Rainy days and Mondays

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Or both, as the case surely has been. In this back yard, we’ve had 4 inches of rain in the last four days. Locally around the area, lots more, I hear. But everything is pretty squelchy outside. It’ll be a few days before I can mow again… But the garden, it grows like topsy, and the first small tomatoes and peppers are making an appearance.

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Sorry for the delay. Saturday was building cabinet carcasses in the workshop. Early Sunday morning was upset gastric bits and lost sleep, followed by patching work at 0700. It turned out to be a distracted, dead day for me. Seemed like a good choice not to go back downstairs and work with fast-spinning bits of metal, so I didn’t. In the evening, issues at work kept me focused outside myself, but I missed being here. Today? Feeling better, resolved the technical difficulties, and made progress on a couple of projects.

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Spc. Ray A. Ramirez, 20, of Sacramento, California, died June 1, in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his unit was attacked by an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Kyle P. Stoeckli, 21, of Moseley, Virginia, died June 1, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his unit was attacked by an improvised explosive device.
  • Pfc. Mariano M. Raymundo, 21, of Houston, Texas, died June 1, in Sharan, Afghanistan.
  • Warrant Officer Sean W. Mullen, 39, of Dover, Delaware, died June 2, in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Job M. Reigoux, 30, of Austin, Texas, died June 1, in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade.
  • 2nd Lt. Justin L. Sisson, 23, of Phoenix, Arizona, died June 3, in Tsamkani, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Robert A. Pierce, 20, of Panama, Oklahoma, died June 3, in Tsamkani, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.

Postal flowers

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Last year, instead of installing annuals at the post box, I put in some perennials. Frankly, they weren’t stellar … but they didn’t die. And they’ve come up wonderfully this year:

Perennials by the post box

Perennials by the post box

Next year, I’ll put some more here and there, and see if I can cut down further on the planting of annuals. I spread some of the tiger lilies over to the blue spruce island left of the driveway, but something ate the tops off of those this year, grrrrr! Anyway, I just stopped in to show off the pretty. Ciao!

Garden doings…

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I’ve been pretty good about weeding out the garden, while preserving volunteers for replanting around the beds. I’ve got three volunteer tomato plants and several peppers. I have no idea what specific variety of either is likely to result … but yummy is as yummy does. Here’s the garden in progress, from a couple of days ago:

Garden on 30 May 2013

Garden on 30 May 2013

As I write this, the wind is up, lightning all around, and rain the size of small hatchbacks is falling. The good news is that the garden is young. Big wind when the plants are large tends to blow things over, or even out of the raised beds altogether. The rain is good, though – the lawns are thirsty.

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 Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Spc. Christopher R. Drake, 20, of Tickfaw, Louisiana, died May 26, in Bagram, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked with a rocket propelled grenade.
  • Staff Sgt. Joe A. Nunezrodriguez, 29, of Pasadena, Texas, died May 30, in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, from injuries sustained when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.

15 years; Table done

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Those are unrelated topics, as the semicolon indicates. First (as my lovely Marcia points out), I neglected to point out to all and sundry that we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary yesterday. We went out to Sly Horse Tavern for supper, to celebrate. It’s good to be happy, eh?

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Table done:

Table in the sun

Table in the sun

I brought the table bits halfway up, and setup on the lawn, to show how pretty this is in full light. Then I hauled it back inside and upstairs, and properly attached the top to the apron.

Table in my office

Table in my office

I’m nearly 80% done with this project. I’ve got two more base cabinets and a counter top to fabricate and install. Then the office is done. Yay!

Memorial Day Weekend

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A three day chore marathon, closing with the annual remembrance of those lost to us in active military service. I choose to be a bit more OCD about my duty to honor our losses. (Or, as @xeni noted the other day on twitter, CDO, because it SHOULD be alphabetized!)

Saturday: I got the table apron and legs completed and assembled:

Table apron and legs assembled

Table apron and legs assembled

Next on Saturday, but without any photographic evidence at this time, I got our hanging baskets populated and hung up on the front porch. The watering outlets are in the baskets, but that isn’t set up with a supply yet, that’s held for Monday.

Final Saturday task – I applied gel stain to both surfaces of the cherry table top, to even out the look of the wood:

Staining the cherry top

Staining the cherry top

Sunday was a power run: I did the shopping, then applied a first coat of polyurethane to the bottom of the table. I mowed the lawns, with a dog walk as the halftime show. I evened out the first coat of poly with #0000 steel wool and a bit of 320 grit sandpaper, vacuumed, cleaned, and dried, then applied a second coat of poly. I watered and weeded out back, and took a little break. I then prep’d the bottom one more time, and applied a third coat of poly. That’ll cure overnight, and I’ll flip the work piece and start coating the top surface tomorrow. That and watering system setup will fill my Memorial Day, as will my thoughts of our fallen warriors…

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and the 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team on the deaths of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. Eugene M Aguon, 23, of Mangilao, Guam, died May 16, in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a vehicle borne improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Dwayne W. Flores, 22, of Sinajana, Guam, died May 16, in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a vehicle borne improvised explosive device.

