BibleForums Christian Message Board
General Category => In General => Topic started by: ProDeo on February 01, 2024, 05:17:38 AM
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On one of hard disks I rediscovered a game I played ~12 years ago and also became popular by my grandchildren. It's a nice shooting game, good graphics, fun story and I started to play it again.
Story from the website -
Chickens. For centuries we have oppressed them, grilling, roasting, stewing, and stuffing them in buns. We should have known the time would come for us to pay. And it did.
Intergalactic chickens invaded Earth, seeking revenge for the oppression of their earthly brethren. They came out of nowhere, and everywhere. It was only you who managed to repel the invasion, and saved humanity from an eternity of servitude.
Then, things got serious. The intergalactic chickens assaulted the solar system and tried make sure that every planet was inhabited exclusively by chickens. Yet again, it was you who took the world's fate in your ketchup-stained hands and saved the day.
But it isn't over yet. Once more, it's time to don your non-stick egg-repulsing helmet and fight for our ancestral right to omelettes. Only you can make a difference. Will you succeed? Will the future of chicken burgers be secure? Or will you end up as part of the menu in a galactic chicken restaurant?
http://www.interactionstudios.com/ci3/careertable.php
After all these years I am still at place 6 as "opi", the pet name of my grandchildren.
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Ha, that reminds me of the time I resurrected an old computer so I could play Grand Theft Auto on it again. I honestly have no idea whether it would run on my current computer. I used to run it under Windows 98. It was kinda fun driving a tank around the town - it doesn't matter if the traffic ahead stopped when you're driving a tank, and if the police come out with a road block that doesn't matter either.
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In the late 80's through the mid-90's, I was a fan of the King's Quest and Space Quest games. I had the entire series of Roger Wilco adventures, and it was quite a transition from the cheesy graphics of Space Quest 1 and 2 to the more sophisticated versions (by 90's standards). Nostalgic stuff.
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I played the games on my first computer: a Tandy 3000 NL that Radio Shack foisted on me. That baby had a massive 40 Mb hard drive and a 286 processor that screamed along at a blazing 12 MHz. In that pre-Windows era, I learned to get things done using MS-DOS commands. The technology then seems comical by today's standards.
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I played the games on my first computer: a Tandy 3000 NL that Radio Shack foisted on me. That baby had a massive 40 Mb hard drive and a 286 processor that screamed along at a blazing 12 MHz. In that pre-Windows era, I learned to get things done using MS-DOS commands. The technology then seems comical by today's standards.
40MB hard drive? Newfangled nonsense....
It seems comical to compare technology then to now but back then if you wrote software you had to do it properly. You couldn't just assume you could take up as much disk space as you wanted, you couldn't assume there would be enough memory, and you had to contain bloated code or it wouldn't run.
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Waiting for the mechanics to finish with my car.
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On the topic of hard drives I added another dead one to my collection. It was a 250GB parallel ATA drive that was once hosted in a simple NAS. Now most of it is in the trash, the magnets are stuck to an old water pipe and the platters are mixed up with the platters from some other drives. I keep thinking there's some scope to do something cool with a bunch of old hard drive platters but I'm not sure quite what.
Having passed the strong magnets over the platters several times and then mixed them all up I'm confident the data is mangled.
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In a few years, such platters will be little more than relics of the past. I've always been fascinated by computer technology, and am amazed by the pace at which it's advancing. The computational power of CPU's and the capacity of hard drives has proliferated exponentially to bring us to the era of the supercomputer, and the crown jewel known as the Frontier. On the cusp of futuristic quantum, nano, and biological computing, what now seems like science fiction will soon become reality. Combined with AI, what is not even conceivable right now will become achievable. And that potential is at once both exhilarating and unsettling--and I believe, a harbinger of the time of the end.
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In a few years, such platters will be little more than relics of the past. I've always been fascinated by computer technology, and am amazed by the pace at which it's advancing. The computational power of CPU's and the capacity of hard drives has proliferated exponentially to bring us to the era of the supercomputer, and the crown jewel known as the Frontier. On the cusp of futuristic quantum, nano, and biological computing, what now seems like science fiction will soon become reality. Combined with AI, what is not even conceivable right now will become achievable. And that potential is at once both exhilarating and unsettling--and I believe, a harbinger of the time of the end.
Even now it seems like it's getting harder to get a regular magnetic hard drive unless you want an enormous great thing. I remember holding off on an SSD because they topped out at 1TB and even one that size was hugely expensive. A couple of years ago I put a 4TB SSD in my laptop for something like $400.
The way technology is advancing is unsettling. My concern is that so many people seem to sleepwalk into a dystopian nightmare. In 1984 people were forced to have telescreens, in 2024 it seems people can't get enough of the technology that listens to them and watches them, and relays what it sees and hears to some unknown server to be processed by persons unknown and stored in locations unknown.
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In the late 80's through the mid-90's, I was a fan of the King's Quest and Space Quest games. I had the entire series of Roger Wilco adventures, and it was quite a transition from the cheesy graphics of Space Quest 1 and 2 to the more sophisticated versions (by 90's standards). Nostalgic stuff.
Ah, yes, King's Quest and Space Quest, I liked Space Quest better, those were the days.
My first home computer was the TRS-80 from Tandy (1980), just 16Kb memory, with cassette tape to store information. It took 5-10 minutes to load a (chess) program. All of that for 2600 dutch guilders, about $7000 nowadays.
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Ah, yes, King's Quest and Space Quest, I liked Space Quest better, those were the days.
I was partial to Space Quest as well, and ended up getting the entire series. Only thing with SQ was, you had to save your game frequently in case you got killed, so you didn't have to start over. But yeah, I miss those days too. (There are websites available to play most of the original games online for free, but I haven't checked it out).
My first home computer was the TRS-80 from Tandy (1980), just 16Kb memory, with cassette tape to store information. It took 5-10 minutes to load a (chess) program. All of that for 2600 dutch guilders, about $7000 nowadays.
As I said, my first was a Tandy 3000 NL, which I bought on credit at Radio Shack (and probably paid 3 times more than it was actually worth). I was a complete newbie, but learned on my own quickly. I was thrilled when I finally got Windows, and was able to point and click to get things done instead of typing all those DOS commands. Yeah, that was a simpler time I look back on with fond remembrance.
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The early days of Windows made it easy to use point-and-click but you still needed to fiddle with all the DOS startup files to configure stuff. Then came Plug-and-Pray, and things went downhill from there....
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Nothing quite like booting into Win 3.1 from DOS
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It was definitely a long road getting to where we are now. I still remember the sounds of my dial up modem booting up, and connecting to a BBS for the first time. It's laughable compared to the speed and capabilities we have today.
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Will be going to Drama Ministry rehearsal soon. We will be doing an Alice in Wonderland tea. I'm playing The March Hare.
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Will be going to Drama Ministry rehearsal soon. We will be doing an Alice in Wonderland tea. I'm playing The March Hare.
Hope you're checking that watch often, hare, so you won't be late. ;D
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Nothing quite like booting into Win 3.1 from DOS
Windows 3.1? Newfangled nonsense.
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Took a walk in the woods with my wife. One of the less rocky trails, it still had a good chunk of climbing but in the form of rolling hills rather than miles of relentless uphill.
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Nothing quite like booting into Win 3.1 from DOS
Windows 3.1? Newfangled nonsense.
Listen here, Stallman!
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Will be going to Drama Ministry rehearsal soon. We will be doing an Alice in Wonderland tea. I'm playing The March Hare.
Hope you're checking that watch often, hare, so you won't be late. ;D
I'm not the one running late. That's the white rabbit. My watch is stopped. The butter we used in the works didn't work.
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Oh yeah, that's right. The March Hare was mainly concerned with time as it related to the tea party. Everything go as planned?
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A somewhat warm day today, warm enough to run some speed repeats. So I did 10k worth of them, and now my legs hate me. Which is a good thing, if my legs didn't hate me it would mean I hadn't worked hard enough.
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A somewhat warm day today, warm enough to run some speed repeats. So I did 10k worth of them, and now my legs hate me. Which is a good thing, if my legs didn't hate me it would mean I hadn't worked hard enough.
I will drive a total of 79miles today
I’ll need. Nap when I get home…
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If the forecast is right we're due a few days of dry weather that isn't also freezing cold. Hopefully that will mean I can get some wood to replace some floor, and press on with that project.
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On the topic of hard drives I added another dead one to my collection. It was a 250GB parallel ATA drive that was once hosted in a simple NAS. Now most of it is in the trash, the magnets are stuck to an old water pipe and the platters are mixed up with the platters from some other drives. I keep thinking there's some scope to do something cool with a bunch of old hard drive platters but I'm not sure quite what.
Having passed the strong magnets over the platters several times and then mixed them all up I'm confident the data is mangled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEzfhclKO8Q
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Took the vehicle off an icy country road in Montana. No phone service, getting dark, and below zero F. Got emergency call to local sheriff, who contacted wrecker service. They pulled me out of a deep, snow-filled hole. Totaled lift-gate on vehicle - a sickening sound. Completely wrecked a young pine tree.
Dealer immediately took vehicle (2014 Jeep Trailhawk) as trade-in and I now drive a new 23 Grand Cherokee.
I don't reminisce about the event as it scares the daylights out of me, but things could have been much, much worse. I now avoid Bear Canyon for obvious reasons.
God abundantly answered desperate prayers and got me back on the road in beautiful fashion.
Thank The Lord!
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Wow!
Praise God!
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Amen [!]
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A somewhat warm day today, warm enough to run some speed repeats. So I did 10k worth of them, and now my legs hate me. Which is a good thing, if my legs didn't hate me it would mean I hadn't worked hard enough.
My legs still hate me. So it was a walk today rather than another run. Maybe I can run tomorrow.
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Fighting with the government of Ontario.
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Okay, final phase of moving to Bay Area, Cal. Contractor tools are now history. Utility trailer, chainsaws & firewood equipment to brother in law. Cargo trailer to nephew. Readying final trip. Moving: an ordeal.
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I received my Cefaly migraine treatment device from the VA today, and I'm trying it out now. It's a TENS type device that attaches to the forehead and stimulates the trigeminal nerve. You can set it to treat an active migraine or else to prevent one, which I'm using now. I've tried several different types of injections and half a dozen medications over the years, but only had moderate success. Hopefully, I'll have better luck with this treatment.
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Hope and prayers in this.
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My legs still don't like me much but I went for a moderately gentle run this morning anyway. Hoping to do a long gentle run tomorrow.
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My legs still don't like me much but I went for a moderately gentle run this morning anyway. Hoping to do a long gentle run tomorrow.
In reading this post, I have to laugh. Earlier tonight, during prayer, I mentioned to God for the wisdom to not overdue my bike riding once the temps reach 45+ degrees. At my age, I know the ligaments and tendons need to get used to the mileage before I begin pushing out beyond 10 miles.
I miss the days when a 25 mile ride on a bicycle was a, "nice" ride.
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My legs still don't like me much but I went for a moderately gentle run this morning anyway. Hoping to do a long gentle run tomorrow.
In reading this post, I have to laugh. Earlier tonight, during prayer, I mentioned to God for the wisdom to not overdue my bike riding once the temps reach 45+ degrees. At my age, I know the ligaments and tendons need to get used to the mileage before I begin pushing out beyond 10 miles.
I miss the days when a 25 mile ride on a bicycle was a, "nice" ride.
When I lived in flatter areas 25 miles was the kind of ride it barely felt worth getting the bike out for. Where I live now it's very hilly and I haven't ridden my bike at all in years. Seeing people driving around paying almost no attention to their surroundings doesn't fill me with much confidence either.
It's the usual thing about easing back into something after taking a break. I'd rather not be taking a break but when there's snow and ice everywhere I don't feel like running in it, and a gym membership is only so much use because when it's icy I won't necessarily feel like driving to get to the gym. I fall somewhere in the middle of the gym options - I want to go often enough that a day pass isn't a good way to do it, but not often enough that a monthly membership is worth it.
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If someone ever sees me running please catch whoever is chasing me. ;D
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I got my long gentle run in this morning. It was reasonably gentle, my goal was to keep my heart rate within an easyish band and for the most part I stayed in or close to the band. Going up steady hills invariably pushes me a bit over, and then it takes a little while to get back into my target zone.
Later this afternoon I need to write some code for a project I'm working on.
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It's the usual thing about easing back into something after taking a break. I'd rather not be taking a break but when there's snow and ice everywhere I don't feel like running in it, and a gym membership is only so much use because when it's icy I won't necessarily feel like driving to get to the gym. I fall somewhere in the middle of the gym options - I want to go often enough that a day pass isn't a good way to do it, but not often enough that a monthly membership is worth it.
Even though I'm pushing 70, I try to make myself get some kind of regular exercise. I had purchased a Planet Fitness membership a few years ago, but rarely used it, so I canceled it. About a year ago, I started acquiring a collection of weights which is now complete, and do strength training at home 3 days a week. I need to do some cardio, but I get out of breath so easily--even a brisk walk gets me wheezing. (I have an aortic valve replacement with 10 years of wear and tear on it). Anyway, I push myself to do the best I can.
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It's the usual thing about easing back into something after taking a break. I'd rather not be taking a break but when there's snow and ice everywhere I don't feel like running in it, and a gym membership is only so much use because when it's icy I won't necessarily feel like driving to get to the gym. I fall somewhere in the middle of the gym options - I want to go often enough that a day pass isn't a good way to do it, but not often enough that a monthly membership is worth it.
Even though I'm pushing 70, I try to make myself get some kind of regular exercise. I had purchased a Planet Fitness membership a few years ago, but rarely used it, so I canceled it. About a year ago, I started acquiring a collection of weights which is now complete, and do strength training at home 3 days a week. I need to do some cardio, but I get out of breath so easily--even a brisk walk gets me wheezing. (I have an aortic valve replacement with 10 years of wear and tear on it). Anyway, I push myself to do the best I can.
I started out with regular walking and then starting jogging parts of it, then jogging more parts and longer parts, and went from there. When I look at the stats from my runs these days and compare them to my runs from 2-3 years ago the differences are encouraging - I'm clocking a faster pace with less impact on my heart rate, and if I push my heart rate hard I'm clocking much faster paces.
Sadly once you're older than maybe 40-45 time isn't your friend and you have to fight to preserve fitness.
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Got a real haircut today, Lol. For the past two years I've just been lopping off 4-5 inches about every 8 months or so :o
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These days I get a haircut once a year in December. I have it cut to make look more like Santa
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Someone observed recently that the achievements of the software industry over the last 30 years have been astonishing. They've managed to entirely negate several orders of magnitude of performance improvements provided by the hardware industry.
"I bought the whole CPU and I'm going to use the whole CPU".
"Unused RAM is wasted RAM".
Etc.
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Someone observed recently that the achievements of the software industry over the last 30 years have been astonishing. They've managed to entirely negate several orders of magnitude of performance improvements provided by the hardware industry.
"I bought the whole CPU and I'm going to use the whole CPU".
"Unused RAM is wasted RAM".
Etc.
It doesn't feel like such a big gap between a certain Mr William Gates being quoted as saying "640k (of RAM) should be enough for anyone" and now needing 4GB of RAM just to look at the pretty desktop.
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It doesn't feel like such a big gap between a certain Mr William Gates being quoted as saying "640k (of RAM) should be enough for anyone" and now needing 4GB of RAM just to look at the pretty desktop.
I remember creating a custom boot disk just to free up more RAM for gaming purposes. Ah, the memories.
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Memories???
RAM?
Really guys……
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It doesn't feel like such a big gap between a certain Mr William Gates being quoted as saying "640k (of RAM) should be enough for anyone" and now needing 4GB of RAM just to look at the pretty desktop.
I remember creating a custom boot disk just to free up more RAM for gaming purposes. Ah, the memories.
I remember the seemingly endless requirement to check something would work before trying it - check there's enough memory before allocating it, check there's enough disk space before writing a cache file. Then there was an expectation that an error message would tell the user something useful about what had happened, whereas now an error just says something like "an error has occurred" or "something went wrong" with no indication of whether the problem is with the user input, the connection, the server. Sometimes the user is helpfully told that they might like to "try again later" but again with no indication of whether it's a temporary glitch that will resolve itself if you try again in 30 seconds, or a major server failure that's going to take down the entire system for a week.
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Memories???
RAM?
Really guys……
Don't make me recant the story of Abraham and Isaac and their first computer....
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Once saw a ram take on a front-end loader.
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It's too cold to run so I went for a walk. The wind gusts weren't supposed to start until after lunch but obviously didn't read the weather forecast.
Once I warmed up I got to writing some code. I still need to figure out how to turn the long planks I have sitting around into flooring. Before I get started I need to temporarily remove a door so I can get at the floor underneath the frame. In theory it should be easy, I just need to figure out how to keep the cat from exploring if the door is removed. I don't know if I can start and finish the flooring job fast enough that I can just take the door out, do the work, and put the door back before the cat notices there's a new space to explore. It may be I need to fall back on something more primitive, like a board screwed into place, so I can take a break from the work without having to put the door back on.
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I remember the seemingly endless requirement to check something would work before trying it
Today's kids like to make fun of the "old school" types, but we're much batter at getting programs to run/install/what have you then they are. If it isn't plug and play they don't know what to do. Even the IT types are sometimes baffled.
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Trying to decide if I need to bring my body armor with me when I visit Chicago in a couple of months.
Anyone know? I'm thinking a bullet-proof vest at minimum
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Trying to decide if I need to bring my body armor with me when I visit Chicago in a couple of months.
Anyone know? I'm thinking a bullet-proof vest at minimum
Go ahead and shoot yourself and get a head start….
Dangerous place
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But...but...Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. Shouldn't that make it one of the safest cities?
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Awesome city, Chicago. Stick to the itinerary.
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Trying to decide if I need to bring my body armor with me when I visit Chicago in a couple of months.
Anyone know? I'm thinking a bullet-proof vest at minimum
Hard or soft armor?
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Trying to decide if I need to bring my body armor with me when I visit Chicago in a couple of months.
Anyone know? I'm thinking a bullet-proof vest at minimum
Hard or soft armor?
Soft probably, but steel plate somethings are always interesting.
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If you carry your illegally purchased handgun sideways you will look like a native...
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If you carry your illegally purchased handgun sideways you will look like a native...
I dunno, I was hoping to look a bit more John Wickish with a TTI/Glock 34
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
I'm pretty skilled with rifles and shotguns. I have never shot a handgun, though.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
I'd rather EDC two 15 round mags for my G19, than three 10 round mags.
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Trying to decide if I need to bring my body armor with me when I visit Chicago in a couple of months.
Anyone know? I'm thinking a bullet-proof vest at minimum
Hard or soft armor?
Soft probably, but steel plate somethings are always interesting.
Steel, while guaranteed to stop even most (even multiple hit, all hits) rifle rounds, will be heavy and without any standard layering to catch spalling (as the round shatters), can be dangerous.
Soft armors are great due to consealability but limits protection to high powered pistol rounds and less.
Visiting a city, the soft armor would be great for this time of year. If you can carry a backpack, a steel plate is more easier managed and spalling will damage contents in the bag, not flesh. Just have to be quick to shift the pack to the front if facing incoming fire.
Any Polyethylene type armor is great for a backpack (much lighter too) because deformation will not be of any negative affect while it can stop multiple rifle rounds. In a plate carrier, great until deformation begins to break ribs. Ceramic is best for plate carriers but can be limited on multiple hits.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
I'd rather EDC two 15 round mags for my G19, than three 10 round mags.
Only 15 rounds? I thought they'd be slightly bigger than that.
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Alternating time between writing some code for a project I've been putting off for a while now, and laying some new floor. Before I can lay the floor I need to cut the existing floor and then cut the new floor how I want it. My local lumber yard sells wood in a range of finishes, so I usually go for the cheapest that works for me. I can cut it to length and width myself, as long as the faces are good. I have a planer but prefer not to run too much through it as it makes a huge noise and it's just another heavy tool to lug around to where I have space to feed stuff in and then feed it out again.
Some day I need to set up a router sled so I can surface big stuff without the need for lots of space to feed stuff in and out. Maybe I can rig up something like a small blade on an angle grinder to create something like a table saw but where the saw moves rather than the material. That would save me a lot of space. I'd just need to figure out a way to make sure it would work without cutting fingers off with the surplus wood.
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I'm pretty skilled with rifles and shotguns. I have never shot a handgun, though.
I'm the opposite. All my training and experience is with handguns.
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I'm pretty skilled with rifles and shotguns. I have never shot a handgun, though.
I'm the opposite. All my training and experience is with handguns.
two related but entirely different skill sets
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two related but entirely different skill sets
Are the skills transferrable in any way? Or would I be a complete newbie with long guns?
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two related but entirely different skill sets
Are the skills transferrable in any way? Or would I be a complete newbie with long guns?
Very transferable
Acquisition of sight picture is a little different because of focal length of sights
Ballistics is more impacted because if longer distance muzzle to target
Breathing control more at issue
Everything is simply magnified because of longer distances
But the, longer barrel length tends to improve accuracy
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Very transferable
I'm going to have to do this sometime.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
I'm pretty skilled with rifles and shotguns. I have never shot a handgun, though.
You are wise.
Legal to carry where I live. And 90% of currently armed individuals would get themselves killed if push came to shove, because they have little training, and are not prepared to immediately shoot. They assume having or showing the piece is sufficient. Complete familiarity with the weapon and target practice until proficiency is achieved are essential. If one needs to pull it one needs to be prepared to use it without hesitation.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
I'd rather EDC two 15 round mags for my G19, than three 10 round mags.
Only 15 rounds? I thought they'd be slightly bigger than that.
15 rounds is standard capacity for the G19, cept in most blue states maxed at 10 rounds. Extenders (illegal in most blue states) can add 1-3 rounds but printing under the shirt increases when concealed. Or, get G17 mags and then the choice can be 17, 19, 24, and even 33 rounds.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
I'd rather EDC two 15 round mags for my G19, than three 10 round mags.
Only 15 rounds? I thought they'd be slightly bigger than that.
15 rounds is standard capacity for the G19, cept in most blue states maxed at 10 rounds. Extenders (illegal in most blue states) can add 1-3 rounds but printing under the shirt increases when concealed. Or, get G17 mags and then the choice can be 17, 19, 24, and even 33 rounds.
Interesting - my M&P 9mm has a standard 17-round magazine. I thought the G19 was the same.
I'd be curious to see a 33 round magazine in a handgun. That must be a beast.
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You would stick out like a sore thumb if you could actually put rounds on target…
That's why law-abiding gun owners only need 10 rounds. It's only the criminals who spray bullets indiscriminately figuring they'll hit something sooner or later. So people say anyway.
I'd rather EDC two 15 round mags for my G19, than three 10 round mags.
Only 15 rounds? I thought they'd be slightly bigger than that.
15 rounds is standard capacity for the G19, cept in most blue states maxed at 10 rounds. Extenders (illegal in most blue states) can add 1-3 rounds but printing under the shirt increases when concealed. Or, get G17 mags and then the choice can be 17, 19, 24, and even 33 rounds.
Interesting - my M&P 9mm has a standard 17-round magazine. I thought the G19 was the same.
I'd be curious to see a 33 round magazine in a handgun. That must be a beast.
The G17 and G19X have standard 17 round mags.
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I get tired after the 2nd magazine and have to take a break for a snack and a nap.
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Okay. Beloved cargo trailer now history (gone to nephew).
Trip to landfill will finish things up.
End of an era, it seems - miss my tools & equipment already. Final relocation to Bay Area imminent.
Have learned to be content in whatever "State" I am currently in.
EDIT: Sig and all other weapons will be transferred to family.
EDIT: Surviving the Bay Area is not highly probable anyhow.
God knows.
Okay Bye.
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I get tired after the 2nd magazine and have to take a break for a snack and a nap.
;D
I usually carried nine 30 round mags of 5.56 and six 15 round mags of 9mm while deployed and in the back of my mind, prayed I had enough ammo.
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I get tired after the 2nd magazine and have to take a break for a snack and a nap.
;D
I usually carried nine 30 round mags of 5.56 and six 15 round mags of 9mm while deployed and in the back of my mind, prayed I had enough ammo.
Hopefully a walk on the streets of Chicago hasn't yet deteriorated to the point you'd need more ammo than that.
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I get tired after the 2nd magazine and have to take a break for a snack and a nap.
;D
I usually carried nine 30 round mags of 5.56 and six 15 round mags of 9mm while deployed and in the back of my mind, prayed I had enough ammo.
Hopefully a walk on the streets of Chicago hasn't yet deteriorated to the point you'd need more ammo than that.
"If" states honored constitutional carry and responsible American's carried concealed weapons while out and about and maintained defensive weapon posture in their homes, crime would come to a halt real quick like.
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An hour of speed repeats, followed by ripping some boards I plan to lay as a new section of flooring. Now my legs don't like me very much.
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Last night was our first playing of our Alice in Wonderland Tea. We do it again tonight. I have a picture of me as The March Hare but can't figure out how to post it.
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(https://i.ibb.co/Kr0ZNz4/Resized-20240225-105126-78226411701720-1708883992614.jpg) (https://ibb.co/x7Cvm89)
Lone Mountain. Big Sky, Montana.
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Recovering from my trip down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. Getting ready for our next production. The Living Last Supper. We did this last year and I am again playing James. Since I have a copy of the original script I am reviewing my lines. This year we're doing it twice. On Maundy Thursday we will be doing just the Supper. On Good Friday we will be adding The Via Dolorosa. And on March 17 I'll be singing He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need. The director has me singing the first verse of Danny Boy, which is the melody for the other song. I've written a 2nd verse that I'll be singing. I hope I can get through it as the verse I wrote does have some personal touches.
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Lazy day yesterday. It's warmer today so I'm debating whether to follow my fitness tracker's advice and do a gentle workout, or do something a bit harder given we're due some rain later this week. My tracker only gives me one day's suggestion at a time (newer models go out to a week, I think), and it has an uncanny habit of suggesting than on the nice sunny days I take the day off, and then suggests I go for a long fast run when it's below zero with rain and 40mph wind gusts.
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Did the first honey harvest over the weekend. Normally you wouldn’t harvest until mid summer, but the two hives we bought were full from last fall
Only did a partial harvest to leave the bees some food until the spring nectar flow really kicks off here in about 2-3 weeks
Collected, strained, and bottled 54 pounds of beautiful yummy honey! Oh bother!
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Lazy day yesterday. It's warmer today so I'm debating whether to follow my fitness tracker's advice and do a gentle workout, or do something a bit harder given we're due some rain later this week. My tracker only gives me one day's suggestion at a time (newer models go out to a week, I think), and it has an uncanny habit of suggesting than on the nice sunny days I take the day off, and then suggests I go for a long fast run when it's below zero with rain and 40mph wind gusts.
I decided to do a longer run but relatively gently. I have my watch beep at me if my pulse goes even moderately high and if it does I walk until it's back to my target level. It gets tedious stopping to walk but means I can build a stronger aerobic base.
I considered doing speed repeats again today because I felt pretty strong but since it was less than 24 hours since I power-walked the route I decided to go a little easier on myself. My lower legs ached in the last couple of miles or so.
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Did the first honey harvest over the weekend. Normally you wouldn’t harvest until mid summer, but the two hives we bought were full from last fall
Only did a partial harvest to leave the bees some food until the spring nectar flow really kicks off here in about 2-3 weeks
Collected, strained, and bottled 54 pounds of beautiful yummy honey! Oh bother!
Does your honey tend to be dark or light? I really like dark honey, a couple of friends of ours keep bees and I always get dark honeycomb from them when they have it.
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Fun With Electrics.
Got a couple of new smart doodads for the house. One is a power strip that's easy to work with - just plug it in and connect it. The other is a smart outlet, which was a bit of a drag to set up because I had to move a piece of furniture and replace an existing outlet with the new one. The new one is bigger and only just fit in the backbox, but with a bit of persuasion it all went in. Now I can control a couple of lamps from my phone, set up automatic schedules and other fun stuff.
So far I'm liking these devices. I might get some more for around the house.
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Did the first honey harvest over the weekend. Normally you wouldn’t harvest until mid summer, but the two hives we bought were full from last fall
Only did a partial harvest to leave the bees some food until the spring nectar flow really kicks off here in about 2-3 weeks
Collected, strained, and bottled 54 pounds of beautiful yummy honey! Oh bother!
Does your honey tend to be dark or light? I really like dark honey, a couple of friends of ours keep bees and I always get dark honeycomb from them when they have it.
Fairly dark. I like the complexity of the flavors...that really light stuff sometimes just tastes like sugar water.
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Did the first honey harvest over the weekend. Normally you wouldn’t harvest until mid summer, but the two hives we bought were full from last fall
Only did a partial harvest to leave the bees some food until the spring nectar flow really kicks off here in about 2-3 weeks
Collected, strained, and bottled 54 pounds of beautiful yummy honey! Oh bother!
Does your honey tend to be dark or light? I really like dark honey, a couple of friends of ours keep bees and I always get dark honeycomb from them when they have it.
Fairly dark. I like the complexity of the flavors...that really light stuff sometimes just tastes like sugar water.
Sometimes light honey can have a really pleasant floral flavor to it. Other times, as you say, it tastes like sugar and not much else.
I guess a lot depends on what the bees found.
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Did the first honey harvest over the weekend. Normally you wouldn’t harvest until mid summer, but the two hives we bought were full from last fall
Only did a partial harvest to leave the bees some food until the spring nectar flow really kicks off here in about 2-3 weeks
Collected, strained, and bottled 54 pounds of beautiful yummy honey! Oh bother!
Does your honey tend to be dark or light? I really like dark honey, a couple of friends of ours keep bees and I always get dark honeycomb from them when they have it.
Fairly dark. I like the complexity of the flavors...that really light stuff sometimes just tastes like sugar water.
Sometimes light honey can have a really pleasant floral flavor to it. Other times, as you say, it tastes like sugar and not much else.
I guess a lot depends on what the bees found.
Mine will have a hint of beekeeper flavor…
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Just got back from a 20-hour round trip to London. Did I mention I have a severe lung infection? Flying wasn't fun. (Was for a medical appointment I had booked a year ago.)
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Just got back from a 20-hour round trip to London. Did I mention I have a severe lung infection? Flying wasn't fun. (Was for a medical appointment I had booked a year ago.)
Ouch
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Just got back from a 20-hour round trip to London. Did I mention I have a severe lung infection? Flying wasn't fun. (Was for a medical appointment I had booked a year ago.)
Not good! Will be praying.
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Thanks. :) I'm on antibiotics, and then... the search for an asthmatic condition starts.
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Just got back from a 20-hour round trip to London. Did I mention I have a severe lung infection? Flying wasn't fun. (Was for a medical appointment I had booked a year ago.)
Flying isn't fun at the best of times. Hope you can get your infection sorted!
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Thanks. :) I'm on antibiotics, and then... the search for an asthmatic condition starts.
Just as I suspected.
Cooties.
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Thanks. :) I'm on antibiotics, and then... the search for an asthmatic condition starts.
Just as I suspected.
Cooties.
Oh no, that's no good!
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I think some of you know that one of my hobbies is computer chess, actually my main hobby since 1980. In 1997 I with others created a computer chess forum hosted by a commercial chess shop who offered to write the software for that. In those days there was no decent forum software.
Long story short, in the last 5 years the forum became under heavy DDoS attacks and the site became an unbearable place to be, many members left. Expensive measures were taken by the shop but did not really help. About 9 months ago the shop informed me they wanted to get rid of the forum.
In an ultimate try I started a crowdfunding (http://www.talkchess.com/viewtopic.php?t=82146) among the members to buy the domain name from the shop and move the forum to our own VPS server.
Longer story even shorter, yesterday we managed, the forum now runs smoothly. This after a long period of crowdfunding, the negotiations with the shop (they got $2600), a contract with a new reliable partner to ensure stability for decades and the final touch by 2 qualified people to get the forum software running without any data loss.
Pffffff............
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I think some of you know that one of my hobbies is computer chess, actually my main hobby since 1980. In 1997 I with others created a computer chess forum hosted by a commercial chess shop who offered to write the software for that. In those days there was no decent forum software.
Long story short, in the last 5 years the forum became under heavy DDoS attacks and the site became an unbearable place to be, many members left. Expensive measures were taken by the shop but did not really help. About 9 months ago the shop informed me they wanted to get rid of the forum.
In an ultimate try I started a crowdfunding (http://www.talkchess.com/viewtopic.php?t=82146) among the members to buy the domain name from the shop and move the forum to our own VPS server.
Longer story even shorter, yesterday we managed, the forum now runs smoothly. This after a long period of crowdfunding, the negotiations with the shop (they got $2600), a contract with a new reliable partner to ensure stability for decades and the final touch by 2 qualified people to get the forum software running without any data loss.
Pffffff............
That's awesome to hear!
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I think some of you know that one of my hobbies is computer chess, actually my main hobby since 1980. In 1997 I with others created a computer chess forum hosted by a commercial chess shop who offered to write the software for that. In those days there was no decent forum software.
Long story short, in the last 5 years the forum became under heavy DDoS attacks and the site became an unbearable place to be, many members left. Expensive measures were taken by the shop but did not really help. About 9 months ago the shop informed me they wanted to get rid of the forum.
In an ultimate try I started a crowdfunding (http://www.talkchess.com/viewtopic.php?t=82146) among the members to buy the domain name from the shop and move the forum to our own VPS server.
Longer story even shorter, yesterday we managed, the forum now runs smoothly. This after a long period of crowdfunding, the negotiations with the shop (they got $2600), a contract with a new reliable partner to ensure stability for decades and the final touch by 2 qualified people to get the forum software running without any data loss.
Pffffff............
Sounds more reliable than a queens gambit…
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Everybody goin out & hav'n fun.
(https://i.ibb.co/Gtv5yzJ/Big-Sky1-2000x1200.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qWMrKTn)
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No
Too cold
Too far off the ground
Too great a temptation to start pushing people to see if they can fly
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I think some of you know that one of my hobbies is computer chess, actually my main hobby since 1980. In 1997 I with others created a computer chess forum hosted by a commercial chess shop who offered to write the software for that. In those days there was no decent forum software.
Long story short, in the last 5 years the forum became under heavy DDoS attacks and the site became an unbearable place to be, many members left. Expensive measures were taken by the shop but did not really help. About 9 months ago the shop informed me they wanted to get rid of the forum.
In an ultimate try I started a crowdfunding (http://www.talkchess.com/viewtopic.php?t=82146) among the members to buy the domain name from the shop and move the forum to our own VPS server.
Longer story even shorter, yesterday we managed, the forum now runs smoothly. This after a long period of crowdfunding, the negotiations with the shop (they got $2600), a contract with a new reliable partner to ensure stability for decades and the final touch by 2 qualified people to get the forum software running without any data loss.
Pffffff............
Sounds more reliable than a queens gambit…
(https://i76.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/quuens10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/82)
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Drove 2,075 (round trip) miles to see my father last week. Always a blessing to be "with" family!
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My son is engaged to be married. The wedding will be in Jerusalem this June.
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Well... latest girl-type friend drives a Saturn AWD (V6) and claims to be a "woman of faith." She is waiting for some kind of financial bonanza based on said faith and is into all kinds of dark conspiratorial, pseudo-faith circles and relies heavily on smoking whatever substance (likely pot).
Was very concerned that she was out of food etc, and have been led to help and earnestly pray for her.
Curious to see who is the spider and who is the fly here.
Shall see.
Ah. An adventure!
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My son is engaged to be married. The wedding will be in Jerusalem this June.
Ah! An adventure!!!!
😳
Mazel tov!
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Mazel tov!
Thank you!
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Found out that my flooring project is a little more complex than I first thought. I figured out how to cut the floor and laying new floor isn't all that hard, but the strip I want to lay perpendicular to create a cleaner transition from one area to another isn't quite so clean. Because it needs to align nicely with the door I need to figure where the door is going to go, which I can't do because that wall isn't framed. Framing the wall is awkward because the ceiling joist doesn't quite align with the floor joist - it's further across and not quite angled the same. That means that I need to either secure the top beam of the wall to the ceiling joist and put the bottom beam between floor joists, or screw some kind of struts between the ceiling joists so I can screw the top beam into it. Then I can cut the floor, secure whatever I need underneath to support the perpendicular piece of floor, cut and position the perpendicular piece of floor, and then lay the rest of the floor.
Along the way I need to consider the implications of cutting away the floor in the bathroom. It's not in great condition, it will be covered with some kind of vinyl flooring so can be replaced with plywood or OSB just as easily as nicer flooring, but if the stud wall between the bedroom and bathroom isn't over the floor joists I'll need to make sure cutting the floor doesn't suddenly create a section of floor that isn't supported any more.
So what I hoped would be a simple job has, once again, proved to be more complex. I need to frame the walls anyway, I just hadn't expected that part of the work to shuffle its way to the top of the line.
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Be praying, especially for our churches drama ministry's director. Things are moving fast. The Pastor is doing a series on The Sermon On The Mount and he is arranging for eye witness accounts. We just finished The Alice In Wonderland Tea. And we are about to start rehearsals on a redo of our Living Last Supper from last year. Fortunately most of the cast is coming back so it will go easier. I'm playing James in this. On top of that our choir director has asked me to sing He's Alive on Easter Sunday. Fortunately I sing with cd accompaniment and that is one of my songs that I, basically, already have ready. So all I have to do is pull it out and brush it off. Which will mean putting aside the series of audiobooks I'm listening to for a while. Easter is almost as busy a time for performers as Christmas.
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A gentle-ish 8 mile run today. Trying a new approach to build a low-level aerobic base, which is essentially running until my heart rate rises very far into my zone 3. Then I walk until it's back to the middle of zone 2, and resume running. The idea is to build how long I can run at a slightly harder pace before my heart rate goes high enough for my watch to beep at me. So far it seems to be working, my watch is indicating higher levels of performance based on whatever secret algorithm it's using. I'm just not sure whether it's because my fitness is objectively improving, or if I've found a quirk in the algorithm.
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I just remembered I am also singing on March 17th. Will definitely need prayers. I am singing He Looked Beyond My Fault And Saw My Need. It is sung to the tune Danny Boy. What is going to make it harder to sing is the 2nd verse. I wrote it and I sometimes have trouble getting through it without choking up.
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I begin taking Ham Radio classes this month and will test out in May for my license... excited to finally do this.
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Nasty day today, rain all day, so exercise had to be indoors. Now fiddling with updating a piece of code. I couldn't figure out why the appearance was all wrong but then noticed I'd set it to a different application style, which explained everything.
It's always good when a single setting change shakes out a whole bunch of cosmetic issues at once.
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Glimpsing briefly some of the depths of QAnon. A cult of dizzying, unbridled momentum.
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Got a walk in after church but my wife came to rescue me from the heavy snow that appeared. Then after lunch I tried again, and the snow stayed sufficiently away to get a good walk in.
I hope I can do some running tomorrow but we're due 40-50mph winds so that might not happen.
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After ~5 months of struggling with neural nets I finally am happy with the results and released my new version REBEL version 16.3
https://rebel7775.wixsite.com/rebel
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Neural nets????
Will this require an implant???!!!!
😳
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Would make you world champion chess instantly :)
And make you a millionaire....
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One of my (crazy) musings : The gift of life
We were blessed with 3 children, all 3 became from the same womb, the same sperm, got the same upbringing and yet they are 3 total different personalities. Nothing new here.
Thinking about my own birth with the above in mind, from science we know an average ejaculation is about 100-200 million sperm cells and they all rush the womb and the one that gets first will lead to a fertilization. So it means the chance I exist is one in 100 million. Else I would not be here, I would not exist. It's like winning the lottery.... A second place doesn't count, no fertilization, no life.
We are all winners..........
Thank you Lord for the gift of life.
Feel free to delete if you think this is crossing a line.
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I think it is perfect
I once heard Tony Campolo say almost the exact same thing at a dinner in Chicago
He also said that hot dogs are proof of God’s love. God could have made us to exist in dirt and rocks.
Instead, Ahe made taste buds and hot dogs.
QED
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Hot dogs are strange. Meat paste stuffed into an animal intestine. So when you eat a hot dog it simply changes form and you arguably become a hot dog yourself.
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Had an unusual experience yesterday. Yesterday, at about 8 PM, I curled up in my chair for a bit of a nap, like normal, and the next thing I knew it was 1 AM. Normally I have a couple of alarms that ring at 10 and 10:30. Somehow they had gotten turned off. I'm hoping it hasn't screwed up my schedule. I got up like normal this morning.
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Got a good run in this afternoon. The first few miles were fairly easy and I felt strong but then turned into the headwinds. It wasn't so much fun trying to run into 20mph headwinds that didn't give me much respite. But I got a few more miles in, which is what counts.
I also got a piece of lumber - I rather lost momentum with framing my new wall so figured what I was going to need to make the next stage happen. Now I just need to actually make the next stage happen. A single piece is easy because it fits inside my car. When I need to fully frame the wall I'm going to need a dozen 2x4s, so they stack on the roof bars with clamps and ropes to make sure they are still on the roof bars when I get home.
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Just got back from the dentist. I found out my insurance has approved my new, permanent, dentures. They just took some scans today. In 3 weeks I go back for them to take some molds. No idea when the new dentures arrive.
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George Washington :o
is jealous…
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A gentle run today. Slower intervals, stopping to walk when my pulse went over about the middle of zone 3. Didn't feel particularly good today, hopefully tomorrow I can put down some more power. Friday it's supposed to rain, so it's unlikely I'll get to do much of interest then.
Today I ticked off a badge from my tracker, marking 300km (186 miles) of running so far this year.
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Got a couple more gentle runs in this week. Today looked like it could be the last chance to get a harder run in before it gets cold again, so I did an hour of speed repeats. Instead of going all-out on the hills I tried to temper the speed a little, with a view to holding the speed for longer - I'd set a target and try to reach that point before I had to significantly drop the pace.
I wasn't feeling hugely strong today but got through the repeats OK, even if my overall pace was slightly slower than the last time I did them.
