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A Whole Lotta Nothing

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Matthew Haughey's personal blog

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Sep 16, 2026
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  1. How to make end-grain cutting boards
    Sep 16, 2026 · original
    Last week I finished up a cutting board, made as a gift for a friend who just got married. I posted photos on social media and a few people asked how I did it. So here's a high-level view of the process on a new board I made this week. Ideally, if you want to build your own cutting boards, the best way to learn is by searching YouTube for cutting board tutorials, and watching a few of them. I describe my process here but I'm skimming over details you'd see better explained in most YouTube tutorials. A finished board I made as a wedding gift First things first: figure out your ideal size The first thing you want to do before making your own cutting board is determine what size you like to use in the kitchen. Personally, most places I've lived had a pile of pretty tiny boards that I could use to chop just one thing at a time, then I'd have to wash them to chop the next ingredient. A few ye
  2. Some recent good YouTubes
    Sep 15, 2026 · original
    These days I spend most of my time on YouTube keeping up on a ton of sports like the Vuelta a Espana bike race, Women's Pro Baseball League, the World Softball Championships, and the FIFA U20 women's soccer matches. Every couple of months I tend to post a handful of interesting stuff I saw in the weird corners of YouTube, so here are my picks for the most interesting things I watched over the past few months. I saw this on Mastodon, where someone called it "Solarpunk" and I loved it. A small Arizona neighborhood was tired of what little rain they got running off into sewers so they went rogue and cut curbs to capture that water and transform a neighborhood into a greener space. There are so many places to eat in Portland that even after living in the area for over 20 years, I've barely scratched the surface of what's available. Every so often, I watch videos where people review nearby fo
  3. The last week in photos
    Sep 8, 2026 · original
    Took a quick trip to LA and back to see the Dodgers play (they lost). I got a window seat on the plane ride down. California looks so wild and natural from high up, until you get to the endless cities. OG eats Went to a very old In-N-Out (not the original but close behind) and the old Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Huntington Library, Galleries, and Gardens I've always wanted to see The Huntington in Pasadena, but despite living in California until I was 30, I never visited. I had a few hours to kill before the game, so I finally got to see it for myself. It's basically a rich railroad guy's enormous house and grounds, with all the art and gardens he amassed throughout his life, but they keep building more galleries and greenhouses and it's really looking spectacular these days on all fronts. It was a hot day in Pasadena, but The Huntington has so many trees
  4. Big Walk game review
    Aug 27, 2026 · original
    Nearly a month ago, Big Walk debuted and I wrote a quick post after having only played a beta version of it for an hour with a small group. Since then, I've played the game in a variety of groups, from just two to five people in total, and yesterday I made it to the end, and wanted to post a few thoughts. I'll try not to post any spoilers and only mention aspects of the game anyone would pick up from the first day playing it. Group dynamics The hardest part of the game, by far, is scheduling time to play with other people as it was intended. This is especially hard with other middle-aged folks like me where free time is short, and you have lots of work and family obligations. I imagine if I was a teen, this game would be easy-peasy to play after school with friends. One of the cool aspects is that the challenges inside the game scale to whatever number of people you have. So if you're pl
  5. MADE bike show
    Aug 22, 2026 · original
    For the past five years or so, I've gone to the MADE bike show in Portland every summer, which showcases custom bike builders, people who make related products, and suppliers for frame builders. It runs through Sunday and if you're in the area and love bikes, I would say by all means go and marvel at the sights. Here are some of my favorite things from the show. There were dozens of one-man frame building shops with interesting designs. I loved the creative use of small tubing on this frame and fork. Pretty sure this is a 32" wheeled bike too No. 22 is one of my favorite new builders because they really nail the custom finishes and make a whole bike with matching fenders look well thought out. These are high end, builds that likely cost about 10 grand but they look really incredible with the integrated paint jobs. No. 22 bikes in their booth (the featured top image is also a No. 22 bike)
