Sheet goods rack

Finished up the rack.

It is hinged to the wall but detaches and rolls if needed.

And now it is full (almost) so next is the rolling rack for clamps and solid lumber. That is the beginning in the foreground.

Heading for Portland in a few hours. 

See ya on the other side.

Martians attacking Indianapolis

Forgot to post the blah blah yesterday.  Calvin says it quite well, as usual.  Here is yesterdays Calvin and Hobbes.  http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/08/28

As usual, he says it quite elegantly, as well as giving me today's post title.

No Martians attacking Indianapolis, but I do have some good shots of the three bridges over the Crooked River where it is crossed by Hwy 97.

 

 These signs were everywhere.

 The one in the middle is the old highway. The current auto bridge is red and behind the old bridge.
The one in the foreground is the current rail road bridge.

 This was taken with one hand holding on to a branch while the other held the camera out over the top of the waterfall.

 The Waterfall.  The stream feeding it was 18" wide and 6" deep. Explaining the distinct lack of spray.

 The Rail Road Bridge.

This is the Auto bridge looking upstream.

The signs didn't lie. The concrete wall at the viewing site is at the bottom of the photo.

Tomorrow I go back to Portland.  Before I go, I hope to finish up the sheet goods storage rack that I almost finished today.  With luck I'll get some photos up before I go.

Cooler tomorrow.

To Da Coast

Just got back from Ryan and Judy's so I'll be playing catch up for a while. Teri is in LA and I'll be going back to Portland in four days to pick her up and do a few birthdays and other stuff. 

After taking Teri to PDX for her flight to BUR, I joined Ryan and Judy in Cannon Beach where they had been since last Sunday.  They were there for the Zawatzky's annual family get together at a gorgeous home they rent every year. It is  right next to the state park over looking the beach.

But before I got to the beach, I had to stop at my favorite tourist trap on Hwy 26. They have some really neat logging relics.

 Wish I had some one standing next to this for scale.  It is definitely the largest band saw I've seen.  Note the blade has teeth on both edges.

 Most everything was steam powered and mobile to follow the logging camps.

This is the view from the deck and quite a few of the rooms.

We went out to the point at the park for some sunset shots but there wasn't a cloud in the sky (second time this year that has happened).

I think that it might get windy here from time to time.

I stopped for some photos over the Crooked River on the way home, but they will wait for tomorrow.

Smoky here from a nearby fire, but still perfect weather.

Stay cool.

Progress

Made a little progress today.

Not done yet; it will get two small drawers for stuff.

The weird thing on top is a belt sander of sorts that is powered by a washing machine motor. I'll put up a new photo when it is finished.

We go to Portland tomorrow, then Teri goes to LA for a week.  Posts may look a little different for a while as I'll be using different equipment.

Hang in there.

Behind the Scenes

Went to Emil & Sara's last night for dinner.  Suffice to say, we ate well and as usual, too much.  It might have been the brownie with just the right amount of ice cream. It is important to get the ratio right.  Sometimes it is like leveling that coffee table. First you don't have enough ice cream, then not enough brownie. We are working on a system but more testing of the hypothesis is necessary.

Emil has set up shop ( http://www.roadtripukuleles.com/ ) in the sun room of the house they are renting. The web site has his first cookie tin banjo on the home page. Check it out. I should buy one of his ukuleles as an investment for the future when he is famous and you have to wait years to pay thousands for the option to order one. It would be part of our never ending local stimulus program.

 As you can see, he gets a lot done in a little space

Cigar box uke #1 in progress

I'm stealing this design for my work bench/assembly table

Small but lots of light.

It's late so no more blah blah for now.

Moving Slowly

Took most of the morning to figure out what exactly to do in the space below the C clamp in the foreground of the photo below.

The criteria was set, designing the right bench/table/roll-away to meet them all was the problem.  Think I have it now.  Stay tuned.

The bit about terminating conversations yesterday triggered a memory of my brother and his friend Garin Birchak. Garin's family lived next to our grand parent's house on a couple of acres in Pacomia, CA.  Quite a few great childhood memories from that place.  It had a second home that they rented out to a family that kept horses in the back acreage.  Each home had a fenced back yard and behind that was the orange orchard, corral and shop.  With enough space left over to build forts in the trees and a 36' ketch next to the shop. But that's another story.

They dug one of the first private pools in the area in the back yard (I think it dated back to the thirties) and drained it periodically to irrigate the oranges.  You know how good all that chlorine was for the oranges.

The Birchak's (spelling undoubtedly wrong, they were of German ancestry) place was magical.  They had sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, geese and lots of cats.  Garin had a make-shift shop in the back where he built various electronic stuff.  You see, Garin was a bit of a genius. He would salvage parts of discarded electronics and build magical devices. For me, all electronic devices were magic. What else could explain the mystery of a crystal radio?

Once, he and Ralph took me along on a "trash canning" trip.  We rode our bikes down to the industrial side of San Fernando and scavenged their trash cans.  No one had dumpsters, just 50 gal drums for their trash.  It was then that I learned one of life's most amazing secrets.  People throw away the coolest stuff.  We found old radios and even TVs. Garin would dissemble the electronics and save all the good parts.  We would take huge shopping bags full of vacuum tubes (remember those?) down to the market and test them on their free tube tester machine (remember those?).  The rejects made great slingshot ammo (first you break off the stem while holding it underwater; it fills with water, giving it enough weight).