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This morning I sang He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need, including the verse I wrote for it. And tomorrow the drama team starts rehearsal on The Living Last Supper. This is, basically, the same show we did last year. A number of the cast are recreating our roles from last year. Me for one. However, we do have a few new people joining the team. It's going to be a great deal of work. But it is worth it. I may also be singing He's Alive on Easter Sunday.
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Curious day today. Preaching at church, and then taking the youth out for a mystery lunch. The mystery lunch was interesting - good food even if it didn't come out quite in the way one might expect.
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Last night we had the first rehearsal for this year's The Living Last Supper. It went well and I found myself feeling again the feelings that last year's production instilled in me. Still have some problems and a lot of work. For one, our Simon the Zealot didn't show. It looks like we have to replace him. And this year we're adding a movement piece to Via Dolorosa. A lot of work and very little time.
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Lazy day today, aside from a run this afternoon. It wasn't a hard run, it just got some miles and some time in.
Then this evening chilling out with a friend over a couple of beers. Not a lot of beers, because I had to drive home afterwards.
So today could perhaps best be summed up as "moderate".
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Too cold to be running today - one of those awkward temperature days where the sun was warm and the wind was horribly cold. Sufficiently different that running in the sun would make me sweat, and then the wind would sap my body heat mercilessly. So I went for a walk instead. Then my wife and I had lunch at our local cafe/coffee shop. They do some good coffee and some good sandwiches for lunch.
And I finally made some more progress on my wall. I'd been pondering the best way to do it for a while and today I decided what I was going to do. So now the first sections of the wall are in place, and before long I can mark out the floor and take a saw to it. I also figured out what I think is the way forward to take down a couple of original concrete block walls, while making sure upstairs doesn't become downstairs and the roof doesn't collapse and direct rainwater neatly into the kitchen.
Relatively speaking making sure nothing collapses is a minor concern - as far as I can tell everything is supported in multiple ways except in one small area where it should be easy enough to put a fresh beam in (and the wall downstairs has absolutely nothing correlating to it upstairs). I'm more concerned with how to do it without making an apocalyptic mess in the areas we're using. I don't really want clouds of concrete dust floating through the kitchen, and I need to make sure that whatever happens I don't end up with gaps that allow the cat to explore the demolition site.
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Just relaxing and taking it easy. Will be working out very soon.
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Gentle run yesterday. The suggested workout was "rest" but since the forecast for today was rain I figured I could take it easy today. So having not technically rested yesterday I expected today's suggestion to be a rest, but instead it's a gentle base run. And it's raining, as forecast. But the rain is supposed to stop mid afternoon so maybe I can get a run in. For reasons best known to itself my watch has decided that I've progressed from needing a 42 minute run to a 46 minute run. At least that's a length I can fit in around my regular routes - last fall it would periodically throw something like a 92 minute base run at me, which is long enough that even my longest loop is only just long enough to take me that long.
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Celebrating Purim today. Reading the book of Esther and hearing about the downfall of a genocidal lunatic who wanted to murder all the Jews raises my spirits. A shame the world hasn't changed much in last 2400 years unfortunately.
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Celebrating Purim today. Reading the book of Esther and hearing about the downfall of a genocidal lunatic who wanted to murder all the Jews raises my spirits. A shame the world hasn't changed much in last 2400 years unfortunately.
And Haman (booo spit booo boooo hisssss) got his comeuppance.
If you guys get to do a little actual Purim purging of your enemies some day, can I convert just for that weekend???
Prayers for all my Jewish friends as they face worse than Esther and the righteous Morsecai faced.
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If you guys get to do a little actual Purim purging of your enemies some day, can I convert just for that weekend???
I believe that the IDF is hard at work doing just that. I think we're too old to serve though.
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If you guys get to do a little actual Purim purging of your enemies some day, can I convert just for that weekend???
I believe that the IDF is hard at work doing just that. I think we're too old to serve though.
Just find me a nice comfy chair in the shade about 750 meters out with my 7mm magnum and some nice young Jewish boy to get me iced tea and knishes between shots. A win-win. Just don’t me carry heavy stuff…
😳
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COVID again. Oh joy!
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Oh no!
That terrible
Praying for you
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And I have an alibi for the bridge in Baltimore…
Just sayin’
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A round of speed repeats. Some of them hurt, sprinting up hills gets tiring after a while.
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And I have an alibi for the bridge in Baltimore…
Just sayin’
Seeing as how there is no protocol in place for the potential loss of a ship's power - vessels are piloted rather than "tugged" through the gates, so nothing to steer the enormous weight to safety. The vulnerabilities of this technologically advanced society can be found on paper.
Just watched the NTSB and local authorities congratulate themselves in a press conference. No real facts, of course.
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Tonight is the last rehearsal for The Living Last Supper and Via Dolorosa. Dress rehearsal. Tomorrow is opening night.
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Fun With Taxes. A few new forms to figure out this year. Lots of reading of instructions and scratching of head. But I think I've got the federal forms sorted out now so from here the state forms should be easy enough.
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Wishing everyone a Happy Easter! That's watchi doin.
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Forum is back, yippee...
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Winter in Mt starts to fade - treacherous roads clearing somewhat. Almost everything finished in prep for return to Bay Area, Cal. Gave everything away, including trailers, and closed all storage units. Soon: no more back & forth.
Looking forward to staying put in a terrible region.
Will be profitable in an eternal sense, Lord Willing!
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Still looking after my troubled gal-friend. I would run & hide cept I love her so much.
Her, a dog and 2 cats in a small Saturn suv.
I got 20 years on her but she's altogether lovely.
Need to replace her back windshield soon as possible.
Independent, but I watch out daily for her.
(Did I mention "crazy?")
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Decided it's about time I got back to my wall project, so started measuring everything to make sure things are properly perpendicular. And it seems they are. It would appear I've managed to start with three bare stone walls and one void, and create four wall bases (walls yet to be fully built on the bottom beams) that are within less than 5 degrees of being perpendicular in all four corners.
I'm feeling pretty pleased with that. Now I just need to bite the bullet and actually cut the floorboards away to make room for the new boards that are still sitting waiting for me to do something useful with them.
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Sunday April 28 I will be singing The Lord's Prayer at our 8:15 service.
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Sunday April 28 I will be singing The Lord's Prayer at our 8:15 service.
The Malotte arrangement?
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Sunday April 28 I will be singing The Lord's Prayer at our 8:15 service.
The Malotte arrangement?
Absolutely. Is there another? ;D
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Sister Jane Mead’s folk rock version fr 1974 is pretty good!
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Speed repeats in 20mph winds today wasn't fun. My legs hated me.
In unrelated news I cut the first floorboard to length and found the edges aren't quite straight in one particular spot. It's really close but when butted up against the adjacent boards they don't quite match. The gap is small, maybe small enough to just stain it and accept that something very narrow landing on just the right (wrong?) spot might slip through the gap. Alternatively I can fuss with putting tongue-and-groove edges on the boards, but I'd really rather not have to deal with the hassle.
I can only assume I twisted the board ever so slightly on the table saw, which is frustrating because now I'm not sure the best way to fix the issue. Maybe I can just hide it and figure it won't matter. In a house that's over 100 years old I'm sure few people will be surprised at a tiny gap between some floorboards.
The bigger issue is trying to level all the joists. This part is where the house was extended and the quality of workmanship is visibly lower than the rest of the house. I fear I may need buddy joists to present a suitably straight surface so the boards don't undulate when I secure them down. That in turn means I'm going to need a bunch of extra 2x4s to screw into the joists, which is a hassle all of its own.But at least there's some progress, and I really do like the look of red oak.
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Sawdust and glue paste makes a great small gap filler
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Sawdust and glue paste makes a great small gap filler
Sister's meatloaf :-\
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Sawdust and glue paste makes a great small gap filler
That's a good point, I'm going to need to do that in a couple of other places so hopefully I'll be able to pull it off here too. I just hope what curvature there is won't kick all the adjacent boards out of position. I suppose if I need to I can trim the surplus off one side and fill the other side with goop.
I can find a couple of small offcuts of red oak so I can make sawdust that should match pretty nicely. As long as stain and lacquer won't make it look awful we should be good to go.
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Okay. Bout time to start a thread or two, stir up some controversy or at least some jealous passions, if possible.
Working on it 8)
It's what I do best(?)
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Okay. Bout time to start a thread or two, stir up some controversy or at least some jealous passions, if possible.
Working on it 8)
It's what I do best(?)
We will see... :)
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Politics? Nope; let that one pass :-\
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Sawdust and glue paste makes a great small gap filler
That's a good point, I'm going to need to do that in a couple of other places so hopefully I'll be able to pull it off here too. I just hope what curvature there is won't kick all the adjacent boards out of position. I suppose if I need to I can trim the surplus off one side and fill the other side with goop.
I can find a couple of small offcuts of red oak so I can make sawdust that should match pretty nicely. As long as stain and lacquer won't make it look awful we should be good to go.
I laid the board out against the two boards that will be adjacent and I think it's all close enough that I won't need to do much of anything with it. The lines aren't dead straight but they are pretty close, close enough that they don't really show unless you're staring at the floor. And in a house that's over 100 years old I think that's OK - if I live to be 100 I'll probably be a bit wavy in places too.
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Sawdust and glue paste makes a great small gap filler
That's a good point, I'm going to need to do that in a couple of other places so hopefully I'll be able to pull it off here too. I just hope what curvature there is won't kick all the adjacent boards out of position. I suppose if I need to I can trim the surplus off one side and fill the other side with goop.
I can find a couple of small offcuts of red oak so I can make sawdust that should match pretty nicely. As long as stain and lacquer won't make it look awful we should be good to go.
I laid the board out against the two boards that will be adjacent and I think it's all close enough that I won't need to do much of anything with it. The lines aren't dead straight but they are pretty close, close enough that they don't really show unless you're staring at the floor. And in a house that's over 100 years old I think that's OK - if I live to be 100 I'll probably be a bit wavy in places too.
I'm not 100 and I'm plenty wavy already.
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(https://i.ibb.co/G2L2FSh/20240501-065342.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wWXWYmv)
Big Sky Montana. May 1st am.
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"Brrrrr," chattered Nanook of the North as he exited his igloo.
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Jon Rushford (late nephew) Beaters Wth Heaters annual poker run today. Townsend, Mt.
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A few slow days thanks to a nasty tummy bug. But I got some more floor removed, so now I've got as much lifted as I can without removing another section of wall.
Now it's a question of whether to remove the wall first, or lay the new flooring. I think I might use the old flooring rested in place to catch anything that falls when I take out the wall, rather than risk heavy pointy things falling on the nice new floor.
I guess I'll need some more wall studs to replace the wall that comes out.
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Beginning to plot areas of my land and set in game cams.
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An hour of speed repeats today. My legs weren't liking me much towards the tops of a few of the hills I sprinted. But with speed repeats I figure if my legs don't stop working near the top of at least some hills I'm not running hard enough.
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Just what we needed: to be drug through yet another salacious sex trial which is not a sex trial (of course).
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Just what we needed: to be drug through yet another salacious sex trial which is not a sex trial (of course).
As a trial lawyer, I can tell you.
This judge has made the appeal both easy and hard.
Easy because the irrelevance, immateriality, and prejudicial nature of the testimony and the foolish bootstrapping legal theory are something a first year law student would destroy.
Hard because there is so much error from which to choose.
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/boaz-s10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/86)
Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/boaz-s10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/86)
Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
I mean, anyone playing h4 to threaten any impending castling!
(And a new set?)
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Got a load more wall pulled down yesterday. In the morning I stuck to pulling down some drywall and smashing it up for bagging, because I met a friend for lunch. Nothing fancy, just a local coffee shop, so I didn't have to be immaculate but didn't want to be covered in plaster dust. Then in the afternoon I pulled down the plaster walls and a bunch of the laths. I don't need the whole lot down, but figured I'd pull down the rest of the plaster while the space is at least mostly contained.
So now I have three bags of drywall scraps, another bag mostly full, and a total of eight bags of plaster that a neighbor is going to take away. I'm still not entirely sure what he does with the plaster but he obviously has some use for it, which saves me having to get rid of it myself.
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/boaz-s10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/86)
Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
I mean, anyone playing h4 to threaten any impending castling!
(And a new set?)
New set indeed, and if you look well the king and queen are wrongly placed, I let him...
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/boaz-s10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/86)
Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
Good for you. But grammar lesson. You don't "learn your grandson" you TEACH your grandson. He learns.
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An hour of speed repeats today, so now my legs don't like me very much.
Then I took a look at the wall I want to remove in my work space. One stud came out easily enough, it was fastened to the floor with some nails that were tricky to access but a bit of thinking and a bit of brute force combined to get that stud out. The next one goes high up into the cavity above, and checking from above indicates it rises several inches above the top of the joist in the attic. I'm not sure why. I suspect this one is going to experience a visit from Mr Saw to cut it off at a manageable height so I can do the work I need on the floor below, then I can figure out the best way to remove the stub later. As long as the bottom is well above head height I'll be OK.
I'm also most likely going to have to take out a light fitting. Easy enough to do electrically speaking, just a pain having to crawl around upstairs and downstairs making sure everything is disconnected, then working on a ladder in a tight space, crawling back into the attic to pull the cables through, and only then pulling down the ceiling. Lots of fun ahead....
So far I've got everything removed that I need, except for this one stud. Once this stud is out I can lift the last part of the floor, then lay the new floor, then finish framing the bedroom. Hopefully I can get the work finished before I run out of motivation again....
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/boaz-s10.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/86)
Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
I mean, anyone playing h4 to threaten any impending castling!
(And a new set?)
New set indeed, and if you look well the king and queen are wrongly placed, I let him...
Ah! I couldn't quite tell
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The last time I thought seriously about chess was in The Chestnut Tree Cafe…
I expect the next time I think seriously about chess will be in The Chestnut Tree Cafe…
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I'm willing to beat anyone here at chess on Chess.com or Lichess, except ProDeo, who I'd expect is quite strong.
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Not any longer, doing computer chess programming is bad for your elo, you start to play like a computer while you are not :)
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Learning my youngest grandson chess. He has talent.
Good for you. But grammar lesson. You don't "learn your grandson" you TEACH your grandson. He learns.
Yes Sir !
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Fun With Floors.
I got a bunch of the stuff I've been pulling down cleaned up, and another sack of trash out ready to be taken away. I've got the next sack of trash slowly filling up, and it's surprisingly heavy given the size of what's in there. Sucking up plaster dust and the general detritus that results from pulling down walls does end up being very heavy. My separator has saved me another couple of HEPA bags in this section of work alone.
Next up was cutting some wood to screw to the joists where I'm replacing flooring. Because I'm putting a section in perpendicular to the floorboards so the join is less obvious, I need to add some support in the space below so I don't have cut ends unsupported by anything. So far I've added some support in the place I could access it easy from above, and tomorrow I get to haul stuff downstairs to screw things into place from below. Then I can press on with laying the new floor, finishing framing the walls and then I can fit the last couple of electrical back boxes and run cables, and then get busy ripping through my remaining insulation panels to finish the thermal insulation in the room. Then comes the sound insulation, which I hope won't be too much trouble.
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Day trip to London. Now a day to recover from the migraine.
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I got a couple of sections of floor support installed. It was a fiddly process, I needed my wife to be in the room helping me adjust some wood blocks into position and then press on a board to stop them rising too high while I screwed them in, then stand on a slightly loose board end to give me a reference for the full-width support. But it's there and ready to roll.
Before I started figuring the next step I figured a cleanup of the work space was in order, so got rid of another sack of trash and ripped out some more disconnected knob and tube wiring. I hope I can fit all my scrap metal into the car at the same time when I finally take it all in to the recycling merchant. I've got a growing pile of copper cable, a bunch of aluminum scraps, a big bag of crushed cans, a fair amount of copper pipe, and a big pile of cast iron pipe. I'm suspecting the cast iron pipe is more or less worthless, so it's quite possible I'll just give that to the local thrift shop so they can get whatever value they can from it. That would also save me having to haul lots of heavy things with sharp edges in my car - they can go in the back of the thrift shop's pickup instead.
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I can't wait to see the photos of either when you finish the house or it finishes you.
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Waiting in the lobby for my 3rd doctor appointment of the day. I had a telephone appointment with my Primary Care provider's office this morning. Followed by a dental appointment (a fitting for my new dentures. Next appointment I get them.) And now I'm waiting to see my new GI doctor. The first and last of these were prompted by a trip to the emergency room on Monday. Nothing too serious, but uncomfortable. I got something stuck in my throat. It was below the windpipe. So I could breathe. I just couldn't swallow. I suspect I'll have to have another EGD (esophageal gastric dilation.) If I do it will be my 11th, though the last one was in 2019. Still, a pain in the neck, literally.
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I can't wait to see the photos of either when you finish the house or it finishes you.
Right now the latter seems more likely, in which case getting pictures could be tricky. If it should be the former I'll see what I can do.
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Waiting in the lobby for my 3rd doctor appointment of the day. I had a telephone appointment with my Primary Care provider's office this morning. Followed by a dental appointment (a fitting for my new dentures. Next appointment I get them.) And now I'm waiting to see my new GI doctor. The first and last of these were prompted by a trip to the emergency room on Monday. Nothing too serious, but uncomfortable. I got something stuck in my throat. It was below the windpipe. So I could breathe. I just couldn't swallow. I suspect I'll have to have another EGD (esophageal gastric dilation.) If I do it will be my 11th, though the last one was in 2019. Still, a pain in the neck, literally.
Ugh........
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Waiting in the lobby for my 3rd doctor appointment of the day. I had a telephone appointment with my Primary Care provider's office this morning. Followed by a dental appointment (a fitting for my new dentures. Next appointment I get them.) And now I'm waiting to see my new GI doctor. The first and last of these were prompted by a trip to the emergency room on Monday. Nothing too serious, but uncomfortable. I got something stuck in my throat. It was below the windpipe.
Wow! Bringing this before the Lord - asking and hoping for resolution and comfort.
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Long run yesterday, and it was more humid than I expected so I got home soaked in sweat and my wife said I looked pale (probably from being dehydrated). So I drank a load of water, and didn't make any progress at all on much of anything for most of the rest of the afternoon. But before getting in the shower I decided I needed to make some progress, so performed the enormous task of measuring a support strut to level off the floor, so the last joist isn't significantly lower than the general line of the others. It took more than I hoped, and involved taking a jigsaw to the top edge of an adjacent joist to trim a whisker off the top of it. Now everything is more or less level, and the support is in place. Hopefully motivation will last until I can make some more visible progress on this thing.
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(https://i.ibb.co/q1Zzzdp/tenor-18074833463917371351-mediumgif-9536610707562.gif) (https://ibb.co/0Jwkkcr)
Turned on the news today. Same mistake as yesterday.
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I now have power in the workspace. New wall studs are added, a backbox is on one of the wall studs, and wired to a receptacle. When it's all finished it will be replaced with a GFCI but for now a basic receptacle will do the job. Now I can get rid of the honking great 20A extension cord that trails all over the place, usually tripping me up when I least expect it. That alone is progress.
I thought I was facing a problem because the cable I ran months ago didn't give me quite as much reach as I hoped. I really didn't want to have to run another 60-odd feet of cable for the sake of adding 12 inches to the end but the alternative was putting a power socket behind where the door will open, which didn't seem like a good plan. Thankfully I had a bit of extra wiggle room on the cable and managed to get it to reach without pulling it horribly tight, so for now we're good.
I also got the threshold floorboard cut and screwed down, and another landing floorboard cut to length and put more or less in place. Soon I need to figure how I'm going to stain the boards in a way that lets me wipe away the stain without staining myself too badly in the process. "Old Americana" is a great color for floorboard but not so great for knees and feet.
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My suggested workout today wasn't what I hoped. After the last couple of days I hoped for an easy day but the suggestion was a 90 minute base workout. I decided to do a 90 minute open run instead, so I didn't have my watch constantly beeping at me telling me I was doing it wrong. It was warm and humid so it ended up being harder than I originally planned.
Then came a quick trip to the local lumber yard, so I now have a nice stack of 2x4s ready to frame some more walls. I need to fit the top bar, which will involve cutting some cross braces and screwing them into place in a very confined attic crawl space above the room but, once that is done, I can get on with the top bar and framing the last wall should be straightforward. The trickiest part is probably going to be setting the top bar perpendicular to the adjacent bar. It's not a difficult process in principle but trying to hold everything in place at ceiling height, then screwing the 2x4 into the ceiling, all without letting the angle shift even as the torque of driving screws tries to turn it, can be tricky. At least when I'm screwing beams into the floor I can stand on them to stop them moving.
Once the last wall is built I can fit electrical back boxes to that section, then run a cable between all the back boxes.
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Got a text from the director of our drama ministry yesterday. He's putting together another production. It will be reader's theater, so no lines to memorize and little movement. Rehearsals are Tuesday and Thursday evenings with the performance being next Sunday at both services. Naturally, I told him I'm in. No Idea what part I'll be playing. All he said was most of us will be playing kids and it's about Paul's conversion.
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Took the kids at church out for pizza. The original plan was bowling but we got to the bowling alley to find it was closed so we went for pizza instead. After eating pizza my suggested workout of sprint repeats wasn't happening so I went for a walk. It was hot, I was glad I didn't do sprint repeats. Maybe I'll do them tomorrow.
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Sprint repeats, which were fine until I found myself overheating and then strained a muscle. So I took a long break half way, and then cut the workout short because sprint repeats were turning into fairly fast repeats because that was about all I could muster.
It's mostly OK now, but pulls a little if I walk too fast. Tomorrow's workout is going to have to be a lot tamer. Probably a base level run, whatever my tracker suggests.
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Nasty sweaty job securing some struts between joists in the crawl space behind my attic. It was a warm day and it was very warm in a confined space under a metal roof. But I got the boards moved around, fiberglass moved out of the way, and the struts I needed are now in place. That means I can secure the top beam for my new wall into place, which is progress. Although now I'm realising I will need to use two pieces of 2x4 so I might need to get another strut in place. If needs be I can go and buy a longer piece, or just cut two pieces such that they meet under a strut rather than meeting in the air. The struts are wide enough to easily carry two ends, and the offcuts can become the sections that sit in the middle of a door frame or something.
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Gentle run made too difficult by heat and humidity.
Then I decided to attack the job of fitting the top bar for my new wall. With one hand I hold a large square to make sure it's perpendicular. With another hand I hold the end of the beam to make sure it's positioned correctly. With another hand I support the weight of the beam and with another I drive screws through the beam into the struts I secured in place yesterday.
The observant reader will spot the issues with the described process and regular human anatomical limitations. Thankfully my wife was on hand to provide two of the hands. Once the first piece was in place it was easy enough to fly solo and fit the extension piece to go from the end of the first piece to the other end of the room. Then I got the first several wall studs cut and secured into position.
I need to figure out what size and shape I want to make a small closet, and whether I want it to have a drawer at the bottom and doors opening to a space to hang clothes, or something more like a walk-in closet. The only difference at this stage is whether I put the bottom bar across the bottom of it. If needs be I can use an oscillating tool to cut off that piece of the base bar, but I'd really rather not have to do that.
Crucially for now, I've got enough wall in place that I can run cable to join all the electrical back boxes together. I'll need to fit new back boxes to the section of wall I just framed today, then I can fit the insulation panels between the studs and run sound proofing across the front of it all. That will be an interesting process, although probably easier than running it across the ceiling. Trying to fit a sheet that's 48 inches wide, 13 feet long, and weighs 52lb, into position so I can screw upwards through it into the ceiling joists, while trying to maintain its position against one edge of the room, when nothing is quite straight, and without letting too much weight hang so it doesn't pull free of the screws already in place, took a bit of thinking about how best to solve it. At least with the walls all I have to do is hang something vertically and what I'm hanging it against is mostly straight. I'll be working with sheets roughly 4 feet by 8 feet that weigh 32lb.
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Looking forward to tonight's rehearsal. Picture 5 adults portraying rambunctious kids and 1 adult trying to tell the story of Paul on the road to Damascus. Tonight is the last rehearsal. A lot of work, but fun. We will be doing it at both services Sunday. If you're interested in seeing it hunt up the church's website and watch one of the services. It is St Cloud First United Methodist Church in St Cloud, FL. I've been told that it will eventually be posted on YouTube.
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Threshold level workout suggested today, and I decided to give it a shot despite the heat and possibility of rain. And it was hard, harder than I had hoped it would be. I had to ease off the pace a couple of times because the workout gives no consideration for hills - it sets a suggested pace so it's easy to hold it running down a gentle hill and then impossibly hard to sustain it going up the hill at the end. And then the heat made it harder to do much of anything, but I got to the end of it even if I did need to take a couple more walk breaks than I hoped, and didn't manage to meet the goal pace for as much of it as I hoped.
Along the way I clocked a new lactate threshold which, curiously, was the target pace I was trying to hit and sustain and four seconds per mile faster than the previously clocked threshold. It helps explain why I was finding it hard sustaining the pace it in the heat.
Now I'm pondering what to do next in my work room. I'm not sure whether to run more cables or look to frame out the closet space. My wife and I talked about the design of that and decided a huge drawer at the bottom wouldn't be useful so it's going to be a "step-in closet" (like a walk-in closet but without a whole lot of space to walk around in it). I may yet put a smaller set of drawers that only take up the back half, but I can decide that later.
ETA: I drilled some more holes and ran cable all the way around the room so far. There are going to be two more back boxes installed that I didn't put in yet but that's an easy enough thing to do. I got sidetracked because I went downstairs to retrieve a tool for marking where I needed to drill and ran into my wife who was just getting back from shopping, and helping her bring everything in and put it all away disrupted the process, as did an afternoon coffee.
Now the holes are drilled it was mostly easy to run cables between everything. The one tricky part was in a corner, where I have two wall studs touching each other, enclosing a small space in the very corner of the room. With hindsight a small gap between them would have made things easier, but I could feed a fine wire through one way, hook it to the end of my cable reel, and then pull cable back through it. Slightly tricky, it took a couple of tries to get all the angles just so, but I got there in the end. I'll probably drill a few small holes in the corners and fill the cavity with spray foam so I don't have a nasty gap in my insulation.
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I just finished my latest online course with Hillsdale College. This was my 8th certificate. This one was on C.S. Lewis and Christianity.
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Easy workout today because I ran yesterday and then went bowling in the evening, so I have muscles that are a little tight that I forgot even existed. Today's suggested workout was a 30-minute recovery run, but I decided to go for a long walk instead. So things were at a slightly lower intensity but for longer. I'm glad I wasn't running, my legs felt like dead weights for most of my walk.
Then I got busy with a little more work in my workspace. I got a couple more back boxes fitted, and got cables run from each box to the next one and all joined up. Now I just need to connect the chain to the first socket, the one with the power, so I can get power elsewhere around the room. Trying to figure how to frame the closet I want to put in is a little tricky, I want to widen it a little from what it was before but need to figure what to do with the existing floor before I can do that. The adjacent room is a bathroom so the floor will be under a layer of plywood, so it doesn't matter if that part isn't pretty, but I would prefer to avoid nasty joins in the flooring in the closet spcae.
I'm also trying to figure the best way to get a load of old wall studs out of there and stored somewhere else. They are worth keeping - the chances are they are chestnut and probably 90+ years old - but there are a few of them and they take up quite a lot of space. Once this room is finished I'm probably going to claim it as an office/study, and my plan is to build a desk using the chestnut to make a worktop. It will be a bit of work to take a load of rough cut studs and get everything smooth and even but I think it will be worth it. At some point I need to move things out of there so I can clean up the entire space, and I'll need to clear space before I can get drywalling people in there because they'll probably have silly ideas about being able to actually get at the spaces I want them to drywall.
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I have another story for my "war stories." I have learned that anyone who spends any time performing has a few stories of the type of "if the audience knew what went on backstage they would wonder how we got through." This morning I ended up in one. But this one happened in plain view. The "girl" behind me had my arm behind my back, planned. Just as we were just about in place somehow I fell. The others reacted so perfectly that everyone in the audience thought it was planned. I wasn't hurt, and the rest of the show went on like it was supposed to. Every show has a few of those.
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Went for a walk in the woods after church. For the first time ever I passed a cyclist while walking. It was on a big long hill, about three miles of mostly steep gradients. I walked up about a mile of it but she would probably have cycled more than a mile before she passed the point where the trail crossed the gravel road. I wasn't sure if I was gaining on her for a while but sure enough I was, and eventually passed her. I was pushing quite hard on the hill, and she was struggling with the gradient. At the top of the hill I saw a guy in cycling gear holding a helmet asking if I'd seen another cyclist - presumably he was her riding buddy.
All in I got about 7.5 miles and sweat a lot in the process. It was a good walk.
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Tossed the winter boots today for lightweight techs. What joy!
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Didn't feel energetic today and my suggested workout was "recovery", so I decided to walk one of my longer routes. In the end I jogged for much of it but at a gentle pace and pausing to walk whenever I felt the urge. Curiously today I made a point of jogging into the wind when it blew in my face, because it was nice and cooling.
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I’m actually exercising some on purpose
1.5 miles in the hills around my house every night
So far , at least 6 days a week
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I’m actually exercising some on purpose
1.5 miles in the hills around my house every night
So far , at least 6 days a week
You'll be running ultramarathons before you know it :)
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I’m actually exercising some on purpose
1.5 miles in the hills around my house every night
So far , at least 6 days a week
You'll be running ultramarathons before you know it :)
If I’m running it means I’m being chased and I’m out of ammo…
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I’m actually exercising some on purpose
1.5 miles in the hills around my house every night
So far , at least 6 days a week
You'll be running ultramarathons before you know it :)
If I’m running it means I’m being chased and I’m out of ammo…
I think in many cases "running" an ultramarathon is a figure of speech. I know a guy who has done a couple of 100 mile races and the time limits are such that you only need to average about 3-4mph for the duration. In theory you could walk the entire route and still finish within time, assuming you didn't need time for any irritations like eating and sleeping. You can probably eat on the move, although sleeping on the move comes with its own set of challenges.
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Another run today, then a bit of enabling work. I need to lay a bottom beam to frame my closet but I couldn't do it because the floor was missing. Parts of the floor were cut away because they were under where a bath once sat, so I needed to fill the gaps. But filling the gaps was tricky because the ends of floorboard had no support.
In the end I cut them right back to the nearest joists, added a buddy section to the joist to support the ends of the floorboards, which allowed me to put a section of floor across the gap. Along the way I needed to replace a section of joist that some genius decided to cut away sometime over the years - apparently it was considered a good idea to just cut big chunks out of joists to accommodate pipework. So now there's a section of wood filling the gap, screwed to a section of 2x4 which is attached either end of the cut away section with structural grade screws. Probably lots of overkill but I'd rather know it's not going to fail on me. How what's left of the joists haven't failed over the years is a mystery.
Anyway, now I'm in a place where I can press on with a bit more wall framing so that will be tomorrow's job. Then I went out for dinner with my wife, at our favorite local brewpub. It's getting a bit spendy but it's a nice evening out.
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
Yep
I found out a month ago over got a bit of coronary artery disease and I refuse to take statins
So it is a whole food plant based diet… no meat, dairy, eggs, nuts…. And walking 30 minutes a day
I’m eating like a horse (literally), never hungry, great energy, and I’ve lost about 14 pounds in 30 days
God is t stupid even when we are
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
Yep
I found out a month ago over got a bit of coronary artery disease and I refuse to take statins
So it is a whole food plant based diet… no meat, dairy, eggs, nuts…. And walking 30 minutes a day
I’m eating like a horse (literally), never hungry, great energy, and I’ve lost about 14 pounds in 30 days
God is t stupid even when we are
Wise!
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
Yep
I found out a month ago over got a bit of coronary artery disease and I refuse to take statins
So it is a whole food plant based diet… no meat, dairy, eggs, nuts…. And walking 30 minutes a day
I’m eating like a horse (literally), never hungry, great energy, and I’ve lost about 14 pounds in 30 days
God is t stupid even when we are
No nuts? Aren't they plant-based?
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
Yep
I found out a month ago over got a bit of coronary artery disease and I refuse to take statins
So it is a whole food plant based diet… no meat, dairy, eggs, nuts…. And walking 30 minutes a day
I’m eating like a horse (literally), never hungry, great energy, and I’ve lost about 14 pounds in 30 days
God is t stupid even when we are
No nuts? Aren't they plant-based?
Yeah but as they metabolize they create a particularly nasty trans fatty acid that harms the endothelial cells that line the cardiac arteries. Part of the goal is to help heal the arteries themselves without pharmaceuticals
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I’m actually exercising some on purpose
1.5 miles in the hills around my house every night
So far , at least 6 days a week
I ran 6 km about each day, trying to run a new PR.
But that was more than half a century ago when I was in the army.
And I believe the about each day is an exaggeration :)
Nowadays a walk 15 of minutes is the limit, 30 minutes means paracetamol, no exaggeration.
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Still maintaining keto diet and type II diabetes reversal after a setback or two - any relapse into carb territory has resulted in spikes and endangers vision specifically. Pressure has caused eye floaters and even flashes.
Lesson learned.
The benefits of a careful, however difficult, regimine, are countless.
Wiil not give in to medical industry pushing BG lowering meds which do not actually address the issues of insulin
resistence.
Yep
I found out a month ago over got a bit of coronary artery disease and I refuse to take statins
So it is a whole food plant based diet… no meat, dairy, eggs, nuts…. And walking 30 minutes a day
I’m eating like a horse (literally), never hungry, great energy, and I’ve lost about 14 pounds in 30 days
God is t stupid even when we are
No nuts? Aren't they plant-based?
Yeah but as they metabolize they create a particularly nasty trans fatty acid that harms the endothelial cells that line the cardiac arteries. Part of the goal is to help heal the arteries themselves without pharmaceuticals
Interesting. Does that apply to all nuts - I've been eating brazil nuts lately as a source of selenium and magnesium, albeit in fairly small quantities.
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Still alive and doing relatively well 7 years after being told I had already had a heart attack and was on the brink of a disaster. Competent specialists refuted the misdiagnosis after a sonogram and other tests. (The faulted doc since resigned).
I went in for stitches awhile back and they got real heavy on me for not taking the statins he had prescribed. Etc, etc...
While folks on statins and diabetics are dying all around me.
Am without sufficient words for the medical establishment
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I’m right there with you…
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My cholesterol is elevated, so I've joined the club.
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Good company
I’ll give at update in six months!
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I have limited time for a for-profit system that makes more money keeping me slightly sick than fixing problems. I guess I'm fortunate that my doctor is more into holistic solutions than pushing pills at every opportunity.
I have no idea what my cholesterol might be as I haven't had bloodwork done for several years now. I should probably change that, even if only for the sake of information. Given how much exercise I take these days I'm expecting my HDL levels to be very high, hopefully enough to offset any issues with LDL.
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My legs hate me. I helped a couple from our church load their moving van this morning. It was easy enough but lots of trips up and down stairs because they live in an upstairs apartment. Then came the game of Tetris fitting boxes into a van, although that wasn't too much of a problem because there was more than enough space.
Then I got home and went for a long run and spent most of the second half of it wishing I hadn't bothered. I think I was still digesting lunch, and it was very hot, and I suspect my legs really wanted a break from running. But I slogged around it taking more walk breaks than I'd hoped, and now get to spend the evening sitting on my rear in my recliner. Depending on how energetic I'm feeling I might measure up some lumber for framing the rest of the closet, although based on current observations the chances of that happening appear to be somewhere between fat and slim.
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My cholesterol is elevated, so I've joined the club.
"Garlique" supplements. Amazing!
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My cholesterol is elevated, so I've joined the club.
"Garlique" supplements. Amazing!
I've heard conflicting things. But you're saying, it's been amazing for you?
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Read Essylstein
See also the documentary on Netflix “forks over knives”
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My cholesterol is elevated, so I've joined the club.
"Garlique" supplements. Amazing!
I've heard conflicting things. But you're saying, it's been amazing for you?
Yes. With full diet and regular usage, first the blood pressure came down and lipids stay within reason - I'm rarely concerned now about cholesterol as I address inflamation.
This supplement is coated and time released.
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Among all the health talk, neighbor's daughter had her graduation party yesterday so a little more liberal on the eating and drinking than usual. I had two fun-sized cans of sugary soda, which is about the same amount of sugary soda as I've had for the rest of the year so far. The amount of sugar in that stuff is terrifying but every once in a while (read: maybe every several months) I may be tempted by a can of it.
I bought a 12-pack of soda something like three years ago and still have 8 of them in the pantry.
Today's workout is sprint repeats, which will help offset the excesses of yesterday.
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I was reminded today that the election in November coincides with Guy Fawkes Day.
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I was reminded today that the election in November coincides with Guy Fawkes Day.
Interesting. It's said that Guy Fawkes was the only man to ever enter Parliament honest about his intentions.
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My sprint repeats were less fun than I expected. I got a fair few of them in but the heat isn't doing anything to help me. But I got a good hard workout in, pushed hard enough for it to rank "Anaerobic" as the primary benefit (which was the goal), and now I can hope my legs still work tomorrow.
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Struggling with running in the heat today, it seemed my pulse was running faster than it should have been and I was constantly feeling like I was overheating.
Then this afternoon I got some work done on soundproofing the last parts of my ceiling, cutting some existing floor so it's nice and flush (and removing the tongues from the tongue-and-groove edge, so it can butt up against the pieces I'm going to put in the space, and measuring and cutting the top and bottom bars that will frame the rest of the closet space. I figured I can extend my problematic stud the other way, meaning I won't lose any of the very limited space and making it more likely that my plan to fit a shower cubicle into the space will actually work.
This evening I went to help a friend with a bit of drywalling. Nothing fancy, he wanted to tidy up a small section in his garage but didn't have much in the way of useful drywall to use. But we cut some pieces, trimmed them, screwed them into place, and now it's just a question of applying some tape and mud. I think I'll let him do that bit.
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I walked my 1.5 miles in 24 minutes flat last night…. With the hills, I really don’t know if I can walk it any faster…
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I played my 17yr old son yesterday in one on one basketball. At 46yrs old, I know the day is coming that he'll beat me..."But it is not this day!"
Although, today my legs hate me...
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I played my 17yr old son yesterday in one on one basketball. At 46yrs old, I know the day is coming that he'll beat me..."But it is not this day!"
Although, today my legs hate me...
When that day comes, as he goes around you like your feet are cemented to the ground....
Clothesline him.
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I walked my 1.5 miles in 24 minutes flat last night…. With the hills, I really don’t know if I can walk it any faster…
When I started walking I just walked around a local loop that's a bit under 3 miles. Then I started to push the speed a little, then increased the distance, then started pushing the speed a bit more. My watch tells me my pace so I just aimed at the next goal and getting as close as I could to it, then gradually set faster goals. If you chip away at it slowly it's surprising how you can increase speed.
Depending on hills and your health condition you'll hit limits sooner or later, but you probably don't need me to tell you that :)
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I frequently shop at Walmart. And so, yes my legs hate me.
(Not to mention social anxiety).
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I played my 17yr old son yesterday in one on one basketball. At 46yrs old, I know the day is coming that he'll beat me..."But it is not this day!"
Although, today my legs hate me...
"My legs hate me" is becoming a recurring theme around here....
One of the teenagers at church plays for his school basketball team. I was shooting some hoops with him the other day, committing multiple and frequent fouls because it was the only way I could score anything at all. Even as he complained bitterly about yet another foul he was still winning. In the end I proposed a new scoring structure where we scored our age with each successful basket. He still won.
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I walked my 1.5 miles in 24 minutes flat last night…. With the hills, I really don’t know if I can walk it any faster…
When I started walking I just walked around a local loop that's a bit under 3 miles. Then I started to push the speed a little, then increased the distance, then started pushing the speed a bit more. My watch tells me my pace so I just aimed at the next goal and getting as close as I could to it, then gradually set faster goals. If you chip away at it slowly it's surprising how you can increase speed.
Depending on hills and your health condition you'll hit limits sooner or later, but you probably don't need me to tell you that :)
From a cardio/pulmonary analysis, I'm good. Yeah, heart rate is up and I'm winded at the top of the hills, but not gasping and I keep the pace and stride fairly consistent up and down. I'm walking about about 120 steps a minute, so I think there will be an outer limit just from a stride and tempo analysis.
When I started a month ago, I did the 1.5 in 30 minutes. Now down to 24. Not quite 4 miles an hour, and some of these hills have a pretty good incline and are about 400 yards long.
But, I've lost about 14 pounds so far...
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Before the mill closed I walked 10mi per shift and fetched firewood all year. Basically disabled since 4yrs of age (have not run since then) I really pushed things.
Walking far now is pretty much out of the question and the physical stuff is minimal anymore.
I make as much or more driving than a Tech lll at the limeplant on top of being retired.
I enjoy seeing folks running, hiking or walking.
A very wise lifestyle.
(https://i.ibb.co/tZsjCPw/giphy.gif) (https://imgbb.com/)
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I walked my 1.5 miles in 24 minutes flat last night…. With the hills, I really don’t know if I can walk it any faster…
When I started walking I just walked around a local loop that's a bit under 3 miles. Then I started to push the speed a little, then increased the distance, then started pushing the speed a bit more. My watch tells me my pace so I just aimed at the next goal and getting as close as I could to it, then gradually set faster goals. If you chip away at it slowly it's surprising how you can increase speed.
Depending on hills and your health condition you'll hit limits sooner or later, but you probably don't need me to tell you that :)
From a cardio/pulmonary analysis, I'm good. Yeah, heart rate is up and I'm winded at the top of the hills, but not gasping and I keep the pace and stride fairly consistent up and down. I'm walking about about 120 steps a minute, so I think there will be an outer limit just from a stride and tempo analysis.
When I started a month ago, I did the 1.5 in 30 minutes. Now down to 24. Not quite 4 miles an hour, and some of these hills have a pretty good incline and are about 400 yards long.
But, I've lost about 14 pounds so far...
