One year ago today: January 22, 2016, the Alamo, a timing error.
Five years ago today: January 22, 2012, gahunking.
Nine years ago today: January 22, 2008, lead player Nirvana.
Random years ago today: January 22, 2013, them ain’t bales of hay.
MORNING
How was I supposed to know building a screen door would be fun? I haven’t fitted it to the frame yet. Be warned I’ve hung doors before and it gives me a headache. But making the door itself—that was entertainment. I’m using pine 1”x4”, popularized by small robot projects since 2010, you can imagine the door was a more ambitious undertaking, and the largest object I’ve built of the kind. Prior to now, I didn’t have the sheer room.
The point here is that this is considerably nicer work than the screen windows [that are already] on the house. I deduce that those were built by a different carpenter well after the house was complete. And he was in a hurry. The wood he used is cheaper and has warped in place. I’ll try to rustle up some photos of that. You’ll see that the trim I made first try is quite superior and that puts me in good spirits. I would be, what’s the word, uplifted? Yep, I’d be uplifted to learn I could build and trim the porch and sunroom as easily and enjoyably as working with that screen door.
My choice of wood may not have been so great. The wood is soft, though I don’t mean softwood. I mean that it bends by itself and I may have to put some gussets on the corners to keep it cornered and rigid. But so what, a week ago I would not have thought I’d get this far. I decided to stay home last evening, as there was a lack of enthusiasm in the lady I asked to the theater. I decided to not follow up on the invitation. So now I’m up at 5:30AM planning to repair window screens. You can’t have it both ways.
One can certainly have great breakfasts around here, mind you. Before sun up there was perogies with bacon onion sauce and scalding hot coffee with too much Carnation. Enjoy, as these cannot be made up in advance so dig in while it’s billowing right off the stove. The only thing missing, one may conclude, is a screen door. What? Sure, help youself, there’s lots more and the coffee pot is full. Why, yes, that is the best Sunday coffee in the world. Maxwell House.
Safety first.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
Here, the glue is dry so you can take a look at the screen door frame. This has not yet been fitted to the house door frame and we know that frame has been warped. The basic design here is pretty evident. I think it will look just fine, although I admit it was not the best choice of wood. I also know where to look for the mistakes, but this is all chalked up to learning experience. I suspect my next screen doors may be made from solid tongue-and-groove oak.
Say, the reminds me, I have another anti-guitar joke. I regularly meet guitar players in the situation where I am the first person in their freaking lives they’ve ever met that will criticize the whole guitar mantra. That’s correct, until they met me, they have never heard a word of condemnation of their little guitar world. Want to hear my latest? Goes like this:
Q: You know the hardest part about playing “Hotel California” on guitar?
A: Admitting to your parents that you’re gay.
BWAAAAA-ha-ha-ha-ha! Not only has the wind picked up, it is far from steady. So forget any motorcycle trips. I’ll take the scooter to buy the miter box and get you a picture. That’s probably it, although I do have the option to work inside my nice shed now. It’s a Darwin thing, but the birds are going fierce and brave at the feeder. They know. There’s a new customer above the tree line, a large hawk or small eagle, I don’t know. But he’s young, aggressive, hungry, and a magnificent specimen.
Like I said, JZ’s not answering his phone, so I’m going ahead and taking down that big camphor tree that is way over-balanced into the church parking lot. (The law says I’m responsible if it falls.). He’s there, because I get RBT (ring-back tone), but nobody’s home. I’ve examined the screen windows, they are made with lapped joints. So I’ll straighten and paint them, I think, and do a better job of the laths and in the process force myself to make expert miter cuts.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the miter box. I’ve cut joints before with larger pieces, like 2”x4”s and picture frames, but never to any exactitude. If they didn’t fit, well, that was close enough and besides, you could just fill in any cracks with putty and carry on. This time, I’m doing it right. That’s another reason for the work shed. I still have not poured the floor mortar there yet because of the shifting sand, but you know, for what it’s worth, I think I may just pour it anyway. I tend to do most wood cutting and drilling standing up anyway.
Listen, I gotta go, I put a home-made blueberry pie in the oven and the aroma is incredible. I haven’t eaten this much blueberry pie since the time I OD’s on it at Andy McMaster’s house when I was eleven.
[Author’s note: finding it impractical to hunt for pie fillings without that gross HFCS, I’ve taken to making my own pie sweetener from white sugar. Kind of a generic mix for fruit pie, and today I went for frozen blueberries. I have a tendency to light a coal oil lamp when making these pies, it does give the kitchen a characteristic extra scent which some citified people may not like. But you want home-made pie, you should get a wee whiff of eau-de-petroleum for authenticity. Don’t laugh, the two have a complimentary effect and I know people who hated it until they experience it.
My opinion is that these days the ONLY way you can possibly know what is in a pie is if you make it yourself. I’ve never made a peach or pecan pie, but they’re near top of my list.]
“If She Puts Lipstick On My Dipstick I'll Fall In Love.”
AFTERNOON
My pie came out kind of runny, but I’m learning. It was more like a cobbler by the time I got it on my plate. It was still good. So good I skipped a nutritious lunch so I could have a second helping. By summertime, no fruit, berry, or quiche ingredient will be safe in my kitchen. I ran up to the laundry to beat the rainstorm heading right this way. It’s coming off the Gulf from the southwest and the radio says gusts 56 mph. Isn’t 55 and above like a tornado warning or something.
