June 25, 2025

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 25, 2024, this, without snarling.
Five years ago today: June 25, 2020, not the prints themselves . . .
Nine years ago today: June 25, 2016, the Limestone by sidecar.
Random years ago today: June 25, 2012, my Arduino collection.

           The shots have cured 90% of my back pains, but in a very uneven pattern, with days on and off. However, on the good days I naturally tend to move around and with that is a return of core strength. Again, very uneven, like day before y’day I was in full original pain mode. Today, I was lifting boards various bending tasks, and yes, around here that kind of deal can be top story. I fixed some shelving and put a box J-box (or whatever I wind up calling a hinged Z-Box) taking extreme care as I’ll be needing it for templates. There are parts that have to be extra exact, for example the lid cannot have any staples in the path of its own cut.

           The prize photo this morning is this shoe, can you see what’s going on. This is for when you have a sole come loose and you don’t want to take it to a shoemaker, and you decide to use all your own clamps. Grabbing any pieces of scrap wood to spread the clamp pressure more evenly, what do I find by the door? That expensive piece of chain that went missing last day. Finding it where it fell was pure luck.

           I had the portable compressor out as I’ve got a lame tire on the Hyundai, a slow undetectable leak. So while it was in the kitchen alongside the recharging Yeti, because it will never fully recharge in the van, I finally installed the 2-1/2” spacer around the front bedroom door frame. Man, is it ever nice to work with nice things all in convenience boxes. Here is the setup on the plywood kitchen floor. The portable compressor is one of the wisest tools I every bought and it has only been used to inflate anything two or three times. The rest is that pneumatic stapler I drove all the way to Parish if you remember.

           Handy or what, while I had that setup in the kitchen, I put that spacer in place amazingly fast because the stapler makes it a one-man job. Snap-snap and it is done. Before, with finishing nails, you need a helper or you wrestle with clamps. This was too easy, so I dug out that fancy casing and tried putting that up. Same thing, shown below. Done in no time. One hand hold it in place, and a half-hour trim job completed in moments. I would have finished the job except I had more flooring materials stacked against one side. I find myself happy with the progress made on good days and this was one of them.
           That door in particular, because it has been staring at me for years. It’s through that extra thick soundproof wall in the new bedroom and it had to wait until I dragged the boards out to the saw in the neighbor’s barn and back. I’d guess it has been put off for five years anyway. It was also inconvenient to get at but today I effortless climbed and stood on the arm of the sofa and you can see here how the casing went up just like that.
           But not to be fooled. The job used four different saws and the casing and spacer lumber was already stacked in place. Other than transit, all work was done inside shady areas with fans or A/C. Otherwise this would likely have been another super-muggy summer half day. I’m gathering the eavestrough pieces over to the work area and calling it a day. I’m not the least winded, a wonderment. Overall efficiency still sucks, but I can now build a box in twenty minutes with no wasted moves. This is separate from the six boxes I can build at once, a single box saves no time on assembly. Another factor I used to shrug off was setup time. On a single box, so what, but when it comes to getting even a small production run underway, it’s an extra half hour minimum at each end. It’s very much good entertainment for me, I used to account for time and motion and now I am finally doing it myself.

Picture of the day.
Replacing stair treads.
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           Why the shoe this morning? Because there is line dancing tonight and I intend to be there. Them’s my dancing shoes. Leather soles. You’ll get the report tomorrow, supposin’. I got some minor work done in the shed, but fast forward to this evening. I guessed right, purposely showing up a half-hour late to emphasize that. Ha-ha, it was four or five granny types but their leader was late so they were just sitting there.

           Pretending to be a novice, I had them all on floor within seconds, showing me how to “Fireball”. Turns out they are a line-dancing team and the leader eventually did show up, By then it was pretty obvious I had been the catalyst, but it gave me cramps. Just the ordinary easy line-dance steps and my left leg was in pain. So I’m glad he showed up when he did.

           Yep, I learned my first “modern” line-dancing and it is different. The moves go against my training of never taking two steps with the same foot. The say it worked is the one lady had a controller that brought up the line-dancing instructions on one of the overheads. This works well only to the point everybody has to turn around. The whole team was ladies, so when I joined in I had a heck of a time starting on my right foot.
           Yes, the gals were all there to meet men and this was a new club for them. Myself excluded, let’s just say the selection was not that varied. Fun, but my leg started giving me trouble within minutes, remind me to report that to the clinic. I had to quit and sit, about which time the surliest old cuss you’ve seen comes walking in. What a loser, probably 70 acting 55, thinking he was impressing the ladies with how much he knew about his smart phone.
           I was also there to check with Wilford and the promo pics. He’s the best idea man left in town and selling boxes isn’t the easiest start-up.

Last Laugh