If your heart rate isn't going dangerously high (whatever that means based on your circumstances) you've got space to speed it up if you want to. When I'm really pushing the pace walking my cadence can go to about 150 or so, although at a more comfortable pace it's usually around the mid-130s. Taking slightly shorter strides and more of them is a good way to increase the pace - if your stride length goes above a certain level it can actually slow you down.
Another thing I found was that at the top of a hill I naturally wanted to slow right down and catch my breath but what I took to doing was to back off on the power but increase the speed slightly. If you're shifting from going up a hill to flat or downhill you can go faster with less effort, rather than winding the effort way down.
And of course the ultimate question is how fast you want to go. If you want to push the pace faster and faster there are ways and means, if you're happy with the pace you're going now and want to get more gentle exercise in there's no need to try and push it harder.
Today's run left me soaked in sweat. It wasn't particularly fast, it was just very humid outside. I got home and wrung sweat out of my shirt before putting it in the laundry. Then I had to cool off fast because I was meeting a friend for lunch before he takes off on a long summer trip with his family. So now I'm cooled off, far more caffeinated than I need to be thanks to the coffee shop where I met my friend, and trying to get motivated to do some more work in the sweat box that is the other side of my house. Running a fan over there isn't ideal because it just blows the sawdust even further than natural airflow takes it.
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I hear you.
I 've found I have to intentionally pick up the pace after topping a hill lest I simply collapse on the road and get squished.
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I hear you.
I 've found I have to intentionally pick up the pace after topping a hill lest I simply collapse on the road and get squished.
Getting squished on the road is an outcome best avoided. So people tell me.
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Set-backs and delays but still prepping for relocation.
Flee MAGA stronghold for starters, if, when possible.
No looking back.
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I got a bunch more of my wall framed. I had to stop work because I ran out of 2x4s so as soon as it stops raining today I need to go and buy some more. I strap them to the roof of my car, which involves going round and round my car with the rope tying them down, then repeating the process in reverse to get them off again at home, so I prefer not to do it in the rain.
So far I've got the room and associated closet mostly framed, I just need to put the cross bar across the top of where the doors will go in place and the associated stubby bit between that and the ceiling. I have a few offcuts but not enough to finish. With some extra 2x4s I can frame the wall that will divide the landing and the batroom, so it seems I might as well do that while I'm on a roll.
It looks kinda weird not seeing a big stack of lumber on my temporary floor, and really weird seeing this big open space looking ever-more like a room.
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Stopped drinking 10 cups of coffee a day after headaches, heart palpitations, jittery feelings, sleep disruptions. Detoxification process as I read can take 2-9 days, I am now on decaf coffee.
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Stopped drinking 10 cups of coffee a day after headaches, heart palpitations, jittery feelings, sleep disruptions. Detoxification process as I read can take 2-9 days, I am now on decaf coffee.
10 cups a day is a lot. My wife and I drink enough we get a wholesale discount from my local roaster but we're nowhere near that level. I've felt kinda buzzed for a couple of hours after four cups at the local cafe, which is why I very seldom drink that much coffee. It's a good feeling at first but soon fades to something I'd really rather went away.
On an unrelated note, I now have a dozen nice new 2x4s sitting on my temporary floor, so it doesn't look forlorn any more. Maybe this afternoon I can get some of them cut up and put into position. I tried going for a run but it was one of those days when my legs just had nothing to give and I struggled to even run for two minutes. Needless to say the heat and humidity weren't helping, but even aside from that it just felt like there was no fuel in the tank at all.
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T(r)ipping point: on average, 400mg caffeine. (4cups daily)
Just gets me started ::)
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T(r)ipping point: on average, 400mg caffeine. (4cups daily)
Just gets me started ::)
I had an interesting encounter with the Black Rifle Coffee Company. A local discount store had a few of their canned drinks in stock so I tried one. It had 300mg of caffeine in it, which didn't register as a particularly high dose. Maybe slightly high but not high enough to cause concern. So I drank the can of coffee and found myself feeling agitated. Trying another can on another day I found that If I drink it slowly and I'm properly hydrated it works. If I drink it too fast, it's not so good.
Then I found the canned coffee also has a few other bits and pieces in it, so don't buy it any more.
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I got my two doorways fully framed with crossbars and struts in the middle of the crossbars. I started measuring up where the next section of wall is going to go and it looks like I need to correct the angle ever so slightly - I'm a little under half an inch off at one end of a wall that will be about seven feet long in total. It's ironic because I nudged the small section of wall very slightly out of square to correct another issue, and now it looks like I might have been better off leaving it square. It's a small enough issue, and with a door in the middle of the wall it should be easy enough to lose half an inch. I was going to cut a stud away and start framing but that will require me to line the ceiling with soundproofing material, which will require me to pull down some ceiling laths, which will rain cellulose down on me, and I didn't feel like starting that job late in the evening.
I also think I bought too many 2x4s. I figured I'd rather have one or two spares than find myself one short and having to go to the lumber mill to buy a single one, but I have 11 left and think I need 7. I'm not sure when I'll be needing more of them, because when I pull down the brick wall I'll probably replace it with 2x6s for a bit of extra strength.
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Just got back from my son's wedding in the Holy Land. It was a blessed and wonderful experience.
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Excellent!
Mazel tov!
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I just received one of those fall detection/emergency buttons that you wear. I don't need it now, but I may eventually. I discovered that I could get this one through my insurance company, at no charge to me, so I decided why not. There is a bit of a learning curve. When I was putting it into the charging device for the night it gave me a "fall detected" message. When I figured out what was happening I was able to cancel the call. I'm trying to get a second charging device so I can take it with me when I change my sleeping locations.
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I finally saw Disney's The Princess and the Frog. I don't know how I missed it when it was in the theater. But last night I bumped into it on TV. I was channel surfing and bumped into it just starting and decided to watch it. Worth watching. I'm not sure I would call it classic on par with Sleeping Beauty. but worth watching. I especially like the alligator.
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I went to see Inside Out 2 yesterday. Very good. If you liked the first one, you will like this one. They, very amusingly, examine adolescents. And add new characters, Anxiety, Embarrassment, and Anouie.
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Excellent!
Mazel tov!
The ceremony was very special.
The wedding took place at a site on the outskirts of Jerusalem, overlooking the hills of Judea.
There is a traditional Jewish wedding song that has been used for many hundreds of years.
It is based on the verses in Jeremiah 33
This is what the LORD says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom...
and it is parsed out to
there will be heard again in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom
and the best part is that the wedding ceremony made this prophecy literally come true.
God is good and His words are true.
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Finally got around to shifting stuff around in one workspace so I can move a saw into the space and cut up some insulation panels. So far I have three complete strips and one half strip cut and installed in my upstairs workspace. Hauling a table saw that weighs slightly over 100lb up a flight of rickety stairs and through a doorway that's just a little bit too narrow to be easy was interesting. But now it's in place next to my pile of panels, so I can cut them up much more easily. Without doing that the only alternative would be to haul the panels downstairs, which would also be a logistic challenge since they are 8 feet by 4 feet.
The spaces between my wall studs aren't quite as even as I had hoped, it seems the wood has twisted ever so slightly, but it's pretty close. Much closer than anything else I've worked with so far, which is always a good thing. Tomorrow I can cut some more strips and see how much more progress I can make. It's good to finally get on with stuff again, for a time it seemed every little thing I tried to do hit an obstacle.
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I managed to recover a pair of old email addresses circa 2007 that I had completely forgotten existed, though I can't say the same for the other people who had still been emailing me there 😅
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The incredible Femke Bol, she starts as last one in the 4x400m relay at place 4 and starts catching up.
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I took my bicycle out for a spin, for the first time in quite a lot of years. I cleaned it off the other day and today I decided it was about time I took it out for a ride to see if it was still in rideable condition. My main concern was whether it would need new cables or tires, given it's been 8-9 years since I last rode it.
It felt good to be riding again, although my body obviously isn't used to being in the saddle. That might take a bit of getting used to.
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Well, my area largely dodged a bullet. Debbie came ashore in the Big Bend area. So all we are getting is some moderately heavy rain from time to time. Some potential for tornadoes.
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Well, my area largely dodged a bullet. Debbie came ashore in the Big Bend area. So all we are getting is some moderately heavy rain from time to time. Some potential for tornadoes.
My area got off light as well. While mostly rain and thunder around me, one close lightning strike killed my power for less than a minute last night. Today, it's just light but steady rain. Considering the damage done by Debby elsewhere, we were very fortunate.
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Went for a run today, and spent a lot of the time wishing I'd chosen something lighter on the effort. The heat was pretty intense, but overall the run was easier than it might have been. I'm looking forward to cooler weather when I can push a bit harder.
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Yesterday was a bundle of fun. I got to play with some boards and beams in a very confined space.
First of all I needed to get a piece of wiring work done, before I laid the new boards. So that meant lifting some fiberglass to find the wire, then pulling a new wire. The ends aren't connected up yet but that can wait, the key thing was getting the wire to run through the space. Then I needed to re-seat the fiberglass, and lay some 8x2 boards over the top of it all. (The boards are sold as 8x4 but I have them cut so I can handle them and get them into place).
Once I had four boards laid and secured to the joists I needed to add a couple of supports so I could lay more boards in the corners of my crawl space. At this point there's almost no head room, and it's nigh on impossible to get at anything because of the confined space. I needed to cut a piece of board to length, then use joist hangers to secure it to perpendicular joists, and screw the hangers into place because there isn't space to swing a hammer to drive nails. The second support needed to have one end cut at 45 degrees, which was tricky because it was too tall to stand up in my miter saw so I had to cut it as a bevel. Thankfully that one was easier to work with, as I could drill through the perpendicular joists and use structural grade screws to secure the new support into place. It's probably overkill but I'd rather over-engineer something than find I need to revisit it later. At some point I'd like what I'm laying to become a subfloor for what will effectively become a third floor patio space, so I'd rather do it right first time.
Today my arms ached, because of the weird efforts in wielding a drill and screwdriver in a very confined space while also supporting my weight and trying to hold things still for long enough to drive screws and nails into them.
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
Just don’t inhale…
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
Just don’t inhale…
LOL!!
Got an email from the church this morning. A total of 103 people were served, 47 take out and 56 dine ins. It is always a blessing to see so many smiling faces.
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
I only recognize 1 4 o'clock per day and it is NOT 4 AM.
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Quick run today. The cooler temperatures make it much easier, the difference in my pace for a comparable effort is remarkable. It's also nice to get home and not take half an hour or more to stop dripping sweat. This aftenoon I plan to play with some more boards, I'll get my circular saw up in the attic and cut some things to length. Hopefully I can fit all the rest of the boards in a single hit. That would be nice.
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
I only recognize 1 4 o'clock per day and it is NOT 4 AM.
I think 4am is a myth built into stories to scare small children into compliance.
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Long day. Up at 0400hrs, at the church at 0430hrs, began smoking 6 pork butts for our Free Community Dinner by 0500hrs.
I only recognize 1 4 o'clock per day and it is NOT 4 AM.
I think 4am is a myth built into stories to scare small children into compliance.
Hahaha, that's funny.
Second guessed myself today and lost a great photo.
Raining here today and rain makes great opportunity for interesting photos for my "Moment's Through a Dirty Windshield" photo project. Took several hipshots of people walking along the storefronts as I was slowly driving by. I decided to set my camera down and as I cleared past a parked car and looked off to the right, I lost a great photo.
A family was standing at the parking meter. The son, just a head taller than the meter and standing just to the left (my perspective), was look down at it. A daughter, was standing just to the right of the meter and was looking up at it. The mom, to the left of the son was looking at her husband/dad and he was to the right of the daughter and reaching over the daughter, was putting in the money with one hand and holding an umbrella with the other hand. They were all huddled under that umbrella.
Still mentally kicking myself for not waiting till I reached the end of the street before putting the camera down.
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Not looking forward to Friday 8/30/2024. Scheduled to have an endoscopy. Probably will turn into an EGD, which will be my 11th. The next day will not be pleasant. I usually spend the next day sleeping and vomiting. I suspect I'm sensitive to the anesthetic they were using. I have mentioned that to several people.
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Not looking forward to Friday 8/30/2024. Scheduled to have an endoscopy. Probably will turn into an EGD, which will be my 11th. The next day will not be pleasant. I usually spend the next day sleeping and vomiting. I suspect I'm sensitive to the anesthetic they were using. I have mentioned that to several people.
Will start lifting this in prayer tonight brother. My wife and I pray together nightly and this will be on my list.
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Not looking forward to Friday 8/30/2024. Scheduled to have an endoscopy. Probably will turn into an EGD, which will be my 11th. The next day will not be pleasant. I usually spend the next day sleeping and vomiting. I suspect I'm sensitive to the anesthetic they were using. I have mentioned that to several people.
Will start lifting this in prayer tonight brother. My wife and I pray together nightly and this will be on my list.
Thanks. I'm not overly concerned.as.this will be my 11th. Still, the usual aftermath is unpleasant. The last few times left me sleeping and vomiting the next day. The prayers are still appreciated.
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Not looking forward to Friday 8/30/2024. Scheduled to have an endoscopy. Probably will turn into an EGD, which will be my 11th. The next day will not be pleasant. I usually spend the next day sleeping and vomiting. I suspect I'm sensitive to the anesthetic they were using. I have mentioned that to several people.
Will start lifting this in prayer tonight brother. My wife and I pray together nightly and this will be on my list.
Thanks. I'm not overly concerned.as.this will be my 11th. Still, the usual aftermath is unpleasant. The last few times left me sleeping and vomiting the next day. The prayers are still appreciated.
Sounds ugly, even if it's a known ugly. I'll send one up for you as well :)
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Lots of fun with an encryption library I'm trying to figure out how to use. There's very little documentation and the sample code wouldn't compile. That's never a good start.
After much digging I found I was missing a key library. That seemed odd, given I used an automated installer. Further digging indicated I was using a "lite" version and what I had (what came with the installer built into my development platform) was out of date.
So all in all it took me the best part of 90 minutes to try and trace some documentation, fail to compile a simple demo program, figure out what the problem was, and get a very basic encryption implementation working. Now I need to build it into the rest of the code to make it do something more productive than turn text into gibberish and back into text.
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@tango, I am still have the source code of an old encryption util from 1998.
Syntax : zipper e|d infile outfile
e=encrypt
d=decrypt
It compiles.
I can upload if you think it's useful.
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@tango, I am still have the source code of an old encryption util from 1998.
Syntax : zipper e|d infile outfile
e=encrypt
d=decrypt
It compiles.
I can upload if you think it's useful.
I wrote a basic encryption library myself probably around that time. I codenamed it EZ-Crypt and used it in a couple of applications. Now it would need to be rewritten to force it to use standard 8-bit characters, because with string types now referring to Unicode strings it sometimes glitches and messes up the last character or two during an encrypt-decrypt verification cycle. With so much else out there I don't know that I can be bothered to update it, it's less effort to just plug in an existing unit that works.
At present I'm trying to figure the best way to maintain a local user file for a piece of software that isn't allowed network access, and so can't use anything like enterprise-grade database security, nor can it use an online database. Because everything has to be stored locally there's nothing to stop anyone from inspecting the file so all the useful data needs to be encrypted, while keeping as many keys as possible unencrypted to allow the use of at least basic SQL statements.
For good measure it also needs to incorporate at least some protection against a bad actor using a different version of the file containing compromised passwords before restoring the current version.
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A trick I used in the past, since folks tend to copy instead of buying, is to store crucial information (as copy protection) as a .dll in the Windows/system32 folder, encrypting the c:/Windows/system32 path and filename.dll in the code also. Everything can be hacked but it worked fine.
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A trick I used in the past, since folks tend to copy instead of buying, is to store crucial information (as copy protection) as a .dll in the Windows/system32 folder, encrypting the c:/Windows/system32 path and filename.dll in the code also. Everything can be hacked but it worked fine.
It's not about preventing people copying the software, that's secured with all sorts of fun other stuff (it's of limited use to copy the software anyway, since it interfaces with some very specialised hardware and is more or less useless without the hardware). The problem is that a bad actor could potentially tamper with the password file and create logs that appeared to be done by someone else. In most settings that wouldn't be an issue but this particular requirement relates to audit trails and being able to tell who did what. If the password file can be compromised there's the potential for audit trails to also become compromised, which is the problem.
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Maybe I misunderstood what you are doing, I assumed C++ programming but after rereading I noticed the word SQL which implies PHP programming? And if so can you not delete the local file immediately after it did what it is supposed to do?
Google -
javascript delete file
php delete file
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Maybe I misunderstood what you are doing, I assumed C++ programming but after rereading I noticed the word SQL which implies PHP programming? And if so can you not delete the local file immediately after it did what it is supposed to do?
Google -
javascript delete file
php delete file
Actually it's neither. The code is written in Delphi (think visual Pascal, if you don't know Delphi) and runs on a local machine. The database is also stored locally but because I can't use anything fancy it's a simple SQLite database. That's handy in that the drivers etc are free, but a liability because the drivers etc are free and anyone can write a simple database viewer/editor, so storing the data in an unencrypted format would lead to all sorts of issues.
The issue isn't deleting the file, but if a bad actor does manage to delete the file it potentially causes problems because it means audit trails go away. In theory a bad actor could take a copy of a file to give them chance to attempt to break a password, restoring files if/when accounts got locked out. If they had a compromised password they could restore a copy of the compromised file, use the compromised password and then restore the original file. I'm trying to figure a way to provide at least some warning that such a thing might have happened, given I can't necessarily control what happens to any given file.
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About to take a nap. Was up.at.6:15 this morning to go have.an endoscopy (in general I only recognize 1 6:15 per day and it.ISN’T AM.) So far things are going fine. I'm, now,.fairly steady on my legs. No vomiting which was a problem last time. And a bit of a sore throat, to be expected. A bit tired, also expected. So it's time for.a nap.
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Joined our church's handbell choir last night. I was a bit rusty but did fairly well. It was fun.
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
Didn't expect to see that second song linked as a response. Metallica I could see. Haven't heard that Deliverance album mentioned in a while.
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More fun with insulation panels.
I cut two lengths from an 8x4 panel. The first was an easy enough fit, it just needed to go between two wall studs so didn't require a whole lot of trimming. The second was tricky - it had a wall stud on one side and a textured brick wall on the other - what was once the outer wall of the house but is now an interior wall. So I had to cut a 2" thick panel to match the curvature of the wall as best I could, while pressing it against the wall and working in a confined space.
In the end I settled for a cut that's fairly close, I can fill the gaps with expanding foam. It will still be incomparably better than what I had before, and now the space I've been working in is fully fitted with insulating panels. I have one full panel remaining, and about 18" of another panel. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, I could really do with having them out of the way so I can continue working but I'm not sure where to put them. I need to open up some more wall cavity so I can fit them, it's just a question of where I can do that.
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Wisdom from one of my grandchildren at the age of 6 - What a bad luck day!
Meaning, tomorrow will be better.
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Went to see my GI doctor this morning. Mainly talked to the PA. The stricture in my throat was worse than was expected. He was able to stretch it to a large degree. But not as much as he would like. So I have to have another in October. That one Will be my 12th, and it's already scheduled. It's a little later in the morning than I would like but it's either then or wait until December. And this one was only available due to a cancelation so I jumped on it.
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Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
Didn't expect to see that second song linked as a response. Metallica I could see. Haven't heard that Deliverance album mentioned in a while.
I just managed to snag a 1989 copy of X-Sinner's "Get it", so I figured, since I'm posting Metallica anyway, why not also some Deliverance, which has nothing to do with X-Sinner.
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I just managed to snag a 1989 copy of X-Sinner's "Get it", so I figured, since I'm posting Metallica anyway, why not also some Deliverance, which has nothing to do with X-Sinner.
That's another blast from the past. I know I have that album somewhere, haven't listened to it in years though.
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I just managed to snag a 1989 copy of X-Sinner's "Get it", so I figured, since I'm posting Metallica anyway, why not also some Deliverance, which has nothing to do with X-Sinner.
That's another blast from the past. I know I have that album somewhere, haven't listened to it in years though.
The real trick is getting one's hands on Peace Treaty... But also, their first CD was always their best.
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I guess you're familiar with Vengeance - Human Sacrifice was their first album (the guitar solo on From The Dead rivals and possibly beat's Slayer's efforts in Angel of Death), then came Once Dead (nowhere near as good in my opinion) and then another one (I think Raegoul) that I haven't heard.
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I guess you're familiar with Vengeance - Human Sacrifice was their first album (the guitar solo on From The Dead rivals and possibly beat's Slayer's efforts in Angel of Death), then came Once Dead (nowhere near as good in my opinion) and then another one (I think Raegoul) that I haven't heard.
Yeah, that sounds about right
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The people in Central Florida are preparing for another hurricane. This one looks to be a repeat of Charlie. Making landfall in Tampa on Wednesday as a category 3.
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Fun With Soundproofing.
I hauled two more rolls of soundproofing from the garage up into my workroom. I wasn't sure whether a third roll was needed but since two rolls combined weigh almost as much as I do I decided to stick at two, and haul the third if I found I needed it.
Fitting the material at ground level is easy, I can more or less stand up a roll and unroll it, screwing it to the wall studs as I go. The next level up is trickier because it's heavy material and has to be held in a fairly precise location so I can screw it into place, but I can't let go of it or the weight will pull it off the screws. So I rigged up a bit of a botch on one of my ladders to hold it at the right height, and then my wife steadies the roll so it doesn't fall off the ladder while I climb the ladder and screw it into place.
It makes an enormous difference having her help me, even if all she is doing is steadying the material. In the course of a couple of hours we pretty much finished the workroom's soundproofing and got a chunk of the adjacent room done too. I have a few strips to fill in (the material is 48" wide and the ceiling varies from about 97" - 99"), and aside from that this room is all but ready for drywalling.
In other rooms I have a little more electrical work to do that I can press on with now, and I need to frame a section of wall and have a couple of windows replaced. But the way thing are going we might just have a chunk of space finished before the end of the year. That will be nice.
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At my sister's waiting for the hurricane to come through.
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At my sister's waiting for the hurricane to come through.
Hoping you're safe from it. Please let us know.
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We're fine. We didn't even loose power. Had something pull down the box and meter off the wall but no other damage. Lots of branches down.
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Can I get a "HALLUAJAH? A day that started out as a "day from hell," ended up great. To start with I had an EGD (esophageal gastric dilation) scheduled. Not fun but not really a big deal. I've had several of them and I thought I had everything set up. Or so I thought. I can't drive from the hospital, so I arranged transportation through my insurance. I need someone to wait with me, so I had a friend that would wait with me. Redone this before. Then the hurricane comes. I go up and shelter with my sister in Orlando. First snag. My house doesn't have power because the power pole that brings power to the power box has come off from the wall. After some work, I find an electrician to fix it. It takes longer than I had hoped. I drive down from Orlando to catch my ride and find out my had landed in the emergency room and he can't do it. So, after many calls I finally find someone to wait with me. The procedure goes fine. I go home and my electrician is there. He agrees to wait for the power crew so he can sign the waiver. And the crew gets my power back on. So I am now sitting here at home watching TV I have to clean out the refrigerator, which can wait for now. And I have to go back to my sister's to get the rest of my things. But the horrible day has been redeemed.
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Fun With Electrics.
A back box that was already a bit on the tight side is now even tighter, since I put a wifi-enabled relay in it. It took a bit of fiddling to get everything to go back into the box, but it's there now and I can control my lights (that will be a light/fan combo soon enough) from my phone from anywhere in the world that has internet access.
Now I know everything works as expected the next job is to take another overly tight back box and put two of these things in it. That job is going to involve pulling everything out and putting a bigger back box in place, as there's no way I can fit it all in there.
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My wifi relays are now due to arrive tomorrow, so I can press on with fitting them to a new box over the weekend.
Today my wife and I went out for dinner and discovered a very pleasing limited edition sour beer at one of our local(ish) breweries.
Then because I couldn't make enough progress on my lighting to make it worth bothering I decided to.... work on some lighting. I've got a lamp I bought because it didn't work. I'd previously taken the wiring apart and it was ugly, so I stripped most of it out and replaced it, and now it works very nicely. It's a pretty lamp, so it's good to have it working.
Getting it working was frustrating, because I had to not only feed more wires through the threaded rod down the middle than I've had to deal with before but I also found that a shield was positioned such that I couldn't get the key into the new lamp holder. Thankfully a tungsten carbide bit in my Dremel opened the hole up so I can get at it.
I still need to find a tap/die combination so I can make my own brass extenders. Some lampholders come with them and some don't, and it would be handy to be able to make them as needed.
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I picked up a great set of tap/die at an antique store a few years ago
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I picked up a great set of tap/die at an antique store a few years ago
I have a few sets but nothing that's quite the right size for this. I've got a metric and an imperial set for regular bolts, and a precision set for much smaller things, but none of them quite match what I need for lamp holders. Lamps themselves seem to be the kind of thing that live in antique stores too - the size I need is somewhere slightly bigger than my precision set but smaller than most other sets, and so far I haven't managed to find anything suitable anywhere.
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I got my two two-channel wifi relays installed. I needed to fit a bigger back box and it was still a big snug in there, but they are installed and they are working so that's good.
Lately I've been trying to figure out how to finish the soundproofing job in two rooms, while conflicting aims of minimising material wastage and minimising the number of joins in the material. It's awkward because nothing in the room is quite square, the ceiling height is slightly more than twice the width of the rolls of material, and the presence of windows and doors invites wastage and/or joins. So far I've got most of it done, and I'm slowly working my way around it all, and then I can make sure the ceiling is more or less level before getting the drywalling done.
My plan is to get one room finished, then drywall that room, then move stuff from the next room so I can get that room done. Trying to finish two rooms at once leaves me stuck dealing with a lack of space. Much of the stuff is easy enough to move but cast iron radiators are anything but trivial to transport. Two smaller ones are relatively easy but the larger one probably weighs about twice as much as I do, which makes moving it interesting.
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Shopping for upgrades to my home security camera system….
Ouch.
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Shopping for upgrades to my home security camera system….
Ouch.
Do you use wired cameras or wifi-enabled ones?
Wifi cameras seem pretty easy - you just stick them in place and replace the battery as needed - but I can't help thinking that something wired (preferably with PoE) is harder to circumvent.
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Wired.
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Wired.
Since I have some parts of my house pulled apart at the moment I'd be interested if you'd be willing to share some thoughts on different systems. I live in a rural area so no real concerns about crime - I don't want the kind of thing that looks like the house is bristling with cameras (and advertising to every criminal scumbag in the area that my house is worth raiding).
Obviously I understand if you don't want to post details in a public forum like this one....
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I worries.
My predecessor homeowner went all out . Five external cameras, one in the garage, and one in the basement.
Wiring is good
I’m replacing their old black and white cameras with Swann off the shelf color, night vision cameras with microphones
System includes a plug and play DVR
Nothing fancy but it allows me to monitor on my phone
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Was there a reason you chose Swann? I looked them up and their reviews seem mixed at best.
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Mostly availability and compatability with my existing system.
I'm not very good with tech so "plug and play" without programming is YUUUUUGE for me!
:o
Plus, I figure it's all obsolete in 5-7 years so no need to buy a Cadillac, which is what my house's former owner did.
I plugged in a new Swann night vision/ 4K camera into the existing system over the weekend and the difference in picture quality is remarkable, plus I can have audio recording as an addition.
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That's fair enough. I like things that work and continue to work long after they are notionally obsolete, and like things that connect easily so I don't have to run new wires any more often than absolutely necessary.
Where network cables are concerned I'd want to run them such that I could use an old cable to pull a new cable if they ever needed to be replaced. Electrical codes make it hard to do that with mains cable, although I never did work out why.
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In Athens. You'd never believe this place had any history if the historical monuments weren't around. It's a dump.
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I hear the same is true about most of Europe unless you start the day with 2 glasses or wine or beer.
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Fighting the tail end of some kind of cold or similar. The last couple of days have been mostly unproductive, although I've done a lot of sleeping.
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I had to have a total thyroidectomy about 6 months ago after a few nodules being monitored turned ugly. Fortunately, thyroid cancer is one of the easiest to treat when caught early. A few days ago, the results of an echocardiogram and labs showed no new activity in the area, so that's a good thing. I've been taking thyroid hormone for the last 10 years due to hypothyroidism, so the only day to day change is an increase in the dosage. Sure will be nice when we get our immortal bodies and don't have to worry about sickness or diseased organs.
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I hear the same is true about most of Europe unless you start the day with 2 glasses or wine or beer.
There's a lot of Europe that's quite nice. This is the first time I've been shocked at the state of things... especially considering it's a capital city.
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I hear the same is true about most of Europe unless you start the day with 2 glasses or wine or beer.
There's a lot of Europe that's quite nice. This is the first time I've been shocked at the state of things... especially considering it's a capital city.
Have you been to Paris?
Parts of it are lovely. When I was last there much of it was overrun with beggars. And not like the guys you see in London or New York who ask for change and maybe hustle a little to "earn" it, but people constantly in your face asking for more, more, more.
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I hear the same is true about most of Europe unless you start the day with 2 glasses or wine or beer.
There's a lot of Europe that's quite nice. This is the first time I've been shocked at the state of things... especially considering it's a capital city.
Have you been to Paris?
Parts of it are lovely. When I was last there much of it was overrun with beggars. And not like the guys you see in London or New York who ask for change and maybe hustle a little to "earn" it, but people constantly in your face asking for more, more, more.
Yeah, and probably the same "syndrome".
I was expecting Rome, and got Mogadishu.
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Finally got the soundproofing finished in another room. This one was tricky, I had an awkward corner and I couldn't find any way to get into the wall cavity because of the last wall stud. In the end I figured the only way to do what I needed was to take the wall stud out. So I took the stud out, got the soundproofing materal into place, screwed it all in, and then put the stud back. The last piece of work I need to do is cut through a wall and fit a temporary door. In the longer term we're going to have a doorway without a door, but for now I need to make sure the cat can't get at the building site, so a door it is. I have a spare door with a frame that I can put in, I'll just need a bunch of shims because the door opening is several inches wider than the frame I have. I considered making a door but since it's only temporary it seems like a lot of hassle and a fair chunk of wood for something that isn't going to stay around.
A long drawn out process to fit a strip of soundproofing barely 18" wide but now it's done. I think the ceiling in that room is level enough that I can get it drywalled more or less as is, which is a huge bonus. Next up is to figure out where to put all the stuff that's in the room so the nice drywalling people can actually move around and get at the walls.
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I hear the same is true about most of Europe unless you start the day with 2 glasses or wine or beer.
There's a lot of Europe that's quite nice. This is the first time I've been shocked at the state of things... especially considering it's a capital city.
Have you been to Paris?
Parts of it are lovely. When I was last there much of it was overrun with beggars. And not like the guys you see in London or New York who ask for change and maybe hustle a little to "earn" it, but people constantly in your face asking for more, more, more.
Yeah, and probably the same "syndrome".
I was expecting Rome, and got Mogadishu.
Paris has been like that for years. The last time I was there was in 1997 and the beggars were everywhere, aggressive as usual. Even in the early 80s you could barely move without someone thrusting a can in your face hoping for a few coins.
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Facebook suggested a friend. This was a person I hadn't seen since church youth group.
I expected to see an 18-year-old.
I saw a 40-year-old.
So that's what it feels like.
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I still get surprised sometimes when I realize that 1980 wasn't 20 years ago.
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I still get surprised sometimes when I realize that 1980 wasn't 20 years ago.
I still say "10 years ago" like I mean 1996.
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Welcome to my world.
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I have joined a new Bible forum, guess what, Hepzibah and Episkopos the 2 sinless preachers are still preaching an sinless life, else hell.
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I have joined a new Bible forum, guess what, Hepzibah and Episkopos the 2 sinless preachers are still preaching an sinless life, else hell.
If they're so desperate for hell, who are we to stop them?
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I have joined a new Bible forum, guess what, Hepzibah and Episkopos the 2 sinless preachers are still preaching an sinless life, else hell.
Don't remember Hepzibah, but do have vague memories of episkopos and his tactic of nominally agreeing while then disagreeing.
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Episkopos
Boy there a hemorrhoid name from the past…
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Not a gamer. But I remember Atari...oh, all those dink dinks where the tennis ball was concerned. I could play for hours. I hated all the 80's nightlife at the time because anything other than Gary Numan did not make sense.
Currently listening to music.
its my go to unwind.
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I miss some of the members of the old place.
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Episkopos
Boy there a hemorrhoid name from the past…
And there it will stay, if they ever make the poor decision to show up.
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I have joined a new Bible forum, guess what, Hepzibah and Episkopos the 2 sinless preachers are still preaching an sinless life, else hell.
Wow, Episkopos was quite the Moderator challenge no matter what thread he invaded and tried to dominate with his agenda.
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I have joined a new Bible forum, guess what, Hepzibah and Episkopos the 2 sinless preachers are still preaching an sinless life, else hell.
Wow, Episkopos was quite the Moderator challenge no matter what thread he invaded and tried to dominate with his agenda.
... and it often seemed like he knew the rules well enough that he wasn't technically violating anything with any individual post, but his posts put together indicated a teaching that was kooky.
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Even as a moderator I was sent to Banned Camp…
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Even as a moderator I was sent to Banned Camp…
(https://i.imgflip.com/86lat5.png)
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Happy Thanksgiving to all… USA style!
May we all be truly thankful for all of God’s incredible blessings to us all.
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The weather report/warning for our area is speculating 81 inches of snow over the next 3 days... wow!
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Please be praying for me tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. Our churches music program is preforming a concert. I will be appearing as Santa and will be singing 2 solos. One with the choir, What's Going On At Bethlehem. and one by myself, Merry Christmas With Love.
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The weather report/warning for our area is speculating 81 inches of snow over the next 3 days... wow!
I don't know that I'd want to live in that, but I'd love to see it.
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Would appreciate your prayers for Mrs. RK’s mom. Mom (who finally moved in with us this summer) will be 92 in February. In great health and very active… was blowing leaves in the yard last week.
Well, she fell in her bedroom Saturday night and broke her hip. Surgery later today and then probably a week at a rehab facility which will be worse for her than going to jail
appreciate your prayers
Her name is Nancy .
Thanks
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appreciate your prayers
Her name is Nancy .
Thanks
May the Almighty grant Nancy a complete and total cure to all her ailments and bless her with health and blessings and long life.
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Would appreciate your prayers for Mrs. RK’s mom. Mom (who finally moved in with us this summer) will be 92 in February. In great health and very active… was blowing leaves in the yard last week.
Well, she fell in her bedroom Saturday night and broke her hip. Surgery later today and then probably a week at a rehab facility which will be worse for her than going to jail
appreciate your prayers
Her name is Nancy .
Thanks
Praying 🙏
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Yesterday afternoon went very well. Had fun afterwards. Stopped by a local convenience store for a drink. In full Santa suit, of course. Surprised a family with several kids. Picture resulted, of course. .
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Would appreciate your prayers for Mrs. RK’s mom. Mom (who finally moved in with us this summer) will be 92 in February. In great health and very active… was blowing leaves in the yard last week.
Well, she fell in her bedroom Saturday night and broke her hip. Surgery later today and then probably a week at a rehab facility which will be worse for her than going to jail
appreciate your prayers
Her name is Nancy .
Thanks
Hey brother, will be praying for your mom.
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Would appreciate your prayers for Mrs. RK’s mom. Mom (who finally moved in with us this summer) will be 92 in February. In great health and very active… was blowing leaves in the yard last week.
Well, she fell in her bedroom Saturday night and broke her hip. Surgery later today and then probably a week at a rehab facility which will be worse for her than going to jail
appreciate your prayers
Her name is Nancy .
Thanks
Can do.
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Spent some time yesterday rejigging my home network.
My laptop is elderly - it dates back to the time when having 802.11g on a laptop was considered bleeding edge, but the wireless router was in a distant part of the house so I sometimes got a bit of lag when video streaming. Now I have three routers, one of which is six inches from my laptop and connected with a wire. Although my laptop is old it supports gigabit ethernet (also bleeding edge for a laptop, when mine was new).
I ran a speed test and even through my VPN it was clocking 460Mbps download speed. I'll take it, given I pay for a 500M internet connection. I'd never really considered my laptop's wireless being such a choke point but I just uploaded a few dozen megabytes of files and didn't need to wait for it at all.
At some point I'm going to need a new computer but this one has done me well for so long I don't feel like buying something new that's built to fail.
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Update on mom’s surgery..
Surgery went great. Surgeon said everything was perfect
She’s back in the room and talking up a storm. Eating jello and chicken broth
No pain
Came out of the anesthesia perfectly.
Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement
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I spent the morning getting honked at, waving, and posing for pictures. Our choir had a concert at one of the local nursing homes. They wanted Santa there, my alter ego. Unfortunately my car is in the shop. Not a big deal. The church is within walking distance, we always carpool, and I don't mind using the busses. However, that had me walking around dressed as Santa. A situation geared to draw attention, and getting picture requests. We stopped at McDonald's afterwards and I ended up posing with most of the staff. If I minded I wouldn't go around dressed as Santa. And I love making a kids day when they encounter Santa unexpectedly.
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Update on mom’s surgery..
Surgery went great. Surgeon said everything was perfect
She’s back in the room and talking up a storm. Eating jello and chicken broth
No pain
Came out of the anesthesia perfectly.
Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement
And now she’s home… came home Wednesday and is doing great!!!!
God is really so very good.
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Thinking about counterfactual knowledge.
Say you were to pray for God to show you what your life would be like if you didn't struggle with A, B, C, or if X or Y didn't happen, or what have you. And, instead of being merely shown, you were dropped into that potential made actual. I think you'd find yourself to be a stranger, and would destroy the life you now have in search of the one you left behind, for all of its associated ills.
And that's just one set of counterfactuals. I think a person would go insane. But God knows all of the counterfactuals, and that seems to me to be a terrible burden.
I wasn't thinking of Picard while thinking about this, but that's a pretty solid example (TNG S6 E5, "Tapestry").
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Agreed
I think we seldom ponder the idea that choosing to create mankind has cause Gid unspeakable unfathomable pain, yet He did so knowing the love He would be able to demonstrate
Thankfully, God handles sanity better than we
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Greetings from the Prime Minister of Siam. Our drama ministry performed the Promenade of the Kings. Where the kings present their gifts to the child Jesus. This is the second year we have done this. And this is the second year I have played the same part.
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Just realised I inadvertently closed down my tab for this forum and haven't been here in what seems like forever.
Aside from Christmas it's been the usual clutch of running, walking (not enjoying the Arctic winds much), and breaking my house. I took down the rest of the chimney stack I started to remove some time ago - now it's all the way down to the base slightly below floor level downstairs. That meant another 300lb or so of drywall to smash up and put in bags, and something in the region of a ton of concrete blocks and scraps. The blocks are gone, the drywall is in bags slowly being fed out with the regular trash.
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I guess most here have experienced the effects of the "Siberian Express". Fortunately, its caboose is in sight, and I won't miss it when it's gone. I like cooler weather, but am not fond of temperatures that require me to remember to leave a fast drip on the faucets to avoid pipe freeze. The snow and ice brought on by precipitation and temps in the 20's and teens are rare here in SC -- even in the winter months. Like Florida, we don't normally have a discernible winter season, but more like a series of cold snaps before becoming moderate again. Looking forward to the "Goldilocks" temps of the mid 60's before summer brings back the typical 90's.
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I guess most here have experienced the effects of the "Siberian Express". Fortunately, its caboose is in sight, and I won't miss it when it's gone. I like cooler weather, but am not fond of temperatures that require me to remember to leave a fast drip on the faucets to avoid pipe freeze. The snow and ice brought on by precipitation and temps in the 20's and teens are rare here in SC -- even in the winter months. Like Florida, we don't normally have a discernible winter season, but more like a series of cold snaps before becoming moderate again. Looking forward to the "Goldilocks" temps of the mid 60's before summer brings back the typical 90's.
For a couple of days it got cold enough for me to wear long pants when out for my daily walk.
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Florida even got snow. Fortunately not in my neck of the woods. Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs. If I want to see it I will go see it. Thank you very much.
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Florida even got snow. Fortunately not in my neck of the woods. Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs. If I want to see it I will go see it. Thank you very much.
I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler :)
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Florida even got snow. Fortunately not in my neck of the woods. Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs. If I want to see it I will go see it. Thank you very much.
I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler :)
Sounds like fun. I grew up in Central Illinois and never got stuck on winter roads until I lived in Texas.
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Florida even got snow. Fortunately not in my neck of the woods. Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs. If I want to see it I will go see it. Thank you very much.
I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler :)
Sounds like fun. I grew up in Central Illinois and never got stuck on winter roads until I lived in Texas.
SE Texas weather can be extreme. 100+ degrees in the summer with enough humidity that you need to wear a snorkel to breath.
In the Winter it can get to teen temps, snow and freezing weather. A local historian recorded that in 1960 Orange Texas (City near where I live) received 10" of snow. That's not the record. In 1895 there was 33" of snow and single digit temps. Sabine Lake froze to the point that recent Dutch immigrants in Nederland Texas near Sabine Lake took out their ice skates...that they thought they would no longer get to use. They were able to ice skate Sabine Lake and Sabine Pass!
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We got a few frozen patterns on the outside of our windows. Not much, they were confined to a very small area and were very small. I remember as a child, before double glazing was a thing, waking to see frozen leaf shapes all over the outside of the windows.
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A bunch of running lately. With the cold weather I haven't been able to get out as much as I wanted so when I got a few warm days I went out.
Now my calf muscles hate me. I hate my calf muscles. Tomorrow we're supposed to get a wintry mix so no running for me tomorrow, I'll probably just bundle up and walk.
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My suggested workout today was "rest". I can do that tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be nasty, so today I ran a little over 10k on a local route. Surprisingly my legs don't hate me at the moment, although that might change in the morning.
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Figuring out my "10 year to avoid statins" plan.
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Am wondering about PCIM. Is site not okay?
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Figuring out my "10 year to avoid statins" plan.
I'm 10 months in to my plan.
