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WEEK 29 2018

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Ago,
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Saturday 21 July 2018

Saturday - Hot and humid again.

I did millwork on two more frames, taking more care with my dado cuts this time. As well as the boards warping and curling, they are not of consistent width - varying by 1/16th of an inch. Which doesn't sound like that much until you realize that for a lap joint this delta is doubled - 1/8", which is horribly evident. So I used a shim and cut them more to a consistent depth. But now I know to inspect for and to pick boards of the approximately the same width for each individual frame.

It never occurred to me to check, that sort of quality control issue with finished boards never used to be an issue. I guess Home Depot probably just sources from whoever is cheapest.

I had to go to the little local hardware for more glue - the "extra" bottle I had was hard as a rock - and clamped up one of the two. I've learned my lesson about spring clamps and woodworking I think. I could take them off and use them to do the other in late afternoon, but I'll just wait until tomorrow morning when it's cooler.

I wanted to put a coat of finish paint on the first two, but it was roasting hot again, and I honestly didn't feel all that good.

Attaching them to the house might be an issue. I was simply going to screw them to the existing frames, probably with hangar bolts so that they can be easily removed in winter, but it occured to me that there might be a fire code issue. I personally could fight my way through a piece of screen, but what about guests? I'm considering velcro, magnets, hinges...

I pretty much just slacked off and read for the rest of the day.

Book #31 was, therefore, The Towers (Lenson #13), by David Poyer. This starts with the 9/11 attack, in which Lenson is at the Pentagon, and his wife is at the WTC, each get injured. It then goes into the initial search for OBL, and the whole Tora Bora operation. The Navy Seal guy, Oberg, probably gets more book time than Lenson.

I've now finished all the Lenson novels, except for one on CD that I was listening to in the car. There is another due out this fall, looking forward to it.

Tim left a message the other day about some work from a couple of years ago. I've been looking for my notes but they are apparently buried in the storage container. But he should have scans of all of them, and pictures of any new work we put in.

Friday 20 July 2018 Friday - Hot and humid again. The house a/c, as I said, is having issues with that. They are predicting very high temperatures next week - 107F - so I may get one of the bigger mechanical units out of storage this weekend.

I took Jim into the vet. He ran and hid in the closet when I got up, rather than bugging me for food in the morning. It looks like he was running a fever, 103F, according to doctor Sara. Bah. So he got a shot and some intravenous fluids.

I put another coat of primer on the frames, but didn't get around to any millwork on the rest.

I'd ordered an adaptor, to allow the MacBook to run a second external monitor via USB. It arrived and when I went to attach it...realized my other 27" monitor had a D-sub input, not DVI. Bah. My mistake. So I've ordered one of those DVI-Dsub cheaters ($5) and it should arrive next week.

Thursday 19 July 2018 Thursday - Hot and moderately humid.

I puttied, sanded and primed the first two frames. My neighbor AH was going into town, so I hitched a ride and we picked up some more lumber. It was his little 90's era Corolla but it has a ski rack on top, so we just tied the boards up there.

It was noon by the time we got back and just too hot to do anything. Also I let the dogs into the garage since it's so dang hot out.

Jim is a bit under the weather, not eating much. I may take him into the vet tomorrow if he doesn't show signs of improvement. He is generally quite the chow hound.

Mars is rising in the east, right around sundown. I need to get the scope out again, but I hate to bring it out during daylight because of the heat.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

Wednesday - Hot and moderately humid.

Working away on this and that.

In the morning glued up the frames. I had enough regular wood clamps (6x) to do one, and used spring clamps for the other. This turned out to be a mistake - the joints separated as the glue dried, and it looks pretty bad. It might be salvageable. The other is better, but not perfect. I had issues with the dado cuts, but it should be a pretty straight forward issue after setting the depth of the cutter once.

I was going to cut wood for another, but realized I didn't have enough wood - I need two 1x4's for the small windows, and three for the larger.

I called up the IRS and talked to them for a bit. It was actually rather straightforward - they could see that my payments had already been made, so they set up a 100 day no-charge grace period for me while their computers cranked the existing returns through. I may actually get a bit of cash back.

