New Post On Woodworking Blog

I just put up a new post on my woodworking blog.

Right or Left

While on my way to Connecticut for a softball tournament today, I noticed a sign on the door at a rest area on the Turnpike which read:

shirt
shoe required

There was no space where an "s" might have been.

So my question is right or left?

The softball tournament is the NEWMAC championships. Wellesley will be playing in the championship game tomorrow. The tournament is taking place at the Coast Guard Academy. On another note it was very odd to be addressed as "maam" after I'd shown identification at the main gate today.

Crumbled Cake

Sassafras Mama posted today about her weekend battle with cake and it brought to mind a battle I had with a cake many years ago.

For many years we belonged to a lesbian & gay neighborhood group which held monthly potlucks. Most month's our contribution was cooked at the last minute. Our contribution that month was to be a bittersweet chocolate bundt cake. (We'd clearly planned ahead because the cake takes several ingredients that we don't normally have on hand.) The cake went together smoothly and was soon in the oven. While it was cooking I mixed up the glaze for the cake.

When the cake was cool I loosened the edges and turned it out onto a plate. Or at least I tried to turn it out onto a plate. About a third of the cake stayed in the pan. Since there wasn't much time before we needed to leave for the potluck I didn't have time to wallow in sorrow, though I probably let loose with a few curse words. I quickly had to come up with an alternative contribution for the potluck. I'd been at a party where trifle was served a few weeks before this, and so that was where my mind went when presented with the broken cake.

A quick look in the freezer revealed some raspberries, and there was cream in the fridge. The raspberries were quickly defrosted, and the cream whipped. It was quite cathartic to crumble the cake into a clear bowl, where I layered it with raspberries, the chocolate glaze that was intended to coat the outside of the cake, and the whipped cream. The resulting concoction was a big hit at the potluck.

We have made "Raspberry Oops Cake" many times since, and I've never had a problem getting it out of the pan. I keep swearing that I'm going to make the cake as intended one of these days, but so far it hasn't happened. And it's still somewhat cathartic to crumble up the cake.

Unfortunately, I don't have photographic evidence to share.

Best Laid Plans

Amy and I watch a fair number of home improvement shows on tv. More often than you would expect there are problems caused by poor planning on the part of the homeowner, designer or carpenter. In most cases this is not the point of the show. The exception is one which uses the tagline "why learn from your mistakes when you can learn from theirs". When we approach a project we normally do a lot of planning up front to avoid those sorts of oops moments. This is especially true if Amy is part of the planning. (This is a major component in the delay our renovation.)

My workshop contains a lumber rack I built years ago. I've never been satisfied with the sturdiness, and have been expecting it to disintegrate for years. A couple of months ago one of my woodworking magazines arrived with a supplement full of projects for the shop, one of which was a very sturdy looking lumber rack. I thought it would work well in my shop and so set about acquiring the materials to build it. Because of the clutter in my shop (it desperately needs to be emptied and reorganized) and the size of some of the components (8 ft 2x4s) I took advantage of a couple of warmish, sunny days to do assembly in the driveway (the garage is also suffering from over-clutter).

Much of the early assembly was done with the unit laying on it's side since the shelves are too heavy for me to lift by myself. When it was time to wrap up my work after one of my days in the driveway Amy came down to help me set it upright and move it into the garage. And that was when we discovered problem number 1.

As some of you may remember from the garage door replacement, or from visits to our house, the ceilings in our basement are low. I can touch the ceiling while standing flat footed, and I'm not tall. When I decided to build the shelves I didn't take the height of the ceiling into account. And when we set the unit upright Amy pointed out that it didn't look like it would fit into the garage. So, with the sun setting in the west I pulled out the tape measure and circular saw and shortened the uprights by 6 inches.

I've yet to finish the shelves - mostly because we've been busy and I can't lift the shelves by myself. Meanwhile, we've been entertaining plumbers - each of whom has a slightly different idea of where the tankless water heater we want installed should go. (Stay with me, this is actually related.) The most logical location, given the venting requirements for the water heater, is at one end of my workshop. That end of the workshop is currently home to the about to collapse lumber rack. This has made finishing the lumber rack of higher importance.