I'm vegan at this point. No meat, no dairy, no added oils, no eggs. Nothing with a face or a momma. Mostly whole plant based, keep processing to a minimum. Bread is mostly lentil bread and pastas are chickpea or lentil based.
Learned to cook and enjoy a lot of new dishes.
Cholesterol is down a bit, but I don't care about cholesterol. Your brain needs it, your body produces it, and very little change is brought about by diet.
Only metric for me is cardiac calcium score and health of coronary arteries.
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Am wondering about PCIM. Is site not okay?
I haven't heard from Tim in ages
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Had some fun breaking a kitchen. Having taken out the chimney stack I mentioned a few weeks back I got the kitchen units disassembled. I had hoped to preserve the countertop but it proved to be a piece of nasty chipboard that was water damaged, and it broke when I tried to move it around.
With the units pulled away from the wall I could rip the drywall out and remove the featherboards, and then I found a few more places that the cold air was coming in. Cue the deployment of another can of spray foam to fill the gaps. Then I figured where another draft must have been coming in, but to get at that required removing another baseboard, which was behind a cast iron radiator that weighs a lot more than I do. Moving something six feet wide that weighs somewhere around 3-400lb was an experience, but I got it far enough away from the wall that I could rip out everything behind it and find the hole, exactly as I expected to find it. It is now also filled with foam and the room is definitely warmer. There's still something not right and I'm not sure whether it's as simple as an old door that doesn't fill the door frame completely, or if there are still more surprises awaiting me.
But for now I have a bunch of gaps in the wall cemented up, a load of spray foam filling the holes that used to be there, less money going out in heating to fight the cold air rushing in, and hopefully I also closed the portal used by the occasional mouse that found its way into my pantry. I could never figure out how they got from outside to a space with no exterior walls but in pulling stuff apart I can see the route they may have taken. But now the entryways are sealed up and the route is sufficiently exposed it seems unlikely they'll be coming in any more. I'll leave the mousetraps in place for a while, because you never know with those things. Apparently the smell of cat in the house isn't enough to deter them.
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I had something unusual happen yesterday. I went into Walgreens to pick up a prescription and before I even walked up to the counter the lady at the counter greeted me by name and already had my prescription. I've been going in there too much. 😀
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Just belatedly dawned on me.
Recently turned 72 and my beautiful galfriend of similar age has waist-long white hair.
God is poetic and good!
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Our Drama Ministry had its first read-through of its new Easter production. It's called The Angels Watched. It goes through the events of Holy Week through the eyes of the Angels. I'm playing Michael the Archangel. It promises to be a very moving production. Tonight was just the first read through and there were times that I was so moved that I occasionally had trouble getting the lines out.
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We've been the thankful victim of divine intervention!
We've been installing a new door between our entryway and (attached) garage so that we don't have to go outside whenever we want to access the garage. Well, as "luck" would have it, while the frame was being cut out of the wall we discovered signs of a water leak. £90 later it's fixed, but it would have been so much worse had we not found it at all.
"Luck", huh.
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We've been the thankful victim of divine intervention!
We've been installing a new door between our entryway and (attached) garage so that we don't have to go outside whenever we want to access the garage. Well, as "luck" would have it, while the frame was being cut out of the wall we discovered signs of a water leak. £90 later it's fixed, but it would have been so much worse had we not found it at all.
"Luck", huh.
Something similar recently for us. Noticed a bit of water around the tub and got it pulled out. Cost a bit more, but better than a lot more water in the area. We were planning a reno there anyway. Just moved up the timeline.
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We had a 3rd rehearsal for our new drama ministry production. Please keep us in your prayers. The show can be so emotionally draining that our youngest "Angel" ended up in tears. I don't blame her. There are times I am almost moved.to.tears myself. In this production the events of Holy Week are told through the eyes of the Angels.
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Got my first smart phone, carrying these heavy things with you wherever you go is not my cup of tea. But since my wife and I lost each other on a heavy crowed train station during a short holiday my wife insisted I shall have one. And so, yes dear.
Sigh.
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Was listening to a call-in Bible answer program where the commentator inserted his own words into non-applicable NT passages making conclusions that the Bible does not offer and is silent on.
The miracle of the Internet - I shut him off.
Whatever happened to "in my opinion?"
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Was listening to a call-in Bible answer program where the commentator inserted his own words into non-applicable NT passages making conclusions that the Bible does not offer and is silent on.
NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL! ;D
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(https://i.servimg.com/u/f76/19/97/74/51/trump-12.jpg) (https://servimg.com/view/19977451/114)
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Yup. I have no idea what they guy is doing, and it turns out, neither does he.
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Just survived a round of layoffs.
America really is the one depicted in Idiocracy.
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Just get used to a sunny springtime and Bam!...wake up to a zero-viz white out. Ice, snow wind.
They are still skiing on fresh powder at the resorts - 11,000 ft plus. Summer in the valley - 5,000 ft.
One never knows in April (or even May).
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Funny weather for the Bay…
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Tonight is the first of 2 dress rehearsals for our production And The Angels Kept Watch. Praying that the Lord gives me strength. The rehearsal we had Sunday left me completely exhausted. I have been told that I am going to be on something so I will be up in the air. Hopefully, it won't be too hard to climb up into it and get myself set up. I have to get a music stand, script, and chair/stool up there.
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We had our first performance on our drama team's newest production And The Angels Kept Watch. It was very moving, even for the cast. We have 1 more performance tonight.
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(https://i.ibb.co/nM5K5mnR/20250421-172810.jpg) (https://ibb.co/4R505tYJ)
Bridger Mountains, Bozeman, Montana
Spring has sprung but...
Gallatin River. Big Sky Canyon.
(https://i.ibb.co/21McyrqL/20250422-131401.jpg) (https://ibb.co/B56TtJL7)
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(https://i.ibb.co/q3TvGKrr/20250423-085843.jpg) (https://ibb.co/v60S5pjj)
From Powder Light Drive, Big Sky Montana.
(https://i.ibb.co/G4J1CQWW/20250423-085807.jpg) (https://ibb.co/5g9zshrr)
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Finally got some flooring finished off. It's taken an age, trying to get it cut to fit the slightly imperfect shape, then getting it stained, then screwing it down only to find the joists weren't quite as even as I first thought and having to lift it to perform some surgery on the support, then finding it still wasn't quite right because the ends were a bit wonky and getting shims underneath, to finally having it screwed down and looking good.
Now I have a solid floor again I can get my ladder in there and finish studding a section of wall and fixing up the ceiling. I'll probably put a tarp down to protect the new floor - ideally I'd have done the ladder and framing work first but I can't use a ladder without solid floor, and I needed to lift the floor to finish a previous piece of work, so my hand is kinda forced here.
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App says it's raining. It is not raining.
This is Gallatin Valley. Weather here is like the people - it will turn on you.
Or not.
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Reading the forum since a long time and hitting the like button so now and then.
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Along with the team, in the process of re-opening a gold-silver mine.
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Found a trampled, denim-clad Barbie doll in Walmart parking lot.
Perhaps the "Austerity" version(?).
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Found a trampled, denim-clad Barbie doll in Walmart parking lot.
Perhaps the "Austerity" version(?).
I think you are allowed to have 2 though.
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Bridgers looking East. My favorite perch.
(https://i.ibb.co/5WJx3XN4/20250517-141647.jpg) (https://ibb.co/5WJx3XN4)
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Thunder, lightening, heavy rain & wind.
A dazzling show. (Impedes fire season🙂).
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Prepping for return to my other field of ministry. Was fun and enlightening treading the home-turf and it's harsh winters for a while but the LORD leads gracefully.
40+ yrs of experience in the City, which awaits,
does little to soften the clamor and hardships there but its very much worth the undertaking.
Call of the wild!
(https://i.ibb.co/DDK4BRFg/20250609-084610.jpg) (https://ibb.co/fY0M3xWG)
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Slowly plodding along with some house work. I decided to rejig some electrical work I'd done before getting drywall installed, which was a bit of a pain but it makes for a cleaner end result. Next up is framing the rest of a section of wall, and then I can think about getting a drywaller in. I don't feel like attempting that job myself.
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The electrical work is done, and everything is put back in place to conceal the new wires and insulate around them. The section of wall is framed, and now there are just a couple of straggling bits of work to be done. So that's what I'm about to go and do right now...
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I've been watching old British "let's leave the big city and move to the country" DIY videos from the early 2000's...
These people are crazy. No money. No planning. No skills. Just "Let's buy a piece of crap collapsed 200 year old barn in Ireland or Scotland or Wales, quit our jobs, , buy an old beat up caravan to live in in three feet of mud and hope it all turns out OK and we don't starve."
Geez.
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I've been watching old British "let's leave the big city and move to the country" DIY videos from the early 2000's...
These people are crazy. No money. No planning. No skills. Just "Let's buy a piece of crap collapsed 200 year old barn in Ireland or Scotland or Wales, quit our jobs, , buy an old beat up caravan to live in in three feet of mud and hope it all turns out OK and we don't starve."
Geez.
Based on the regular status reports, this kind of sounds like tango.
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I've been watching old British "let's leave the big city and move to the country" DIY videos from the early 2000's...
These people are crazy. No money. No planning. No skills. Just "Let's buy a piece of crap collapsed 200 year old barn in Ireland or Scotland or Wales, quit our jobs, , buy an old beat up caravan to live in in three feet of mud and hope it all turns out OK and we don't starve."
Geez.
Based on the regular status reports, this kind of sounds like tango.
I was trying to be both kind and discrete (aka "out of character")
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I've been watching old British "let's leave the big city and move to the country" DIY videos from the early 2000's...
These people are crazy. No money. No planning. No skills. Just "Let's buy a piece of crap collapsed 200 year old barn in Ireland or Scotland or Wales, quit our jobs, , buy an old beat up caravan to live in in three feet of mud and hope it all turns out OK and we don't starve."
Geez.
Sounds like what I did with my house project, except without the three feet of mud....
I started ripping stuff apart without really knowing what I was going to find. Along the way learned about plumbing, differences between electrical wiring in different countries, repairing concrete block walls, a load of carpentry, novel ways of lifting heavy sheeting material over my head when trying to hold it so it didn't even move by 1/4", a few techniques to make tedious jobs less tedious, and a few new expletives. I also acquired a lot of new tools and a sense of balance when straddling two ladders, propping ladders on temporary floors, or walking over joists with no flooring that makes my wife worry even when she can't see what I'm doing.
So far no mud, but the roof over the garage has a leak so it might not be too far off.
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Home away from home this week. :-\
(https://i.ibb.co/035gLW6/20250622-083523.jpg) (https://ibb.co/2BJDrLC)
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O'er Lovelock, Nevada. PM
(https://i.ibb.co/13vTsPR/20250623-192811.jpg) (https://ibb.co/fb1H8yr)
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A few days ago I got sick of water dripping through a light fitting in a breezeway when it rains hard. The electrics are safe enough but the water is supposed to stay on the outside.
So I set to cutting some boards that I could use to support a drip tray while I figure the best way to patch the offending roof. It meant climbing into a constricted crawlspace where the metal roof was around 150 degrees in places, but thankfully I could be in and out very fast. Today we had a storm and torrential rain, with no rain dripping through the light or anywhere else. I haven't yet checked the drip trays but I suspect they have some water in them. Assuming they do, I have a good idea where the leak is so just need to figure whether I can caulk it from the inside.
The long term plan is to replace the entire roof so I don't want to spend any meaningful time or money on it now, but I would prefer the designated cubicles to be the only places you can take a shower.
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Completed 32hrs round trip.
2nd and final leg on July 7 - about 17hrs.
All registered & insured for new digs. Worked & lived
there before (40 yrs).
Leaving office equipment & PCs behind for awhile, till I can fetch them.
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Sitting in Tuffy waiting for my car to be repaired.
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Completed 32hrs round trip.
2nd and final leg on July 7 - about 17hrs.
All registered & insured for new digs. Worked & lived
there before (40 yrs).
Leaving office equipment & PCs behind for awhile, till I can fetch them.
And with relocation imminent and another phase of longtime
ministry being established (pastorship), signing off from forums and interactive media to pursue associated publishing, tract creation etc.
EDIT: Providentially diverted from the intense COVID19 scourge in the city, it's back to work.
So long. Be blessed!
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Point Lobos. Okay, be well!
(https://i.ibb.co/svV7HDSM/20250710-122318.jpg) (https://ibb.co/N6yRSkhH)
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Nice!!!
And the water a balmy 66 degrees!
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Nice!!!
And the water a balmy 66 degrees!
55° F.
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Nice!!!
And the water a balmy 66 degrees!
55° F.
Couple years ago we were in California in late March. Kids and I jumped in the ocean around Newport Beach while my wife watched on. Some people came by and talked with her essentially saying "You're not from around here, are you?"
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Nice!!!
And the water a balmy 66 degrees!
55° F.
Couple years ago we were in California in late March. Kids and I jumped in the ocean around Newport Beach while my wife watched on. Some people came by and talked with her essentially saying "You're not from around here, are you?"
Too funny!!!
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Sitting on one's duff, southwest of Golden Gate.
(https://i.ibb.co/8g2npgn9/20250715-100425.jpg) (https://ibb.co/pjZ68j6d)
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Much worse places to be...
Very nice
Stop by Ghiradelli's and get a hot chocolate...
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Much worse places to be...
Very nice
Stop by Ghiradelli's and get a hot chocolate...
Will do!
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Wishing I could find the person who extended my house and bang their head against something very solid.
I needed to remove a base board from a stairwell. Simple job, right? Well, about that. This thing was nailed into place, using construction grade screws, many of which were tucked under the stairs themselves, so that I had to dismantle much of the top part of the staircase to get at them. Then I found there were more nails that were somehow banged into place from behind the base board. I don't see any way it's physically possible to bang a nail that size in through such a confined space, but somehow it was done.
So far what I've had to do is remove four stairs, chisel away some of the support for the stairs, and use a variety of tools to access, extract and pull nails out in an assortment of confined spaces. The last few nails came face to face with a metal cutting blade in my oscillating tool.
Now, after many hours of fighting with it and the liberal application of sweat and expletives (thankfully minimal blood so far) the piece of baseboard is removed. Now I hope it will fit back in place when the drywall people are done. For good measure I need to sand and refinish all the steps, because they've gotten pretty well scuffed up in the last 100 years. It looks like they are made of very old red oak so I'd rather salvage them and refinish them, then dump them and replace them with modern wood which is usually inferior.
I think from here all I need is a little bit of tidying up work and I'll be ready to talk to a drywaller.
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This is from last week:
Gold mine near Smithers officially opens - The Smithers Interior News https://share.google/SClPdm8iugzgYvJg1
That is yours truly wearing the hard hat in the first photo.
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I hope they give you free samples...
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Wishing I could find the person who extended my house and bang their head against something very solid.
I needed to remove a base board from a stairwell. Simple job, right? Well, about that. This thing was nailed into place, using construction grade screws, many of which were tucked under the stairs themselves, so that I had to dismantle much of the top part of the staircase to get at them. Then I found there were more nails that were somehow banged into place from behind the base board. I don't see any way it's physically possible to bang a nail that size in through such a confined space, but somehow it was done.
So far what I've had to do is remove four stairs, chisel away some of the support for the stairs, and use a variety of tools to access, extract and pull nails out in an assortment of confined spaces. The last few nails came face to face with a metal cutting blade in my oscillating tool.
Now, after many hours of fighting with it and the liberal application of sweat and expletives (thankfully minimal blood so far) the piece of baseboard is removed. Now I hope it will fit back in place when the drywall people are done. For good measure I need to sand and refinish all the steps, because they've gotten pretty well scuffed up in the last 100 years. It looks like they are made of very old red oak so I'd rather salvage them and refinish them, then dump them and replace them with modern wood which is usually inferior.
I think from here all I need is a little bit of tidying up work and I'll be ready to talk to a drywaller.
I suspect more than just a "liberal application of expletives." I certainly would be.
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Limited work yesterday - we had dinner guests and my wife wanted to clean the house a bit, which meant dusty footprints would be frowned upon.
I did some sanding work on one of the steps I removed. It's a bit worn, which isn't surprising after nearly 100 years. I ran an orbital sander over it which made almost no difference, then I tried a belt sander that got a lot of the crud off but it's very slow going. I might feed it to my planer to strip it back to bare wood and then restain it.
The key thing about having the baseboard removed beside the steps is that I can easily remove the very top step and level it. It was slightly off level, not enough to be a major problem but enough to annoy my eyes, so I want to lift it and fix whatever is underneath it. It also means I can put a bit of extra support in there, and a couple of heavier screws that will hold it in place but tuck under the baseboard so they won't be jarring on the eye.
Once that's done I'll look at getting the new section of floor lacquered.
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Trying to figure the best way to level my top step is proving tedious. I was all set to put a shim underneath it but it seemed like a shim so thin would fail at some point, and then I'd be right back where I started. So I decided to take the vertical section of the stair off and reposition it. But it's in a rather sorry state (it is nearly 100 years old) so I figured I'd refinish it. Cue lots of frustration trying to remove stain and shellac that has been there for a century. One sanding belt gummed up in no time flat, and much annoyance with a hand scraper. But now it's mostly cleaned up, so I can sand it (with a fresh belt), then stain and lacquer it, then figure just where I need to position it so it can properly support the very top step.
Then I can put the rest of the stairs back together again and move on to the next piece of framing work and moving stuff out of the way.
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Had an appointment with a pain specialist because of the pain I'm having in my right leg. He asked if I had had X-rays or an MRI done, which my primary care had done when I went to her about it. He ordered an epidural for me.
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I've started to get more involved with some groups of Christians, because you know, Hebrews 10.25.
You know what? One can only handle so many "is it sin?" questions before concluding that Christians can be the most pathetic and annoying people on the planet. What do I do, guys? "is it a sin?" "Is listening to instrumental music not written by a Christian a sin?", "is eating a sandwich not prepared by your wife a sin?", "is turning on the TV and seeing a Nirvana music video a sin?" "Is asking is it a sin, a sin?" "is it a lack of faith to walk to the fridge?"
I think I'm going to tell Paul he clearly wasn't writing for the 21st century.
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Making some progress on the house project. I took a few steps away and they are now sanded and stained. I've been holding off on lacquering them because they need three coats, 6-8 hours apart, and fitting that in the same day without stinking the place with the VOCs when we have company coming has proven tricky.
I've got a drywaller scheduled to put drywall on the walls, a window fitter scheduled to replace two old windows that don't quite fit properly, and then I can have my air conditioning man run another duct to feed one bedroom and install a wall unit in the other.
The way things are going I'm going to have two finished rooms and three finished closets within a couple of months. I've also figured the way forward to get some space downstairs ready. I had hoped to have some of the downstairs space done before Christmas but that's going to be a tall order from here (not least because getting a drywaller in takes time), but hopefully things will keep moving forward now.
The next steps after the drywalling is done is to scrape/sand and finish floors, and hang doors. I may need to make doors to match the olde worlde doors we have in the rest of the house, but may also be able to reuse some of the existing doors.
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You know what? One can only handle so many "is it sin?" questions before concluding that Christians can be the most pathetic and annoying people on the planet. What do I do, guys? "is it a sin?"
(https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/481471780_9250966028348836_2327148006479842633_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=pu4S366vlqYQ7kNvwFfQn6X&_nc_oc=AdkVpUBsTyAyXSUdrHPw9uVh9pRu_ikHPPTp0AsIcPqV5NlF7JPHAAtlNbS1JwzImiU&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&_nc_gid=HJFKYGGyeNYz81Vjrk11wg&oh=00_AfU57uQzEnJPeD4IJ2myQuwqxw-sMGYlL5pPro4eyVCemw&oe=68B6659A)
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I've started to get more involved with some groups of Christians, because you know, Hebrews 10.25.
You know what? One can only handle so many "is it sin?" questions before concluding that Christians can be the most pathetic and annoying people on the planet. What do I do, guys? "is it a sin?" "Is listening to instrumental music not written by a Christian a sin?", "is eating a sandwich not prepared by your wife a sin?", "is turning on the TV and seeing a Nirvana music video a sin?" "Is asking is it a sin, a sin?" "is it a lack of faith to walk to the fridge?"
I think I'm going to tell Paul he clearly wasn't writing for the 21st century.
If I get there first, I'll tell him you asked.
I think I know his answer. "Dude, did you bother to even read that letter I wrote to my buds in Rome? You know, over toward the last page or so. When I was dealing with their obscene obsession with what kind of deli meat to buy?" I told them if they do ANYTHING without faith, then its missing the mark for them.
However, I'm still not convinced that putting bread down your blouse and pretending to be a toaster can be done in faith.
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They sound more legalistic than the Jews, who after all are following a book of legal rules.
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They sound more legalistic than the Jews, who after all are following a book of legal rules.
The church in Rome had more than a little bit of an issue with creating God in their own image.
Don't think they ever fully got over it.
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They sound more legalistic than the Jews, who after all are following a book of legal rules.
You have no idea. Well, maybe you do? Jews on steroids but without the space lasers and nice hats and cool hair.
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Finally got to lacquering my floor and the loose boards I've lifted. The first coat is easy because the difference between dry wood and lacquered wood is easy to see. The second coat is much harder because the difference between lacquered wood and twice lacquered wood is much harder to spot without getting light in just the right angle.
In about half an hour I get to put a third coat on it. This time I'll use a work light because it's dark, although before the sun was reflecting pretty brightly off the lacquer, which didn't help matters. I've got a fan to suck out the VOCs, because my wife really struggles with the smell. It's funny, I sit in the room applying the lacquer with an open tin of the stuff and barely notice the smell, while she's downstairs in a totally different part of the house finding it bothers her.
The best I can do is get the low VOC lacquer, and pump out as much air as I can manage.
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Update: Ministry taking shape. Pending board meetings, office-workdesk set-up, yet more travel for office equipment etc.
Current state of inner-city: deplorable!
Clear leading paves the way.
Okay. Be well!
(https://i.ibb.co/jZL9YJFc/Resized-20250904-164713-24949366414335.jpg) (https://ibb.co/jZL9YJFc)
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Our church's bell choir and our drama team are both performing on Sunday. Naturally, I am in both. I fell during drama practice yesterday. I think it was because I ended up kneeling for a long time and it caused my legs to lose strength. I think I have a way to solve the problem but by the time I figured it out my legs were too weak to test it out. We’ll test it out at practice tomorrow morning.
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A busy Sunday morning. Handbell choir performance, a performance by the drama team, and communion. The bells played Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us. The drama team did a movement piece to the tune of.Reckless Love. Which is the title of our pastor's current sermon series, based on a book by the same name. We did catch one break. We have 3 services. The first is a traditional service. The 2nd is a blended service. And the 3rd is a contemporary service. We were, originally, told that the drama team would be performing at all 3. However, when we got there this morning, way too early for my taste, we were informed that we weren't going to perform at the contemporary service. Now it's just about time to recuperate with a nap.
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Funky stuff today
I've kinda hinted at some things that were changing and hopes that it would all pan out. Well, it all panned out.
The short version is that a very dear friend of ours came to feel more like a daughter than a friend, and a couple of days ago we had a court hearing and legally adopted her as out daughter. So now we have a ready made family, a daughter and five grandchildren. Today we had a birthday party for one of our new grandchildren, so now my belly is full of the kind of culinary delights that a 7-year-old gets excited about. Not much nutritional value but tastes kinda good.
So now I can look forward to life changing quite a lot. In a way it feels like I got everything I ever wanted. Now I just need to figure out how to be a grandfather when I don't have a whole lot of experience of being a father.
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You feed them sugary snacks and play with them then send them home with mom.
Congrats!
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You feed them sugary snacks and play with them then send them home with mom.
Congrats!
Thanks :)
We actually need to cut down on the sugary snacks they get. We still get to spoil them a bit but also get to help mom lay down some boundaries with them. She's divorced from their father, so has to deal with the typical single mother struggles every other week when she has them. So part of our new job is to step in and help as needed - it's not technically a "new job" since we've been doing it for a while now, but now it's officially our job :)
It's truly wonderful to see the grands bonding with us as fast as they are. They love climbing all over their new grandpa, and I'm enjoying it for as long as I'm strong enough to keep doing it. With them growing and me getting older I hope it lasts a long time, and I hope they reach a point where physical touch changes because they are growing up before I reach a point where I'm not strong enough to swing them around any more.
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Funky stuff today
I've kinda hinted at some things that were changing and hopes that it would all pan out. Well, it all panned out.
The short version is that a very dear friend of ours came to feel more like a daughter than a friend, and a couple of days ago we had a court hearing and legally adopted her as out daughter. So now we have a ready made family, a daughter and five grandchildren. Today we had a birthday party for one of our new grandchildren, so now my belly is full of the kind of culinary delights that a 7-year-old gets excited about. Not much nutritional value but tastes kinda good.
So now I can look forward to life changing quite a lot. In a way it feels like I got everything I ever wanted. Now I just need to figure out how to be a grandfather when I don't have a whole lot of experience of being a father.
Wow! That's amazing. Not a story you hear that often.
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Update:
Current manifestation of ministry taking root with decades of previous work providing credible inroads and testimony.
This very troubled slice of society will require a "burning of ships" - no retreat, in your face, commitment and "why not?"
Get clobbered? That's okay and much, much worth the effort.
.
Will update when able.
Be well! Be blessed!
Stephen
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Update:
Current manifestation of ministry taking root with decades of previous work providing credible inroads and testimony.
This very troubled slice of society will require a "burning of ships" - no retreat, in your face, commitment and "why not?"
Get clobbered? That's okay and much, much worth the effort.
.
Will update when able.
Be well! Be blessed!
Stephen
You must be proclaiming the actual Bible in an existing “church”
😱
Praying for you!
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Funky stuff today
I've kinda hinted at some things that were changing and hopes that it would all pan out. Well, it all panned out.
The short version is that a very dear friend of ours came to feel more like a daughter than a friend, and a couple of days ago we had a court hearing and legally adopted her as out daughter. So now we have a ready made family, a daughter and five grandchildren. Today we had a birthday party for one of our new grandchildren, so now my belly is full of the kind of culinary delights that a 7-year-old gets excited about. Not much nutritional value but tastes kinda good.
So now I can look forward to life changing quite a lot. In a way it feels like I got everything I ever wanted. Now I just need to figure out how to be a grandfather when I don't have a whole lot of experience of being a father.
Wow! That's amazing. Not a story you hear that often.
It's a weird story, the number of times I've given updates to selected friends within church and commented that you couldn't make a story like this one up is remarkable.
In a curious twist the oldest grandchild, who kinda went her own way and doesn't have much to do with anyone else in the family, is apparently pregnant. We're not sure if she's going to want to have any relationship with us at all but either way there's a chance we'll become parents and grandparents on the same day and then great-grandparents a few months later.
I'm not old enough to be a great-grandfather....
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All normal here.
(https://i.ibb.co/KxRxbFSq/Resized-P-1757377585728-30887513709465.gif) (https://imgbb.com/)
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That looks like Monday, for certain.
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That looks like Monday, for certain.
Looks more like Friday evening to me. Nobody is that keen to go to work on a Monday.
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My drywall is hung in the spaces I've been working in, and now it's just a question of when the finishers can come and, well, finish. I'm expecting a call to arrange a visit later today.
Next up is a room downstairs. Most of it is done but I need to rejig some electrical stuff, add a couple of back boxes, and move a load of stuff out of the way so I can move in there. Then I get to write another check to the drywall people to come and do some more work for me.
The problem is that I'm running out of space to put stuff, I've got a load of wood stacked that I'll need for another room, my table saw is in there because I need to rip some lumber to make wall studs for another room, and the adjacent room isn't a good place to put the table saw because it's full of more wood and radiators that weigh more than I do.
Some of the wood can go in the basement, and maybe I can shuffle everything around to tuck it all close together so I can get another room finished off. That would be a good start. I don't know if it's achievable but it would be really nice to have that room finished before Christmas, so we can put a decent sized tree in there.
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Greetings to all my friends here who missed The Rapture. LOL ;D
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I guess we're the heathens who missed the mark. Still, at least it means my drywall finisher (who also apparently didn't make the cut) can finish his job. He's been here for much of last week and will be here for the next couple of days. It's getting tedious having a contractor in the house, but he's a nice guy so I don't mind him being around, it's just a bit frustrating that someone has to be home to let him in, and stay home because we never know how long he'll be working. When he hits a point where the mud is wet and he has to leave it to dry, he clocks off for the day.
It's looking nice in there, he's doing a good job. When it's done I need to think about painting, stripping and finishing the floors, and then small matters like doors and window trim. We've got a window fitter lined up who should be ready to replace the windows in one of the rooms very shortly after the drywaller is done, which is nice. I'm not sure how I'm going to haul 14-foot sections of wood to make base boards, but one way or another I'll figure it out.
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I guess you’ve got just under 7 years to finish now…
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Greetings to all my friends here who missed The Rapture. LOL ;D
Let's be honest, we always knew that I was going to be left behind.
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Greetings to all my friends here who missed The Rapture. LOL ;D
Let's be honest, we always knew that I was going to be left behind.
According to some, you have to be crushed and destroyed so that Jesus can come back and save a remnant of Jews that are in the surrounded city of Jerusalem while the entire world fights against it
Sorry
😱
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Sounds like quite the adventure.
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Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
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What do unhappy Canadians celebrate?
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The drywall is hung and finished and most of it is now wiped off to get the last of the dust sticking to the panels removed (the remaining parts are one room where I need to move a couple of 400lb radiators to get at everything).
One room is painted in girly colors. We wanted something that we could live with but that our new granddaughters (age 7 and 5) would also like. They are excited to be allowed to spend the night at Pappy and Grammy's house, and once we've got the space in a state where it's safe for them to be left alone in it we're looking forward to that too. So far I've got the walls and ceiling painted, a ceiling fan installed, and the next step is to reconnect the electrics in there. Then I can fuss with things like baseboards and window trim, and small matters like getting a door hung.
I'll also need to figure out a way to secure what will be a bathroom but for now is a dump for all sorts of stuff, much of which isn't an ideal toy for children that age. It's probably easiest to hang a door that I can lock, as that will also keep them away from other hazards like the missing sections of floor.
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Okay. Newly reorganized ministry will (as before) involve outreach to (among others) seriously entrenched inner-city conditions exacerbated by out of control drug use, including Fentanyl among the long-time standards of meth, crack, heroin etc.
All just one aspect of a broken subculture, where souls do get saved and men/women find hope in Christ.
Will update
Okay, be well.
Out. Stephen.
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My girly room is painted, mostly wired (the light in the closet needs to be connected and switched, and I need to decide whether to fit a regular toggle switch or a smart switch).
The floor is mostly sanded. I've been using 36 grit belts, which feel like I might as well just grab a handful of gravel and rub it hard on the floor, but it shifts the nasty coatings that have been there for decades. The sanded floor is a beautiful golden brown, much like the first room I finished, so when it's sanded I'm going to lacquer it rather than sanding and lacquering.
My wife and I chose the color scheme for the other room that's been drywalled, so I can move the radiators away from the wall and see to that. It will also need to be wiped to clear the drywall dust, then painted, then have the electrics reconnected, then the floor sanded (yay!) and lacquered.
Then I can turn my attention to the room downstairs, which is dangerously close to being ready to drywall. It feels like we're dumping scary amounts of cash into the place, but we're getting space back as a result. It's exciting stuff...
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I hope you've been taking pictures. Before, during, and after would make an interesting study.
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Okay. Newly reorganized ministry will (as before) involve outreach to (among others) seriously entrenched inner-city conditions exacerbated by out of control drug use, including Fentanyl among the long-time standards of meth, crack, heroin etc.
All just one aspect of a broken subculture, where souls do get saved and men/women find hope in Christ.
Will update
Okay, be well.
Out. Stephen.
Okay. Prepping for last journey to MT to fetch items (PCs etc) before more snow.
I luv moving ::)
Will update.
Be well. Stephen
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I hope you've been taking pictures. Before, during, and after would make an interesting study.
I have some before pictures, a few during pictures, and after pictures are easy enough to do.
Our new daughter and granddaughters saw the girls' room the other day. It's not finished yet but they could see the painted walls and ceiling, the ceiling fan, the sockets, and the floor that was largely sanded (now more sanded, but I'm running out of sanding belts). They really like it. We're missing minor details for now (no light in the closet, no switch for the missing light, no window coverings, no door etc) but progress is steady once again.
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I bought a motorcycle.
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I bought a motorcycle.
I would love one but never learned to ride one. These days a collapsible scooter would be more my speed.
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I bought a motorcycle.
A super duper motor scooter!!!!
Come on
Detail details!!!!
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When we were in Israel last Passover I saw many people zooming around on mopeds and motorcycles. It looked fun so I registered for a safety course, upon the completion of which I received a license.
Having tried many models, I recently purchased a Triumph Tiger 660. It's a British manufacturer, so now I feel the need for tea and crumpets. And it's some serious fun. My commute is like 8 miles, but somehow I add 25 miles to the odometer on the trip.
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When we were in Israel last Passover I saw many people zooming around on mopeds and motorcycles. It looked fun so I registered for a safety course, upon the completion of which I received a license.
Having tried many models, I recently purchased a Triumph Tiger 660. It's a British manufacturer, so now I feel the need for tea and crumpets. And it's some serious fun. My commute is like 8 miles, but somehow I add 25 miles to the odometer on the trip.
Never mind tea and crumpets, as a Jew on a Christian message board you might as well wade into the discussion of whether cream or jam goes on the scone first when enjoying a cream tea :)
(This is an ongoing argument disagreement between my wife and I. She's wrong)
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1. Triumph is an awesome ride. Well done. Now buy another one so you will have parts when the first one breaks
2. Jam first. How is this even a question?
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I'd say it depends on the consistency of the cream.
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1. Triumph is an awesome ride. Well done. Now buy another one so you will have parts when the first one breaks
Apparently if you own "N" number of motorcycles, the proper number to own is actually "N+1".
I only have room in the garage for one at the moment.
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I'd say it depends on the consistency of the cream.
If it does you're using the wrong kind of cream.
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Today I managed to get some more sanding belts, and ran an oscillating sander around the edges of the room where it's hard to get a belt sander. It's also good to get the worst of the sticky crud off the floor, because that's what gums up the sanding belts so I end up going through them faster than I need to.
Tomorrow I'll probably do some more sanding in that room and look at shifting the radiators in the adjacent room so I can wipe the rest of the walls and the ceiling to get the last of the drywall dust off. Then I can order the paint and see about putting it on the ceiling and the walls.
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Oh boy! Navigating through "No Kings" activity which pretty-much coincides with my thorough repudiation of and separation from the so-called "Evangelicals."
Significant part of my ministry from here on out will be to teach the differences between the Gospel, Great Comission, and current political trends which widely claim to be "Christian."
Left Catholicism over 40 years ago. Seems like "Deja vu."
Will update ministry progress, which is about reaching the lost, as always, when able.
Till then Be well. Stephen.
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
Will pray for this!
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
Praying as well.
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We got good news in church this morning. We have been renovating our sanctuary. It was announced this morning that next Sunday our services will be held in our newly renovated sanctuary.
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1. Triumph is an awesome ride. Well done. Now buy another one so you will have parts when the first one breaks
My BIL owned an old TR7 many years ago that he was perpetually doing repairs on. One day, while underneath being frustrated with it and saying some choice words, he saw a pair of black shoes, then looked up to see the pastor standing there. His words to my BIL were, "Don't worry about it, God understands British cars."
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
Praying as well.
May you both feel free to pray for the total absence of migraines going forward!
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
Praying as well.
May you both feel free to pray for the total absence of migraines going forward!
Indeed so!
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Fun day today. My wife and I had a couple of errands, our new daughter had the day off work so she could catch up with a few more things that need her name changed, and then we met up with her for lunch and to hang out for a while during the afternoon. Good food, good company, lots of laughs and good times.
When we got home I did a bit more sanding, trying to get into the corner spaces where the belt sander won't fit, and my orbital sanders struggle to get at everything. So after a while I took a piece of sandpaper and did it by hand, which was really tedious. But it's getting the job done, I only stopped because I was aware of sawdust and didn't want a disturbed night because of the dust.
I think tomorrow I can run the belt sander over the whole floor one last time before shifting to a finer grit and preparing to lacquer it. That will be fun, the fumes can be pretty intense and leaving the windows open in that room isn't really an option because the wind would blow the rain right in. So the best I can do is leave a window in a nearby room open and hope that helps. But before I can do that I need to reconnect some electrics, so the socket by the window works and I can fit an extractor fan.
With any luck I'll be ready to lacquer within a couple of days.
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"Every time I read the papers
That old feeling comes on;
We’re waist deep in the Big Muddy
And the big fool says to push on."
Pete Seeger. 1967
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I've been weaning off amitriptyline for months, and today is the day I stop taking it, and Propranolol. Prescribed for migraine and anxiety, but I really don't like being on either, so... let's see how horrible I feel.
Will pray for this!
Hoping this is going well and continuing to pray for your success - zero migraine!
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I didn't get to do lacquering yet. I spent some time trying to figure out what I have to do to get an updated birth certificate for our new daughter. The department I need to work with has told me three different things so far, and the same person told me one thing over the phone and then something else in the confirmation email. But I think I've got it sorted out, the staff at our local courthouse are helpful.
I got some more sanding done, it's remarkably tricky getting into the edges and corners where the belt sander won't fit. But soon I can run it over one last time, then work through the finer grits. At the moment it's just about making sure I've got bare wood everywhere, because paint and stain get into every nook and cranny that's there, and it looks awful if I stain over the top of ancient paint.
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I got into a few more of the nooks and crannies in my floor, but need to figure a better solution to the last few. I also ran over the entire floor with 50 grit belts. I never thought I'd describe 50 grit as smooth but compared to 36 grit it really is.
Once I've got into the last of the awkward spots I'll go over it again with 80 grit, then 120, then probably a final pass with my orbital sander and 220 grit pads just to smooth the last of the scratches out.
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Your patience amazes me
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Your patience amazes me
It can be surprisingly therapeutic. Sanding is tediously repetitive, especially when doing it by hand, but it can be relaxing.
I carved spoons for my wife and daughter and sanded them by hand. One took three hours (I know, because I did it in one sitting). The other took longer, but over multiple sittings so I forget just how long. But watching rough wood slowly turn into smooth wood is very pleasing.
In the room I'm working on I started with a manky floor that was partly painted, partly lacquered and partly faded to a dull gray after decades of exposure to the sun. Now I've got the paint and lacquer stripped and I'm looking at a beautiful golden brown wood that's 100 years old.
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More sanding today. So far I've gone over the floor with 36 grit, then 50, then 80 and today it was 120. That's the final grade to put in the belt sander.
Now I need to cut a couple of circles to plug the holes that once housed radiator pipes. I enlarged the holes from slightly under 2" to exactly 2" with a hole saw, and now plan to cut circles with a 2 1/8" hole saw that I can press into the holes, sanding if needed to trim them down a little bit. Then I can secure wood between the joists underneath them so they won't fall out if any weight is applied directly to them.
I've got another 2-3 gallons of sawdust in my separator bucket now. I'll use some of it to make a paste with lacquer to fill some cracks in the floor, and most of it will end up in the trash. Once the holes in the floor are seen to I'll run the shop vac over the floor to get the sawdust up, maybe have a quick pass over it with 220 grit sandpaper in an orbital sander, wipe it with a damp cloth to get the final bits of sawdust off, and then I can lacquer it. My wife got me some wide foam brushes today, which will make applying the lacquer quicker than using narrow brushes.
Once all this is done I can think about the next room.
And, because I don't have enough to do already, I'm thinking about buying a wood lathe so I can tinker with turning things like goblets and Christmas ornaments. I've got a load of wood kicking around, it will be good if I can come up with some ideas of what to do with it.
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Our church had "Trunk or Treet" last night and our drama team did 3 flash mobs. We danced to Thriller.
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Our church had "Trunk or Treet" last night and our drama team did 3 flash mobs. We danced to Thriller.
That's what we're missing here... a good old "Halloween is evil" thread.
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The last part of the floor was trickier than I expected.
I drilled the radiator pipe holes out to 2" with a hole saw, then cut 2 1/8" plugs only to find they were too loose. I wasn't sure whether I wanted 2 1/4" or 2 3/8", so went for the slightly larger option figuring I could always sand it down a little, and indeed I did have to sand it down. But that's OK, my belt sander is designed so it will sit upside down and run, so I sanded them down until they fit. They aren't perfectly round any more but they are close enough, and tight enough that I needed a hammer to get them into place.
Even though the grain of the plugs doesn't match the grain of the floorboard they don't look hideously out of place. The wood is similar, it's just that the grain pattern doesn't match precisely.
Then I ran over the entire floor for one last pass with an orbital sander and 220 grit paper on it. That was kinda tedious, and by the time I was done I noticed how much sawdust was hanging in the air so I put a fan in the window to pump it out.
Tomorrow I'll run the shop vac one last time, then wipe the entire floor with a damp cloth to lift the last bits of sawdust. Then maybe on Saturday I can lacquer it. I have a couple of things happening tomorrow that would probably interfere with the schedule I'd need to lacquer it tomorrow, so it can wait another day.
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Our church had "Trunk or Treet" last night and our drama team did 3 flash mobs. We danced to Thriller.
That's what we're missing here... a good old "Halloween is evil" thread.
My youngest new granddaughter can't decide whether she's good or evil. Her father helps with a local youth ministry and for their float in the local parade she was dressed as a vampire but she wanted a halo. I have to say she did look kinda cute, although I may not be the most impartial observer :)
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18 holes :O
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18 holes :O
I hate you in the love of Jesus…
:o
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18 holes :O
I hate you in the love of Jesus…
:o
I'm going to ask my GP to prescribe golf, so I can go more than 4 times a week.
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18 holes :O
I hate you in the love of Jesus…
:o
I'm going to ask my GP to prescribe golf, so I can go more than 4 times a week.
