren. i'm brian trautman of delos wannabee !!!

10/22/21 fb post:

i upgraded the dashboard of my tesla for the roadtrip to aloguinsan fiesta tomorrow. glued a nut to the tip of a knob so the entertainment system won't slide off. now i can listen to history channels like oversimplified, history scope and kings and generals. and during stop lights i can glance at the screen. i'm so dumb i i can only learn history by watching videos because i have very poor reading skills. and the video has to be ovesimplified to a level kindergarteners can understand. not only that i have to listen to the audio twice and watch the video once to absorb the information. it's such an amazing feeling when i feel i'm absorbing very interesting information that gives me a better understanding of the world. it's just that i only start absorbing information during the 3rd rerun. it's mind blowing to know k-pop is actually a project of the korean government to promote korean products to the world. and it never stops to amaze me how the greatest people in history can make very stupid decisions. napoleon was the greatest military tactician except he did not know how cold russian winter can be which decimated his entire army and started his downfall. also there was absolutely zero reason to invade russia. then there are the mongols who were unstoppable and were poised to invade the rest of europe but when their emperor died the generals from different armies rushed home to mongolia to fight each other for the throne which lead to their downfall. then there is kublai khan who did not know anything about typhoons, tried to attack japan and got decimated by a typhoon which bankrupted the empire. he also did not know anything about mosquitoes and malaria so his army got destroyed in vietnam by malaria. i always thought that when magellan arrived in mactan that was the first time countries where coming in contact with each other because i thought magellan was the first to cross oceans. then i learned 300 years earlier kublai khan was already invading indonesia which is actually farther from china than the philippines. that means the world was already very much connected because the mongols were invading europe and indonesia. it's also amazing to realize 700 years ago was not really that long ago. it's just 7 full lifetimes. so it's like a person is born and lives a long life then dies. then another person is born and lives a long life and dies. 5 more times and you get 700 years. and to think about it i lived in this world for 50 years and it feels like just a short dream.

(for more of my knowledge bombs, click the "ian's knowledge bombs" banner at the top of this article and choose any article in the table of contents that piques your interest)