A lot of the stuffs original purpose was a mystery to us, but it's potential was obviously huge. So it would be placed on a shelf in the shop awaiting it's destiny. This lesson has served me well throughout my years of accumulating stuff. Unfortunately, I have been unable to teach this to my wife.

You may wonder what this has to do with terminating conversations. Well, after a long day of adventure at the Birchak's, it was hard to say good bye. When I thought about examples of "conversational  terminatium deficiency", I pictured my brother leaning out the car window waving and yelling "good bye, so long, bye, see ya later, bye..............................." as Garin stood in the road waving and yelling the same until he faded into the dust cloud (yes, dirt roads).

If you are still here, thanks for taking that quick jog down memory lane.  You gotta go there when it pops up cause you never know when it will be for the last time.

Stay cool.

2nd Set of Wall Cabinets

Got the second set of wall cabinets done today.

Next, a short set of base cabinets and a sheet goods roll away rack like I had in Soldotna.
My plan is to hold off on doors until I have settled on what goes where and maybe never make doors.

After I finish cabinets I have to make a work/assembly table.  Then finally fire up the cabinet saw and start some real projects.  The list is growing. What winter I will have in the shop should already be filled up.

On another note:

I used to think that the inability to terminate a conversation (TIME MANAGEMENT MANUAL, pg18, Benchmark Institute 2010) was a genetically based condition, possibly even gender based. 
Aside from getting me in all sorts of trouble from many different sources, this explanation (hands down the most fun explanation) falls short of completely explaining the phenomena.  I have begun to study this from a different perspective.  Look for my new book, "Taking Control of Your Communications" which will contain valuable techniques for getting out of those conversations that make you look for a gallon of gasoline and a match or a sturdy rope.

This brings us to the end of the blah blah blah section of the post.  Don't worry, plenty more to come.

Stay cool.

Routine

Currently on a two week stretch at home. That results in my starting to get a routine, something that I have always known that I need. Otherwise I'd forget to wear pants a lot (more).  So I am in one now that has me on the computer in the morning while my back gets used to being vertical. Then it is work on the garage shop for a while until the sun gets to the east side and drives me out. 

That leaves the afternoons open for whatever. So, I'm going to try and post more often. Since there is only a fixed amount of quality content (I know, "quality" is subjective), there will be more blah blah blah.

This will only last for a short while as any semblance of routine will disappear next week when we travel again, more on that later.

10 points for the first oe to spot the bumper sticker that reads:

FREE PUSSY riot

Bonus points if you send me one. If this is confusing, check today's headlines under Russian court decisions.

I'm told that it is hot out there; weather's perfect here.

Stay cool. 

Back to the Stimulus

Got a few days til we travel again.  Thought we'd work on our continuing local stimulus program.

Added a few area rugs and I'm improving the irrigation system so the tomatoes will survive a prolonged absence.

Ryan loaded the first two seasons of Game of Thrones on our desktop for me and I'm in the middle of reading book two.  Thanks also to Woofus for recommending the series to me a long ways back. This is the first time I've done the book along side the TV series.  So far, the series is very true to the books and I am thoroughly enjoying having total control of when I view or read.

Waiting to see if the DeJeans come to visit next week then it will be back to Portland and after that Denver.  Somewhere in there Teri has a trip to LA.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping to check out some of the local streams; Rog may help out with that.

Warm and dry here, hope you are all staying cool.

I Meant West, Not East

Apologies to the Sodens. I told them that Snoopy was napping just east of Baker City on Hwy 84.  I hadn't misplaced my global orientation, just my relationship with Snoopy.  We passed him (along with Woodstock) just east of exit 234 on Hwy 84.

His Christmas lights are still up, so I guess he hasn't moved in a while.

Then it was on to the Columbia River.

If we were towing the fifth wheel how fast could we go?  By the time I figured out where we fit on the sign, we'd be past terminal velocity. By the way, we are nowhere on the sign, so I guess we have no limit other than friction drag.

I hate last warnings. They sound so ominous.

The river weather was good for the turbines and wind surfers.

Today it is off to Portland.  Forecasted to be 95 here in Redmond.  Must be better in Portland, right?

Go Timbers!

Ride'n the Oregon Trail

Went to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Site with the Soden's; both senior and grand child support unit sections plus cousin Connor from Fairbanks. The Soden's just had a family reunion up in Idaho and we all met up in Baker City. Grandpa Larry (finishing yet another nation wide tour on his Harley), grandma Margaret & Connor are heading back soon. The grand children and their support unit will head back to Denver tomorrow and we will take a different route home via the Columbia Gorge.

There are wagon ruts from the 1800's down there by the covered wagon (the white speck up and left of center). We are going to take their word for it.  We were by here a couple of life times ago (actually, just this spring) and didn't make the treck then either.

This poor lady was waiting for her husband to round up the oxen that wandered off last night.

True pioneer kids.

Empty.

On the way in from Hwy 84 there is my very most favorite farm machinery graveyard.

It used to be operated as a museum but seems that they have given up on that.

Will spend the rest of the day at the pool (you do NOT want pictures of that) and then slow down after that.

Stay cool!