I smell a rat….. something about the ladies’ tees…
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My floor is wiped. Despite running the shop vac over the floor repeatedly it's amazing how much dust a damp cloth lifts, I had to rinse and wring the cloth several times over the course of wiping the floor. But now it's clean, it should be dry by now, and ready to be lacquered. So tomorrow I get to enjoy a fuzzy head from the fumes emanating from a 2 gallon bucket of lacquer.
Curiously the fumes don't really affect me much until I leave the area, only then do I become aware of how much I'd got used to it. My wife hates the smell of the fumes, even when she's not in the room I'm working on. Sadly the windows face into the prevailing wind so the best I can do is open a window in a different room and use a fan to pump out as much of the smell as I can manage.
Three coats, spaced by 6-7 hours, is just about doable within a single day. Which is good, because it means I don't have to sand it between coats. I really don't want to have to sand it between coats.
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In unrelated news I met with the pastor of our church today and had a separate meeting with one of the elders. I've been tagged as possible teacher within the church so I've been exploring that as an option, figuring the best way forward and how to resolve issues where my views don't align with the general views within the church.
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18 holes :O
I hate you in the love of Jesus…
:o
I'm going to ask my GP to prescribe golf, so I can go more than 4 times a week.
I have a tendency to agree with Mark Twain "Golf is a nice walk spoiled."
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Both my boys really got into golf this past year. The daughter also works summers at the local course n the grounds crew so gets free golf membership. With the long summer nights they can be out there til 10.
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18 holes :O
I hate you in the love of Jesus…
:o
I'm going to ask my GP to prescribe golf, so I can go more than 4 times a week.
I have a tendency to agree with Mark Twain "Golf is a nice walk spoiled."
Golf is like throwing sticks to a dog when you don't have a dog and have to go and get the stick yourself.
It's like mailing your slippers to the other end of the country and then spending several days going to get them back again.
(Says he, who spent more hours on hands and knees working on the floor)
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My wider brush that I hoped to use to lacquer the floor didn't work very well, so I ended up lacquering the floor with a 2" wide foam brush. I can think of better ways to lacquer a floor but that's what I had available.
I went to the hardware store and found a very nice looking lambswool applicator, but for an oil based finish it needed to be rinsed in mineral spirits prior to use. Guess what I don't have, and what the hardware store didn't have in stock. So I bought a few 3" wide foam brushes and I'll have to make do with that. Hopefully it will be 50% faster this time around. We'll see.
If not for the fact I really, REALLY, don't want to have to sand the lacquer before applying another coat I'd wait until tomorrow when I need to be in town for church, and visit a larger hardware store to get some mineral spirits. I might do that anyway, so I've got everything ready when it's time to lacquer the adjacent (and larger) room.
I've got another couple of hours before it's time to put the next coat on. Oh joy.....
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The wider brushes from my local hardware store are foam brushes but cost around $2 each, rather than $2 for a selection. But they do have one key advantage, they hold lacquer better and they don't fall apart after half an hour of using them. So note to self, it's worth paying the extra rather than trying to save a couple of bucks, foam brushes aren't created equal.
It's still a tedious process lacquering the floor with a 3" wide foam brush but at least it applies the lacquer fairly evenly so I don't have to keep going over everything. The first coat took me nearly two hours. The second coat is usually slower because it's harder to see the difference between wet and dry lacquer, but took me a little under 90 minutes.
The third and final coat goes on around 11pm. I'm thankful the clocks go back tonight so I can get that extra hour in bed between the final coat and church tomorrow.
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Preparing to enjoy a day that doesn't involve being on my hands and knees working on the floor.
The final coat took me a whisker under an hour to apply. Thankfully the unheated part of the house didn't get too cold during the night, as i left the window fan running to suck as much of the smell out as I could. This morning I woke up to a nice dry floor and virtually no residual smell of solvents, which was nice. I probably won't walk on the floor for the duration of the day though, but it does look nice.
Next up is baseboards. I'll need to buy wood for that. I'll also need to buy wood to make window trims and a hefty slab of oak to make windowsills. I need to make five of those, although I only need two for this room.
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One board for the new room is closer to being ready. I salvaged a baseboard that ran the entire length of the room and was in a really nice condition. Most of the other baseboards were pretty scabby. The nice long board was painted white for some reason, which is a desperate shame because it's a beautifully grained piece of yellow pine. This evening I took a scraper to it and got the paint off. The next step is to sand it, run a router along the edge to put a curve on it, and then stain and lacquer it. I need to see if I can find more yellow pine to cut the rest of the baseboards I'm going to need, and the window trim for when the new windows have gone in. If needs be I'll use regular white pine but really like the grain of yellow. And I'd really like to do all the baseboards at more or less the same time, rather than endlessly opening and closing my tins of stain and lacquer.
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I am signing up for this forum and setting up my profile and signature. Or at least trying to.
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Today's fun was painting. I have a small closet, a kinda-sorta-random space, and a landing. I went through nearly two gallons of paint, and a few patches will need another coat, which is rather tedious. It's hard working in a space with inadequate light, and I can't put lights on because the electrics are disconnected because I'm painting around the sockets. So I do the best I can with a work light, and patch the bits I missed later. There aren't too many of them.
The next job is to reconnect a couple of power outlets, a couple of switches and lights, and then move in to the next room that needs attention. That means more wall wiping, more painting, and more epic fun sanding and lacquering another floor. Before I can fix up the floor I need to figure out how to move two radiators that weigh more than I do, which looks like it will pose something of a challenge. But at least I'll have light and power when it's time to do battle with the floor, so I'm not stuck to daylight hours.
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House wise today was a rest day. I had planned to put another coat of paint on a wall but just didn't quite get that far. The sum total of my achievements on the house project were setting a couple of switches in place where they are going to go in (I need to kill the light circuits to fit them, so that can wait until it's light out), and twiddling a screw in an adjustable back box to bring it forward so it's flush with the drywall.
Tomorrow perhaps I can make some more useful progress on stuff.
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Note: I'm actually a little surprised but proud of the American electorate's determination to "by the people" in the end.
Many have actually read and understand the constitution.
EDIT: I remember Eizenhower, faintly, and pre-TV politics on the radio - where the fascination began.
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Some paint touchups done, and the extra sockets installed and tested in one of the spaces under construction. Next up are some light fittings.
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I finally got to the electrical work I'd been stalling for a while. It's not difficult, it's just that it requires shutting off both upstairs and downstairs lighting circuits, which isn't great because my wife likes to be able to see.
Today my wife was out, so I could shut off whatever I wanted, and I got some lights and switches installed. Now I can turn my attention to the next room that needs the new walls wiped, the walls and ceiling painted, electrics fitted, and then the floor sanded and lacquered.
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My wife and I decided on the color scheme for the next room in line. It's drywalled but currently unfinished beyond that. So I went to get the paint and now have a freshly painted ceiling in there.
I ran out of light or I'd have done the walls too. That can wait until tomorrow. Then I need to figure out what to do with the radiators so I can sand and finish the floor. I've got an idea where I might put them (no comments on that please!) but at present I'm not sure how to get them there.
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The "Fenty Fold" is a startling condition exhibited by chronic users of fentanyl where they remain standing in one place, usually a sidewalk, stooped over completely, head near their toes, while in the throes of the drug.
This can go on for hours while the user often clutches bags & belongings and freezes like a statue.
A tragic thing to witness, reseachers are still not sure what mechanism causes the "stoop," which is a painful lock.
Welcome to destitution.
Will update. Out.
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Soma…. A gramme is better than a damn…
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Soma…. A gramme is better than a damn…
Got any to spare? Could use some right now
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Soma…. A gramme is better than a damn…
Got any to spare? Could use some right now
"Here, eat some chocolate, Harry. It helps. It really does."
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Everything goes better with chocolate.
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My nephew's wife just gave birth but there are some issues with the newborn's lungs so she is in ICU. Clearly serious and seems common to premature babies, but she was not really premature as far as I know.
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Will pray for the wee bairn…
Lungs are about the last organ to fully develop in utero…
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My nephew's wife just gave birth but there are some issues with the newborn's lungs so she is in ICU. Clearly serious and seems common to premature babies, but she was not really premature as far as I know.
Praying for quick development and healing
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More painting, I got a first coat on the walls. It's easier painting a darker color because it's easier to see if I missed a bit, although now it's started to dry I'm going to need another coat because it's visibly a bit patchy in places and the color of the drywall still shows through.
Maybe tomorrow I can put a second coat on, and then think about wiring the ceiling fan. Once the walls are dry I can get the power sockets connected.
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My nephew's wife just gave birth but there are some issues with the newborn's lungs so she is in ICU. Clearly serious and seems common to premature babies, but she was not really premature as far as I know.
Prayers this evening for that little one.
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My nephew's wife just gave birth but there are some issues with the newborn's lungs so she is in ICU. Clearly serious and seems common to premature babies, but she was not really premature as far as I know.
Praying 🙏
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More painting. I thought the remains of my tin of paint would be enough and rapidly found out I was wrong. So I used what I had and made a quick dash to the hardware store to get some more mixed up. Thankfully it's just a couple of miles away so my roller didn't dry out while I was fetching more supplies. It turned out I needed half of the second tin of paint. The problem I had was that as the first coat of paint dried I could see the color of the drywall showing through in places. Hopefully this second coat will be enough, but if needs be we can put a third coat on.
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More painting. I thought the remains of my tin of paint would be enough and rapidly found out I was wrong. So I used what I had and made a quick dash to the hardware store to get some more mixed up. Thankfully it's just a couple of miles away so my roller didn't dry out while I was fetching more supplies. It turned out I needed half of the second tin of paint. The problem I had was that as the first coat of paint dried I could see the color of the drywall showing through in places. Hopefully this second coat will be enough, but if needs be we can put a third coat on.
Trick.
Wrap the roller with paint in it in a plastic garbage bag wrapped up tightly and you can go several days without the paint drying out
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
I think he came to lecture and not discuss.
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More painting. I thought the remains of my tin of paint would be enough and rapidly found out I was wrong. So I used what I had and made a quick dash to the hardware store to get some more mixed up. Thankfully it's just a couple of miles away so my roller didn't dry out while I was fetching more supplies. It turned out I needed half of the second tin of paint. The problem I had was that as the first coat of paint dried I could see the color of the drywall showing through in places. Hopefully this second coat will be enough, but if needs be we can put a third coat on.
Trick.
Wrap the roller with paint in it in a plastic garbage bag wrapped up tightly and you can go several days without the paint drying out
I'll keep that in mind, thanks!
It looks like two coats is enough. I need another coat in patches on the ceiling, specifically where the drywall seams are because the expanse of white where the seams were mudded kinda shows through. Once that is done (tomorrow, most likely) I can look at fitting the ceiling fan and getting that connected, and then get the sockets installed and powered up.
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
I think he came to lecture and not discuss.
Oh :(
Well, I'm looking at the new Gabecube and Steam controller :O
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Well, I'm looking at the new Gabecube and Steam controller :O
I just heard about it. Hmm....
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
I think he came to lecture and not discuss.
Oh :(
Well, I'm looking at the new Gabecube and Steam controller :O
I've got an old Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick I'm trying to get rid of. ;)
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
I think he came to lecture and not discuss.
Oh :(
Well, I'm looking at the new Gabecube and Steam controller :O
I've got an old Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick I'm trying to get rid of. ;)
I'm not surprised a geologist has something that ancient!
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Absolutely no progress whatsoever on the house today.
I needed to take my car in for a service so got that dropped off, got home and my daughter came to visit for a while, then I went to get my car back. Then I had time for a quick run before dinner, because I'm off out to my Bible study group in a few minutes.
So the painting I kinda sorta wanted to do today will have to wait until tomorrow. But maybe I can paint, then run, then get the ceiling fan fitted. That would be nice.
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What happened to the new dude? He not like the no low effort copy pasta rule?
I think he came to lecture and not discuss.
Oh :(
Well, I'm looking at the new Gabecube and Steam controller :O
I've got an old Logitech Wingman Extreme joystick I'm trying to get rid of. ;)
A trebuchet is useful for problems of this nature, as well as many other problems.
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Wondering what I should be doing with these new cassettes I've gathered. It's not just vinyl anymore, new releases also come with casettes, and so far, they're just sitting in their shrink wrap looking pretty.
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Sounds like you need my old 72 Triumph Spitfire
It had a secondary market Marantz cassette deck and six speakers that could peel paint.
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Sounds like you need my old 72 Triumph Spitfire
It had a secondary market Marantz cassette deck and six speakers that could peel paint.
The most I ever had was a Sony walkman, and I think for as fun as it would be to have something like that again, cassettes are just so impractical, and no one really has the tech to make something good and cheap.
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This morning I put another coat of paint on my ceiling to cover over the patches where the drywall seams were showing through. Then a somewhat fast run, helping my wife put some lights up while it's warm enough to do it without freezing appendages that prefer not to be frozen, then I got some sockets connected in the room I'm working on. I stopped because I ran out of light and don't care much for working on the floor when I can only see because of a work light.
I got all but two sockets connected. The two remaining ones are recessed a bit so they need back box extenders, but to fit those I need to trim a little drywall away from immediately around the boxes, and I can't be bothered to do that in the dark. Once they are connected I can reactivate the circuit and test them all, then think about getting the ceiling fan and closet light connected up.
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Friday I got a new "Santa" gig. I will be playing "The Jolly Gentleman" for our county's historical society at an event at their Pioneer Village. I will be ensconced in the train station to greet the kids. I'm thinking of getting a set of.those translation ear buds for next year. After all Santa should be able to speak all languages and I certainly CAN'T.
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I got waylaid with some stuff this afternoon but managed to get the last two sockets wired and the whole circuit turned on and tested.
I need to tweak the positions of a couple of sockets - one is a little too far to one side and a slight glitch in the drywall is showing, so I need to shuffle it across a little. Another needs a small standoff made because the back box is recessed a little too awkwardly into the drywall for it to fit cleanly without it. It's no big deal, I can cut one from a piece of dowel and put the screw through the middle of it.
Next up is the ceiling fan. I would have done it tonight but I ran out of light and connecting electrical stuff using a work light gets a bit tedious.
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I cut the standoff from a scrap of thin plywood and now the socket is where I need it to be. I'll need to do a little repair work around the back box, the drywallers cut a little too much away so my options are either add a little filler around the box and paint over it, or replace all the surrounding plates with oversize ones. I don't feel like replacing all the plates, so a little filler it shall be.
I got the ceiling fan fitted and connected, and the closet light fitted and connected. It was fun fitting the closet light, I needed to drill a 4 1/4" hole through a 5/8" sheet of drywall. Needless to say that was a bit dusty. But now the electrics in there are mostly done, so I can think about window trim next.
ETA: For a small followup, a load of tools that are no longer needed in there are now put back in the basement, and I've been looking at cheap moving dollies to see if there's an easy way to move these radiators around.
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I finished this year's Christmas poem last night. Or, more accurately, very early this morning. As often happens, the final stanza came around 1:30 AM as I was laying in bed going to sleep. Per normal it woke me up and made me get up to write it down.
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I took a few days off from my house renovation. I need to get some wood to make window trim and didn't feel like rushing to the lumber store right before they closed on Friday.
Today it's a trip to Harbor Freight to get a couple of dollies to move these radiators. I found something that looks like it's intended to move cars - two dollies rated at 1500lb and crucially they have an indent in the platform which means I won't have to lift the radiator as high as I'd previously feared. My hope is that I can lift one end and get my wife to slide a dolly underneath, then do the same at the other end, then wheel the thing to put it somewhere else. The only question is whether the wheels will damage my floor, but hopefully I can put some heavy cardboard down to prevent that.
Once the radiators are out I can fiddle with the floor - another round of scraping, sanding and staining.
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The dollies are acquired. I haven't used them yet, I had a bunch of other stuff to do this afternoon and evening. Maybe tomorrow I can do battle with the radiators, in between helping my wife get food prepared for Thursday.
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I went for a run this morning. 35 degrees and 15mph winds, gusting to 35mph. Among the ideas I had for today, going for a run wasn't one of the better ones. But I completed my run, made room for some turkey, and then got down to the serious business of eating a heavy meal.
My new granddaughters wanted to play after the meal. I was somewhat less mobile than before the meal, partly due to having a very full tummy, but still got to play with them for a while.
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Went to the new Wicked For Good yesterday. Excellent movie. I highly recommend it providing you saw the first movie.
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:D Hurricane season is officially over. And, for once, not a single Hurricane made landfall in the US. I ordered new Santa boots in November. I called the company this morning because they hadn't arrived yet. They traced them and said they had arrived at the Orlando PO on Friday. So there is a chance I'll get them before the end of the week.
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Still kinda stalling at the thought of trying to move two radiators that each weigh at least double what I weigh. I have everything I need to move them except the inclination to lift them to slide wheeled doodads underneath them.
I can't sand the floor until the radiators are gone, so I might as well quit stalling and get on with it. It's just that the thought of lifting one end of a radiator high enough that my wife can slide a platform underneath it doesn't fill me with joy.
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Still kinda stalling at the thought of trying to move two radiators that each weigh at least double what I weigh. I have everything I need to move them except the inclination to lift them to slide wheeled doodads underneath them.
I can't sand the floor until the radiators are gone, so I might as well quit stalling and get on with it. It's just that the thought of lifting one end of a radiator high enough that my wife can slide a platform underneath it doesn't fill me with joy.
I was in tango-mode this weekend as new carpets are coming today. Empty out rooms, pull out the olde carpet and underlay, patch and paint walls...
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I decided to try my hand at something new. I've seen a few bandsaw boxes and couldn't figure out how they were made - on the face of it the cuts aren't possible. So I did a bit of research with Google and decided to see how it would work out.
I only have a small tabletop bandsaw - I bought it to help cut blanks for carving spoons - so rapidly hit the limitations of my saw. But I did make my first ever bandsaw box, which is now finally finished. Today's job was lacquering it, having glued everything together, stained the outline and cut tiny handles to put on the very small drawers.
It's going to be a Christmas present for one of my new granddaughters. She's 15, so I hope she likes having something personal that's hand made by her new Pap. My wife loves it, as does her mom, so we're hopeful.
Because I hit the limitations of my bandsaw so soon I'm debating whether to simply deal with making small boxes (two dimensions need to be 3.5" or less, to fit in the saw, or drop several hundred dollars on a bigger saw that will also have the drawback of being heavy enough that I can't just pick it up and put it somewhere else. One big advantage of the one I have now is that it only weighs about 50lb so moving it around is a trivial process. The ones I've been looking at range from about $600 - 1400 and weigh from 150-280lb.
I wish I could gauge how much I'd actually use a bigger saw, I don't want to drop four figures on a saw and find I kinda lose interest in boxes after making half a dozen of them, but also dont want to spend $6-700 on a saw and hit the limitations within a few months again.
So anyway, if you lot are stuck for ideas what to get me for Christmas, consider the above a hint :)
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I decided to try my hand at something new. I've seen a few bandsaw boxes and couldn't figure out how they were made - on the face of it the cuts aren't possible. So I did a bit of research with Google and decided to see how it would work out.
I only have a small tabletop bandsaw - I bought it to help cut blanks for carving spoons - so rapidly hit the limitations of my saw. But I did make my first ever bandsaw box, which is now finally finished. Today's job was lacquering it, having glued everything together, stained the outline and cut tiny handles to put on the very small drawers.
It's going to be a Christmas present for one of my new granddaughters. She's 15, so I hope she likes having something personal that's hand made by her new Pap. My wife loves it, as does her mom, so we're hopeful.
Because I hit the limitations of my bandsaw so soon I'm debating whether to simply deal with making small boxes (two dimensions need to be 3.5" or less, to fit in the saw, or drop several hundred dollars on a bigger saw that will also have the drawback of being heavy enough that I can't just pick it up and put it somewhere else. One big advantage of the one I have now is that it only weighs about 50lb so moving it around is a trivial process. The ones I've been looking at range from about $600 - 1400 and weigh from 150-280lb.
I wish I could gauge how much I'd actually use a bigger saw, I don't want to drop four figures on a saw and find I kinda lose interest in boxes after making half a dozen of them, but also dont want to spend $6-700 on a saw and hit the limitations within a few months again.
So anyway, if you lot are stuck for ideas what to get me for Christmas, consider the above a hint :)
Would love to see the box. My dad was a woodwork. But he was more into lathe wotk.
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I decided to try my hand at something new. I've seen a few bandsaw boxes and couldn't figure out how they were made - on the face of it the cuts aren't possible. So I did a bit of research with Google and decided to see how it would work out.
I only have a small tabletop bandsaw - I bought it to help cut blanks for carving spoons - so rapidly hit the limitations of my saw. But I did make my first ever bandsaw box, which is now finally finished. Today's job was lacquering it, having glued everything together, stained the outline and cut tiny handles to put on the very small drawers.
It's going to be a Christmas present for one of my new granddaughters. She's 15, so I hope she likes having something personal that's hand made by her new Pap. My wife loves it, as does her mom, so we're hopeful.
Because I hit the limitations of my bandsaw so soon I'm debating whether to simply deal with making small boxes (two dimensions need to be 3.5" or less, to fit in the saw, or drop several hundred dollars on a bigger saw that will also have the drawback of being heavy enough that I can't just pick it up and put it somewhere else. One big advantage of the one I have now is that it only weighs about 50lb so moving it around is a trivial process. The ones I've been looking at range from about $600 - 1400 and weigh from 150-280lb.
I wish I could gauge how much I'd actually use a bigger saw, I don't want to drop four figures on a saw and find I kinda lose interest in boxes after making half a dozen of them, but also dont want to spend $6-700 on a saw and hit the limitations within a few months again.
So anyway, if you lot are stuck for ideas what to get me for Christmas, consider the above a hint :)
Would love to see the box. My dad was a woodwork. But he was more into lathe wotk.
A lathe is probably in my future. I'd like a bigger bandsaw and a lathe, I'm just not sure about space or whether I really want to drop the best part of $2000 on more tools.
I'll see if I can post a picture after Christmas, I don't imagine my granddaughter will be on this board but don't want to take any chances she'll get a sneak preview before she unwraps it. Since us being her grandparents is a totally new thing for her I'm thinking I might write something for her, about how we love her and respect moving at her pace, and tucking it inside one of the spaces in the box.
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Yesterday I played Santa for a local Historical Society event. A lot of fun. However, I had a boy come to me talking about how he was worried about his mother having trouble at work. People are giving her trouble. Please be praying for him. Alternately,.I had a great blessing. A couple brought their baby over for his first picture with Santa. They had him dressed in a little Santa outfit, the hat had "My first Christmas" written on it and he was 3 weeks old. My youngest ever.
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Good run today. I decided to just run at a comfortable pace, albeit on the fast side of comfortable, not stop for a walk break unless I absolutely had to, and not even look at my running watch unless there was a compelling reason to look at it.
It duly warbled the completion of the first three miles while tucked under a long sleeve. I checked one unexpected warble to find it was a heart rate warning - I was slightly over an alarm level I set, but didn't feel distressed so kept going. A couple more related warbles were likewise ignored.
Finally when it warbled to say I'd done six miles I checked the time and was very pleasantly surprised. I checked then because my goal was to run a 10k (6.21 miles) and I wanted to get a gauge for how long it would take, and from six miles I keep a closer eye so I know when to stop.
I didn't set a personal best but did come within less than 90 seconds of it, which was encouraging since I wasn't even trying to beat any records. Maybe I can shave some time off the PB that has stood since about this time last year.
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Congratulations. But if someone ever see me running please catch whoever is chasing me. ;D
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If you see me running it likely means I’m out of ammo…
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If you see me running it likely means I’m out of ammo…
I'd be glad to loan you some if I had any.
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Christmas Eve at the end of our candle lighting service our drama team put on a living nativity. I ended up as a shepherd. When I walked into get my costume our wardrobe mistress (who is our directors wife) handed me a costume I recognized. It was one I wore as James when we did our Living Last Supper. She said she chose it because she knew it fit me.
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Triple dose of Christmas this year.
We went to our church service on Christmas Eve. It was nice to have a home church - last Christmas we visited a church for their Christmas Eve service, even though it's not a church we would see ourselves settling at. At the beginning of this year we tried a new church, having not attended anywhere for a few months since leaving our last church, and we've been there since. As a bonus we got to see our daughter and three granddaughters.
On Christmas Day our daughter came to visit with our teenage granddaughter. The youngest spent the morning with her and the afternoon with their dad. It was nice to have a bit of adult time without "Mommy, mommy" every few seconds.
Then today our daughter came back with the three girls, and the littles got to open their presents. Much chaos followed with two small children unwrapping presents. It's wild and crazy when they are here but we miss them like crazy when they leave.
Tomorrow everything is back to normal. I need to get back to my renovation project, I have another floor that won't scrape and sand itself.
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A while back someone asked about the boxes I made with my bandsaw. I hope these pictures come through.
(https://scontent-den2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/603838717_2783051562038041_4155593193178307706_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=4JOZ8sgg6PUQ7kNvwFHfNiR&_nc_oc=AdmkgDjX6fTfWRdfiKWVujSzcf8SxXBO204hOhI_ySXss47ozt-F_hOpwqXIssuXJSI&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-den2-1.xx&_nc_gid=vmP5qAMHyjD1FGBE7GPmcA&oh=00_Afmgg1DV2H6JJD1ovnbVE90rYVvTJIRfw6djE6cxX0d4ZQ&oe=69551CB1)
(https://scontent-den2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/604739712_2783050172038180_6620348686086646595_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=EaHpWcSouqsQ7kNvwFrtHS_&_nc_oc=Adnya-JT3VpRbs0x9hcsl4qhAZLi4o7fQsq9hsrnmbbvolDUJ_QpjWaN6skxCuL2Inw&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-den2-1.xx&_nc_gid=XTHo2Fj_bIGwq1XkMT8C-Q&oh=00_Afm5VEncKv2fX0fWbxt1_lIBUjjhQ6Dmy5Xny1AFQSHfPg&oe=695524F8)
I didn't want to post anything beforehand just in case anyone saw them who wasn't supposed to see them until Christmas.
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A while back someone asked about the boxes I made with my bandsaw. I hope these pictures come through.
I didn't want to post anything beforehand just in case anyone saw them who wasn't supposed to see them until Christmas.
I need a 24" monitor for those pics.
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Meanwhile, I'm dealing with my Mom who is advancing in dementia, likely Lewy Body, but not an official diagnosis. Going to spend a few more days with her here while the family heads home tomorrow.
Its pretty wild at times - she has these hallucinations of people in her home, for some time now, a little mischevious girl that she talks to and offers food and drink to, but more worrisome is the man with dark hair who is far more threatening and scary. Her sense of time is completely messed up and minor observations during the day end up in the delusions - almost like how (at least for me) dreams often incorporate elements of our mundane day and wrap them up in a wildly preposterous state, yet seem completely plausible at the time.
I've had a couple anecdotal stories of incidents that would be cause of concern of her safety, as well as those around her.
We are likely approaching the end of her independent living and thats going to be a tough one.
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A while back someone asked about the boxes I made with my bandsaw. I hope these pictures come through.
I didn't want to post anything beforehand just in case anyone saw them who wasn't supposed to see them until Christmas.
I need a 24" monitor for those pics.
I'm not sure how to resize them for forum use :(
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A while back someone asked about the boxes I made with my bandsaw. I hope these pictures come through.
I didn't want to post anything beforehand just in case anyone saw them who wasn't supposed to see them until Christmas.
I need a 24" monitor for those pics.
I'm not sure how to resize them for forum use :(
I think you have to resize in your default photo viewer. Not sure what you have but the edit option often has resizing options.
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A while back someone asked about the boxes I made with my bandsaw. I hope these pictures come through.
I didn't want to post anything beforehand just in case anyone saw them who wasn't supposed to see them until Christmas.
I need a 24" monitor for those pics.
I'm not sure how to resize them for forum use :(
I think you have to resize in your default photo viewer. Not sure what you have but the edit option often has resizing options.
I know how to resize in Photoshop, the pictures were linked to an online copy of them. When I said I didn't know how to resize them I meant in the sense of making them appear smaller here, not tweaking the original files.
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When perusing a newspaper I'll sometimes try to enlarge a photo using two fingers ???
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When perusing a newspaper I'll sometimes try to enlarge a photo using two fingers ???
What’s a noose paper?
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When perusing a newspaper I'll sometimes try to enlarge a photo using two fingers ???
You probably won't need to do that to my pictures above
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When perusing a newspaper I'll sometimes try to enlarge a photo using two fingers ???
What’s a noose paper?
A hard to lose old habit
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When perusing a newspaper I'll sometimes try to enlarge a photo using two fingers ???
You probably won't need to do that to my pictures above
Nope. We're good.
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Rain & fireworks Sunset Dunes to Point Lobos. 5 miles stretch of waterfront. 12am
Folks are persistent.
Happy New Year!!! 8)
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Was told by two eccentric ladies today that so many people pack into Times Square to watch the ball drop that peeing one's pants is not uncommon.
One cannot move, nowhere to go, too many drinks!
Which leads to the topic of resolutions: Giving up conversing wirh eccentric ladies.
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Was told by two eccentric ladies today that so many people pack into Times Square to watch the ball drop that peeing one's pants is not uncommon.
One cannot move, nowhere to go, too many drinks!
Which leads to the topic of resolutions: Giving up conversing wirh eccentric ladies.
I've heard much the same from other sources. So many people packed in, if you do try to find a bathroom you'll never get back to your group, assuming you can even find a bathroom in the first place.
It's hard to see squashing in with so many people, when you can't even take time out for a bathroom break, to be any fun. But people do it. Perhaps they have a different idea of fun, I struggle to see how peeing in my pants in the freezing cold unable to move in any direction counts as fun.
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As to resolutions,.I made the same ones I always make. Not to make any resolutions. Funny thing, I always keep it.
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Back to the house project, it's been a while. Today's job was filling a gap between an electrical back box and the drywall with some cement, the gap is just a little too big to cover with a regular face plate. Once that has dried I'll paint it and put the face plate on it. I also assembled the wheeled platforms I've had on hand for a few weeks, ready to move the radiators. These things are rated at 1500lb and are designed to move a car, so hopefully they are up to the job of moving my radiators.
Next up is to cut a piece off a tree. One fell down in my neighbor's yard and he said I could cut some of it to keep. I'm thinking I might dry it out in my dehydrator and make bandsaw boxes out of it. If that doesn't work I can burn whatever I don't need.
Once the radiators are out of the way I can get busy scraping and sanding the floor in that room. Oh what fun. At least then I can prepare the window trim, which is somewhat more enjoyable.
I also have some insulation panels in a downstairs room, and once I've got the walls there patched up I can put them against the wall and think about getting the material to restud the wall. I couldn't get the 3/4" panels any more and bizarrely the 1.5" were slightly cheaper than the 1" panels, so I figured I might as well shift from R6 to R9 and save a couple of bucks in the process. It just means I'll lose an extra 3/4" of space compared to what I planned, and my walls will shift from 3/4" feather strips to 3 3/4" by the time I've studded everything out. Although maybe I can go for slightly thinner studs - if 1.75" studs rather than 2.25" studs like I used elsewhere will give me the space to fit a backbox, maybe I can stick with a double layer of R9 rather than R5 paired with R13.
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The house project is gaining traction once again. Today I finally got two radiators moved - I lifted one end and got my wife to slide my wheeled platform underneath, then did the same for the other end. The platforms are rated to move a car, so they coped quite well with radiators. They barely marked the floor too, which was nice.
So now I have a room with a mostly clear floor - there are still a few things I need to take away - but I've made a good start on the floor with coarse sanding belts. I've probably got about 30-40% of it done with the coarse grade belt. I stopped work because I had lost suction, and it turned out my separator jammed, filled the filter bag in my shop vac causing the bag to split, and so my filter clogged up. So tomorrow's job is to replace the bag, clean the filter, move the last few things out of the room, and resume sanding. Hopefully I can get the first pass of sanding done tomorrow and maybe a second pass. I'm not looking forward to applying the lacquer, in this weather I don't really want windows open and without windows open the fumes can get a bit heady.
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Whelp! It's been a lot of fun but back out to the wilderness for me.
Be well friends and have a great new year :)
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I got to test my chainsaw for the first time since I bought it a few months ago. I bought it in a tool sale, figuring it could be handy for long drives in the woods - a while back we encountered a fallen tree across the road and all I had was a sabre saw. So I bought a chainsaw, tested it on the box it came in, and then left it. But I got to play with it cutting some real wood. The neighbor's fallen tree was thicker than it looked from my window so I took a couple of lengths of thinner wood, and let his tree guy cut a chunk of the thick end for me. What had fallen was awkwardly propped and I didn't feel comfortable cutting it over my head, with no experience of how cut trees might fall.
It's good to know my new toy is fully functional, so the next time we take a long drive in the woods I know I have something a little meatier than my sabre saw in case of finding anything down across the road.
Maybe I can also try chainsaw art, if I can find lumps of wood big enough.
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We had rehearsal for our Kings Processional for tomorrow. Unfortunately, tomorrow is going to start real early. I have to be at church and in costume ready to go by 6:45.
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I came to realise that the problem with my shop vac was totally different to what I thought. The hose from the separator to the vac had the wrong fitting on the end, so the dust was bypassing the filter bag entirely, and clogging the main filter. So I needn't have replaced the filter bag after all. Oh well.
Today I had to clean out my belt sander for the first time ever. I noticed it seemed to be throwing a lot of material across the floor and remarkably little into the shop vac, or into the dust collection bag. So that turned into a job for my air compressor, to blow everything out. It had been clogged with bits from earlier sanding. To clean it I had to run it (with no belt on it) while blowing the air compressor into the area behind where the belt goes. After a while there was a huge cloud of dust blown out of the outlet, and now my sander works again.
So far I've got most of the floor sanded at first pass level. Then I can go over it again to catch any odd bits that I missed, and then I'll need to go around the edges again. I hate doing the edges and corners, but it needs to be done. I'll want to get some sheets of really coarse sandpaper so I can put it on my 1/4 sheet sander, and get right into the corners.
In unrelated news I found a guy who wants to get rid of a woodturning lathe and doesn't want anything for it, he just wants it out of the way. It will probably need some work to get it fully functional but maybe I can make it happen. If so, I have a lathe that I can learn on. If not the local thrift shop can have it for scrap metal.
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So now I'm the proud owner of a lathe that's too heavy to lift unaided. It's currently in the basement and I'm not sure what to do with it next. The guy had a set of cheap turning tools that he said were given to him so he gave them to me. Chances are they won't hold a sharp edge very well but that means I can learn tool sharpening on a cheap set, so it's not an expensive mistake if I do a bad job.
My basement is going to need some reorganising to make room for a big lathe and a heavy stand. The stand is currently in my garage while I figure out what my next move needs to be.
I had hoped to do some more work on the floor today but didn't want to pass up the chance to score a free lathe.
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I predict candlesticks as Tango’s 2026 Christmas gifts to others…
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I predict candlesticks as Tango’s 2026 Christmas gifts to others…
Funny you should say that, had I got the lathe and a bit of practise in before Christmas I was planning on turning Christmas tree ornaments.
My wife and I were discussing Christmas with our new daughter, figuring what kind of gifts would be meaningful, and she suggested making some kind of Christmas ornaments each year for the children would be interesting. The youngest are too young to appreciate them just now but she figured if every year they had a new ornament, signed and dated, from Pappy (who may later become Pap) it would be something special for them.
Because getting a lathe sorted before Christmas didn't work out the youngest got trees, the teenager got the K box and she got the P box. Maybe next year I'll have enough practise on the lathe to turn something to hang on the tree. It seems odd using a lathe five feet long to turn something less than five inches long, but there you go. As one woodworker told me, you can turn small things on a big lathe but you can't turn big things on a small lathe.
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Yesterday's fun was sanding. Again. So far I've been over the floor with coarse sanding belts and given it a single pass over with a slightly finer grit. Today's job is to get the shop vac and separator out and use 80 grit, then 120 grit.
Yesterday I spent enough time on my knees that I got a blister. Ordinarily in a Christian message board that would sound very spiritual, but in this context I had a belt sander in my hand rather than a Bible.
I also figured that if I can get my lathe working I can make corner pieces to match the new baseboards I'm going to need in these rooms. In the past I cut a kinda sorta tapered thing on my table saw, but now I have a lathe maybe I can take a square post, turn a pretty finial on the top, and cut it into four so it will fit into the corners rather than having to try and match everything with the baseboards. Maybe I have my first lathe project, once I've figured out where I'm going to put a huge lathe in my anything-but-huge woodshop.
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This morning I sanded the floor with an 80 grit belt and then 120 grit. I used the collection bag on the sander rather than the shop vac, simply because it makes it easier to move around without extra stuff in the room, and I wanted to be able to look over the floor as I sanded it to avoid missing sections.
I don't know how long the first pass took but the second one was slightly shy of an hour. I wanted to go for a run this afternoon but my legs strongly urged me to reconsider, so I went for a walk instead. It's surprisingly demanding on the legs, kneeling and running the sander. I hadn't appreciated just how much work my legs were doing until I came to the conclusion that running would be a really bad idea.
I still have a large lathe sitting awkwardly across the middle of my woodshop, and a large stand for the lathe sitting in my garage because I have yet to figure out what I want to do with it all (beyond the obvious "use it"). I have some ideas, I just haven't yet figured out if they are workable or not. I can hope....
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And another January 6 :( passes. Awful memory!
Okay. Out.
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Yes
The day the speaker of the house and the FBI conspired and entrapped hundreds of US citizens after a series of election frauds across the U.S. and then arrested and hunted down thousands without due process
A truly tragic day
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Harbor Freight have their 36 grit belts on clearance. I suspect that means they are discontinuing the product, so I'll probably get out to buy a few more to have them on hand. It's hard to know how many I'll need, I thought I'd go through several doing my latest room's floor but ended up using less than two. I say less than two, in the sense i used one until it was spent and then started on another but finished while it still had enough life to keep it. The previous room, which was smaller, went through three belts. It seems to be down to whether the floor is painted or lacquered - the paint chips off easily while the lacquer melts and gums up the belt. I don't know what I'll find in the rest of the space I want to deal with.
I'm thinking today I'll run over the floor one last time with an orbital sander and 220 grit paper, fix a couple of holes in the floor where radiator pipes once went (the radiator needs to move, since I restudded the wall) then clean up the floor and the room ready to lacquer it, and then maybe think about some work in the room below it. There's a bit of repair work I need to do to the walls. Now I have my car dolllies I can hopefully move the radiator in that room fairly easily.
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Yesterday I went to see the movie David. I highly recommend it. Naturally, due to the medium, they had to abreveate the events, and skip over some others. But they did a very good job and stayed very true to 1st and 2nd Samuel. They even referenced 1st and 2nd Samuel in the opening credits. My only real complaint is that they didn't use more of Davids poetry in the music.
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Massively unproductive day today. I think all the sanding from the previous days has left me more tired than I thought. I got the holes plugged and got a run in but didn't get much else done today.
Never mind, tomorrow is a new day.
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Massively unproductive day today. I think all the sanding from the previous days has left me more tired than I thought. I got the holes plugged and got a run in but didn't get much else done today.
Never mind, tomorrow is a new day.
Never put off today what you can put off putting off tomorrow.
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Massively unproductive day today. I think all the sanding from the previous days has left me more tired than I thought. I got the holes plugged and got a run in but didn't get much else done today.
Never mind, tomorrow is a new day.
Never put off today what you can put off putting off tomorrow.
"I'll procrastinate tomorrow" - Garfield
An old friend of mine, who was a terrible procrastinator, often used to say that if a job is worth doing it will still be worth doing tomorrow.
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Today's alternative to running a final sanding pass over my floor was to try and organise some stuff in my basement. I have a large lathe diagonally across the floor that's a bit of a nuisance, and I really want to set it up and see if it works. But I can't do that until I can clear a space for the stand and get the stand hauled down there, so I've been moving stuff around and getting rid of some wood scraps that need to be burned. Part of the process is rationalising what wood is worth keeping, part of it is taking the pieces that aren't and cutting them into small pieces so I can dump a whole bagful into my burn barrel and get rid of the whole lot at once.
I've cleared some space, soon I can move a table out of the way and maybe set up the stand where the table once was. Then I can fire it up and try turning my first piece with it.
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An unexpected detour into building stuff in my woodshop. Yesterday I was moving stuff around and ended up with a load of dust hanging in the air. Today I ran my basement vacuum to clear some sawdust out of my bandsaw and rapidly ended up with sawdust hanging in the air.
The first order of business was to empty my separator. That's not a trivial job, since it contained something like 30 gallons of sawdust. Next up is to build a wheeled platform for it, and a platform above the lid to mount a shop vac. That will let me move it around to where it's needed, rather than having to run hoses around the place and hope I can reach what I need.
I'm debating whether I should get another shop vac. The one I have in the basement doesn't have bags that fit it, it sounds like a thousand angry banshees, and blows dust right through the motor and out into the air when anything gets past the separator. I already have two shop vacs, although one of them sounds like it might not be with me much longer. But when I do my renovation work it's handy to have a vac available that's not tied to a specific location in the basement. Maybe I'll just use one of my existing shop vacs for it, and replace the old one when it finally gives up the ghost.
In unrelated news I unwound the cable for my new lathe and fired it up. It turns, and it doesn't make any unexpected noises. Now I just need to find a way to work it somewhere other than awkwardly propped across the middle of my floor.
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In unrelated news I unwound the cable for my new lathe and fired it up. It turns, and it doesn't make any unexpected noises. Now I just need to find a way to work it somewhere other than awkwardly propped across the middle of my floor.
It would probably fit nicely on the kitchen table
Close to snacks is a bonus!
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In unrelated news I unwound the cable for my new lathe and fired it up. It turns, and it doesn't make any unexpected noises. Now I just need to find a way to work it somewhere other than awkwardly propped across the middle of my floor.
It would probably fit nicely on the kitchen table
Close to snacks is a bonus!
There are two problems with this theory....