 

Table work

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I’m working on the table/desk now. It’s got the cherry top that you’ve seen in early construction phase here. Now I’m assembling the apron. I bought the table legs from Osborne Wood Products. They’d have sold me the apron, too, but I was already stocked on the materials I needed for this. On Friday I did all the cuts. Today I did some round-over routing of the lower edges, cut a groove for the table top clips, and assembled the apron:

Assembling the desk/table apron

Assembling the desk/table apron

The center stretchers are affixed with pocket screws. The angled pieces in the corners are glued and pinned – They will (eventually) have holes for hanger bolts from the legs for final assembly. Because I’m using the table saw as an assembly surface, I’m protecting small areas with wax paper. For a larger project, I’d drop on a piece of hardboard instead.

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Our condolences to the familes, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Sgt. 1st Class Trenton L. Rhea, 33, of Oakley, Kan., died May 15, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after drowning while attempting to cross a body of water during combat operations.
  • Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey C. Baker, 29, of Hesperia, California, died May 14, in Sanjaray, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Mitchell K. Daehling, 24, of Dalton, Massachusetts, died May 14, in Sanjaray, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. William J. Gilbert, 24, of Hacienda Heights, California, died May 14, in Sanjaray, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Cabinet done

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The completed cabinet

The completed cabinet

The completed cabinet shows off it’s party piece – a slide-out tray to make the computers easier to work on. Given the placement of the heavy stuff, though, it’s clear I had to cleat the top of the unit to a stud in the wall – the weight of the two computers was enough to start it tilting forward. I’d expected that, but “tested” it, anyway. One computer, fine. Two? Not so much. It’s also worth noting that I’ve got a half inch of dense closed-cell foam buffer between the computers and the tray, to cut down on vibration transfer – that helps keep the noise down in here.

I got that install done, and got a couple of flats of flowers installed in the front beds today. The weather? Not frosty … more like mid-eighties. Sigh. Time to unwind. Ciao!

Aaaaargh! Frost!

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What happens when you put vegetables into your garden on the twelfth of May? You get a frost on the fourteenth of May, that’s what!

Frost impact 2013MAY14

Frost impact 2013MAY14

I lost just a few plants, not all of them … but seriously?

Dan steps up

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A big shout-out to Dan Seto, of Misc. Ramblings fame. He’s one of the infamous Daynotes Gang, joining (being joined? forced into Internet servitude?) the group shortly after I did, back in the earliest days of the new millenium (or possibly at the end of the last, I don’t have a precise record at hand). Dan stepped up to the plate and covered Daynotes.com‘s registration for the next couple of years, so we’re good most of the way through 2015! Thanks, Dan!

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I was amused to note that NetSol will let you spend nearly 3300$US online to “renew” a domain for an additional 100 year term. If you’re taking the long view, either personally or corporately, that might be a really good financial move. Gandi’s registration fees for the common TLDs are less than half what NetSol charges, but online you can only go up to 8 years for $124. GoDaddy runs just under 15$US per annum for renewal fees.

I bring up Gandi in that list above because I freed myself from GoDaddy’s increasingly interesting perspectives and issues. My biggest gripe with them was their support for Disney’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the MAFIAA’s legislative agenda, explicitly last year’s SOPA bill. It’s taken me a while to find the time to undertake the changes necessary, but I completed that journey yesterday, migrating the last of the domains to Gandi. The web interface is much more pleasant, and when whois privacy and domain list selling opt-outs are factored in, they’re cheaper than GoDaddy, too.

Whoops! Time to walk the mutt. Ciao!

Busy Sunday

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When I laid out the doors and shelves and such for finishing, there wasn’t room to leave the cabinet carcass in the woodshop and still have room to setup for roasting coffee. Coffee wins, so I dragged the carcass sections upstairs, assembled and temporarily loaded them up:

Corner cabinet in place

Corner cabinet in place

I ran out of time to get any more finishing done on the remaining pieces, sadly. I did get the main garden up and running today, though…

2013 garden getting started

2013 garden getting started

There’s 24 tomato plants, 12 pepper plants, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, etc. I still have to get the herb box cleared and up, as well as do the watering setup. For the next few days, I’ll hand water.

I’m still going to try to get Marcia’s sites migrated over to the new system tonight, before I fall over sideways.

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

  • Staff Sgt. Eric D. Christian, 39, of Warwick, New York, died May 4, while conducting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.
  • Cpl. David M. Sonka, 23, of Parker, Colorado, died May 4, while conducting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.
  • 1st Lt. Brandon J. Landrum, 26, of Lawton, Oklahoma, died May 4, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Staff Sgt. Francis G. Phillips IV, 28, of Meridian, New York, died May 4, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Kevin Cardoza, 19, of Mercedes, Texas, died May 4, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Thomas P. Murach, 22, of Meridian, Idaho, died May 4, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked by an enemy improvised explosive device.
  • Spc. Brandon J. Prescott, 24, of Bend, Oregon, died May 4, in Maiwand, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his vehicle was attacked by an enemy improvised explosive device.