Which brings us to problem number 2. The root from the garage to the workshop includes a rather tight squeeze at the corner of the furnace. The new lumber rack is eight feet long and, as my very observant wife pointed out, it will not make it around that turn. We could take the rack via the back yard to the exterior door to the shop, but that is a soggy, weed ridden route. In the post-renovation version of my shop the lumber storage will be in the garage. So we've decided that the new lumber rack will take up residence in the garage a little early.

Now I just need to finish the rack, clean out the garage, and move a whole lot of lumber. Oh, and stop thinking all those people making mistakes on tv are careless.

One Single Impression: Listening

sitting in silence
listening for the spirit
worshipping Quakers

Feeling the Love

I love looking at the stars, but I don't really know very much about them. I had a floor-mate, Julie, in college who was an astronomy major, which mostly meant that we didn't see much of her because she spent evenings and nights in the observatory. The other exotic thing about Julie was that she was from Las Vegas. Up until I met her I hadn't ever really thought about the fact that there were families living in Las Vegas. But I digress. During one January Wintersession (a voluntary mini-semester filled with mostly non-academic workshops) she offered a star gazing workshop and a bunch of us who lived near her signed up. If I remember correctly the entire group was people from our floor. It was a lot of fun and I owe everything I know about stars to her. Because it was January the major constellations we could see were Orion, and Cassiopeia. I still think of her when I look up into the winter sky.

My nephew, D, loves learning about space and I'm guessing he knows much more about it than I do. His current plan is a career in astrophysics, though I don't think he would state it that way, yet. When it came time to pick his holiday present this year I wanted to find something that he would love and that would challenge his intellect. It took me till mid-January (D is perfectly okay with receiving gifts whenever they show up) to figure out what to get him, but what I sent was a telescope - what every budding astrophysicist needs.

Yesterday after a very long day at work, I arrived home to find this in my mailbox.

It brought a big smile to my face, and I love that the constellation he drew is Orion, one of the few I can pick out of the night sky.

Unique's Photo Challenge: Urban Landscape

Post Office Square, Boston
taken February 7th

See more Unique's Photo Challenge here.

Biscotti Weekend 2008

The long overdue tale of my annual December trip to New Jersey.

Once again as the calendar turned to December I loaded up the car and headed for the wilds of New Jersey for Biscotti Weekend, an annual event that features wrestling, woodworking, reading, and the lovely smell of baked biscotti. I've been making the pilgrimage since my nephew D was 2, and it has become a tradition that we both look forward to.

The highlight of the weekend is the project, usually a woodworking project, that he and I put together for him to give to his parents. This year's project started with a couple of phone conversations in November. After giving D a week to think about the kind of project he'd like to do - this year I offered him the option of making something for his parents, his cousins, or friends. He decided that he'd like to make a stool for his parents (actually he gave me two options but the other will remain a surprise because it's on the table for next year). In the final planning call we settled on wood type and then I headed to the shop.

Or I should say I headed to the crate of plans. My sister, D's Tama, already has a simple footstool that I made for her years ago and I didn't want to duplicate that. In my stash of plans I found a couple different patterns for two step Shaker style stools featuring only a few, relatively simple parts. The only tricky aspect of the pattern I picked was the angled cut on the back edge of the stool. (I'll post details on my woodworking blog and update this with a link when I have.)

Preparations also included loading up my iPod with holiday music. My new car features an iPod connector and this meant that I didn't have to haul a bag full of cds with me.

I got a later start than I'd wanted, probably because I had my woodworking class Thursday night and didn't get packed until Friday morning. Friday's entertainment was limited to dinner at Teriyaki Boy, though D opted for pizza instead.

Saturday morning started bright and early with D's wrestling practice. He's been wrestling for 3 years and is very serious about it.

Preparing to take on his opponent.

He's got him down.

He should be looking at the back of him opponents neck.

While D and I were out of the house Shelley got started on her biscotti baking. Over the course of the weekend she made dozens of batches which were then shipped off to family and friends.