1. It won't actually fit on the kitchen table, it would protrude quite a long way off the end of the table, and (more importantly)
2. I'd really like to still be married this time next week
My plan to mount a shop vac on top of my separator is thwarted by a lack of headroom in the area I had hoped to store it. I may press on anyway and accept I need to keep it in another part of the room (i.e. not under the air handler for the heat pump), or I may decide to keep the vac and the separator separate. I really want to level the floor but I'm not sure how best to do it, levelling compound seems like a handy option but it's a major drag having to remove every single thing from the room and not use it for however long it takes that stuff to dry. But it would mean I could wheel tools around easily, which in turn would mean I could simply mount everything on a custom wheeled base and tuck everything out of the way when not in use.
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Today in our church service we dedicated our newly remodeled sanctuary building. The DS was there, and preached, and our handbells played.
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I finally ran over my floor with the orbital sander. There are a couple of places where the wood grain is at a weird angle and pretty much anything - the vacuum cleaner, the sander, whatever - will catch and tear. So I used a Stanley knife to cut away the damaged parts, and I'll probably use a paste of lacquer and sawdust to fill the gaps and keep the damaged edges under control. Then I ran the shop vac to get the worst of the sawdust and shavings up, and a damp cloth to get the rest of it. I'll probably run the damp cloth over it again to make sure I've cleared it all before I get busy with the lacquer.
Tomorrow is supposed to be reasonably warm, so maybe I can lacquer tomorrow and run the fan during the day. At least that will reduce the amount of vapor that gets into the house. The last coat will have to be right before bed and the nights are still cold enough that I'd want the fan out before the final coat, but anything is a bonus.
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I didn't finish the floor, I got sidetracked by my lathe. I manhandled the stand into place and got my wife to lift the lighter end of the lathe onto the stand. The thing is five feet long and weighs 150lb so lifting it myself seemed like a good way to max out the deductible on my health insurance. So I lifted the heavier end and she took the light end, and I got it fired up.
The first attempt yielded mixed results and much learning. The wood kept stalling even when I was taking very light cuts. I thought the motor was strong enough to handle it, and indeed it was, it turned out I hadn't cranked the tailstock into the wood aggressively enough, so the motor was still turning but the spur drive was spinning rather than driving the wood. Cranking the tailstock more aggressively solved the problem and I could cut more aggressively.
The second attempt was slightly more ambitious, cutting coves into a piece of wood. It turned out kinda sorta OK. The guy who gave me the lathe said he was struggling to get a good finish with it, but based on the finish I was getting using entry level cutting tools and a piece of construction grade lumber I'm wondering if he just wanted an excuse to get rid of a surplus lathe or if I'm missing something. I'm not getting a shiny finish by any means, but I wouldn't expect a shiny finish when I'm starting with construction grade lumber.
Anyway, the lathe is set up and working, I'm enjoying turning wood into sawdust, and my floor is still awaiting some final attention. Having the lathe working means I can turn some decorative corner pieces - that not only looks pretty but also means I don't have to figure funky angles and cutting baseboards so they fit neatly into each other.
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As the good book says (popular mechanics, that is)
“Caulk covereth a multitude of sins.”
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As the good book says (popular mechanics, that is)
“Caulk covereth a multitude of sins.”
Caulk covers a lot of things, but stained wood doesn't always work well with it. It's great if baseboards are painted white but mine aren't.... they are wide boards that are stained and lacquered. Caulking would stand out like a sore thumb, probably more so than a slightly mismatched joint.
In unrelated news I turned some more wood into sawdust last night, tinkering with how my lathe tools work, cutting angles, how to hold them against the wood etc. I'm getting there, slowly but surely.
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Well, the good news is that if your klutzy non-graceful self is going to slip on the ice in the parking deck at DeKalb County courthouse at 9:00 am before a 4 hour mediation and you land on his your elbow and break your arm, a nondisplaced fracture of the radial head about an inch below the actual elbow joint is the easiest to treat and heal without surgery or a cast with just an ace bandage and Tylenol
On the other hand, the bad news is…
Just sayin’…
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... and presumably your four hour mediation gets rescheduled to when the lawyer hasn't broken himself?
I hope you recover quickly. I'm assuming your post wasn't purely hypothetical...
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We finished the mediation before I went to the doctor
And no, not a hypothetical
Healing up well
No cast
Compression bandage
Ice
Rest
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Well, the good news is that if your klutzy non-graceful self is going to slip on the ice in the parking deck at DeKalb County courthouse at 9:00 am before a 4 hour mediation and you land on his your elbow and break your arm, a nondisplaced fracture of the radial head about an inch below the actual elbow joint is the easiest to treat and heal without surgery or a cast with just an ace bandage and Tylenol
On the other hand, the bad news is…
Just sayin’…
Our health and safety officer went down on some ice getting out of a truck. Shook it off, but woke in a lot of pain. Turns out he fractured a rib and punctured a lung. One surgery so far, maybe another yet.
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Fun With Lathes today.
It was cold this morning so I started to fiddle with my lathe, and ended up turning a snowman out of an old piece of wall stud. My wife loved it, so I put some wood oil on it to bring out the character of the wood and then went for a run. Then I turned another snowman for my daughter. I kinda like the way the snowmen look, the wood I used is over 100 years old and has a glorious grain to it.
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I got to surprise my daughter today. She said how much she loved the snowman I made for my wife, so at church this morning I presented her with a snowman of her own.
I also found out that I've been using my skew chisel incorrectly. I've been using it more as a scraper than a cutter, which isn't the best way to use it and doesn't produce the best finish. So I set up a couple more pieces of wood and fiddled with the skew chisels to see how well they worked out. The difference was remarkable. What was very pleasing was seeing some sections of ribbon-like shavings coming off the wood. The Youtube videos I've been watching show people cutting with huge great ribbons of wood flying off their skew, but I haven't reached that stage just yet. But it's good to have short sections of ribbon forming, it shows my form is improving. It was also nice to see a couple of scrap pieces I experimented with end up with a near perfectly smooth finish without any sanding at all. I'm slightly puzzled, the guy who gave me the lathe said he couldn't get a good finish on it, but I seem to be getting a good finish with hardly any experience and with entry level tools sharpened with a belt sander because that's what I have available.
Now I need to figure out how to use the new 4-jaw chuck I bought. I struggled with it, wasn't sure if it was properly rounded, and took it off again. Before returning it I figured I'd spend some time on Google to see if I was doing something wrong, and it appears I might have been. I can't be sure, so some more research is required.
A bucket that once contained 20lb of cement powder is now full of wood shavings. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do with the wood shavings. The fact they burn gives me one option, if I can't find any better uses for them.
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Today I tried making some smaller snowmen. I turned out three of them, the tallest of which was about two inches high. I had thought I might share them among family members but my wife claimed them all. So my daughter got a photo. Maybe I'll turn out some more, I want to figure how to hold small pieces in a chuck so I can lose the tailstock but don't yet know what options might be out there.
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More fun with the lathe, as well as some fun with the snow.
Tinkering some more with the skew, and now I'm getting better finishes even if I sometimes manage to catch the skew. I know in theory what causes it but don't always manage to avoid the situation.
Then I tried to make a small bowl out of a piece of 2x4. It kinds sorta worked, for a first effort I guess it's OK but I'm aware of shortcomings with it. I should probably buy myself a bowl gouge so I can do that sort of thing without making such a hash of it.
I also turned a spinning top. I'll probably make another one, so my youngest granddaughters don't have to fight over this one.
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My wife and I are recovering from a nasty flu, 10 days and counting.
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Yikes!!!!!
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That's not good.
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Fiddling with my lathe I turned out another three spinning tops, although one of them doesn't spin as well as I hoped.
My daughter and one granddaughter came for supper tonight. I gave them my first attempt at a bowl, along with a few snowmen and spinning tops.
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Interesting. I have full confidence that my late brother Hal is safe with the LORD!
And I also belatedly remember Hal telling me that a person would be crazy for not accepting salvation in Christ.
The LORD was gracious in granting me that condfidence.
Gracious as always
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Sitting in a hospital with my mom who's dementia has gotten to the point she can no longer live independently. Waiting for a bed to open or find a private one somewhere. Need to be with her 24hrs as she might be a flight risk.
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Sitting in a hospital with my mom who's dementia has gotten to the point she can no longer live independently. Waiting for a bed to open or find a private one somewhere. Need to be with her 24hrs as she might be a flight risk.
Prayers.for this important issue!
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Sitting in a hospital with my mom who's dementia has gotten to the point she can no longer live independently. Waiting for a bed to open or find a private one somewhere. Need to be with her 24hrs as she might be a flight risk.
That's not good, will keep you in prayer. I hope you can find something suitable before too long.
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Sitting in a hospital with my mom who's dementia has gotten to the point she can no longer live independently. Waiting for a bed to open or find a private one somewhere. Need to be with her 24hrs as she might be a flight risk.
praying 🙏
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Sitting in a hospital with my mom who's dementia has gotten to the point she can no longer live independently. Waiting for a bed to open or find a private one somewhere. Need to be with her 24hrs as she might be a flight risk.
Rough
Praying for all sorts of things not the least of which are wisdom, patience, endurance, and peace
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Again? Do they really like you for jury duty?
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Seems that way, yeah.
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Is there any limit to how often you have to do that?
In England when I did jury duty there was a get-out clause if you had served within the previous (I think) three years. You could serve again if you wanted to, but you didn't have to.
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Is there any limit to how often you have to do that?
In England when I did jury duty there was a get-out clause if you had served within the previous (I think) three years. You could serve again if you wanted to, but you didn't have to.
There is a limit, which I am waiting to hear about today.
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Is there any limit to how often you have to do that?
In England when I did jury duty there was a get-out clause if you had served within the previous (I think) three years. You could serve again if you wanted to, but you didn't have to.
There is a limit, which I am waiting to hear about today.
It's different in different states, it Texas, for instance, you are exempt from serving for 2 years after you have served once. In Florida after you have served on jury duty you are exempt from serving again for year.
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Is there any limit to how often you have to do that?
In England when I did jury duty there was a get-out clause if you had served within the previous (I think) three years. You could serve again if you wanted to, but you didn't have to.
There is a limit, which I am waiting to hear about today.
Okay. Cleared for now.
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There was an interesting glitch reported in the jury selection process in the UK some years ago that the newspapers enjoyed reporting.
Apparently the computer sent a jury summons to one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Mr Blair was exempt from serving for multiple reasons, among them the fact he was the Prime Minister at the time (there were other reasons, I believe relating to his legal qualifications). But the computer demonstrated that it was truly blind and pulled his name from the metaphorical hat.
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I've started watching a series of dad's I received from Hillsdale College. They are a.series of lectures on C.S. Lewis on Christianity. Today I watched the 2nd lecture. I highly recommend this series. I've watched it before, but am finding I don't remember it well. Hillsdale College has a number of classes you can take online for free. No College credit but they do give you a certificate when you finish with the final quiz. I highly recommend any of these. I have taken 10 and thourally enjoyed them.
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I spent some time yesterday scraping nasty flaked paint off basement doors. I'm beginning a project to update some space in the basement so I can make more efficient use of what limited space I have. In one room I'm going to end up with a table saw, miter saw, planer and lathe, and really need a table to be moved. I think I'll plan to use the adjacent room to store wood and use hand tools (hand carving etc). I want to put a big band saw in the first room, which will be interesting. I see mobile bases in my future.
Before I get the bandsaw I need to build a small bench so I can mount the grinder I bought to sharpen my lathe chisels, and also the small bandsaw I currently have. I may look to sell it if I buy a big one, in which case my scrollsaw can take its place on the bench.
The elderly paint is nasty, much of it flakes off easily with a wide trowel, but getting the underlay off requires sanding. And it's almost certainly lead-based paint, so I attach the shop vac to the sander to try and minimize the amount of dust thrown into the air. The wood underneath is reasonably nice, I'll probably look to lacquer it when I'm done sanding.
Just something else to keep me out of trouble.
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Today was a bit more sanding of doors. I took a nasty diagonal strip off one door, having verified it was held together by horizontal braces on the other side. That made it easier to sand the rest of the door. There are a few sections that I just can't get at with a sander, so I'll either hit them with a Dremel or just leave them as they are. Then I'll most likely put a couple of coats of lacquer on them, to bring out the grain in the wood.
More moving stuff around in the basement, making space for what I fear is too much stuff for the size of the room I have. But I can get my new slow grinder (now assembled and tested) mounted on a bench now, having created space to put a bench. I just need to figure how high I want it to be and make it. That might end up being a job for tonight, maybe tomorrow.
I should also run a damp cloth over the floor in the corner room that's been left untouched for a while. I want to get the last of the dust up so I can finally get on and lacquer it. I just need a full day where I don't have to worry much about anything, and that day might be tomorrow.
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You remind me of my baby brother when he was four.
He loved hammering nails.
For his fourth birthday I got him 8 three foot sections of pine 1x4’s, a new hammer, a kid sized pry bar, and 2 pounds of 10 penny common nails.
Best gift I ever gave him..
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Jury duty yet again, under threat of arrest warrant. And they are not kidding!
It is a civic duty, however, so here we go.
Is there any limit to how often you have to do that?
In England when I did jury duty there was a get-out clause if you had served within the previous (I think) three years. You could serve again if you wanted to, but you didn't have to.
There is a limit, which I am waiting to hear about today.
Okay. Cleared for now.
Okay. free from Jury duty for the rest of this year and not in violation. Grateful!
Carry on :)
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You remind me of my baby brother when he was four.
He loved hammering nails.
For his fourth birthday I got him 8 three foot sections of pine 1x4’s, a new hammer, a kid sized pry bar, and 2 pounds of 10 penny common nails.
Best gift I ever gave him..
I don't particularly care for hammering nails. Removing them is different.
Turning wood into sawdust, now that's kinda fun. There are loads of ways to do that.
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Today's fun was lacquering the floor. The first coat went on after morning coffee, the second coat went on this afternoon.
In about 45 minutes the third coat goes on. I hope the fumes don't interfere with my sleep tonight.
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After three coats of lacquer, one of them barely half an hour before bed, I slept like a rock. I wasn't sure if I would. Maybe the fumes helped. The floor looks nice this morning. Now I need to see if I can source some yellow pine to make baseboards and window trim. With any luck I can lay my hands on some thick yellow pine boards and turn some finials to put in the corners.
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Doing everything possible to distract myself. I finally figured out the answer to the core "why" of me, and now I have to figure out how to live with that.
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Doing everything possible to distract myself. I finally figured out the answer to the core "why" of me, and now I have to figure out how to live with that.
One day at a time, my friend.
One day at a time.
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The floor looks really nice. Now I need some wood to make baseboards
In the meantime I've been trying to figure out how to sharpen my lathe tools. I turned some tealight holders trying to figure some new techniques. My wife claimed the first one, my daughter got the second one and I got the third one. I wanted the fourth one but my wife claimed it, so I made another one and claimed it ahead of time for myself.
Standard procedure is that I turn out random stuff while learning techniques. My wife gets first dibs on anything she wants and then my daughter gets to take anything she wants that my wife didn't already claim. So far she's got a bunch of spinning tops, a couple of snowmen and my first attempt at a small bowl.
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Doing everything possible to distract myself. I finally figured out the answer to the core "why" of me, and now I have to figure out how to live with that.
Reminds me of a highly gifted believer who, at an early age, survived cancer before climbing slowly out of the abyss of autism, to cite just a couple of overwhelming health challenges, before assuming the yoke of Christ.
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Doing everything possible to distract myself. I finally figured out the answer to the core "why" of me, and now I have to figure out how to live with that.
Reminds me of a highly gifted believer who, at an early age, survived cancer before climbing slowly out of the abyss of autism, to cite just a couple of overwhelming health challenges, before assuming the yoke of Christ.
Right now for me it's, "my doctors were lazy, bet with my future, lost on all counts, and had they been even the tiniest bit responsible then..." and so the impossible counterfactuals start from there. But I know I would have gotten appropriate healthcare sooner. I wouldn't have spent years depressed and miserable (or at least in the same way). Maybe even my familial relationships might have been saved.
...who am I kidding, there would have still been a lot of tension between my parents and myself. Not even my doctor's being responsible would have given me a chance. No matter how those cards play out, I never had a chance. But I still might have saved myself a decade of the above depression and misery. But I don't know what that looks like in the other direction.
You plan for the future and you try to be responsible and then you find out 20 years on that the parameters were wrong. You planned under the assumption of A when B was the reality. And those doctors who didn't do their jobs? Dead or retired.
And if I say, "what I've learned now has involved too many coincidences not to have the divine hand involved", then I must also accept the potential that everything that came before bears that same mark.
I'm back in therapy next week, anyway.
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Doing everything possible to distract myself. I finally figured out the answer to the core "why" of me, and now I have to figure out how to live with that.
Reminds me of a highly gifted believer who, at an early age, survived cancer before climbing slowly out of the abyss of autism, to cite just a couple of overwhelming health challenges, before assuming the yoke of Christ.
Right now for me it's, "my doctors were lazy, bet with my future, lost on all counts, and had they been even the tiniest bit responsible then..." and so the impossible counterfactuals start from there. But I know I would have gotten appropriate healthcare sooner. I wouldn't have spent years depressed and miserable (or at least in the same way). Maybe even my familial relationships might have been saved.
...who am I kidding, there would have still been a lot of tension between my parents and myself. Not even my doctor's being responsible would have given me a chance. No matter how those cards play out, I never had a chance. But I still might have saved myself a decade of the above depression and misery. But I don't know what that looks like in the other direction.
You plan for the future and you try to be responsible and then you find out 20 years on that the parameters were wrong. You planned under the assumption of A when B was the reality. And those doctors who didn't do their jobs? Dead or retired.
And if I say, "what I've learned now has involved too many coincidences not to have the divine hand involved", then I must also accept the potential that everything that came before bears that same mark.
I'm back in therapy next week, anyway.
Prayers will be ongoing for you.
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I will never get tired of this scene (Boston Legal). Spader's delivery, every time
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I will never get tired of this scene (Boston Legal). Spader's delivery, every time
Classic!
The sad thing is that that is precisely how it works.
The other valid defense in the great state of Texas is “The bastard needed killin’.”
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At long last I have two new windows in my room under construction. Now I can look to see if I can source the wood I want to make baseboards and window trim. I'm hoping to find yellow pine, but it's not easy to find around here. If I can't get it I'll have to make do with white pine. White pine is nice enough but I really like the grain pattern in yellow pine.
In unrelated news I made more sawdust with my lathe. Today I tried to make a cylindrical box but the first scrap offcut had a fault in it that meant by the time I turned it to something even it was too thin to be useful, and the second piece got so far and the lid split. But I got some practise turning, drilling, scraping etc even if the end result was little more than firewood.
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Planning trip to Utah and on to Montana soon.
Still have stuff waiting to get hauled home to the Bay Area.
Try to get what I can loaded and give away the rest.
Attend board meeting in Utah so senior members need not travel.
Will update periodically.
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Trying to turn eggs on the lathe. It's tricky to get the shape right and the finish right. So far I've made nine of them, most of which are a bit wonky and/or have uneven surfaces. The most recent one is mostly egg-shaped and mostly a good finish. I wonder if I can turn them out consistently. I'll need to rip another piece off my scrap board to make any more.
I suspect many of the eggs will end up painted a variety of garish colors by my young granddaughters, who are unlikely to care that the shapes are a bit off. And when my daughter gets sick of brightly colored eggs showing up in random places some or all of them will eventually find their way to either the fire or the thrift shop.
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Addicted to CNN lately.
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Addicted to CNN lately.
Admitted you have a problem is the first step.
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Addicted to CNN lately.
Admitted you have a problem is the first step.
I don't do cold turkeys any longer.
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Last night I went to our drama ministries improv class night. We've been on hiatus for a while and it is good to get going again. While there our director told me he has a part for me in our upcoming Lent/Easter production(s). Will find out tonight what it is. Unfortunately it will make bell choir rehearsal a bit difficult, there is some overlap in rehearsals. I'm going to have to duck out of bells early and dash over to drama practice. The real difficulty may come on Easter Sunday if both are preforming.
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Spent several hours and numerous phone calls yesterday trying to straighten out a SNAFU created by my insurance company. Friday I went to my optometrist and he discovered a problem and referred me to a specialist. It was one I knew and used to go to. I waited till yesterday for them to call. They hadn't so I went to them to make an appointment. They told me they didn't take my insurance. I remembered later that was why I wasn't still go to them. I went home and called another of the specialists that were on the referral sheet. They took my insurance but couldn't take me because my insurance company had me assigned to a different specialist, assigned without consulting me, or my Dr. I called that specialist, whom I have used before, but they don't take my insurance. After many calls to my insurance company and various specialists I finally discovered the 3 specialists in my area, and one of.them had someone that answered the phone that understood my problem, what I was going through,.and told me what to do to solve it. I called my insurance company back and, hopefully, solved the problem. At least it sounds like it is from what the lady I was talking to said. She said it would take around 14 business days to make the change. I asked her to try and put a rush on it. She said she would put a note to that effect in the file. BTW, did someone pray for patience for me because when you pray for patience you get tribulation. ;D. Ok rant over!
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I now have enough wooden eggs that you'd be forgiven for thinking there's a wooden hen hiding somewhere. Many of them look more like acorns than eggs, but I'm getting there.
I had hoped to source some yellow pine for my new baseboards but the only supplier I can find who can get hold of it got back to me today with prices and.... well, no. I don't feel like dropping several hundred dollars per room for baseboards and door trim. So now it's a question of whether I'm going to go with white pine or red oak. I can hardly believe that red oak is significantly cheaper than yellow pine, but there we are. White pine is cheaper still but doesn't have anything like the grain pattern.
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Our drama team had a first read through of our Easter production. Which will actually be preformed on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday even though it is actually portraying the resurrection. We are following the women on their way Sunday morning to annoint Christ's body. I picked up a small part. The production ends with story tellers telling of miracles preformed after the resurrection, including in modern times. I'm one of the storytellers. I read through one story. I may end up with more.
On another side I got a surprise yesterday. Lately while I am driving I have been listening to music I have saved to a flash drive that is plugged into my car radio. What was playing yesterday was relaxing piano music. Suddenly, when the song that was playing ended Queen began playing. I do have Queen on the flash drive, and enjoy it from time to time. It was just a shock to go.from relaxing piano music to a driving rock beat.
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Yesterday while I was out and about I saw a cute bumper sticker. It read Caution driver singing. it really tickled me because I was singing at the time.
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I found a large number of wooden eggs in my slippers.
Yes, really. There is a reason for this situation. My daughter visited with our two youngest granddaughters and they took great delight in the collection of wooden eggs, much as we expected. They decided to hide the wooden eggs for each other, and before they left they decided to hide a load of them in my slippers. I had told my daughter she could take the eggs for the girls to play with, as I plan to turn some more as I practise the technique. She forgot to take them.
Now I need to figure out where the last few of the wooden eggs ended up. I'm sure the girls hid them somewhere, but right now I have no idea where they might be.
This afternoon I may attempt turning a bowl out of a log. Much sawdust will be produced and, with any luck, something at least vaguely resembling a bowl will emerge from the sawdust. There is a chance that the end result will be a pile of sawdust and nothing salvagable as a bowl, but we'll see.
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I found a large number of wooden eggs in my slippers.
Yes, really. There is a reason for this situation. My daughter visited with our two youngest granddaughters and they took great delight in the collection of wooden eggs, much as we expected. They decided to hide the wooden eggs for each other, and before they left they decided to hide a load of them in my slippers. I had told my daughter she could take the eggs for the girls to play with, as I plan to turn some more as I practise the technique. She forgot to take them.
Now I need to figure out where the last few of the wooden eggs ended up. I'm sure the girls hid them somewhere, but right now I have no idea where they might be.
Sounds like you're ready for Easter. :)
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Beach goers and surfers look like a million penguins today. Can't say I blames them at near 80° & humid. Early morning walk on the beach is more to my liking. Then get out of there!
The pelicans are back!!!
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I found a large number of wooden eggs in my slippers.
Yes, really. There is a reason for this situation. My daughter visited with our two youngest granddaughters and they took great delight in the collection of wooden eggs, much as we expected. They decided to hide the wooden eggs for each other, and before they left they decided to hide a load of them in my slippers. I had told my daughter she could take the eggs for the girls to play with, as I plan to turn some more as I practise the technique. She forgot to take them.
Now I need to figure out where the last few of the wooden eggs ended up. I'm sure the girls hid them somewhere, but right now I have no idea where they might be.
Sounds like you're ready for Easter. :)
My wife bought something like 48 plastic eggs we can fill with candy and hide for the girls. Last year we bought pre-filled eggs and hid 50 of them around the yard. Today my wife found two that had not only survived the searching eyes of two little girls a year ago but also apparently didn't get spotted during any of their other forays around the yard, which included multiple rounds of hide and seek despite their only being one or two viable places to actually hide.
Five wooden eggs are still at large.
My lathe is loaded with a bowl under construction, so I'll be taking a short break from turning out things that are somewhere between eggs and acorns. Once the bowl is ready to come out of the chuck I can put the smaller jaws back on and turn some more eggs. I don't know how many I'll have by Easter, and I'm undecided whether to lacquer them or see if the girls want to paint them. So far the way the girls have most enjoyed playing with them is rolling them down the stairs. I'm not sure why they found that so intriguing but it kept them amused for nearly half an hour.
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Lately I've been watching a series of dad's on C S Lewis on Christianity. A very good series of lectures out out by Hillsdale College. Hillsdale College is a small Christian college that also has a number of lectures that you can watch free. At the end, if you pass the quizzes at the end they'll issue a certificate. The lectures are very worth watching. I finished the set today. If any of.you wish to watch these lectures I'll be glad to send them to you.
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I've turned a couple more bowls. I finished the one I was working on, to the extent I can given I turned wet wood that now needs to dry. I turned the other half of the log into another bowl, then took a whole log and turned it into a deeper bowl.
A neighbor had a sycamore tree taken down, and said I could help myself to the downed wood. So now I have some chunks of sycamore sitting in my garage waiting their turn on the lathe. The lathe is currently loaded with a slab that's now about 9" in diameter and 5" thick. It started out a bit bigger across but having cut away the bark and the skanky bit right under the bark it's a bit smaller. The thickness is uneven - I cut slabs off a huge chunk with a chainsaw so as long as it was kinda sorta consistent in thickness that was all I was after. Now it's nice and round but the thickness is still wobbly, so that's the next thing to cut. Then I can figure out cutting something suitable for mounting it in my chuck so I can hollow out the top side. I haven't yet decided whether to turn this one as a large gently curving plate, or something more like a bowl with a harder corner. Maybe the wood will guide me as I cut more away.
So far I'm really enjoying turning these things. Egg production will probably resume when I've finished the current workpiece.
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Prepping for record heat spell in a few days West Coast amid spiking fuel prices, which might forestall trip to Ut and Mt to attend board meeting and finish moving. Hmm...!
(As if things will change reasonably soon!)
God knows!
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The large platter is turned into something kinda like a wide but fairly shallow bowl. It's turned with a thick base and thick walls because the wood was wet, so it needs chance to dry out before I finish it off with another turning. It looks pretty good.
Then I mounted half a log and tried to turn a bowl with a live edge. I got so far and then figured I couldn't see an obvious way forward, so I took it off the lathe so I could give some more thought to what to do with it. So I mounted the other half of the log and planned to turn it the other way. It's now turned into a thick-walled bowl with more or less straight sides. I have it in a box packed with shavings to help slow the drying process, in the hope I won't get cracks and warping.
Along the way I figured out how to sharpen my gouge properly using my grinder. It makes a huge difference. Before I'd get chippings flying off the wood as I turned it but now I get ribbons of wood flying everywhere. I've been trying to figure out how to get ribbons pretty much since I brought the lathe home, and was never sure whether it was an issue of technique or tool sharpness or both. Now I've managed to sharpen the tool I can see it was mostly because of that.
Now the lathe is cleaned up, I'm cleaned up, the floor is cleaned up. I made about 15 gallons of shavings today. I've taken to keeping a large garbage bag in my woodshop so I can throw the surplus shavings into the bag right away so they don't build up.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls. My wife claimed #3, the first two are drying nicely and looking pretty good. The large plate is #4, and the straight sided thing is #5. I suspect we'll keep some, my daughter will probably take some. I want to give a bowl made from the sycamore to the friend whose tree it came from, but don't yet know whether to make that one of the existing pieces or to make something out of the numerous chunks of wood I have stacked in my garage.
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I'VE BEEN DRAFTED! Once you've caught your breath continue on. (Couldn't resist that.) I've been drafted to play Peter in our Drama Ministry's latest production. I already had a small part as a storyteller at the end. When we started rehearsal our Peter was out of town so I filled in during rehearsals. But, unfortunately, due to family emergency, our Peter has to bow out so I was asked to step in.
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Headline: cloudwalker plans to deny Jesus 3 times
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I cranked out a couple more bowls today. One of them is kinda narrow at the base and flanges outwards. Not as strikingly as I'd hoped, I only had so much wood to work with so did the best I could with it.
The friends with the downed sycamore tree are hopefully getting hold of a big chainsaw tomorrow. There's a honking great lump of it that's way too big for my battery powered chainsaw to attack, so I'm hoping a big gas powered chainsaw will be able to cut through it, even if it has to be cut from one side and then the other. If I can get some slabs of it, I'm hoping I can cut them into four like a pie and turn plates out of the pieces. The tree is easily three feet across, and my lathe can turn things up to 15" in diameter. So if I can get pieces 13-14" across once I've trimmed the bark and stuff off, maybe I can make a set of plates. It would be nice to have some plates to give to the friends whose tree made them possible too.
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Heat wave - 80° - which is hot & humid central coast, continues.
Unusual; record breaking, actually.
We call it "earthquake weather," from past events.
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No sign of being able to cut the huge tree into slices as yet, so I turned another couple of bowls with the logs I could cut with my own chainsaw. Now they are sitting in bags and boxes of wet shavings, in the hope they will dry evenly and not crack.
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Seeming anachronism, man offers me an "Our Lady Of Perpetual Help" statue. Kind gesture, but a blast out of the past sort of thing, as my Mom passed over a decade ago.
(Nobel Peace Prize would seem more appropriate).
Life never fails to surprise me.
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(https://i.ibb.co/tphj0Cnp/20260319-125037.jpg) (https://ibb.co/RTSrXHtT)
Couldn't help myself. Lilly explosion.
"Cala" lillies.
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Someone cut up the big tree and took it away for firewood. I spoke nicely to them and they gave me a couple of chunks they cut to the approximate size I wanted. So I'm kinda disappointed I didn't get to take more of it, but thankful for some good size pieces that I could get.
I tried to cut a chunk off with my battery powered chainsaw but it was way out of its league. I eventually managed to cut a piece approximately 12" on each side but it was an ordeal so I quit after I cut one piece off. I've got some impressive pieces of wood to play with, and I think if figure out an outlet to move bowls on I'm going to want a bigger chainsaw, and probably a bandsaw so I can cut bowl blanks more easily.
So if anyone is stuck for ideas what to get me for Easter, just saying.....
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I’ll put in a good word with the Easter Bunny…
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I turned a few more eggs. I'm getting better at them, and I've figured out why so many of them bear a depressing resemblance to acorns rather than eggs.
My daughter took about a dozen of them away earlier in the week. I've turned another 9 since then. Today I ran out of blanks so cut another 11 blanks. A blank is just a 1.5" square section of construction lumber about 4 inches long, enough to turn an egg without bashing my skew against the lathe chuck. When I run out of blanks I run a section of lumber through the table saw to cut a 1.5" strip, and then cut it into short pieces.
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Got my first injection in my eye for wet macular degeneration in my left eye yesterday. I'll admit I was extremely nervous about getting an injection in my eye. But it went fine. They numbed my eye first. I got occasional floaters in my eye yesterday but they haven't returned today.
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I'm in the process of finishing a couple of bowls, and turning something for my daughter on my lathe. I'm not saying what it is, just in case she should happen to stumble upon the forum.
A couple of my bowls are looking rather nice. One has had a first visit to sandpaper so I'm hoping to be putting a finish on it soon.
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No time at all on the lathe today. I did some work on one of my many project rooms - reinstalling soundproofing I'd moved to reposition electrical back boxes, then connecting the back boxes so they actually work. Having sockets that work is always a bonus.
Rather annoyingly along the way I misplaced my socket tester and it took longer to find it than all the electrical work took to do. Then of course it took me about 5 seconds per socket to verify all was good.
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I just spent most of the morning, and just over $800, getting my car fixed. And this evening I will be spending most of my time being Peter.
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World has changed and I refuse to. Case in point: pop music.
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I'm beginning to see the light at the end of tunnel I just hope it's not an oncoming train. Last night's rehearsal turned into a tech rehearsal. Anyone who has ever been on stage can tell you. How much of a nightmare those can be. The rehearsal part went fine but we had a number of tech problems. Including having a computer that is failing. One more rehearsal tonight and then two shows.
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One down and one to go. Last night's preformance went well. We did have a couple snags. Times when someone jumped a line but everyone took it in hand and handled it without anyone in the audience knowing. One more show tonight.
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Yesterday I got to sanding the floor in the closet off one of the bedrooms. I'm not sure how or why I didn't sand it when I sanded the floor in the room, but I figured I need to get it sanded before I can put baseboards in there. So yesterday I did the sanding - 36 grit, then 50, then 80, then 120, then a quick pass with an orbital sander at 220, then a wipe with a damp cloth to get any remaining sawdust up.
Today's job is lacquering it. One coat went on this morning, the next goes on in a couple of hours, and the final coat goes on tonight. It's a small closet so putting a coat of lacquer on takes no time at all.
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Recruited for poll worker. Will see.
EDIT: Maybe pull out the coon-skin cap. ;)
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A good, Good Friday, service at chuch. I timed the second coat of lacquer, it took 10 minutes. The third coat goes on in about 5 minutes, then I'm done with that closet until I get the wood to make baseboards.
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Behind Waymo autonomous vehicle in narrow 1 way alley with one lane blocked. Runs over a bit of trash next to the blocking vehicle and doesn't know what to do so stops No backing out. My repeated honking finally assures software that it's okay.
Welcome home George Jettson.
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Good news and bad news
Bad news is no easter baskets this year.
Good news is we’re having rabbit for lunch…
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Recovering from last night. The shower went very well and the audience, and cast, got a glimpse of what the women that discovered the empty tomb went through. Everyone was blessed. And, of course, we had to greet the audience. And afterwards the director wanted pictures. Which, in my case that included a costume change, as he wanted staged pictures in biblical costumes. Most of the cast, and crew, gathered at a favorite restaurant for a bit of a cast party. I decided to skip that since, by that time, I was exhausted. It's been a long week. It was worth it. But I'm glad it's done.
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Lots of finishing up today.
Clearing stuff out of the room I've been lacquering so the youngest granddaughters can safely play in there tomorrow. Getting a couple of things I made for my daughter and older granddaughter finished off. Then I helped my wife with some general cleaning around the house, and took some time trying to figure out where I might put a big bandsaw in my workshop.
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Wrangling little girls for a good chunk of today.
Our daughter visited for Easter with three of the grandchildren. Last time she was here we had some family business that needed to be discussed so we couldn't play with the girls as much as we normally would, and we promised we'd play with them today. So today it was time to deliver on the promise, which involved bouncing balls, wrestling and tickling, Easter egg hunts and exploring the attic that they've never been allowed in before. They still aren't allowed up there unsupervised but since I was with them I figured it would be OK. They were intrigued and had all sorts of ideas, mostly unimaginably impractical, of what we might do with the space.
My plan is to shift some stuff around in the basement. I want to make a space that's safe for them, under supervision, because I want to be able to make some wooden bricks for them to play with and a cart to carry them around. What I want to do is to rough-cut the bricks and show the girls how to sand them with a sanding block, then let the girls paint the bricks. Then I'll do most of the prep work to build a cart to carry them, and let the girls use a screwdriver to put the screws in to hold it all together. We currently have a set of bricks that once belonged to my late father-in-law, and it would be neat if the girls could have their own sets that they helped make, that in turn they can pass down to their children.
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Tuesday I turned a couple of bowls out of a log. They're sitting in damp shavings in a box to slow the drying process. Yesterday my wife didn't want me playing with the lathe because our daughter was visiting in the evening so we had a lazy day. Today it's fair game to play with the lathe, so I might turn something again.
Last night my daughter admired a live edge bowl sitting on my shelf in the woodshop. Had my wife not claimed it I'd have given it to her, so maybe I'll turn another one for her.
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A bit more fun with the lathe today. I turned a somewhat flat piece of sycamore into a small square plate, then turned a round bowl from a section of branch. I really like the bowl. My wife really likes the bowl. I sent my daughter a picture of the bowl and her response was "I love it". So the issue is who gets to keep it, although my wife decided to let my daughter have it.
I have a couple more pieces of the same branch so tomorrow I suspect I'll be making another one for my wife. It's kinda fiddly hollowing out the middle of something so small but I seen to have managed it OK. I hope it doesn't crack as it dries.
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Waiting af the shop for arrival of 2 Michelin Defender LTX M/S tires and much needed 4-point alignment. Tires were late.
Terrific excuse for sitting on one's caboose.
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Waiting af the shop for arrival of 2 Michelin Defender LTX M/S tires and much needed 4-point alignment. Tires were late.
Terrific excuse for sitting on one's caboose.
Hopefully your mortgage for the tires was pre approved
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Yesterday I went to see a friend I haven't caught up with for a while. He works in forestry so could turn into a convenient source of random pieces of wood. He gave me a couple of pieces of wood from trees I didn't know anything about at all, so I'll need to figure something to do with them too. Soon I'm going to need to figure out how to cut the bigger pieces I've got kicking around, partly because I want to try turning something larger and partly because I'm running out of space to store wood in my garage.
These next few days I need to do my taxes, but aside from that I suspect my lathe will feature heavily on my "things to do today" lists.
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Time to prune the trees as spring is finally approaching. Tulips about 4in above ground.
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I have an agreement with my plants. I don't mess with them, they grow for me. I have a brown thumb. I kill plastic plants.
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15 bags of mulch and it's only a start.
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I got another bowl turned, this one is for my wife. It's a fairly small bowl with a live edge top. It's kinda like the one I made for my daughter, but this one is kinda teardrop shaped where my daughter's bowl is more or less spherical.
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Watched a fellow today in Union Square doing his fetching impression of a deranged derelict, as a Japanese couple did their quaint impression of frightened tourists.
(Thought at first he was running for Governor).
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Not much time for the lathe today, it's about time I got my taxes done. The usual headache, but they are done.
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Recovering from yesterday. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning. Our church choir had a preformance at a nursing home in the afternoon, and we had a rehearsal beforehand. After that I stopped by city hall to renew my car registration. Then spent quite a while on the phone confirming other appointments, setting up others and giving providers biographical, and physical information. I have another doctor's appointment today. This time with Beltone. I got an offering for a free hearing check. I don't think I have any hearing problems but it's free. And at my age prevention is worth the time. I did check my insurance and discovered, to my joy, that they will pay for 2 hearing aids, one per ear, per year with no copay. After today I'm done until Sunday morning.
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So far today I've created 5 gallons of maple shavings.
Take a wild guess how.
I still have some red oak upstairs awaiting my attention to turn it into windowsills. But on Friday my granddaughters are coming and they like to play in the room, so it's probably easier to accept I'm not going to make any progress until Saturday, than to start cutting, sanding, staining etc and then have to move absolutely everything out so they can play, then put it all back. They could play elsewhere but they particularly like that room and, since it's going to be their room when they start staying overnight here, I'm more than happy for them to claim some ownership of it.
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Now my granddaughters have been and gone I can cut some windowsills.
Today I got the two sills in their room cut, routed, sanded and ready to stain. Then I cut the first one for the adjacent room and realized that the window frames are different in that room than every other room, and the wood I ordered to make the window sills is too thick. So now I'm not sure whether to get it planed down to the right thickness, or use a router to trim a little nock in the very edge of it and hope that kinda sorta works out. I'm tempted to trim a nock to see how it looks and get it planed if I don't like how it looks.
It's really tedious having ordered thicker wood, paid a premium for thicker wood, and now need to plane away a bunch of the wood I paid extra to get hold of, but I guess them's the breaks.
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The Dr's appointments are piling up. I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow (4/21/2026). An appointment with an audioligist on 4/25/2026 and another appointment with my retonoligist on 4/30/2026.
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The Dr's appointments are piling up. I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow (4/21/2026). An appointment with an audioligist on 4/25/2026 and another appointment with my retonoligist on 4/30/2026.
Seems like the older one becomes, the fewer friends one has and the more time spent with people wearing white coats and scrubs.
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The Dr's appointments are piling up. I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow (4/21/2026). An appointment with an audioligist on 4/25/2026 and another appointment with my retonoligist on 4/30/2026.
Seems like the older one becomes, the fewer friends one has and the more time spent with people wearing white coats and scrubs.
... and the more time spent avoiding anything ending in -ostomy or -ectomy
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The Dr's appointments are piling up. I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow (4/21/2026). An appointment with an audioligist on 4/25/2026 and another appointment with my retonoligist on 4/30/2026.
Seems like the older one becomes, the fewer friends one has and the more time spent with people wearing white coats and scrubs.
As long as they aren't chasing me.with a straight jacket.
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The Dr's appointments are piling up. I have a podiatrist appointment tomorrow (4/21/2026). An appointment with an audioligist on 4/25/2026 and another appointment with my retonoligist on 4/30/2026.
I see enough of those.
Seems like the older one becomes, the fewer friends one has and the more time spent with people wearing white coats and scrubs.
... and the more time spent avoiding anything ending in -ostomy or -ectomy
I see enough of those.
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Specialist looks at the chart, shakes her head, sighs, grins. Needs a vacation.
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I should really have spent some time making windowsills today but wanted to play with the lathe a little, so turned another bowl out of another chunk of sycamore. My wife really likes this one. I kinda like it too. My daughter's response was "wow, it's beautiful".
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I should really have spent some time making windowsills today but wanted to play with the lathe a little, so turned another bowl out of another chunk of sycamore. My wife really likes this one. I kinda like it too. My daughter's response was "wow, it's beautiful".