  6. The car industry A/B tested selling a car with and without CarPlay and the results are not shocking
    Aug 20, 2026 · original
    A couple years ago, GM made waves by saying that soon, all their new cars would be completely free of Apple's CarPlay and Android Auto support, instead opting for the " Android Automotive OS " in their cars. Admittedly, I'm a huge fan of CarPlay for basic safety reasons and how it lets you hear or send texts without ever having to look at or touch your phone, so I was not happy to hear this news. I remember when this was first announced for Chevy EVs and when it was later expanded to all their cars in the future and the resounding response was that car buyers were PISSED. Chevy claimed they were doing this for privacy reasons, that none of your driving or phone data would go to Apple any longer, but instead it would all go to Google (who would likely share it with General Motors, the owners of Chevy). Chevy seemed to ignore the uproar from their fans and went ahead with it anyway, and as
  7. Everything I learned when buying a used Honda Fit
    Aug 19, 2026 · original
    The first time the Honda Fit made me stop and think "huh, maybe that is a useful car?" was when I read this review at Cool Tools where it sounded like it was as handy as a small truck, got over 30mpg, and was reliable as hell. Then I got to sit in one at an auto show. It's roomy and visibility is great. It's really incredible how much bigger it feels inside for such a small car, plus the "magic seat" in the rear can fold down or completely up, giving you ample space for large things you'd never think could fit in a Fit (I guess that's why they gave it that name?). For years after, whenever anyone I know needed a cheap, reliable, safe car for their newly-licensed driving kids, I'd give the same answer: just buy a used Honda Fit. I know several friends that followed this advice and I've never heard any complaints. The funny thing is that I didn't even know Honda stopped making them until 2
  8. Feeling the burn
    Aug 17, 2026 · original
    When the pandemic hit, the gym I worked out at closed down for almost a year. I was used to working out a couple times a week with a trainer leading me and it wasn't about huge gains or getting ripped, as we mostly did body weight exercises focused on building core strength. I found out quickly that having a strong core meant whenever I did something out of the ordinary, I would rarely feel sore afterwards, which was a new feeling as a middle-aged person. Snow wheeling trip in the Mt. Hood wilderness, January 2023 I go snowboarding about once every 4-5 years. In the old days, I would do it and have fun but feel totally wrecked the next day. But a couple years after doing regular workouts, if I went snowboarding, I'd feel fine the next day. It was pretty amazing and kept me going to the gym for my entire 40's. Early in the COVID shutdown, I bought a Bowflex PR1100 on amazon for $400 to se
  9. Thank you, statute of limitations
    Aug 14, 2026 · original
    When I was a teen, my dad had a knack for talking small businesses he frequented into hiring me as their newest lowest rung helper. To be clear, I didn't want these jobs, so I developed a knack for staying at them for three days. I don’t know why it was three days but it always was. I went through half a dozen jobs over the course of my freshman high school summer, back when my dad yelled at me for being useless because I wasn’t hitting the pavement looking for work the moment I turned 14. The various jobs were odd. Once I made meatball subs at an Italian restaurant until 2am as a 15 year old (technically against child labor laws). I worked briefly at a Jiffy Lube cleaning up the place until my third day when I accidentally walked into a car lift, cut a gash into my head, and then used the main bathroom to wash up all the blood in front of customers. About half of the jobs, I was incompe
  10. A quick trip to LA
    Aug 10, 2026 · original
    Last week I drove down to Ventura and LA to visit with friends and family. Here are some highlights. Adamson House The Adamson House is known as the "Taj Mahal of Tile" because the owners owned a nearby ceramics factory when it was being built and filled it to the brim with incredible tiles. I'd never heard of it, but when my aunt mentioned it, I was down because any time you can tour a house owned by someone that owned a tile company, you will NEVER be disappointed that they didn't use enough varieties of tile. The home was a summer cottage for a wealthy family and it's situated in a perfect spot, just off from Surfrider beach, on 13 acres of waterfront. The grounds were incredible and after a slight snafu, we caught the first docent-lead tour of the home right after it opened up for the day (only $7/person since it's a state park and not a for profit enterprise!). Our guide told the lo