Tuesday 17 July 2018

Tuesday - Hot and somewhat humid. Humid as in about 20%, at which point the swamp cooler will work, but very inefficiently. My house was about 85F inside all day.

In the morning I worked on the frames for the reflective screening. I discovered that the "good" dado bit was missing one of it's three cutters, bah. So I used the wobble dado on the radial arm saw. It's been years since I used one, and I'm not much of a carpenter to start with. It's a much rougher cut than you'd expect.

The uprights have three dado cuts each, for the top, middle, and bottom. I have a middle piece (a 1x3) because my windows are just slightly too large for the reflective fabric, and it will look better - there is a house nearby with entire windows of about my size, covered in single piece screens and it doesn't look good. The top and bottom pieces have two cuts - one on each end. I fiddled around until I had the depth right, with extra bits, then made the cuts. I didn't realize until too late that the wood was kind of springy and soft, and so a few have cuts too shallow or too deep. Oh well. I dry assembled them, and they look like they'll be OK. These are really more proof-of-concept items. The second was definitely better cut than the first.

I was going to glue them up, but it was noon and 102F out, and I wanted to let the dogs into the garage. Tomorrow...

I spent the afternoon working on the app. S called, late afternoon, and we talked about some of the changes she wants.

Looking at the tax stuff, there is a number I can call. I'll try that tomorrow. My own tax people have never called back, it's a week tomorrow since I called them...

Looking at the stars last night, I realized that Jupiter is in Libra, my constellation.

Monday 16 July 2018

Monday - Hot and somewhat humid.

I went into town and picked up some 1x4's for the screening. It's overkill, but it matches what is already on the house. I also picked up some strips of wood. I was going to get molding, to hold the screen in place, but they want over a dollar a foot. Incredible. This is "lattice" wood, for repairing lattices I assume, and it's only a half dollar a foot. I only bought enough for a couple of windows, I want to see what it looks like.

In any case it will be cheaper to rip my own than to get ripped off by Home Depot.

There was a huge line, because they had only one cashier open at the contractors exit, on a Monday, in summer, at 10am. Morons. Then, just to compound the annoyances, they wanted to bring a forklift full of 2x10's through that exit, to do stocking with. On a Monday, at 10am.

I don't complain about these things in public, usually, but I told the cashier of my opinion of how they did business, and that if I were corporate the store would have a new manager and floor manager tomorrow...

I found my dados, both the cutter version and the wobble blade, so I'll try some simple lap joints. It doesn't have to be fancy. I've never changed the blade on the table saw - it didn't work before - but I imagine they will fit the radial arm saw.

What with shopping and laundry day the morning was shot, but I did get in a good 5 hours of app work in the afternoon. In theory I am supposed to be done by October for the other work down in Ventura, but it's going slow.

Got a bill from the IRS. Apparently their left hand and right hand don't talk. They know I had Obamacare (Kaiser) last year, and yet want to penalize me for not having it... Bah.

Spent a good five hours on the app, starting to make progress again.

Sunday 15 July 2018

Sunday - Hot. And kind of humid.

Went shopping with S. Spent over $100 on groceries, mostly because I hadn't really been shopping in three weeks.

This would be Dad's 95th. Hard to imagine. Wish he was still around.

M says his ex-girlfriend is a care giver for a 102yo woman. Wow.

Since it was so blamed hot I didn't do much outside. I worked on the app in the afternoon.

In the evening there was a dramatic conjunction of Venus and the New Moon. I dragged the scope out, but couldn't get any light through it, and had to give up on that.

Later I realized that it was just the multi-eyepiece adapter. There is a detent, so you know when you've aligned the eyepiece properly with the tube, but you can also twist the eyepiece tube, so you can be looking out of one of the three of the four eyepieces that isn't passing the light through! Duh.

Anyway, not the kind of thing you want to mess with just before bed time, so I'll adjust things tomorrow. Maybe put a strip of white paint to mark to view quadrant.

Book #30 was Uncharted, by Kevin Anderson and Sarah Hoyt. Meh. An alternate fantasy world in which Lewis and Clark set out to find the far side of the continent, but with dragons and zombie Indians...

Picture of the Week

Cayucos

Cayucos Beach.

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