Who knew that you would take up bowling at your age…
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I should probably spend some time making windowsills this morning before my wife wants to run the vacuum cleaner. I'll be cutting a big chunk of oak into smaller lengths, then cutting corners out of it to fit into the window bay, then probably making some fine adjustments to make it fit more cleanly, then running a router over the edges to make it look pretty. All in all it makes quite a bit of sawdust. Most of it stays more or less where it was created, although some of it manages to attach itself to me and journey throughout the house. I try and minimize that, to avoid unnecessary annoyance for my wife.
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The appointment with the podiatrist went well. First they took some x-rays. Then the doctor came in. He confirmed that, as I suspected, I have several hammer toes. I also have a bunion and diabetic neuropathy in my toes. However, none of that is bothering me, and certainly not hurting. So, as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I'll check in with him in a year, unless something happens in the interim. And if it does, at least I already have a relationship with him.
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It's Love Bug season! I saw.my first flock of love bugs of the season today.
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I got three windowsills made, then went to one of my local lumber yards to get some wood to make trim for the space around the window. It's sitting upstairs, I didn't cut it to size because I didn't want to liberally distribute sawdust throughout the house. I did get my wife to help haul my miter saw up into the workspace so I can cut it without having to keep going up and down the stairs. I'll just need the big saw removed before my young granddaughters can be playing in the room again.
At a push I could just kill the breaker to the room, I just don't want to find they invented an unforeseen way to hurt themselves on a big saw even without any power.
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At a push I could just kill the breaker to the room, I just don't want to find they invented an unforeseen way to hurt themselves on a big saw even without any power.
Good move!
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Fun making dad glitter....
The pieces that fit around the window are now cut to length and fit together pretty well. I'm going to need to make a couple of adjustments to the window sills because a couple of things aren't quite level, and I'm not sure how to fix it without finding my pieces of wood are a tiny fraction too short. Now I need to cut everything to width so it doesn't protrude from the window bays, then I can get busy sanding and staining it.
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Listening to the overnight roar of the Pacific ocean, which I enjoy when I can.
The contrast between that timeless essence and the relative noise of humanity is strikingly healing.
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Listening to the overnight roar of the Pacific ocean, which I enjoy when I can.
The contrast between that timeless essence and the relative noise of humanity is strikingly healing.
There's something special about hearing the waves washing up on the land. However long you listen to it, it just never stops.
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Listening to the overnight roar of the Pacific ocean, which I enjoy when I can.
The contrast between that timeless essence and the relative noise of humanity is strikingly healing.
There's something special about hearing the waves washing up on the land. However long you listen to it, it just never stops.
Yep
Wife, mother in law , Andi are slippin away for three days at Jekyll Island next weekend
Long overdue break
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Sounds good. It's a bit of a trek from here though. Have a good break!
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I'm picking up another doctor's appointment. Went to my hearing doctor on Friday. She: found that I have mild loss in the right ear and moderate loss in the left ear. She recommends an aid for the left. But before she does it she wants me to see an Ear, nose, and throat specialist to be sure there aren't any other problems. Just what I need, another doctor.
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This morning I went for a run and got rained on. The rain wasn't supposed to start as early as it did, but apparently the clouds don't check the weather forecast before emptying themselves over me.
Then I did an hour or so with the lathe, as a form of distraction because I didn't feel like fighting with the windows. Then I figured the windows aren't going to sort themselves out and I might as well just get on with it, so got busy cutting the tops and sides of the window recesses to width. They were already cut to length but the standard lumber sizes didn't match the depths of the window recesses, so I had to trim them. Most of them were easy but a couple needed the jigsaw rather than the table saw.
The next step is a whole lot of stripping paint from the trim I recovered from a couple of windows, sanding everything in sight, then staining and lacquering before I dig out my trim screws to secure them all into place.
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More creation of man glitter in various parts of the house.
I recovered some of the window trim from the attic and set about figuring the best way to strip white paint off it. Some idiot decided that what a beautiful piece of yellow pine with stunning grain needed was a coat of white paint. I have no idea when, or who, or why, but now I'm tasked with getting rid of the now rather dated paint and restoring the wood to its former glory.
Next up was finishing a bowl I turned weeks ago. I let it dry for a while and today I re-turned it (as it dried it shifted shape slightly, so I turned it to get it back into round), sanded it, and made a couple of cracks in the rim into an artistic statement rather than a fault. A coat of cutting board oil and it really shines. I'm going to use some form of wire to look like the cracks are laced up, to enhance the sense that they are a statement rather than something that happened as the bowl dried.
I need to get a lot of stuff out of my work rooms. I've got all the window trim cut and put into place but my young granddaughters are coming tomorrow, and it's all in the rooms they like to play. I can foresee more favorable outcomes than two little girls getting their hands on my jigsaw, or indeed lots of wood that I've taken the time to cut to a fairly precise standard, so it needs to be moved so they can play in there. I could tell them not to play in there, but it's a convenient place for them to go and play when the adults need some time to talk.
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The world is changing but it seems I refuse to.
Folks, especially the young, will increasingly turn to AI to do their thinking for them. Artificial Intelligence is exactly that: artificial, and not always correct.
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A couple of good evenings.
Tuesday was my granddaughter's 6th birthday so my daughter came round with the grandchildren. We ate lots of food that was nutritionally garbage but the kind of thing a 6-year-old thinks is a huge treat.
Yesterday was my wife's birthday, and she wanted to go to a local diner pending a dinner at a nicer place that isn't open until tonight. I might have forgotten to mention that our daughter and granddaughters were going to meet us there. We managed to keep it a secret from her until she walked around a corner and two small figures jumped out and shouted "happy birthday Grammy!"
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Had my 2nd eye injection today. If I remember what I was told I have 8 left.
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Around 1973, at 20 years old, I was pumping gas at around .57 per gal. The oil embargo of that era, sending prices over $1.00 per, sent society into a tailspin.
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Time to get back to the everlasting house project. Today was easy enough, a final sanding of some window trim followed by cleaning up the dust, wiping everything down well and laying it out to be stained. I've got the trim for two windows stained so far, I only have so much space to lay it all out so the next three windows will need to wait. Maybe I can get to that tomorrow.
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Lacquering and sanding today. Three coats of lacquer on the window trim I stained yesterday, and sanding more window trim while waiting for the lacquer to dry. Now I have the pieces that go on the wall beside the windows stripped and sanded with coarse paper. It got too late for me to want to deal with finer sanding so I'll do that tomorrow.
My wife still doesn't like the fumes that come with lacquer. I've been using the faster drying lacquer which means I can apply three coats in a little over six hours instead of waiting eight hours between coats, but this lacquer has a lot more VOCs so the smell is, well, more aromatic. So despite the cool outside I have a fan in the window to try and pump the fumes out.
I think tomorrow's job is going to be to sand and stain the first sections of trim for the next three windows. That's about all I have space for at once, and once that's done and they are fitted into place I can think about cutting the room-facing trim. And then I can think about baseboards and doors. Stripping paint from a door could be tricky, not least because manhandling a door down to the basement is a task in itself, and it needs to be in the basement for ventilation because I have a nice big extractor fan in my woodshop down there.
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More staining and lacquering. I've gone through nearly a quart of lacquer in the last few days.
The sanding is done for now, as is most of the wood finishing. I've got three pieces of board left to stain and lacquer, another four boards to lacquer, and three windowsills to lacquer. I'm hoping I can do it all at once but I'm expecting it will take two passes, simply because of the space I need to lay everything out and work around it. Which is a bit of a drag, as it means I need more brushes and more time dealing with the fumes.
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The three boards are stained and everything has two coats of lacquer on it. The third and final coat of lacquer goes on in a little under two hours. Then I can put the lacquer away for a bit. I'll be glad when I can have a few days without the fumes. They don't usually affect me much but for this work I'm using the fast drying lacquer which is much higher in VOCs, so the smell is a lot more intrusive.
I wasn't sure if I could treat everything in one go but found a big box I could flatten as a drip catcher for one of the windowsills, and everything else just about fit over the sheet I had laid out.
Before too long I'm going to need to cut some side trim for three windows, I'm not sure if I have enough wood on hand to do that or if I'll need to go and get some more. Then I'll need to order wood to make baseboards, which will mean another round of staining and lacquering, but I'll probably look to use the flooring lacquer (with very low VOCs) for that job.
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All three windows in one room now have windowsills and window recess trim fitted. The other room has two windows - one is fully fitted with trim and the other needs a little attention - I noticed a gap in the sealant so that needs to dry. I can fit everything tomorrow. I'll also need to go and buy some more trim screws because I have 5 left and I'm going to need at least 10.
What's fitted is looking good. I know I'm going to have to be staining and lacquering again before too long but it's nice to have a couple of days with no fumes to be dealing with.
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Fun with heat guns. Today's job was stripping paint from the trim that is going to go above the window. At some point in its history some genius decided to paint the beautiful wood white, and the paint got into all the nooks of the cut top.
With a heat gun I was able to get the vast majority of the paint off, although it left a rather nasty sticky goop on the wood. It's tricky to get it off because even the heat gun tends to melt it to the point it smears and it's not easy to cleanly remove it. So I tried some steel wool dipped in acetone, which helped a lot. Now my basement smells of acetone.
Tomorrow I'm going to have another session with the wood, looking to root out the bits of paint that sit in dimples in the wood. I may need to use a chemical stripper to get at them but I really hope not. Then I can take them upstairs to be stained and lacquered, and put them in place over the windows.
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Old man in the rock.
(https://i.ibb.co/XxrBRR6c/20260519-141347.jpg) (https://ibb.co/RTknwwtR)
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My windows in one bedroom are more or less done. I still want to put a bit of trim under the windowsills to cover over the janky bits of drywall that aren't entirely smooth and flush. The next room will need some wood cut - what I took out is painted a nasty shade of bubblegum pink and frankly the wood that was painted isn't nice enough to bother trying to strip and sand it. So I'll use some red oak to get the nice grain pattern and accept it's new wood rather than old wood. I can put a nice edge on it, stain and lacquer it, and make new trim from scratch.
And in a twist I decided I don't have enough to do, so took on another project. My daughter needed a better place to live so my wife and I helped her secure a new home, but it needs some work. Nothing major, some paint, some trim and a bit of electrical updating. So I get to put my dad hat on and see to that too. At least this is something we can do a bit at a time rather than needing to rip entire rooms apart.
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My windows in one bedroom are more or less done. I still want to put a bit of trim under the windowsills to cover over the janky bits of drywall that aren't entirely smooth and flush. The next room will need some wood cut - what I took out is painted a nasty shade of bubblegum pink and frankly the wood that was painted isn't nice enough to bother trying to strip and sand it. So I'll use some red oak to get the nice grain pattern and accept it's new wood rather than old wood. I can put a nice edge on it, stain and lacquer it, and make new trim from scratch.
And in a twist I decided I don't have enough to do, so took on another project. My daughter needed a better place to live so my wife and I helped her secure a new home, but it needs some work. Nothing major, some paint, some trim and a bit of electrical updating. So I get to put my dad hat on and see to that too. At least this is something we can do a bit at a time rather than needing to rip entire rooms apart.
Do try and get some sleep sometime. ;D
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Today's fun job was running a cable from the basement to the attic in the new house. I managed to push a fish tape through the gap between the exterior brickwork and the inner wall, so today's fun involved hooking the end of the cable to the end of the fish tape and pulling it back up through the wall. Of course nothing is ever that easy, but we got there in the end. Now I've got a new piece of cable connected to the breaker panel, ready for a new socket in what will be my granddaughters' room. I've got new grounded cable run the length of that room and the adjacent room, but there's a section of old cable I can't pull through because it's stapled, so I'll need to run a cable under the floor rather than routing it via the lights. Then I can run it back across the two rooms and have nice new cable powering the whole of that section.
New cables are nice, they include handy features like ground wires. Along the way I'm also removing as many of the metal back boxes as I can and replacing them with slightly larger plastic ones. Firstly that gives me a little more space for outlet, and saves a little more space because they don't need to be grounded. A lot of the metal boxes have no space for a grounding screw, but I have a drill and tap so where I can't get rid of the box entirely I can still ground it.
In the meantime my daughter is packing boxes and throwing away stuff. Because I'm pulling things apart I can't have the grandchildren in the house just yet but can give her a key to the garage so she can start moving stuff rather than having to do it all at once.
And right now I'm sitting on my butt drinking a beer. I feel like I've earned it.
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You make me tired just reading this.
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You make me tired just reading this.
I make me tired doing it, but it's a good tired knowing that my daughter and granddaughters will have a secure home.
Today was a bit more electrical work. I ran a cable under the floor from one eaves space to the other, cut a couple of holes in the wall to fit extra sockets (you can never have too many sockets) and found a couple of existing cables where I could use the old nasty cable to pull a nice new cable through. There's still a short section that doesn't want to play nicely - I don't know if it's stapled inside the wall or if I need to do a little more wiggling as I try and pull it through. I really want to get that short section replaced because if I can do that I can get a properly grounded cable into the attic space, which will be handy because at some point in the future I'd like to put ceiling fans up there.
I don't have lights in the space I'm working on because I had to kill the breaker, so when the daylight starts to fade I stop working. On a cloudy gloomy day like today it's surprising how the light can fade. In an ideal world I'd have the lights and sockets on different breakers but don't have time or resources to pull walls apart to get at cables, not least because my daughter wants to get on and get moved in.
Right now my legs ache and my arms ache. I think tomorrow might be at least mostly a day of rest, I don't know if I'll take the day off completely but probably won't be doing anything overly heavy.
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I took a day off from the new house yesterday. It was good. If a rest is good enough for God it's good enough for me too....
Today I was back at it, trying to trace a circuit that's something of a hot mess. Because I've got multiple cables twisted together in back boxes it's hard to know just what's what and my continuity tester was giving me strange results. In the end I figured I'd push boundaries a little, turned the circuit back on even with cables poking out all over the place, and went around the house with a voltmeter looking to see what was live. Then I joined some cables together to see what turned on and what turned off.
It was a tedious process but I've got a better handle on what I'm dealing with. One particular cable that has been confusing me stayed live throughout the entire process, so I think it's one that is twisted around another cable. I found which cable feeds a socket I'm keen to update, and have something of an idea which cable feeds the downstairs bedroom. With a long spade bit I think I can drill through the floor into the basement and run new cables, which will let me get rid of at least some of the existing cables. For now I'm going to have to leave some of the nasty old cable in place, but I can replace some of it a little bit at a time.
At this point I'm wondering if I'm going to need another roll of cable.
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Seems the natural settings of where I currently live are beautiful while the human population.couldn't be creepier.
Violence and corruption abound and are senseless.
Right here on Planet Earth.
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Seems the natural settings of where I currently live are beautiful while the human population.couldn't be creepier.
Violence and corruption abound and are senseless.
Right here on Planet Earth.
Seems to be everywhere
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More wire pulling. With a long spade bit and an extension I can drill holes through the floor inside the wall cavity by poking my contraption down through the hole where the back box once was. So now I have some cables run between sockets under the floor and I can make at least some semblance of sense out of a truly bizarre wiring situation. For now I'm still going to have some slightly bizarre stuff going on, with one socket in one room on the same circuit as the light in the room but not the other sockets in the same room, but it's contained and known. And it beats having one single circuit with one bedroom, one socket, one light, one bathroom, one socket upstairs and the upstairs bathroom all on the same circuit. Because, you know, what could possibly go wrong when you're potentially running an air conditioner and two hairdryers on the same circuit?
Anyway, today's job is running some more cables to feed it all. My wife is out this morning and when she's back she gets to help feed cable.
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Now my roll of cable is almost entirely used up.
Today I ran cables from two rooms back to the breaker panel, tidied up a couple of other odds and ends, and then my wife helped me run cable from the breaker panel up through a wall into the attic. I had one cable there already but got to thinking I really want two rooms upstairs to be on separate breakers rather than having an entire floor on one breaker. I don't know if two hair dryers running at the same time is likely but it's certainly possible, so I ran a cable so two spaces can have separate circuits. It will also be handy if I ever decide to refinish the floor and want to operate a belt sander and a shop vac at the same time.
I wanted to wrap up the day with another cable run under the floor but found my remaining length of cable probably isn't long enough. And now thinking about it, it seems like a better idea to lift another piece of floor so I can make a shorter run anyway. So maybe my remaining length of cable will just about do the job. I'm going to need another roll of cable for future work, but that can wait a while.
I have a socket that I've managed to disconnect, and I'm not sure how. Perhaps when it's all reconnected it will mysteriously spring back to life, or perhaps I'll need to lift some more floor in dark corners to trace the cable and find something I can connect it to.
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I had to buy another roll of cable. I couldn't figure out a route under the floor where I wanted to go without my fish tape getting caught on stuff, so I accepted the inevitable and took a slightly longer route.
Yesterday and today I was fitting boxes and running cables, today I was joining things up. I'm dangerously close to having a room fully connected.
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All I read was “ dangerously “…
:o
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If you hear a loud bang from my general area you'll know what context I used the word :)
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The room that has been my primary focus is now fully connected up and live. The adjacent room is mostly connected. I took a detour via wire tracing thanks to a light that wasn't working as I expected, and along the way fried my continuity tester thanks to a live wire I wasn't expecting to be there. I knew something was wrong when I was trying to trace cables and flicking a switch popped two breakers at the same time. But now I know how it's wired and even though it's a nasty botch it's a known botch and I can work with it until I can open up some walls and do it properly. Crucially, one specific light that's difficult to live without is now working again, which is always a good thing.
Today's job is to connect up the straggling parts of the wiring, get some cleaning done to clear out the patches of drywall dust, odd fragments of cable sheathing that didn't make it into my bucket of trash etc and hopefully get some painting done. I'm hoping to get my daughter moved in over the weekend.
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I didn't get to painting, I ran out of time.
I did get a bunch of straggling wiring things connected and tested, got a basic sweep of cleaning done so now there aren't piles of drywall dust and bits, I got the walls and ceilings wiped with a cloth so they are ready to be painted. Along the way I discovered another job that I needed to do - the tank on one of the toilets needed some work because the bolts holding it to the bowl were broken off. So I bought a set of bolts and washers to fix that, but didn't have a wrench with me to hold the nuts while I tightened everything so just got them to more or less finger tight. Tomorrow I can go back with a wrench and finish that job.
I got a load of stuff moved out of the way ready to paint, and screwed a board in place behind a section of drywall that had a small hole in it. I don't have time to fix it properly so I'll fill it with some cement for now, I'm painting over the entire wall so it should be OK.
The lock on the back door was old and nasty. It worked, but locking and unlocking it was stiff and it wouldn't open from the inside if it was locked. So I took that out and replaced it with a new lock that works smoothly and cleanly.
Then there was an outlet that was loose in the wall. It turned out the back box was the kind with wings that grips the drywall, and one of the wings had snapped off. So I took that apart and replaced the back box. It looked like the socket was wired by an ape so, since I had to take it all apart to fix it, figured I'd do a better job of putting it all back together again.
And now I'm gradually bringing stuff back home. I took my shop vac over for the day, I've brought two rolls of cable and some shorter sections home and a few tools. I've still got a few tools there because I'll need them, but I think what's left over there can come home in a single trip when needed. All being well that will be tomorrow.
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I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.
He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.
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I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.
He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.
My first PC was a DOS only machine. A great way to learn keyboard shortcuts.
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I once had a college professor, way back when, insist that we all use our computers without touching the mouse. So there we were on Windows 2000 navigating the OS with a keyboard only.
He'll be so happy to know that 20 years later and with a split keyboard and vim(ium), I've mastered what he could have only dreamed was possible. So that's how nicely little is going on right now.
My first PC was a DOS only machine. A great way to learn keyboard shortcuts.
My first was DOS booted Windows 3.1! But right now I'm in macOS 95% of the time, and so that's a lot of macOS shortcuts + VIM, VIMium, etc., everywhere else. I think the only time I reach for a mouse now is if I use the Slack standalone app, since it's trash.
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I hate meeses to pieces!
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The last couple of days have included electrical work, painting, and exploring some plumbing. I got the toilet tank secured but the fill valve and the flapper valve need to be replaced. I found a nasty crack in the sewer pipe, so I've cleaned the outside of the pipe and wrapped it in lots of duck tape pending getting someone in to replace the cracked section. That job is way above my pay grade.
Then some painting, which caused wallpaper to bubble and peel, so I tried to strip the wallpaper and got nowhere fast, largely because it was so hot the sweat was pouring off me and blowing steam into the mix really didn't help. But I got the adjacent room painted, the hole in the wall repaired, and a load of electrical tidying up. Most of the electrical work was just putting stuff back so lights aren't hanging on their wires, sockets have covers etc. I needed to replace a couple of breakers - I put 20A breakers on when I set up the circuit to test that they work but replaced with with 15A breakers because some of the older cable looks like 14ga rather than 12ga.
And after bringing all my tools home I noticed a slow drip from the main water shutoff valve, which I couldn't fix because I didn't have my wrench with me. I'll fix that tomorrow, I didn't feel like going back out. To stop the drip I just turned off the water completely.
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Oh now I’m confused…
Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….
Are you still in your meds?????😳
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Laptop just conked out. Likely go for one that can take punishment.
(MS Surface Ultra looks awesone until price tag) :-\
ADDED: Don't know what an "AI" chip entails - just surprsed there even is one.
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Oh now I’m confused…
Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….
Are you still in your meds?????😳
Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.
Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.
The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.
Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.
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Laptop just conked out. Likely go for one that can take punishment.
(MS Surface Ultra looks awesone until price tag) :-\
ADDED: Don't know what an "AI" chip entails - just surprsed there even is one.
I assumed an AI chip is just a GPU along with a CPU.
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Oh now I’m confused…
Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….
Are you still in your meds?????😳
Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.
Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.
The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.
Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.
How close is the New place from yours? Just wondering if it's clise enough for the grandkids to possibly pop over from time to time, say after school.
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Oh now I’m confused…
Now you’re remodeling 2 houses at once….
Are you still in your meds?????😳
Yes, I decided I didn't have enough to do so acquired another house to fix up.
Seriously, my wife and I wanted our daughter to be able to live closer. She wanted to live in our town but can't source the funding to buy and it's almost impossible to find anything suitable to rent, so we bought a place that she can rent from us. It keeps the rental income within the family, gets her closer to us, which also means we can see the grandchildren more often, and also gets her out of the situation where she's at a landlord's mercy. Well, technically she's at our mercy now but we're far less likely to throw her out than an unrelated landlord. Her previous landlord really didn't care about the property, was very slow to fix things etc.
The house needed a bit of work done to it, so I've been doing that before she moves in. There's more work that I want to do but a lot of it can wait until she's in and settled.
Today I took the day off aside from a couple of really minor things, and spent some time playing with my lathe. I had a small piece of a maple branch I very nearly threw in the burn pile but decided to experiment with it, and got two nice small bowls out of it. One of them is likely to end up as a jewelry bowl for a granddaughter who is soon to turn 16. I don't yet know what I'll do with the other one - I now have four bowls turned from the same piece of wood. My wife claimed one, I've earmarked one for my granddaughter, which leaves two that will be looking for homes. I suspect my daughter will take one of them. Maybe I'll keep one for myself, I don't know yet.
How close is the New place from yours? Just wondering if it's clise enough for the grandkids to possibly pop over from time to time, say after school.
It's just under half a mile away. It's easily walkable - it's just off the route I regularly walk or run virtually every day. I'm hesitant to let the youngest granddaughters cross the main road unsupervised - it's a residential area with a 35mph speed limit but some of the traffic comes flying through town.
We're looking forward to seeing a lot more of the grands over the summer holidays when they are off school.
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A much easier day today. I got to supervise the plumbers fixing the sewage pipe. They also did a bit of work to the toilet valves - it's work I could have done myself but since I had plumbers in anyway I figured they could do it. Calling them out would mean a minimum charge that's not worth paying but since I was well over the minimum charge for the other work the extra few minutes is trivial.
So now the new house has a fully working bathroom, which is nice. Then I did a few tidying up things, I put the handle back on the bathroom because it's safe for the girls to be in there again. Previously I took the handle off because I didn't want them to try and flush, or use the taps, or anything that would send water through the broken pipe. And then I took four bags of trash away, so my daughter now has a little more space to work.
And then, having got to a point where I can take a break from the new house, I spent some time with my lathe. I found half a log and wasn't sure what it was so I made a bowl out of it, and part way through I remembered it's a piece of somewhat punky basswood. It looks nice when it's turned but it's fibrous and keeps snagging on my cutting tools. But now it's turned and I won't keep looking at it wondering what it is. It's drying now, in a couple of weeks I'll remount it and sand it.
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Today was the first day in a while I didn't need to be in the new house. Tomorrow morning I'm there again to supervise technicians installing the internet. Then hopefully by tomorrow night my daughter will be fully moved in. She's hoping to be sleeping there tomorrow night.
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Has anyone heard from Parson recently? It's been a while since I heard from him and I wonder how he's doing?
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He might be tangled up in one of my piles of recovered cable.
Seriously, I haven't heard anything from him for eons.
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No work on building or destroying either house yesterday.
I did have a piece of irregularly shaped wood approximately 9 inches square and 5 inches thick. I wanted to cut it into an accurate square and then cut it into two pieces about two inches thick, so I could turn it into two square plates. Cutting something that size is tricky, neither my big miter saw nor my table saw can cut through anything that thick and being irregularly shaped makes it hard to do much of anything with it. In the end I cut it with the miter saw and finished the cuts with a hand saw, then cut it in half most of the way through on the table saw by cutting it, turning it 90 degrees and cutting it again, and then cutting the last inch or so from the very middle with a hand saw. I thought my miter saw would cut through it, but the nut that holds the blade in place put a limit on the thickness I can cut that I hadn't considered, and so my first attempts were thwarted.
Now it's small enough that my miter saw can handle it I can cut the two pieces to more accurate squares, ready to put them on the lathe. I'd like to make two square plates that at least kinda sorta match.
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The first square plate came off the lathe yesterday. I'm mostly happy with it, it needs a little more sanding than I can do on the lathe and I had a little bit of blowout in a couple of places but I think I can clean it up. Maybe today I'll make thhe other one. I did make over five gallons of shavings in the process. It's surprising how much a small piece of wood becomes when shaving it away a small piece at a time.
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I'm not thrilled about the edge blowouts when turning something square, so I turned a smaller piece into a round bowl. This one is the nicest I've made so far, I turned it and sanded it, then sanded away the tenon on the bottom (I really should get a big chuck so I can cut it off on the lathe, which would be so much quicker), and then gave it three coats of oil. It soaked up the oil much faster than I expected, so three coats were done and absorbed within half an hour.
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
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High school graduation ceremony for our son tonight.
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I've had quite the week. Went in for a routine colonoscopy and started having severe stomach pains the next day. Went to VA emergency, was admitted, and had my gallbladder removed the same day. Later, I developed a nasty bloodborne bacteria and was pumped with antibiotics for the entire week. Having an aortic valve replacement in 2014 made me particularly vulnerable to the bacteria, but a series of blood cultures showed it had not "vegetated" on my valve. Was finally sent home yesterday with a strong antibiotic and related meds. I'm experiencing some intestinal issues due to the antibiotic, and of course, soreness in the surgery incision sites, but all in all, am recovering well.
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I've had quite the week. Went in for a routine colonoscopy and started having severe stomach pains the next day. Went to VA emergency, was admitted, and had my gallbladder removed the same day. Later, I developed a nasty bloodborne bacteria and was pumped with antibiotics for the entire week. Having an aortic valve replacement in 2014 made me particularly vulnerable to the bacteria, but a series of blood cultures showed it had not "vegetated" on my valve. Was finally sent home yesterday with a strong antibiotic and related meds. I'm experiencing some intestinal issues due to the antibiotic, and of course, soreness in the surgery incision sites, but all in all, am recovering well.
That's a pretty wild week!
Wishing you a speedy recovery
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
Stage 2 of the window project is now complete. The storm window is back in place, screwed in and with nice fresh caulking all the way around it.
While I was there I took some measurements for other windows - window air conditioning units don't fit very well in windows designed long before such things even existed, so I'm going to cut some mounts that will properly fill the space around the window units.
Later in the afternoon I dug out a chunk of log and turned another bowl. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls, and I still have a big stack of wood in the garage.
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
Stage 2 of the window project is now complete. The storm window is back in place, screwed in and with nice fresh caulking all the way around it.
While I was there I took some measurements for other windows - window air conditioning units don't fit very well in windows designed long before such things even existed, so I'm going to cut some mounts that will properly fill the space around the window units.
Later in the afternoon I dug out a chunk of log and turned another bowl. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls, and I still have a big stack of wood in the garage.
Take them to a local farmers.market and sell them.
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Happy Father's Day
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
Stage 2 of the window project is now complete. The storm window is back in place, screwed in and with nice fresh caulking all the way around it.
While I was there I took some measurements for other windows - window air conditioning units don't fit very well in windows designed long before such things even existed, so I'm going to cut some mounts that will properly fill the space around the window units.
Later in the afternoon I dug out a chunk of log and turned another bowl. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls, and I still have a big stack of wood in the garage.
Take them to a local farmers.market and sell them.
There's a gift shop just down the road from me, I might stop in and see if they would be interested in selling them for me. It would mean giving them a commission but would also mean I don't have to stand around at the market wondering if anyone will buy them, and if I'll sell enough of them to cover the costs of being at the market.
It's weird at a lot of markets, people will complain that $5 is too much for something hand made but then stand in line for 15 minutes to pay $5 for a big cookie that's gone in a couple of minutes. Or they'll see something hand made and complain that it costs more than some mass produced Chinese junk. And then you get the ones who look at a few items and just when you're expecting them to either put them all back and say they'll think about it, or put them all back except the cheapest one, they decide to buy all of them and pay cash. I like those people.
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
Stage 2 of the window project is now complete. The storm window is back in place, screwed in and with nice fresh caulking all the way around it.
While I was there I took some measurements for other windows - window air conditioning units don't fit very well in windows designed long before such things even existed, so I'm going to cut some mounts that will properly fill the space around the window units.
Later in the afternoon I dug out a chunk of log and turned another bowl. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls, and I still have a big stack of wood in the garage.
Take them to a local farmers.market and sell them.
There's a gift shop just down the road from me, I might stop in and see if they would be interested in selling them for me. It would mean giving them a commission but would also mean I don't have to stand around at the market wondering if anyone will buy them, and if I'll sell enough of them to cover the costs of being at the market.
It's weird at a lot of markets, people will complain that $5 is too much for something hand made but then stand in line for 15 minutes to pay $5 for a big cookie that's gone in a couple of minutes. Or they'll see something hand made and complain that it costs more than some mass produced Chinese junk. And then you get the ones who look at a few items and just when you're expecting them to either put them all back and say they'll think about it, or put them all back except the cheapest one, they decide to buy all of them and pay cash. I like those people.
One should never be surprised by the graft, gluttony, greed, and hypocrisy of the American consumer. The best ones are the ones that act that way "in the name of Jesus, in good stewardship."
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Fun With Windows.
Trying to swap a storm window for a bug screen I managed to push the entire storm window frame out of its fitting at my daughter's new house. It turned out some of the wood trim had perished, so today's task was addressing the storm window. First job was to get the storm window out, which meant some force with a pry bar because all the screws had a dozen coats of paint over them. Then I could sand everything, pry away the nasty perished trim and replace it, replace a load of perished caulking, and repaint everything.
Tomorrow's job is to put the storm window back, when I can go and buy some new screws suitable for outdoor use. When my daughter got home from work she loved what she saw.
Stage 2 of the window project is now complete. The storm window is back in place, screwed in and with nice fresh caulking all the way around it.
While I was there I took some measurements for other windows - window air conditioning units don't fit very well in windows designed long before such things even existed, so I'm going to cut some mounts that will properly fill the space around the window units.
Later in the afternoon I dug out a chunk of log and turned another bowl. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the bowls, and I still have a big stack of wood in the garage.
Take them to a local farmers.market and sell them.
There's a gift shop just down the road from me, I might stop in and see if they would be interested in selling them for me. It would mean giving them a commission but would also mean I don't have to stand around at the market wondering if anyone will buy them, and if I'll sell enough of them to cover the costs of being at the market.
It's weird at a lot of markets, people will complain that $5 is too much for something hand made but then stand in line for 15 minutes to pay $5 for a big cookie that's gone in a couple of minutes. Or they'll see something hand made and complain that it costs more than some mass produced Chinese junk. And then you get the ones who look at a few items and just when you're expecting them to either put them all back and say they'll think about it, or put them all back except the cheapest one, they decide to buy all of them and pay cash. I like those people.
One should never be surprised by the graft, gluttony, greed, and hypocrisy of the American consumer. The best ones are the ones that act that way "in the name of Jesus, in good stewardship."
It always makes me think of the people who leave a Bible tract that looks like a folded $20 as a tip. It seems to me that all you're doing is associating Scripture with disappointment and "that (expletive) didn't even leave a real tip". I've never left such a tract but think that if I wanted the message to be taken seriously it would need to be paired with something the server can actually use to pay their bills. Like, you know, some real money.
It's funny seeing people who will pay through the nose for garbage but then reject quality stuff because it's "too expensive".
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Learned long ago that the worst trav elling customers are large Christian groups who will fill up a resturant and won't leave tips.
When I was a mechanic some eons ago I witnessed bus groups who would try to shirk legally mandated safety standards to get back in the road.
Embarrassing.
ASIDE: Working at Walmart people would stick $100.00 bills in my shirt pocket during the holidays. An awesome experience!
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Learned long ago that the worst trav elling customers are large Christian groups who will fill up a resturant and won't leave tips.
When I was a mechanic some eons ago I witnessed bus groups who would try to shirk legally mandated safety standards to get back in the road.
Embarrassing.
ASIDE: Working at Walmart people would stick $100.00 bills in my shirt pocket during the holidays. An awesome experience!
I found it interesting to see the line "God gets 10%, why should you get 18%", completely overlooking the comparison that God allegedly gets 10% of everything while the server gets 18% of the cost of a sandwich and a coffee.
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Watching our youngest granddaughters today. Now they are off school when our daughter has them we play tag team watching the youngest with our 16-year-old granddaughter. She doesn't want to watch them all the time (understandably) so we're taking them two days a week.
It was tiring but a lot of fun. Running around the yard chasing and being chased by two little girls with water guns is something we haven't done since last summer.
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I speak most of this morning getting my car repaired. Not cheap but the car runs much better.
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More Fun With Sinks.
Having fixed the plumbing under one half of my daughter's kitchen sink I noticed the other half would need attention at some point and told her to keep an eye on it. She called that evening to tell me there was a leak, so I replaced a section of pipe. It still leaked, so I had to replace the plug insert in the sink.
The insert didn't want to move but a little bit of gentle persuasion with a big pipe wrench persuaded it. And so began the saga, during which I found that the locking nut wouldn't reach the threaded part of the insert. After much sweat and tears (thankfully no blood for this one) I noticed that the new part I bought had a shorter threaded section than the one it replaced. So I bought another part with a longer threaded section and had the job finished within 10 minutes. Note to self, check the length of the threaded section.
Anyway, now my daughter has two sinks that drain into the pipework rather than into the cupboard space below and is very happy. I lost several pounds worth of sweat and felt that the best way to replenish the weight was by eating an extra piece of my wife's delicious apple cake. And for good measure it's another job that I now know exactly how to do even if there's a very significant chance I'll never have to actually do it again for the rest of my life.
I don't care much for plumbing but the cost of the wasted part is still significantly less than the cost of paying someone to do the job.
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RabbiKnife's first law of plumbing repairs: Buy several of everything in several sizes at Home Depot before beginning any plumbing repair. You'll be going back next week anyway so you can return all the extras then.
RabbinKnife's first corollary to the first law of plumbing repairs: If you don't follow the first law, you will have to make three trips, just because.
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RabbiKnife's first law of plumbing repairs: Buy several of everything in several sizes at Home Depot before beginning any plumbing repair. You'll be going back next week anyway so you can return all the extras then.
RabbinKnife's first corollary to the first law of plumbing repairs: If you don't follow the first law, you will have to make three trips, just because.
Pumbing does seem to be the kind of job that is never resolved with a single visit to the hardware store.
The first plumbing job I needed to do was to address issues with the toilet tank. I replaced the badly rusted bolts holding the tank to the bowl but since I had a plumber come in to replace a damaged section of the sewer pipe I figured they could do the rest of the work while they were there. It was the kind of job that wasn't worth calling a plumber in but since he was there doing another job he might as well charge me a few extra minutes, since I'd already paid the callout charge.
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There seems to be something about me and sinks lately.
Having taken the plumbing under my daughter's kitchen sink apart three times now to replace various parts that were leaking today's fun was to take the plumbing under my bathroom sink apart because it was clogged. It's never a fun job, but since I had one piece removed I figured I might as well take the next piece along out and give that a good clean too. So now my bathroom sink drains faster than it has in quite a while.
For the record, I don't care much for plumbing. Hopefully I won't need to be fiddlig with pipes in awkward places any time soon.
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I had my 4th eye injection for wet macular degeneration. I've been enjoying listening to my music in my car as I've been driving. I have all my cd's copied onto a flash drive that I play through my car stereo. It is a very eclectic mix. In the last few days I've gone from Cats, to Hank Williams,.Sr. to an Easter cantata, to classic rock (including the .music of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Aquarius, and others. Not the original artists.) I'm waiting to see if I succeeded in putting The Carnival of the Animals onto the drive so I can lable it.
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I am very pleased to say that no sinks required attention today.
So instead I got to cut some wood to reframe an exterior door frame, which in turn is preparation work for having a new door fitted. The wood is cut and stained, tomorrow I can lacquer it and then I can get to screwing and gluing it into place. Then the door supplier can come and fit my nice shiny new door that's been sitting in their warehouse waiting for me to get to the doorframe.
I also need to cut some brackets to mount my daughter's air conditioning units into the older windows in her house. It's hard to keep the place cool when the hot air can blow around the window units. I'll need to do most of it with battery tools because I really don't feel like hauling my table saw or miter saw to her house. I can carry a jigsaw and router much more easily, and all my smaller power tools run on batteries.
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"A republic, if you can keep it." Benjamin Franklin
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Yesterday's fun was staining and lacquering some more wood. Where I shimmed out my wall studs in a downstairs room I need to shim out the door frame before my new front door is fitted. So I cut some red oak to the appropriate size, and then got to staining and lacquering it so now it can be screwed and glued to the existing door frame. I'm looking forward to getting the new door fitted, but that's something I'm going to pay someone to do because it seems like a job that could take an inexperienced operator (like me) a long time to do badly.
Once that's done we'll have a much more secure door, so maybe I'll leave the storm door unlocked and use the door as an actual entrance, rather than little more than a way to get sacks of trash out.
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I turned half a maple log into 15 gallons of shavings and dust, and a bowl.
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A very strong wind storm came through last night and a tree fell and obliterated our shed.
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Ouch.
I’m glad the missus didn’t make you stay in the shed during the storm!!
You wanted a new bigger shed anyway…!
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A very strong wind storm came through last night and a tree fell and obliterated our shed.
That's not good. Hopefully you can "build back better" in a way that is, you know, actually better.
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I’m glad the missus didn’t make you stay in the shed during the storm!!
We actually have a volunteer community library in there. Fortunately, the books appear to have escaped damage for the most part. Going to be a project getting everything moved out and back in though. First I'm having a contractor cut up the three(!!) trees that landed on it. Then an adjuster can come and value the obliterated shed. Always an adventure here.
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Thank God neither you nor your family were damaged!!!
Shed can be replaced
Fenris is a one of a kind irreplaceable original…
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I’m glad the missus didn’t make you stay in the shed during the storm!!
We actually have a volunteer community library in there. Fortunately, the books appear to have escaped damage for the most part. Going to be a project getting everything moved out and back in though. First I'm having a contractor cut up the three(!!) trees that landed on it. Then an adjuster can come and value the obliterated shed. Always an adventure here.
Adjuster value the shed? Wow, sheds are obviously a different thing here to what I'm used to. The last time I bought a shed in England the whole thing - supply and setup - cost about the same as my insurance deductible here in the US.
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I'm debating what to do with my latest bowl. I found a log in my garage and couldn't remember what it was, but it was heavy enough to not be the punky basswood so I cut it in half and turned a bowl out of it. It turned out to be spalted maple, and I'm really liking the look of the bowl. I need to do some sanding on the inside of it, and I'm going to get some finer sandpaper at the hardware store later today. I sanded the outside to 220 which is what I normally do, but then found a strip of 600 I forgot I had so tried that. Now the bowl practically gleams without any finish on it, so I think I'll lacquer it and see how it looks then.
600 seems a bit extreme for wood so I'll probably get some 320 or 400 or something. I also need to order my new lathe which, among other things, allows me to reverse the motor which makes sanding easier.
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Thank God neither you nor your family were damaged!!!
Shed can be replaced
Fenris is a one of a kind irreplaceable original…
God bless you, my friend.
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Adjuster value the shed?
Not yet. I have to get a service to get the trees off of it. Our whole region had the storm, so there's plenty of claims in the pipeline and they haven't gotten to me yet.
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Adjuster value the shed?
Not yet. I have to get a service to get the trees off of it. Our whole region had the storm, so there's plenty of claims in the pipeline and they haven't gotten to me yet.
I was surprised that you need an adjuster. The shed I bought for my house in England before I moved cost me the grand total of GBP800, at the time equivalent to about $1300, supplied and installed.
I'm guessing your shed was something more substantial than mine.
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Today my grinding jig to sharpen my lathe tools arrived. Before I could sharpen a roughing gouge kinda crudely on one of my grinding wheels, and I could sharpen my skew kinda crudely using a belt sander. Now I can sharpen all of the tools with a variety of fancy jigs. So having done battle with it to get it all set up - fighting the usual issue where a manufacturer could have made it easy to bolt their device to a board but that would increase their cost price by a couple of cents so they left me to figure out how to get a bolt into an inaccessible spot - I then experimented with sharpening things.