We split up for the afternoon, T took D and his friend, I, to see Bolt while I went to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a very powerful movie. I definitely recommend it, but be prepared to have it stick in your mind for weeks and months afterward - I still find myself pondering the ending. Bolt, which I saw last month with my pal RT is also very good, though definitely a kid's movie.

Once we got back from the movie we headed to the basement, where a temporary workshop was set up. I had done most of the preparation of the parts, since the R-K house does not have a workshop. Step 1 was to cut several notches in the sides of the stool. D decided he much rather have me do that task. Given the setup it was slow going. We got one or two done before dinner with D making sure the clamps remained tight.

After dinner we dropped the grown-ups off at a concert and returned to the house for several rounds of Hang on Harvey. D was the undisputed champion. After a few stories D headed off to bed, and I headed to the basement to finish sawing the notches.

On Sunday morning I joined Shelley and D at Princeton Friends Meeting.
While I attended meeting for worship Shelley tended to the babies, and D went to First Day School. I spent a few minutes in the meeting house after rise of meeting taking pictures. You can see them here.

Once we arrived back at their house it was back to the basement for D and me. The first order of business was drilling countersink holes and pilot holes for the screws that would hold the stool together.

D suited up to help drill.

D decided he wasn't up doing the actual drilling, but he did keep the parts organized. Twenty four holes later we were ready for assembly. (Side note Norm Abram pronounces this a-sem-ba-ly and it drives me crazy.) D volunteered to start all the screws. After giving them a coat of akempuky, he screwed them into the slats and steps.

We chatted while he turned screws and D was occasionally distracted by the conversation.

Finally, it was on to final assembly. Where we discovered that the holes I had drilled in the one angled slat were on the wrong side. That and a couple of other errors had me a bit frustrated. My very intelligent nephew reminded me that "It's homemade. It doesn't have to be perfect." We decided that the stool would be fine with a couple of visible screws, the rest were to be covered with plugs and continued on. We also ran into an issue screwing on the top. I had not taken into account the location of the screws holding on the slats just under the top and the holes for attaching the top made the screws run into each other. Several additional holes were drilled and the top was finally attached.

D applying glue before attaching the slats.

Next step was to plug all the screw holes. I had cut plugs before heading down there, with my plug cutters. (I made several dozen by cutting lots of holes almost all the way through a piece of maple.) While I was working on cutting the notches, D had taken charge of popping the plugs out of their holes. After placing glue in each of the holes we added the plugs.

D using the dead-blow hammer to seat the plugs in their holes.

After a short drying time D used the flush-cut saw to trim off the plugs.
He had great fun teaching Shelley all about the flush-cut saw.

The almost finished product - still needs sanding and wax.

D and Snowy (at least I think that's his name) - slightly blurry.
My mind is already working on ways to get a better picture of them next year.

I would be remiss if I didn't include a picture of the multi-tasking Shelley - cooking and watching videos on-line.

Monday morning before I headed home I was able to drop D off at school. One of the best parts was the map that D drew to show me how to get to his school.

See It Sunday: Key

The key to the medical cabinet we use for storage in our kitchen. The cabinet used to be in Amy's Dad's office.

See more See It Sunday here.

Macroday: Nuts

Pistachios - the nut I've been craving recently.

See more MacroDay here.

How I Met My True Love

I don't remember the first time I met her. She was a freshman when I was a senior, and joined the choir second semester. She was good friends with a couple of freshman with whom I was friendly and a second alto, like me, so I'm sure we met early in the semester. Choir officers helped run auditions and as the Business Manager I'm sure I did auditions that semester, but if I participated in hers I don't remember it.

My first memory is of her requesting to be excused from a concert. Our choir had rules about how many rehearsals you could miss, and all concerts were mandatory. In order to be excused the choir member had to make their case to the officers. We did this in a storage area next to the room we rehearsed in during a break. She was asking to be excused so she could attend her sister's wedding (number 2). I don't know why I remember this because , but it's stuck in my mind.

