Welcome to Marc's Products++

||| The Commode | The Coffee Ritual | The Olympia Cremina 67 Lever Machine | The Truck

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Almost to a fault, i fix everything and keep it working after most others would replace it. I like to know how things work, and this often leads to disassembling them, understanding their design, and when/where possible leaving them better than i found them. I've often referred to this practice as Quiet Games. This drive was consistent from one of my first jobs as a bicycle mechanic in my early teens, through a career in software design. While in general i don't think of myself as a big consumer, there are a few products i really like, often though not exclusively, tools; many of which help me keep me and my stuff ticking...

  1. Alexa Home Automation related:


    I've found the following items useful and fun in automating my home via seamless integration into the Amazon Alexa ecosystem.

  2. Go Bucket for the Truck


    Some gotta-have-it gear when heading out... i keep them it in a 2.5gal bucket i bring with me in the truck like a portable glovebox:

  3. Other tools you should probably have on hand, or otherwise around the house


    Some items for the garage bench, your wrist, on or under your counter, etc. I'll leave it to you when and where you use them.

  4. Must haves for the nerd bench


    OK... must haves are an overstatement, though this is some fun gear to geek out with, 'cause everyone needs a nerd bench, right?

  5. The Commode


    it deserves its own section.

  6. Coffee-- on feeding the Espresso ritual


    also deserving of a separate section... perhaps soon its own page. There's an area of my kitchen countertop that's beginning to resemble a modest science lab.
    1. On the simpler side of things, a great cup of coffee (albeit not espresso) can be made from a French Press. Or an Italian moka style percolator produces a great shot, as i was rereminded by Benoit Paulis while in Stavelot, Belgium in summer '23 (2 decades after initially meeting him, at a mutual friend's house, in Taiwan) upon returning our year-long exchange student, my '3rd daughter' Lia, to her rightful family. I had first started drinking coffee at breakfast time just shy of 4 decades earlier as an exchange student myself in Florence, Italy from a traditional, aluminum, dodecahedral Italian moka, or macchinetta del caffè. In any event Press or Moka, i prefer the stainless revisions shared, of those classics. It will undoubtedly break less in the case of the former v. the more common glass version. I've replaced many a beaker over the years despite handling with care, to no avail. And in the latter case the 6 & 9 cup versions are my preference for 1 or 2 persons, respectively; neither will not leach aluminum.
    2. Years ago i stumbled upon a Lavazza Espresso Point machine at a senior living center holiday bizaar fundraiser for $25; you can still occasionally locate one on eBay. My find required a minimal amount of maintenance, mostly cleaning... and to this day makes a reasonable espresso, though requires proprietary, limited variety pods. I've tried various options available and more/less settled on these Lavazza Aroma Club 100% Arabica Espresso Point Cartridges. While the steam wand is far from exceptional, it works and you can make some lucious looking, delicious drinks with surprising ease.
    3. If for some reason i'm away, and Kirsten isn't traveling with me and needs a cup sans my fixation on toiling about it... there's the De'Longhi Nespresso Inissia Espresso Machine which is more/less foolproof once you get the initial hang of loading the cartridge. There are tons of coffee options for this machine, many great ones from Nespresso themselves (and there's actually a science here to their patented advantage over other supplier's pods you can geek out on if you wish). And yet, there are also many more than adequate options, like the Lavazza Maestro Ristretto capsules, or even the budget Amazon Branded Solimo Lungo capsules. If you simply want a reliably good shot with almost zero effort, in no time, and no nerding about-- this just might be your go to.
    4. Oh-- and before i get to the pièce de résistance, i suppose i also need to mention the Maxwell House 'Good to the Last Drop' Vintage 35-cup Percolator i picked up for $4 from 'Nona's attic' at the Greek Orthodox Holy Trinity Church fundraiser festival in Maitland, FL late last year just prior to Thanksgiving. It paired splendidly with an over abundance of Pie à la Mode over the '24 holidays in the company of family and friends (and heck, the Maxwell House Big Max can of coffee was more expensive ;-).
    5. The back story on the Lever machine is as follows... at some point in the early fall of '24, subsequent to packing out full Tetris stylie in Seattle, and driving cross country in a 15' U-Haul box truck containing many a sundry from 20yrs prior... one of the finds locked away for two decades, shortly before i was closing up the last panel on the storage lock down in '04 on heading to Hong Kong, unbeknownst to me was a Swiss made 1976 Olympia Cremina67 lever machine which someone had gifted me, noting it needed a rebuild but was right up my alley. I can honestly say at the time i had no idea what it was (other than the obvious in terms of my knowing it was an espresso machine).
      A few weeks after arriving in FL, the machine's shiny exterior reflected some light from a corner piled w/other boxes from the trip and called to me leading me to plug it in on a kitchen counter. I attempted to 'pull a shot' (a term I only later heard, and began to appreciate)... and got nothing but dirty water. It was at that point i recalled the mention of the need to rebuild...
      Because i have this constant nagging hunch that, the internet is going to be big someday, i set out surfing the interwebs to learn all i could. It wasn't long before i started to get a picture of what might lay ahead. Suffice it to say, thanks in part to a not well deliberated yet fortuitous last minute decision to squeeze it on the truck v. dispatch it as part the final Goodwill run... my morning routine has been transformed.