My spindle gouge is not only sharpened but reshaped. i tried to sharpen it freehand and it didn't end well. Now I sharpened it with a jig it's properly shaped and, well, sharp. Sharpening my skew on the jig is still a little fiddly but less so than using the belt sander, and it looks like I can get a better edge on it. It's also handy because it means I can use my 120 grit wheel rather than being stuck with the 60. Out of the box my grinder had a weird platform for the 120 grit wheel that's great for sharpening drill bits and utterly useless for sharpening anything else.
And having sharpened my spindle gouge I tested it out, carving a bunch of coves and curves from offcuts.
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Been listening to, researching the "left," recently, mostly for nuance and balance.
Yep. We're screwed.
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Been listening to, researching the "left," recently, mostly for nuance and balance.
Yep. We're screwed.
What’s that old axiom.
Vote yourself into socialism and shoot your way out.
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Been listening to, researching the "left," recently, mostly for nuance and balance.
Yep. We're screwed.
What’s that old axiom.
Vote yourself into socialism and shoot your way out.
If I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists
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I was surprised that you need an adjuster. The shed I bought for my house in England before I moved cost me the grand total of GBP800, at the time equivalent to about $1300, supplied and installed.
I'm guessing your shed was something more substantial than mine.
It was a 16x24 wood shed with amenities. We didn't build it, it was there when we bought the house.
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I was surprised that you need an adjuster. The shed I bought for my house in England before I moved cost me the grand total of GBP800, at the time equivalent to about $1300, supplied and installed.
I'm guessing your shed was something more substantial than mine.
It was a 16x24 wood shed with amenities. We didn't build it, it was there when we bought the house.
Do amenities include water, or mainly electricity? Sometimes I wonder if some sheds are just a bit of insulation away from being inhabitable.
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Been listening to, researching the "left," recently, mostly for nuance and balance.
Yep. We're screwed.
Pretty much being actively screwed by the "right" at the moment.
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Do amenities include water, or mainly electricity? Sometimes I wonder if some sheds are just a bit of insulation away from being inhabitable.
Not inhabitable, but with electric and very nicely constructed.
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A fun day wrangling two little girls. It's handy that we have a park half a mile away where they can play on all the assorted things set up for kids to play on, let their imaginations run wild, and then head to the library and play with a bunch of stuff set up there for kids.
All in all a good day. I also ordered a bigger lathe, I've hit the size limits of my current one a couple of times now, and figure I've been doing this for several months now and don't see myself losing interest any time soon. Now I've got a proper grinding jig to sharpen my tools and I'm getting better at sharpening Harbor Freight quality tools the next step is to get some better quality tools. Then I can start turning out bowls up to 22" across. I'm still considering the outboard attachment that would increase the limit to 34", I'll see how long it takes me to max out the new toy.
I'm getting it delivered to a nearby store that can take a box that size. When it arrives I need to figure out how to get a 500+lb box back home.
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Been listening to, researching the "left," recently, mostly for nuance and balance.
Yep. We're screwed.
Pretty much being actively screwed by the "right" at the moment.
Indeed! I am speaking in terms of opposition, where the Left fails to step up in strength.
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Do amenities include water, or mainly electricity? Sometimes I wonder if some sheds are just a bit of insulation away from being inhabitable.
Not inhabitable, but with electric and very nicely constructed.
I could do with one of those. I'd like to have more space for my woodworking tools, but it would need to be insulated so I can work in the winter time.
It would be nice to be able to work without hauling heavy tools downstairs, and without moving wood up and down stairs. I'd love to have space to simply open a garage door, haul wood into the workspace, cut it up and glue it back together again, and then move a finished piece out. No stairs would be a huge blessing. Some headroom would be nice too. My basement was designed 120 years ago, long before modern power tools even existed.
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…. And when the average person was the size of Napoleon
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…. And when the average person was the size of Napoleon
... and in the days when the average adult would have a handful of shirts, maybe two pairs of pants, and a Sunday best suit. With the modern tendency for one person to have as many clothes as an army would have had 100 years ago, there's usually a storage crunch somewhere along the way. When our house was built I imagine the gentleman of the house would have a suit for Sundays which would be hung up, and everything else would be folded and put on a shelf. The lady of the house would probably have a Sunday best dress, maybe two dresses, and everything else would be folded and put on a shelf. So two or three hangers and a couple of shelves would be enough to store all their clothes.
In some new build houses they have walk in closets bigger than the kids' bedroom in an older house.
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Lots of fun today taking my lawnmower apart so I could fix the self-propelling parts. Not what I really wanted to be doing with the day but I got the mower working again.
And another 15 gallons of wood turned into shavings, as two more bowls rolled out of my woodshop.
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Annoyed today.
My new lathe was supposed to arrive today but they called this morning to make an appointment to deliver it. Why they did that I have no idea, because it's being delivered to a local business that can handle a big box more easily, but it means that having planned everything around it coming today it's not coming until tomorrow.
Then I got notification that the drier I ordered that's not supposed to arrive until tomorrow is ready today, with the associated pestering to go and get it. Which I can't do, because my man with the trailer isn't expecting to be driving me there today.
But I got to my daughter's house and rewired her drier outlet. For some reason what was there before was a 50A three pin outlet, connected to a 30A breaker and a 10/3 cable. The cable had a ground but someone cut it off, so I trimmed the wire back to expose the ground and connected a 30A four pin outlet. Then I realized I connected it upside down and had to start over.
Now I'm drinking coffee and just finished eating a donut. At least nothing can go wrong with that.
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You had me at donut…
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You had me at donut…
It was an OK donut. Not as good as the donut shop in town, but that isn't open on Tuesdays.
Tomorrow is the local sale, and there's usually an Amish lady we know who sells the best whoopie pies I've ever tasted, and they are stupidly cheap too. And on top of that it looks like my new toy is arriving tomorrow.
I wanted to while away a little time this evening so turned another bowl out of a spalted maple log. It's now sitting in a bucket of shavings to dry out without shape shifting too much so I can sand it tomorrow. Then I can lacquer it. I'm really liking the way these spalted maple bowls are looking. I made four small ones and distributed them to family members, I made a big one I'm keeping for myself, and I haven't decided what's happening with the next one.
When my new lathe arrives I want to turn some of the big chunks of black cherry I scored over the weekend. I'm thinking one of them will make an awesome plate.
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Well my new toy arrived. It was something of an effort hauling it down the stairs to my basement, since it weighs somewhere north of 400lb all in. Thankfully it ships in pieces so I could use a heavy duty hand cart to get the larger pieces down the stairs. Lifting the bed (168lb) and aligning it onto two legs (68lb each) was something of a challenge. It's still not quite right, there are a couple of bolts that don't want to get into the threads where I need them to be.
Tomorrow I get to figure out how to lift one end onto blocks so I can put the feet on the legs so I can steady the whole thing, then clean the anti-rust oil off, and then lift the headstock into place. That will be a challenge in itself.
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The legs are secured to the lathe bed, and I've got most of the way through cleaning the rust protection off the lathe bed. I'm not sure what the instructions are trying to do - I need to clean off the rust protection and then.... apply rust protection. Whatever. Anyway, most of the rust protection is off now and i'm hoping one more dose of WD40 will finish the job. Then I can lift it up and put blocks under it to fit the feet. Maybe I'll get to use it tomorrow.
In unrelated news I was able to get to the hardware store to collect the washer and drier for my daughter and get them into her house. I couldn't get them into place because that meant going through my granddaughter's room, which looks like a tornado got there first. So she had to clear a path for me. She did that, so I was able to manhandle two large boxes down a flight of stairs and through her room. It took a lot of controlled force, a moderate amount of ingenuity and many episodes of wishing I hadn't attempted the process, but I got everything in place. That's when I found the drier vent is perished and needs to be replaced, but I got pretty much everything else in place ready to go.
She loves her new washer and drier. I hope everything about them works, I really don't want to have to haul them back up the stairs if they don't.
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The lathe is now operational. Aligning the bolt holes between the lathe bed and the legs was an exercise in creative thinking. It's intensely difficult to move a heavy metal leg a fraction of an inch with one hand while using the other hand to take the weight of the bed. But any job can be done if you have the right hammer, so an offcut of wood to protect the paint on the legs and a hammer allowed me to tap them gently into the right place, enough that I could get all the bolts through. Cleaning the rust suppressant was tedious but easy enough, it involved no heavy lifting. Putting the banjo and tailstock on was easy enough and then came the final step, manhandling the 150lb headstock into place. I wasn't sure if my wife would be strong enough to help me lift it into place but it turned out she was, and as soon as it was fairly close we could rest it on the lathe bed while we fine tuned the position of it.
And now the beast lives. So far all I've done with it is test the forward and reverse motions and sanded a bowl I made a few days previously. I've carried a chunk of black cherry downstairs, I think that will be the first piece I turn for real on the new lathe. The bowl I sanded will probably become a unique piece, in that I used two lathes to make it. One to turn it, a different one to sand it.
The new lathe is very smooth and very quiet. The old one rattles even at slower speeds when sanding. The new one runs so quietly about the only clue it's running at all is that the workpiece is rotating.
No prizes for guessing what's going to take up at least some of my time over the weekend.
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The first piece from my new toy is done. A bowl about 12" across, turned from a piece of black cherry I collected a few days ago. The cherry smell as I was turning it was really something special. I treated it with beeswax on the lathe and it looks really nice.
The new lathe allows me to rotate the spindle either way so I can sand forwards or backwards. Having wanted to be able to do this for months now it takes a little getting used to, as I have to hold everything the other way around. But since I can do that now I bought some extra-fine sandpaper - I used to sand to 220 but I got some 400 - and sanded it both ways up to 400, then put the beeswax on it.
Next up is a big chunk that I'm going to need to trim because it has a prominent corner that might push the limits of the new lathe. I'd need to turn that bit away anyway so I might as well cut it off with a chainsaw and save myself the time to slice it off a small slice at a time. My wife wants me to make a plate / shallow bowl out of it. I'm going to need to put 12 screws into it to hold it to the faceplate, I usually only use 6 screws but I haven't turned anything this size before.
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Following current political developments out of necessity with mid-terms closing in. Still not thrilled with the lack of cohesiveness on the left at least as a sane alternative. Sure do pray.
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Following current political developments out of necessity with mid-terms closing in. Still not thrilled with the lack of cohesiveness on the left at least as a sane alternative. Sure do pray.
It sometimes seems like sanity is in short supply on both sides. Elections increasingly remind me of the line from Ghostbusters, "choose the form of the destroyer".
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I stopped making life decisions based on political winds about 40 years ago.
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It's like the old expression "How do you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving."
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It's like the old expression "How do you te)it when a politician is lying? His lips are moving."
No lack of moving lips this season.
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Following current political developments out of necessity with mid-terms closing in. Still not thrilled with the lack of cohesiveness on the left at least as a sane alternative. Sure do pray.
It sometimes seems like sanity is in short supply on both sides. Elections increasingly remind me of the line from Ghostbusters, "choose the form of the destroyer".
I could really get behind the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man - except when he steps on churches.
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Following current political developments out of necessity with mid-terms closing in. Still not thrilled with the lack of cohesiveness on the left at least as a sane alternative. Sure do pray.
It sometimes seems like sanity is in short supply on both sides. Elections increasingly remind me of the line from Ghostbusters, "choose the form of the destroyer".
I could really get behind the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man - except when he steps on churches.
Some things out there that pass for churches could do with being stepped on
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I finished a couple of bowls - cutting the tenons off the bottoms and then sanding and treating the bottoms.
I also turned a couple more bowls from a new wood I was given, I spotted a guy cutting up a fallen tree while out running and went back to get some of the wood later. It's got a gorgeous grain pattern
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Whelp. Left leaning lips invariably talk about healthcare & Medicaid. These are important things but do not even begin to approach the foundational issues and existential trends tearing at our constitiutional republic and our hard-earned place in history and today's world. As if the sole purpose of government is to redistribute wealth and to take care of me.
(Though I an flattered!)
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Okay. No more political ranting here.
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Okay. No more political ranting here.
If most people read anything that the founders wrote, they would recognize few if any of the concepts related to freedom, personal piety and responsibility, being a good neighbor, the value of work, ideas such as duty, sacrifice, honor….
I must confess that I am delighted to be in the final 1/3 of my earthly existence as I share so little in common with the majority of people living in country in which I was born
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Whelp. Left leaning lips invariably talk about healthcare & Medicaid. These are important things but do not even begin to approach the foundational issues and existential trends tearing at our constitiutional republic and our hard-earned place in history and today's world. As if the sole purpose of government is to redistribute wealth and to take care of me.
(Though I an flattered!)
Healthcare is important but the reality is that it's an area where demand will always outstrip supply. The only question is how a limited supply should be rationed. Having the market ration it is brutal if you can't afford to pay. Having rationing by waiting list is no less brutal, all it does it makes it harder to pay to avoid the wait.
People hold up the UK as an example of socialized medicine. It's nice to be treated in the UK and not worry about the bill when you come out, but it's not so nice when you're on month 18 of a 16 week wait (yes, you did read that right) and there's still no sign of when, or even if, you're going to be treated. When you pay into the system for your entire working life but then find there's a 9 month waiting list for the surgery you need, and your life expectency without the surgery is six months. What's really fun is when you call to cancel an appointment and reschedule it, then get a nasty letter for missing your appointment (the original one, that you rescheduled) and find yourself pushed to the back of the line because you didn't show up.
Of course a system that pumps people full of garbage under the guise of calling it food and prefers to profit from treating symptoms than preventing problems in the first place doesn't help.
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As a user of the Canadian system which is similar to the NHS no doubt, the issues tango beings up are similar tough I suspect slightly less hyperbolic. Life saving care is about as quick and as effective as the US. Overall health outcomes are pretty much the same. Diagnostics is probably the biggest wait which is tough of you need an MRI. Specialists can be a bit of a wait as well. Access to GP's is a big one right now.
Pharmaceuticals seems to be the main area the US really gets hosed with. Mark Cuban started what I am assuming is a pharmacy for generics that has been fairly effective in lowering certain drug costs.
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As a user of the Canadian system which is similar to the NHS no doubt, the issues tango beings up are similar tough I suspect slightly less hyperbolic. Life saving care is about as quick and as effective as the US. Overall health outcomes are pretty much the same. Diagnostics is probably the biggest wait which is tough of you need an MRI. Specialists can be a bit of a wait as well. Access to GP's is a big one right now.
Pharmaceuticals seems to be the main area the US really gets hosed with. Mark Cuban started what I am assuming is a pharmacy for generics that has been fairly effective in lowering certain drug costs.
Much of the healthcare system in the US does look like a farce, much of it seems like little more than "think of a number and double it.
The examples I listed above are based on people I have known personally who have dealt with the NHS taking money from their income every month and then abandoning them when they needed it. The ineptitude and mismanagement is truly staggering.
I can't comment on the Canadian system having never used it.
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Yes, it's very true the US food industry is harmful (per Tango). Having fought and reversed type II diabetes over the last 10 years, I have learned to abstain from every form of processed food which is basically unnatural & poison on the whole.
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Yes, it's very true the US food industry is harmful (per Tango). Having fought and reversed type II diabetes over the last 10 years, I have learned to abstain from every form of processed food which is basically unnatural & poison on the whole.
We did the same with my wife’s ulcerative colitis.
Now now meds after years and perfect colonoscopy with zero biopsy microscopic evidence
Healed
With food
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I made a mistake this morning. Our church is having a "Free For All." Picture a rummage sale without any money changing hands. If you have something you want to get rid of bring it. If you see something you like, take it. Today is the day for people to bring in donations, along with the people to organize things. I had a couple things I wanted to donate.so I brought them by. I looked around a bit, as well as helped a bit. While I was looking around I found a couple things I wanted. It'll probably go back tomorrow to look around some more. I'll probably end up getting more things. I know I should say away from this, I always end up getting more than I leave.
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Two epic fails in the same turned bowl this evening.
I started with a log that had a couple of cracks but that I thought would be OK. Part way through turning it one of the cracks gave and a big chunk flew off. I was all set to dump the whole piece but instead I steadied it with the tailstock and used a fine cutter to remove the top couple of inches, getting rid of the cracked area. Then I hollowed out the rest of it and just tried to smooth out a rough section on the outside (that was my mistake, to revisit the outside once it was hollowed out), and despite trying to take a really fine cut just to smooth it out, I got a catch and half the bowl flew across the room.
So after four hours I created a honking great pile of shavings and a bowl that blew apart. Oh well, it's relaxing playing with the lathe even if it doesn't work out.
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Spaghetti
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Stripping paint from a door.
At some point in the history of this door someone decided that what a vintage hand made antique door needed was to be painted the most unpleasant shade of pink you can imagine. So now it falls to me to spend hours with a heat gun removing the nasty pink paint in the hopes of restoring this door to its former glory, at which point I can make a frame for it and hang it in a bedroom doorway.
Rather annoyingly having the door in my basement so I can bring the heat gun to bear on it makes it difficult to get at my new lathe, so no bowls for a day or two :(
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Camping. Wildfire smoke is not too bad here. Couple sections of highway are closed due to fires so considering alternatives to get home. That's not for a couple days so things could change.
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Stay safe!
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Enjoy the camping!
I hope you enjoy it more than I've been enjoying stripping my door. It's a pretty low bar to clear....
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Getting ready for the second (and final) honey harvest of the year
53 pounds earlier in the year
I expect about 40-45 pounds out of this time since it’s only been a couple of months
Then just wave the girls alone until the spring
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Enjoy the camping!
I hope you enjoy it more than I've been enjoying stripping my door. It's a pretty low bar to clear....
Well I got stung by a bee or wasp yesterday and now my hand is all swollen and sore. I must be developing more of an allergy to them.
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Enjoy the camping!
I hope you enjoy it more than I've been enjoying stripping my door. It's a pretty low bar to clear....
Well I got stung by a bee or wasp yesterday and now my hand is all swollen and sore. I must be developing more of an allergy to them.
Ouch.... not what you want as a notable moment of the trip. Hope it clears up soon.
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I finally got my door sanded to a point I'm happy to continue, and now it's stained, wiped and slowly drying.
We have our granddaughters tomorrow so lacquering it will probably have to wait until Wednesday.
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An interesting encounter this afternoon. My wife and I took our young granddaughters to the beach at the local state park and after playing with them for a while in the lake and on the beach, a couple of older ladies commented on what good grandparents we were. That was good to hear, but all we were doing was simple stuff - building in the sand, burying the girls in the sand, running in and out of the lake with them and so on.
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The door now has three coats of lacquer on it. Next up is to build a frame around it and hang it. That will have to wait because we have our granddaughters again tomorrow.
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Talked at length with a young guy today who is Jewish and was age 10 when the current President was first elected.
He lent certain insight into how the newer generation is adapting to the reality of politcs. I am surprised at the growing numbers of Jewish people who are actually anti Zionists.
As the world turns.
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A community about 15 minutes from my sister's town has been completely evacuated due to a wildfire. Map shows the front is in the town itself. I think they are on alert, but I think they'll be OK. Just a lot of smoke in town.
News reported that the fire was discovered on the 7th, and grew to 50km2 in just three hours, then doubled overnight.
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Sorry about that!
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A community about 15 minutes from my sister's town has been completely evacuated due to a wildfire. Map shows the front is in the town itself. I think they are on alert, but I think they'll be OK. Just a lot of smoke in town.
News reported that the fire was discovered on the 7th, and grew to 50km2 in just three hours, then doubled overnight.
You guys ok?
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A community about 15 minutes from my sister's town has been completely evacuated due to a wildfire. Map shows the front is in the town itself. I think they are on alert, but I think they'll be OK. Just a lot of smoke in town.
News reported that the fire was discovered on the 7th, and grew to 50km2 in just three hours, then doubled overnight.
You guys ok?
We are hundreds of km away so we are fine.
My sister last reported that threat to them is low. 19000 people were evacuated from the neighbouring town. Current fire extent looks like it has not grown much as it's up against a large lake. Hopefully they can preserveich of the town.
The tiny little community where the fire started is pretty much gone.
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I finally got to turning a piece of striped wood, a couple of days ago I turned it from a block into a cylinder, and today I started to turn it into a goblet with a captive ring. Having drilled out the middle I need to build a steady rest so I can hollow it out without lots of chatter and the potential for the goblet to fly across the room at speed.
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And here I thought you had taken up bowling…
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And here I thought you had taken up bowling…
I did, it's just that this bowl sits atop a stick.
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Today I found a pair of roller blades at the local thrift shop. I'm going to take the wheels off the bottoms and use them to make a steady rest.
Pending making a steady rest I turned another bowl from a piece of redbud. It's got a gorgeous grain pattern.
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No progress made on anything measurable yesterday, the house was invaded by two little hurricanes. These particular hurricanes squealed with laughter when they got soaked during a big water fight :)
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I started working on building a door frame but hit a problem, my planer is resting on my work bench, and I can't get at any of it because my old lathe is in the way. So I took a break, and turned another bowl out of another piece of redbud. It's got a glorious grain pattern.
Tomorrow we're expecting the hurricanes again. The weather forecast isn't great so I suspect we'll be making stuff in the kitchen and maybe doing whatever wood work seems like it's safe for small children to either join in or just watch.
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We survived another encounter with the hurricanes. This is the last time we'll watch them before they go back to school - next week they're at their dad's. My wife and I are sad about that. But it means I can make more progress on what will be their room, now I don't have to clear it out and make everything safe every other week.
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New experience for me today
I watched a crew drill a well at my house
12 inch well bore casing 83 feet depth
8 inch shaft to depth of 200 feet
Is producing approx 4 gallons per minute . They were hoping for 2.5 to 3 gpm, so turned out to be a good well
Well bore is filled 120 feet from bottom
Now they have to order the pump (stainless steel hand pump) now that they know how much tubing they will need
An entertaining and educational afternoon
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New experience for me today
I watched a crew drill a well at my house
12 inch well bore casing 83 feet depth
8 inch shaft to depth of 200 feet
Is producing approx 4 gallons per minute . They were hoping for 2.5 to 3 gpm, so turned out to be a good well
Well bore is filled 120 feet from bottom
Now they have to order the pump (stainless steel hand pump) now that they know how much tubing they will need
An entertaining and educational afternoon
Glad they got it on the first try. I know folks out here are always worried about getting it right the first time, drilling costs being what they are.
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A simple side note. We have a set of wooden bricks that belonged to my wife's father, and possibly his father (we're not sure about that part, and nobody who could answer that question is still alive). The girls love playing with them but there are only so many and sometimes they fight over them. So I figured, I've got some big saws and woodworking tools, I could make some more.
I cut a few test pieces yesterday and, aside from not being painted, they look more or less identical. So before the girls are next here I may just make another big pile of them. I had hoped to make another little cart to carry them, much like the one the existing bricks are in, and have the girls help me make it even if that means nothing more than driving a few screws or something. But at this stage they don't really have the interest to stick with it for any length of time, so I think I'll just make the bricks myself and maybe revisit the cart idea later. Perhaps I'll go ahead and cut the pieces so if they are interested they can put some screws in.
I'm hoping that if they help make the cart, even if only incidentally, they will feel more of a sense of ownership of it than if I just make it and give it to them.
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Recovering from a very busy day. The Good News Ambassadors, our church touring choir, had a gig yesterday. Which means I had to be at the church at 9AM, which is when I normally get up. Which means I had to get up a lot earlier than normal. Then rehearse and go over to the Councilor on the Aging for.the concert. A very brief stop at McDonald's. Then back to.the church to pick up my car. Then run some errands. Then, finally, back home to relax and finally eat a bit of breakfast. Then I had to be back at church by 6PM for our first handbell practice of the season. I'm debating on walking over to a small neighborhood supermarket to pick up something that I'm a bit short on. But I may not. I have enough to get me through tonight and The Ambassadors have a rehearsal tomorrow and I can pick it up while I'm out. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about talking with my primary care dr about seeing a cyropractor. I'm having pain in my lower back and neck and I am having a bit of a problem standing for any length of time. Also I have another eye injection next week.
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Shoveled and moved about 20-25 large wheelbarrows full of the tailings from the well to a point about 40 yards away in back of the house to fill in some low spots
Remind me not to do that again in the heat
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My legs aren't liking me much today. My fitness software had a challenge to run a 15k this month, which I did yesterday. Today my legs are a bit stiff. It's been a while since I ran that far without taking any walk breaks at all, in the summertime I find I overheat and need to cool off but yesterday was cool enough that I could just go for it.
And for good measure I turned another bowl out of a piece of hemlock. I don't care for turning hemlock, the fibers in it tear out and it takes an age to sand it smooth. It looks nice when it's done, but other woods are so much easier to work with.
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Brake shop blues! I damaged rotor.
Salvation. Preservation. The LORD Is Good!
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Keep me in your prayers. I have my 5th macular degeneration eye shot on Thursday. If I remember correctly, this is series of 10 shots. So this takes me half way.
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Keep me in your prayers. I have my 5th macular degeneration eye shot on Thursday. If I remember correctly, this is series of 10 shots. So this takes me half way.
Give new meaning to the phrase “cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye”
Ouch!!!!!
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Today I ate far too much fried chicken at our annual church picnic, then took a long nap in my recliner and went for a walk to walk off the fried chicken. Then I spent a few hours turning a very tricky piece of black cherry into a bowl. The grain pattern is beautiful but for some reason I kept getting catches when I hollowed it out. I wanted to turn it thinner than I did, but was getting concerned that one good catch could destroy it completely, so played it very cautiously.
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Keep me in your prayers. I have my 5th macular degeneration eye shot on Thursday. If I remember correctly, this is series of 10 shots. So this takes me half way.
Give new meaning to the phrase “cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye”
Ouch!!!!!
LOL. Fortunately, they numb the eye very well before the injection.
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Playing a week of "Is it white coat syndrome or is it hypertension!" (What new ways can my body think of to try to kill me next).
Though it's been about 5 years since we last played this game. Weee.
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I scored a nice chunk of maple while out running, so that's added to my stacks of wood in the garage.
This afternoon I decided to turn a chunk of sycamore that's been there for a few months now. I had hoped to turn a couple of matching square plates out of it but cutting it is all but impossible because I don't have anything that will cut through that thickness. So I turned it into a bowl. I very nearly abandoned it because the wood had a lot of cracks in it, but decided to take it very carefully and not try to make the sides too thin. So now I've got a very nice looking bowl that weighs more than several of my other bowls combined. It feels like you could drop-kick it into next week and it wouldn't notice.
Tomorrow evening we have company so Wednesday's job is probably going to be turning a chunk of black cherry that's an effort to lift into a giant plate for my wife.
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Playing a week of "Is it white coat syndrome or is it hypertension!" (What new ways can my body think of to try to kill me next).
Though it's been about 5 years since we last played this game. Weee.
I had a bp spike over 12 years ago, brought on by an event, which damaged a heart chamber. It was erroneously (later) diagnosed as a heart attack. I can now feel spikes triggered by stressful situations.
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Playing a week of "Is it white coat syndrome or is it hypertension!" (What new ways can my body think of to try to kill me next).
Though it's been about 5 years since we last played this game. Weee.
I had a bp spike over 12 years ago, brought on by an event, which damaged a heart chamber. It was erroneously (later) diagnosed as a heart attack. I can now feel spikes triggered by stressful situations.
That's not so good :( Is that just a thing now they need to be aware of, or future consequences yet unknown?
This time is because I got sick last week, developed pulsatile tinnitus, which is they think caused by pressure / fluid in my ear and not anything else, but just to be safe, BP readings. I would expect I'm in the "you're fine but try to lose weight and eat more omega 3s" category.
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Playing a week of "Is it white coat syndrome or is it hypertension!" (What new ways can my body think of to try to kill me next).
Though it's been about 5 years since we last played this game. Weee.
I had a bp spike over 12 years ago, brought on by an event, which damaged a heart chamber. It was erroneously (later) diagnosed as a heart attack. I can now feel spikes triggered by stressful situations.
That's not so good :( Is that just a thing now they need to be aware of, or future consequences yet unknown?
This time is because I got sick last week, developed pulsatile tinnitus, which is they think caused by pressure / fluid in my ear and not anything else, but just to be safe, BP readings. I would expect I'm in the "you're fine but try to lose weight and eat more omega 3s" category.
Good!
For me it's a matter of maintaining healthy diet & lifestyle. Not considered high risk. So far.
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I mounted a large piece of black cherry to my lathe. I needed to trim some corners off with a chainsaw, and also took a chunk off the back of it rather than spending an age chipping away at it with a gouge.
I got the outside turned and sanded. Tomorrow's job is to cut a mortise in the bottom, flip it and mount it in a chuck, and hollow out the inside. I'm hoping I can do that without it becoming a very large and heavy projectile. Using the tailstock to hold a central column in place will help with that.
i'm thinking I might turn some small nightlight candle holders out of the section I cut off the back. Depending on how many I can make out of it I'm thinking of giving them to my wife, my daughter and one or more granddaughters.
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The giant bowl is finished. My wife loves it.
Looking at the space inside of it, and the sheer amount of shavings that came out of it, I've been thinking about the bowl coring systems out there. They feel kinda like cheating but mean that a honking great log like I had to work with would create three or four nested bowls rather than just one.
The downside is that for a large lathe the price isn't very pretty. The other downside is that part of the relaxation of making a bowl is hollowing out the inside, which would rather go away with an automated system
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I ended up spending the afternoon waiting on AAA to jump my car. I've been having trouble getting my car started. After they got it started I headed over to Tuffy to get a new battery. On the up side I learned that I had gotten 7 years out of this on. Which is pretty good considering they are only designed to last 2.
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Our cat had his annual visit to the vet today. He wasn't very happy about it. He's lost nearly 30% of his body weight in two years which on the face of it is worrying but the vet says he's still a bit on the tubby side. The vet didn't put it quite like that, he used much more medically professional terminology, but the reality is our cat is a bit tubby. Aside from that he's still in good health, but not very happy with us at the moment. At least he didn't get anything stuck in him this visit.
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It's been a couple of days since I got at the lathe, so I turned another bowl this evening. A friend of mine gave me some funky wood with a curious pattern, and it created an unexpected effect on the bottom of the bowl. I really like it, I wish I'd taken more of the wood now. But I've got enough to turn another three bowls. Maybe I'll keep one and sell three, or maybe I'll give them out as Christmas gifts or something.
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Dropping off child number 2 at university for the first year
Child number one just wrote MCAT today, then off to 3rd year out east.
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I finished the funky bowl. I couldn't sand it right away because the wood was wet, but today I could. So I sanded it smooth and applied my finish to it, and now it's absolutely gorgeous.
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We have handbell practice tonight. The last one before we preform at both services on Sunday.
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I took the chance to burn a load of old documents that need to be destroyed rather than disposed. While I had the burn barrel going I also burned a load of scraps from the woodshop.
I was at something of a loose end this afternoon so turned a bowl out of a half log I had laying around, and then grabbed another log from the garage, cut it in half, and turned another bowl from it.
I'm trying to get a mixture of beeswax and mineral oil to come out to the consistency I want but after melting and re-setting it many times it's still far too solid. So I've got another melt going in a crock pot in the basement, hoping adding another 1/8 cup of oil to the mix will soften it enough to use. Ironically I recently discovered a finish I can buy for $13 in a 12oz bottle that may render the entire thing redundant, but we'll see.
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I hope this works. My latest creation
https://1drv.ms/i/c/e4e9417d05d2a830/IQBVupm9G-0bSriJwzdfpVnuAXxDrQNtjbmm8-zngHMUpWE
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I hope this works. My latest creation
https://1drv.ms/i/c/e4e9417d05d2a830/IQBVupm9G-0bSriJwzdfpVnuAXxDrQNtjbmm8-zngHMUpWE (https://1drv.ms/i/c/e4e9417d05d2a830/IQBVupm9G-0bSriJwzdfpVnuAXxDrQNtjbmm8-zngHMUpWE)
Very awesome!
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I regularly get jokes in my email. I got one today that is so bad I have to pass it along.
Why is dark spelled with a K and not a C?
I'll be back later with the answer, if nobody comes up with it sooner.
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I regularly get jokes in my email. I got one today that is so bad I have to pass it along.
Why is dark spelled with a K and not a C?
I'll be back later with the answer, if nobody comes up with it sooner.
Because you can't see (C) in the dark!
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I regularly get jokes in my email. I got one today that is so bad I have to pass it along.
Why is dark spelled with a K and not a C?
I'll be back later with the answer, if nobody comes up with it sooner.
Because you can't see (C) in the dark!
>:(
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(https://i.ibb.co/qLf7Lt6X/500x750-pelican-back-door-with-monofilament.png) (https://ibb.co/LDWYDLKb)
A brown pelican waits at the main door of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center Panama City Laboratory. Credit: Ty Jones, facility manager
A brown pelican waits at the main door of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center Panama City Laboratory. Credit: Ty Jones,
Monofilament line and hooks were successfully removed ;)
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(https://i.ibb.co/20GHQrQc/480x0.webp) (https://imgbb.com/)
"Move to the city," they said! (Bay Area, Cal)
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Hi, I hope you are doing well. I have not been able to get back here for a while. I tried to respond to your message but was blocked. Anyway, hope you are doing well
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Hi, I hope you are doing well. I have not been able to get back here for a while. I tried to respond to your message but was blocked. Anyway, hope you are doing well
Great! Be well!
Messages fixed.
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I made a couple more bowls this afternoon. One was made from hemlock, I really don't like working with hemlock but I had some spare and wanted to test a new gouge on it. I still don't like it.
The second bowl was made from redbud, which cuts beautifully and the grain pattern is stunning. I'm starting to get the hang of this new bowl gouge, this bowl has the nicest finish I've managed in a while.
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I often talk with conflicted tech workers in this tech capitol who are concerned about the push for unregulated AI.
"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."
Appears significant days could be on the near-horizon. IMO.
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Almost done a mine rescue and safety course.
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A while back I bought a medical alert pendant and I have been wearing it most of the time. It is one of those things that I didn’t really need but if you wait until you actually need it it will probably be to late. But Monday I was glad I had it. Our church drama ministry has an improve class on Monday evening. As I was going into the house I had a number of things in my arms and I dropped some of them. As I was bent over trying to pick them up I fell. I wasn't really hurt, a small sore spot on my butt. But my pendant, which detects falls, went off. Rather than stopping the alert I let it go through. I knew I didn't need any medical aid. But I wasn‘t sure I wouldn't need assistance in getting up. Something I am having difficulty doing. So I let the call go through and explained the situation to the person on the other end of the call and asked him to stay on the line in case I did need some help getting up. He did and I talked to him as I managed to struggle to my feet. I didn’t end up needing help, but it was comforting to know it was standing by if I needed it. All in all, all I ended up with is a sore spot on my butt.
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I turned another bowl this afternoon. I started it several days ago but a misjudgement caused my finger to have a disagreement with a spinning piece of wood, which didn't end well. My finger is still wrapped up but working the lathe is back on the table. My wife and I are taking a load of bowls to a local craft fair at the weekend, hopefully I can shift a few of them, free up some space and help pay for my new passion
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Today I'm hanging around my hospital waiting for them to bench send me to rehab. More of the story in PRAYERS.
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I turned another bowl this afternoon. I started it several days ago but a misjudgement caused my finger to have a disagreement with a spinning piece of wood, which didn't end well. My finger is still wrapped up but working the lathe is back on the table. My wife and I are taking a load of bowls to a local craft fair at the weekend, hopefully I can shift a few of them, free up some space and help pay for my new passion
I managed to sell 10 of my bowls, and a couple of other wooden things I made. I wasn't sure what pricing the local market would support so I took a best guess. My wife thought my prices were too high but after seeing what sold I think there's scope to edge some of them up bit higher. The bowls with the highest price tags on them sold to people who didn't bat an eyelid at the prices.
The next fair is a bit more artisan so I'll need to make some more bowls, and nudge the prices up a little too.
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I got a couple more bowls turned today. One from redbud, which I absolutely love, I'm not sure if I'm going to sell it or keep it for myself.
Then I turned a bowl from sycamore. I wasn't thrilled about sycamore before but having turned this really thin using my new bowl gouge I really like it. Not enough to keep it, but enough to work with the rest of the sycamore I have on hand.
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Just got back from 'Other Mommy'. Eh... 6 / 10 ? Had the potential to be a lot better.
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Visiting our daughter in Ontario for a few days. Out for dinner tonight, then back to the West Coast for a couple days before heading home.
Edit:
Oh and Happy Thanksgiving to any and all Canadians.
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I went to a fair at a nearby state park with my wife over the weekend. Among the demonstrators were a few people from my wood turning group. The president of the group made a snowman tree ornament for me, which was an interesting design. I've made loads of regular snowmen but kinda liked the one he made. He wanted to see if I could copy it, so I took it home with me. Later that afternoon I turned one of my style of snowmen. He seemed surprised when I said the only tool I needed was a skew, and later said he thought my skew technique was good.
This afternoon I was working on making copies of his snowman. Most of it is easy enough but there's a thin section at the bottom that's tricky to do with a wide skew. I need to sharpen my spindle gouge to be able to do that, or accept some limitations and use a narrower skew. It's curious turning with a tailstock because it means I can crank the speed much higher and make more aggressive cuts knowing my workpiece isn't going to spring out of the jaws of the chuck and become a missile.
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Making more sawdust today. I figured out an easier way to make the new snowman design, and turned out four of them. Then I turned a load of regular snowmen. There would have been a fifth new snowman but I got a nasty skew catch and broke a piece off, so I'm not sure if it's salvageable. I now have a growing box of snowmen of varying designs.
One snowman blank turned out to have a punky section near the chuck end, so I turned a smaller snowman to avoid the punky bit. When I sent a picture of the range of snowmen to my daughter her response was "that little one is so adorable". Take a wild guess what she might be getting for Christmas.....
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Making more sawdust today. I figured out an easier way to make the new snowman design, and turned out four of them. Then I turned a load of regular snowmen. There would have been a fifth new snowman but I got a nasty skew catch and broke a piece off, so I'm not sure if it's salvageable. I now have a growing box of snowmen of varying designs.
One snowman blank turned out to have a punky section near the chuck end, so I turned a smaller snowman to avoid the punky bit. When I sent a picture of the range of snowmen to my daughter her response was "that little one is so adorable". Take a wild guess what she might be getting for Christmas.....
I think they now call that an "other abled" snowman...
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A bit more sawdust made yesterday. I had a bunch of blanks and decided to turn out some more snowmen. I have an army of them now, I probably won't sell this many but I kinda like making them.
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Heart of the beast. AI capitol of the world.
(https://i.ibb.co/FknyT0Gx/20261014-132440.jpg) (https://ibb.co/8nXfZdFK)
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Collected my wife's car from the dealership, it needed some work to pass its inspection and the bill was a bit uglier than I'd hoped. Still, cheaper than buying a new car.
Then I turned a couple more bowls, a large one from black cherry and a smaller one from sycamore.
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Another bunch of bowls today. I made a couple of small things from sycamore and then I was on a roll so I made some more. I found a chunk of sycamore in the garage so I cut it into shorter pieces, split each piece in half, and started making stuff out of them.
Now I have a growing collection of bowls on my diing table. Again.
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Four more bowls, two from sycamore and two from eastern redbud. I also made a slightly unusual tree from a random offcut of redbud that nearly ended up in the burn pile. I was going to give it to my daughter but my wife claimed it first.
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Four more bowls, two from sycamore and two from eastern redbud. I also made a slightly unusual tree from a random offcut of redbud that nearly ended up in the burn pile. I was going to give it to my daughter but my wife claimed it first.
Anticipating the Super Bowl
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Four more bowls, two from sycamore and two from eastern redbud. I also made a slightly unusual tree from a random offcut of redbud that nearly ended up in the burn pile. I was going to give it to my daughter but my wife claimed it first.
Anticipating the Super Bowl
I'm waiting on the Aloha Bowl...
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Seeing if I survive round 5 of layoffs.
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Four more bowls, two from sycamore and two from eastern redbud. I also made a slightly unusual tree from a random offcut of redbud that nearly ended up in the burn pile. I was going to give it to my daughter but my wife claimed it first.
Anticipating the Super Bowl
I made a hefty bowl from black cherry, it's about 16 inches across and 7 inches deep. It's now our fruit bowl, my wife decided to use it instead of the bowl we had been using that was her grandmother's.
I have a piece of black cherry that should be big enough to make a slightly larger bowl, it's the other half of the trunk I cut because it was difficult to lift, so it's about the same diameter but slightly thicker.
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Seeing if I survive round 5 of layoffs.
Ouch.
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Seeing if I survive round 5 of layoffs.
Ouch.
Yep.
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Seeing if I survive round 5 of layoffs.
Ouch.
Yep.
Dd you survive it?
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Four more bowls, two from sycamore and two from eastern redbud. I also made a slightly unusual tree from a random offcut of redbud that nearly ended up in the burn pile. I was going to give it to my daughter but my wife claimed it first.
Anticipating the Super Bowl
I made a hefty bowl from black cherry, it's about 16 inches across and 7 inches deep. It's now our fruit bowl, my wife decided to use it instead of the bowl we had been using that was her grandmother's.
I have a piece of black cherry that should be big enough to make a slightly larger bowl, it's the other half of the trunk I cut because it was difficult to lift, so it's about the same diameter but slightly thicker.
Today I hauled a hefty chunk of maple from the garage to the basement. It was an effort to move it, my chainsaw needed to cut through it from both sides, but I got it mounted on the lathe and turned. I got a load of glorious ribbons flying when I hollowed it out, I've never seen ribbons quite like that before.
Now I have a bowl that's about 13" across and 8" high. It's the second largest thing I've ever turned, it's slightly taller and only slightly narrower than the fruit bowl I made.
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Seeing if I survive round 5 of layoffs.
Ouch.
Yep.
Dd you survive it?
Oh, this is not your awful sudden but sensible "cut once, deep, quickly" layoff. It's "let's drag it out over months". So I don't know, but so far at least.