Toward the end of the year our choir was able to add a couple of last minute concerts, singing for alumnae clubs. Because the concerts were last minute we didn't have enough money in the budget to rent two large buses, but we wouldn't fit in one. We solved the problem by renting a van and a station wagon. The choir president drove the van, and I drove the station wagon. On the trip to New Jersey my passengers were all freshmen. Most of what I remember about the drive there is that our friend T was reading Little Women and kept giggling.

It is the drive home that sticks in my mind. Our choir director was a very dear man, but also very nervous. On the drive to New Jersey he had been driving the incoming choir president nuts, and she begged me to take him in the car on the drive back to school. So one of the freshmen road back on the bus and WAH rode with us. For reasons that escape me now Amy and T sat in the front seat with me (this was in the days of bench seats), and WAH and the remaining freshman, who was reading Ayn Rand, sat in the back.

When you sing in a choir one of the reminders you hear frequently is to enunciate the final consonants in words, so that they don't get lost. During the drive back to Massachusetts the three of us in the front seat spent a good portion of the drive singing along with the radio, over enunciating the final consonants in each and every word (or rather wur-duh). I don't know exactly why we did it. We certainly didn't discuss it before hand. That trip was when our friendship was forged.

The next year I worked on campus, as a teaching intern at the lab nursery school (a story for another day), and lived just off campus with a family for whom I did child care in return for room and board (that too is a story for another day). Most of my classmates were either long gone or living in the city. But Amy, T and J all friends from choir who were now sophomores were only a short walk away. I spent a good portion of my free time with them. We talked, played games, went to movies... As the fall semester went on I ended up spending more time with Amy than the other two.

Our college has a January session, at the time a month of alternative courses - learn to knit, star gaze and the like. It was optional and Amy spent that month at home in the mid-west. Since this was well before the age of email and text messaging we wrote a lot of letters. Instead of spending most of my free time with Amy I spent my free time writing her letters.

Once she returned we spent as many hours together as possible. We went to the movies (My Favorite Year) and should have been thrown out because we talked through much of it. (My sincere apologies to everyone else in the theatre that night!) We talked late into the night, each night, after which I would walk home through the quiet streets of the suburban town.

About a week later I had to be home, partly to care for the children during a party and partly because I was taking GREs the next morning. There was at least one and possibly two phone calls that night. After the GREs we went and played in Boston with T, went to the movies, and out to dinner. Amy and I ended up sitting, or more correctly cuddling, and talking all night. There was a kiss, and the rest is history.

Tomorrow is the 26th anniversary of that kiss.

Inspired by a request from Maria way back in January.

The Storm

Following the progress of today's storm from my office window. There is about an hour between each shot.

Taken using the black & white setting on my camera.

My Favorite Wrestler

Check out the cool video my sister-out-law took of our favorite wrestler, my nephew D (he's in the orange singlet).

Princeton Friends Meeting

Pictures of Princeton Friends Meeting's Stonybook Meetinghouse taken during my December visit. The meeting house was first built in 1726 and rebuilt in 1760. It's a lovely old building and each December morning when I have visited there has been a welcoming fire in the fire place.

click on pictures to view them larger

Note that the bags on the porch are not trash, but clothing donations.






Interior light fixture

Note the width of the floor boards.

The old glass really entertains me.

Simple benches.

The black square to the left if the fireplace.

Thursday Challenge: Experimental

Back in December I was taking pictures of our Christmas tree and started playing with taking unfocused pictures of the lights. This is my favorite. The white snowflake shaped blob is one of the snowflake lights in the window behind the tree.

In photography terms this is called bokeh.

See more Thursday Challenge here.

Cold

I realize this may make you all roll your eyes, but I love the squeeking sound that snow makes when it's really cold. It's cold here, but not as cold as a whole lot of other places. I spoke to a colleague in Minneapolis this morning - it was -20 there which makes the 8 degrees when we left the house a veritable heat wave. Keep warm!

(This picture was taken during one of the December storms.)

Moody Monday: Athletic

My nephew D during wrestling practice.

You can read more about the program he wrestles with here.