Being a good $40 under budget, I purchased one of those “oscillating tools”. They no longer come with a complimentary cutting blade, so I picked up a set of those. Gotta see what’s under all that goopy paint on the kitchen door. I also invested in one of those “ogee” bits with an adjustable collar. I know those parts have fancy names, whereas the terms I use are descriptive.
[Author’s note: you know, my neighbor and many like him with all the carpentry gear in the world? That he’s never used? I’ll bet he knows the proper name of every one of those doodads. Know what I mean?
Did you know that’s twice now he’s complimented me on my sawhorses? My varnished sawhorses, built out of scrap 2”x4”s. They are pretty nice, I guess, compared to somebody who doesn’t have any. Notice I could have said “somebody who doesn’t have a pair”, but I don’t want 90,000 people confusing my neighbor with Ken Sanchuk, the guy who doesn’t pay his debts.]
NIGHT
There were no miter boxes without a matching saw, which I already have. So I didn’t buy one. In nine days, I have a budget for a compound crosscut saw, a really nice model. It’s already dark but you know why I don’t care? Because I have an electrified work shed, with power tools and fans and a radio. The wind is howling by now, but still no rain. I don’t care, for the first time I’m going to work on wood after dark. It’s just puttering—and I’ve got ten bucks says this puttering is going to become a major factor in my retirement and yours. If you are lucky.
In a few minutes, I’m going out to my unfinished shed with a couple cans of Budweiser Natural. To make some drawer pulls for the dresser I scrounged last day. I’ve got no counters set up in the shed yet, so maybe I’ll make another pair of sawhorses. A comment on my router, yes, it is overkill for what I do, but damn, you should see that thing make short work of the lumber I put it to. When I took inventory, I notice I have one of those dovetail bits. That I’ve never used. It must have come with a set since I don’t know how to use it.
Okay, okay, here’s your picture of the blueberry pie. Next to my coffee carafe. The storm had me back in the house after the breeze nearly took my new shed door off the hinges. I clamped it shut from the outside with a hundred pounds of patio bricks. I barely had time to tarp the motorbikes and yard implements. And the unpainted screen door. I had time to make two crappy drawer handles at which point I decided no shed in this county is a safe place to hang around on a night like this.
I ducked into the main house and found which doors and windows tended to rattle. Just two, so I battened them down and put on some tea. Here’s a tale from the trailer court. You can believe that thunder can rattle walls. Not as bad as living in a trailer over here, so I never gave a second thought to that weakly anchored shelf on the kitchen wall. The one where I used to store all my cooking pots, past tense. It cam down with a crash and a half at the first wallop of thunder. I’ll clean it up tomorrow, I’m tired by now. We’ve had windstorms before, this is just my first one here.
ADDENDUM
Do I log the time making the drawer handles? Of course not, they don’t add to the value of the property. To be precise, neither does raking the leaves. The difference is that if they don’t get raked, the value declines. So it took me five hours to put in two hours today, if you include standing in the HF checkout. It’s like this blog, if you don’t know that it is only one thing I type on a daily basis, you’d think that’s all I do. Far from it. Today’s blog was written in roughly ten-minute chunks.
Here’s a stat for you: Only 81% of the tea made here gets consumed. Because it is made by the pot, not by the cup. The surplus is used to water those grass-like plants in the front yard. On the off-chance that they are still alive. By 10:00PM the storm has abated. Our author has made it to the Burma Road and taking photographs. So far every last one of the insurmountable obstacles listed earlier in the story has been overcome without a hitch because he always has the right contact or letter of introduction. Pretty amazing, that.
Speaking of logs, I cannot find my plotting sheets. These are the navigation charts most often seen on old sailing movies. It’s my least practiced navigation stage and I thought I’d dig them out. They’re cheap, you get a huge pad for a couple of bucks. They are also large and I did not used to have the space. Things have changed, I now know that I can live here without additional repairs becoming a priority and predictably, the pace has slowed down. Now I’d like to do some work with the charts.
Watch me slide in some trivia. The charts always begin from a known location and points along the way are established by dead reckoning. It’s surprising how few navigation books stress how important this is. It would be possible to make a very good guess of where you are by an isolated group of sextant readings, but knowing roughly how you go there is a desirable bit of knowledge. I’ve often seen charts that use a lighthouse or point of land as a beginning point, so that seems to be acceptable.
The trivia is a repeat. A lot of the ritual shown on deck when the navigator takes his readings is faked. Having the cabin boy flip the hourglass and hold colored flags was to prevent any of the crew from figuring out how the readings were taken. Most of the crews were impressed and would escape at the first opportunity, even though that entailed the death penalty.
The charts are generally used in the open sea. As for land charts, they are commonly available with the coastlines drawn and are not a part of what I study. However, I would like to be able to plot the charts overland, just to see how that goes. Since I normally plan my trips ahead using road maps, I’ll have a fair idea of my time and mileage and I think it would be a real cerebral exercise to see if I’m any good at that.
Last Laugh
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