Speaking of air conditioning, has anyone seen the new homemade air conditioner? Why pay hundreds of dollars when you can get the same for $80, as long as you live on a cliff. Seriously, though, the home made AC involves wrapping copper tubing around a normal large fan, then circulating ice cold water through the tubing and having the water drain out based on the simple principle of the siphon. You know, the principle you use when you decide to take gas out of a car gas tank and put it into your portable gas can. Hopefully the car gas tank is your own.

http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gmilburn/ac/geoff_ac.html.
A Canadian boy, eh? And he has some links to other homemade units, including one with a closed system. The ingenuity of the low on cash engineering student...

And why not a homemade barbecue while we're at it? The handyperson is bound to enjoy the next little project. To quote,

A bbq cooker made from a Weber Kettle grill and an old 55 gallon barrel

And what can you cook on this beauty?

This cooker can handle all four meat categories for a KCBS contest: chicken, ribs, pork (Boston) butt, and beef brisket. I usually cook two briskets, two butts, four slabs of spare ribs, and four chicken breasts. There's room on each lower rack for two 12 pound turkeys; an 18 pounder will fit on the top rack. It will hold up to 16 slabs of spare ribs, hung vertically.

If you're intrigued by all this (and what technical writer wouldn't be? I mean, there are blueprints, pictures, and task-oriented text!), check out the two URLs here and you will have more than enough information:

http://www.randyq.addr.com/friends/mikey/magnum_force.htm

http://web.dbtech.net/~johnson/cookers/magnum/magnum.html

Homemade cottages? Can I go three for three here? Let's find out.

Hmm. A lot of recipes for homemade cottage cheese. If only I liked that stuff.

Ah, here we go! Build your own cabin, whatever. At www.cabins.ca. Just add the following and mix:

•      foundation
•      labor
•      delivery
•      drywall/sheetrock
•      insulation
•      paint
•      finished flooring (carpet, lino, hardwood, etc.)
•      plumbing
•      electrical
•      HVAC
•      fixtures
•      cabinets
•      land, permits, engineering

Piece of cake, right?