See more Moody Monday here.

Taking Thanksgiving on the Road

We are somewhat notorious for making plans for major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas...) at the last minute. Way back in November Amy headed off to Arkansas to visit her mother leaving me to determine how we were going to spend Thanksgiving. My little brother and I had already begun how to figure out how to provide Thanksgiving dinner for my parents and grandmother, without my mother having to clean her house or cook. (My brother lives near my parents, while I'm 160+ miles away.)

My brother lives in a small, second floor apartment which wasn't an option. Transporting my parents and grandmother to Boston also wasn't an option. At some point my brother said he wished we could rent an apartment for a day. That's when it hit me - that's what Residence Inn style hotels are. We'd stayed in a Residence Inn while visiting in New Jersey and it was quite spacious. So I did a search and discovered two relatively close to my parents and a room was reserved.

Amy learned of the plan when she returned from her trip the week before Thanksgiving. Planning began immediately. As much of the food as possible would be made before hand and be taken to heat up when we got there. Amy'd been reading up on cooking turkey, reading recipes is one of her favorite entertainments, and was eager to try brining a turkey. This presented a challenge. The plan was to head west Wednesday evening. The turkey needed to brine for 4-6 hours. The drive takes 3 1/2 hours. So, we decided that we would brine the turkey on the drive. The next challenge was figuring out what container to transport the brining turkey in. We have several large coolers - all of which would hold the turkey and it's brine. Amy was concerned though because any of those would require increasing the quantity of brine and since this was the first try at this method she was reluctant to make that change. The solution - a 5 gallon bucket lined with plastic bags.

The easiest part of the packing was our clothes. It was to be a quick trip so we didn't need much in the way of clothing. The rest of the packing was to accommodate the dozen people we were expecting (my parents, my grandmother, my younger brother, his wife and son, my older brother, his wife, son and daughter and Amy and me). The Residence Inn's provide kitchen equipment but not for that many people. We packed plates, glasses, silverware, kitchen equipment that Amy (who was doing most of the on-site cooking) couldn't live without, food - rolls, cranberry sauce, apple sauce, stuffing, vegetables, pumpkin pie, crackers, two card tables and eight folding chairs, napkins and table cloths.
Just to make things even more interesting Amy came down with the head cold I'd been fighting for weeks the week of Thanksgiving. The crowd ended up slightly smaller than anticipated - my brother and co-conspirator succumbed to the stomach bug that his son brought home from school, my older brother's wife was too exhausted to spend 5+ hours (round-trip) in a car and my oldest nephew needed to stay in Montreal (where it wasn't a holiday) and go to class. (For those keeping track that gave us a crowd of 9.
After dinner my nephew, N, who is five and my niece, S, who is 16 and I went down to the lobby to play Sorry. At one point N was frustrated because he wasn't doing so well, S and I were chatting about something (probably her swim season) and he decided we weren't taking the game seriously enough. He announced "stop talking and concentrate on the game". I smile every time I think about it, partly because it shows how much he's matured since July when he got frustrated by a game we were playing and wanted to quit.

A good time was had by all, though I don't know that we'll ever try it again.

(I do know that this post is month's overdue, but I didn't want to let this go undocumented.)

Clear Your Car Roof

Yesterday I became a poster child for why you should always clear the snow off your car roof. The weather yesterday was cold, wet and generally yucky. There were about 2 inches of snow on the ground when we got up. By the time we headed out to clear the cars (or more correctly by the time Amy headed out to clear the cars) the snow had turned to sleet. Even though we were driving into work together both cars needed to be cleared because her car doesn't have 4 wheel drive and has to be parked at the top of our steep driveway and we were driving to work in my car which does have 4 wheel drive. I've been nursing a sore knee this week (it's getting better but I'm not very steady on my feet) so she did the bulk of the work.