      • With some hindsight, i can now say, when it comes to rebuilding an Olympia Cremina it's hard to imagine proceeding without:
      • After that, the learning that follows, as it is with anything, is about putting in the time-- something i look forward to upon awakening each morning. Some initial additions are inevitable; borderline non-negotiable:
        1. 0th are good quality beans, freshly roasted with love. I've been exploring local roasters, and would encourage you to do the same... and after dozens of bags of beans, I've got to say i love what Gus and his wife Merely have going on at Orlando Coffee Roasters. I've been doing ongoing head to head A / B testing... so each time i visit i leave with a bag of my standing fav, and a new contender. While i've for a long while continually raised the Vienna's Italian Espresso to the winnning position week after week in these A / B comparisons, i most recently tried a bag of Guatemala Antigua that has me wow'ed. I'm reticent to dispose of the former standing champ, but i now feel like i have two outstanding A candidates. Maybe i will have to start leaving with 3 bags each visit! We shall see.
        2. arguably neither incremental, nor optional, despite my initial disbelief and attempts to dismiss all advice to the contrary. In short, after changing out grouphead piston & portafilter seals as part of the rebuilding... a decent burr grinder, with extensive fine adjustment, will dramatically vary the grouphead pressure in practice such that one can, or can't pull a decent shot. My numerous initial attempts to continue using one of several old blade grinders i had was met with nothing but frustration and failure, leading me to double-check the proper grouphead seal orientation (which was emphatically not the issue).
        3. I found these digital thermometers a cheap and easy way to keep a watchful eye on understanding and managing grouphead temperature.
        4. arriving at and maintaining concious consistency of dosing weight via a simple yet competent digital scale is also crucial to pulling a reproducible shot.
          (I tried another moderately fancier model to assist with auto-calculating dose:extraction ratio, and brew time, both which are key to a reproducible production profile; though in this particular case of pulling a shot with a lever machine, the UX flow of this scale i purchased without much forethought is better suited to brewing with a French Press, or 'Pour Over' brewing with the likes of a Hario V60, Melitta, or Kalita, as best as i can tell from reading though i have no personal experience with this method.)
      • Other incremental purchases are of less import, yet nonetheless making the whole ritual of pulling a great shot that much more repeatable, not to mention a guilty pleasure include:
        • a portafilter/puck screen. I will note, even as i add this i am somewhat reticent not to include it in my prior numbered list. While i don't tend to see 'the pros' consistently using one in their videos (perhaps to simplify the process for the sake of the video?), i have found it invaluable, along w/consistent pre-infusion time, @ consistent grouphead temp & dose weight, to consistency of perceived pressure felt on the lever (despite my not 'yet' having proven that, given i've yet to add a piston pressure guage-- ya see where i'm headed here)... which in turns leads to repeatable pull time, and overall profile (pressure/time) consistency, leading to a great & reproducible shot. I've sent some screens to my friend Pat in Seattle. On staying with him and Cam, while packing out prior to our XC drive, he aided and abetted my proclivity toward such a morning ritual obsession by giving me the honors of pulling morning shots on his dedicated bench (albeit i am blocking much of it in this view, you can get the idea that he was far more serious about it at time of this photo than i. And, as Billy Currington says, i'm pretty good at drinkin' beer. But I digress-- and yet the fact remains, he hadn't yet tried using a portafilter screen; though now on writing this, i can also speculate if you hadn't manually felt the pressure differential between portafilter packs, you might not have been stirred to experiment with this).
        • mini spray bottle; prior to grinding, 3 sprays (at .1g/spritz) is a nice way to start avoiding static cling clumping in your grind.
        • dosing funnel; a rounding error on the price of a proper grinder, yet an accurate way of insuring what you ground gets into and stays in the portafilter.
        • post-grind WDT (Weiss Distribution Technique) tool. I made one out of a wine cork and some fine copper wire.
        • distributor.
        • tamping mat.
        • tamper. (You do need one of these, though i'm assuming you didn't obtain the machine to begin with without one that matches its 49mm diameter portafilter, which in itself is somewhat smaller and uncommon relative to the rest of the field. The original accessories that came with the machine included a brown plastic tamper which i have, since upgraded as shared.)
        • knock box.
      • my meager reference library at present (1st 2 books gifted by Pat):
        • how to make THE BEST COFFEE at home, James Hoffman. You just have to watch one of his videos to know he's forgotten more about coffee than i'll ever know, but this is a great summary of many topics all in one neat, easy go to read. After my first pass i've got a dozen post-its marking sections i use as reference (eg. on roast level and corresponding brew temp, water alkalinity v. hardness, comparitive tasting, etc).
        • Coffee Art, Dhan Tamang
        • And 2 websites chock full o'Beans: https://CoffeeGeek.com/, and https://www.Home-Barista.com/.

  7. The Truck


    While the coffee fixation may get there, the truck... well, if it doesn't warrant its own page after the 30+ years i've had the privilege of shepherding her, then i don't know what does.

So that's the story. These are simply some things i find useful and enjoy putting to good use. I've been thinking of hosting a Marc's Products page for years; finally got around to it.
Hope you'll find some corner of it interesting as well.

Note: This page contains affiliates links for hours of quiet games fun. So yeah, as official disclosures go, so you know... "As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases." That was true at one point, but then Amazon booted me faster than a DOS days 3-finger salute CTRL-ALT-DEL reboot, after i didn't sell enough to meet quota. The funny part about my excommunication was they indicated i'd earned $18.05 prior to being kicked out of the program. Further, i was informed i could claim it if i provided them a range of PII for tax filing purposes. Against my better judgement, I went through the motions and provided the requested info. At some point later i received this check for $3.05 along with accounting that indicated they charged me a $15 "Check Processing Fee" against my earnings. I never cashed it and instead kept it for framing as a souvenir of such lunacy and now that it's expired i thought i'd share it with you. Enjoy! :-)