  11. Big Walk is out today
    Aug 4, 2026 · original
    For months, I’ve heard rumblings about a cool new game coming out from the people that did the Untitled Goose Game. Last month, I was lucky enough to get to play it in a beta test version with four friends in the same room, working together on screen. It’s called Big Walk and it’s officially out starting today. It’s a fun premise and had entirely new-to-me game mechanics. You have to get a few friends and agree to all play the game together at a set time, and everyone has to have good headphones and a microphone. You’re dropped into a strange place and together you and your friends have to figure out ways to use any objects you find, along with figuring out the various rules of the space, and the audio aspect of it is key to the whole game’s design. Talking to friends is the only way to figure things out, but the audio is highly directional and degrades quickly if you put any distance be
  12. Unraveling the weirdness of the Portland Film Exchange building
    Jul 30, 2026 · original
    I spent my first 30 years growing up in California, and the state abounded with great architecture, even though California isn't generally that old of a place. There is the Gamble House in Pasadena, the Case Study houses in Palm Springs, and then all the midcentury modern stuff in Bel Air and Hollywood Hills I'd see back when I worked at UCLA. Santa Barbara's mission style is so strong that every building for miles around looks identical to the next in white stucco, arched doors and windows, and red tile roofs. When I lived in San Francisco, I especially loved the Palace of Fine Arts but I also lived a couple blocks from the Painted Ladies . There's even a few Frank Lloyd Wright buildings dotted around the state. As I got older and traveled to different parts of the country, I enjoyed seeing things I'd never seen before but were considered common in other places. Stuff like soapstone cou
  13. A perfect mix of 3D printing and woodworking
    Jul 28, 2026 · original
    A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon this woodworking guy's YouTube channel that is generally pretty silly, but he came up with a clever system to use 3D printing in a woodshop, the likes of which I've never seen before. Building a crosscut sled for your table saw is such a time-honored tradition that I've already built two of them. A crosscut sled lets you do things you'd normally only do on a miter saw because they're too dangerous or sketchy on a table saw. You also get way more accuracy making these cuts on your table saw versus most miter saws. But the problem with crosscut sleds is they deteriorate over time as you make various angled cuts or repeat cuts or throw in wide dado blades. As your sled's wood base and fences get increasingly cut up, depending on how often you use the sled, you might need to build a new one every few months. So I was intrigued when I saw this guy's setup wh
  14. Controlling your home with tiny, cheap touchscreens
    Jul 28, 2026 · original
    A few weeks ago, I read my friend Michael Pusateri's post on this tiny touchscreen you can buy at Aliexpress , and how he programmed it to become buttons for his Home Assistant setup, letting anyone who walks into his kitchen control the lights with a simple tap. I was immediately intrigued and ordered one because I knew it would solve a problem in my house. My home office is where I work and because I'm also lazy, I long ago installed a motion sensing wall switch that powers overhead lights. I love that the room comes to life whenever I walk in, saving me a couple seconds of tapping a wall switch. But it also means whenever anyone (including our cats) walks into the room, all four overhead lights flick on. Not ideal at 2am. Usually this isn't much of a problem but I don't love having four bright white LED overhead lights on late at night if I'm working there, and since the lights have P
  15. 48 hours in Denver
    Jul 23, 2026 · original
    Last week, we took a quick trip to Denver to catch the Portland Thorns playing the Denver Summit at their second new stadium of the year (in May I visited their first stadium). We caught up with old friends, dined well, checked out Meow Wolf Denver, and caught the game before flying home. This is a Japan-market Mitsubishi EVO wagon we never got in the states, looking amazing on the street. I googled "hip neighborhood in Denver hotels" and was directed to the RiNo (River North) area of town and it certainly looked like a cool arts district that had priced out all the artists that likely made it a cool hip neighborhood, but a quick googling revealed the history of the neighborhood is actually much darker. RiNo was known as the Harlem of the West, with jazz clubs, studios, and a large population of black artists but they were pushed out 30-40 years ago so that it could be what it was today,

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