When I got out I finished clearing my windshield, but skipped clearing the roof because there was only 1/2 inch of icy frozen stuff on it. The drive was basically uneventful, except perhaps dodging the chunks of frozen stuff flying off trucks on the Turnpike, and the constant rain. As is typical the off ramp was clogged with traffic. As we stopped at the first traffic light (there are two before crossing the river) a small amount of icy stuff slid off the roof. It was easily removed by the wipers, which were on because of the rain. However, when we stopped for the second the bottom third of the windshield was suddenly filled. This wouldn't have been too bad except that the wipers tried to clear it and because it was icy about 3 inches of the driver's side wiper got shredded. Once across the river I pulled into a gas station and cleared the accumulated snow and ice from the windshield. The wiper was clearing enough of the windshield for me to see so I continued on to drop Amy off at work.

Then I headed directly to the car dealer. The service guys were nice enough not to turn me away, and I spent just over an hour watching tv and reading old magazines. The only repair was the wiper blade, and because it's a new car and the service guys like me they didn't even charge me for it. It could have been worse - not only could there have been more damage to the car (one of the service guys mentioned that another customer's car had required body work when ice came crashing off his roof) but it could have caused an accident.

And so we add another rule to the Chelle/Shelley's (pronounced the same) rules of driving: no leaving the neighborhood without clearing any accumulated snow or ice off the roof of the car.

Summer Vacation

It's almost January and outside the window the world is white. Snow is falling and from the comfort of my living room I can just tell that it's cold. As an antidote to the cold I thought I'd offer this tale of our summer vacation, which I have previously failed to record.

As regular readers may recall way back in July we once again headed off to Wakanda on Rainbow Lake in the wilds of the Adirondacks for two weeks of rest and relaxation. The day we left was hot, really, really hot. I stopped to let the neighbors know we were leaving and their grandson, A, who's about 9 offered to help pack the car. Given the weather I took him up on his offer. First step was to load the kayak onto it's rack, then drive the car up to the front of the house, unload the kayak and load the car. Into the car we packed games, puzzles, food (there are always a few things we take from home), clothes, and books - lots and lots of books. A carried/dragged most of the bags and boxes out of the house. Particularly amusing was watching this boy try and propel our large, rolling duffles down our bumpy front walk. The duffles were almost as big as he was and very definitely out-weighed him. I really wish I had a picture of that. Finally the kayak, once again, took it's place of honor on top of the car and we were ready to head out.

The drive was uneventful, or at least uneventful enough that I don't really remember it 5 months later. We did stop at a liquor store near my parent's house to pick up wine for a co-worker. (The back story on this is that he'd been to a wine tasting and fell in love with a particular dessert wine that he then couldn't find near Boston. He found it at a liquor store in New York, and asked if we would mind picking some up for him. Since the liquor store was on the way to my parent's house, the halfway point of our journey, we were happy to oblige.

We arrived at Owl Cabin well after dark, perhaps our latest arrival. We quickly unpacked and finished just as the clouds opened up and rain began to fall. It rained for days. We were prepared so this did not impact the enjoyment at all. We read, worked puzzles, baked, and I swam.

Oh, and played with my then new macro lens.

My brother T and nephew N joined us for a few days of fun in the mountains.

N enjoying a kayak ride.
T gave kayaking a try and loved it. I'm guessing I'll have a partner for some longer paddles next summer.

Helping Amy with a crossword puzzle.

Working on the project I brought for us to do.
(I did not make the parts for this.)
The finished project.

Other highlights of the trip

loon sightings

fresh blueberries from the bushes surrounding the cabin

the beautiful lake - the sun did finally come out

our hosts bountiful flower garden
The path to the morning beach.
(This is my entry in the current Thursday Challenge.)

The morning that T and N left, N and I headed down the path above with a bucket of Legos which we were returning to Loon cabin. N was carrying the bucket and we were chatting when a tree root jumped up and tripped him. He was devastated, but I quickly let him know it wasn't a problem, and we spent several minutes searching under bushes and leaves for Legos, some of which are quite tiny. There are probably a few still along the path.

We finished up our vacation with an overnight visit from my parents. It was great to be able to share our favorite spot in the woods with them again. Then it was time to load up the car again and head home.

Only 6 1/2 months till we return.

Editted: Click here to see more pictures from our Adirondack vacation.