The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey January 4, 2015

Going Fast

The year sure is flying by. It seems that New Year's Day was only a couple of days ago, and already 1% of my year is gone already! As anticipated, I did get some flooring installed in the basement on Parade/Bowl Day, too: The flooring goes down pretty easy. I made use of my Dremel multi-tool to get under the edges of door jams and such. In the last couple of days, I fabricated some maple edge transitions, and got them installed today (pictures some other day). There's still floor prep + painting and moulding to apply before the project…

Brian Bilbrey December 28, 2014

Final Sunday

So endeth the last four day weekend of the year. Well, I am on call, so it was four days of not going to the office, but keeping a reasonably close eye on email... We had a nice Christmas Day - food and relaxation and calling family off and on through the day. Friday was all about the leftovers. I'm going to have to pick up that exercise ball and run with it double-time for a while to make up for that. Saturday, I finished up a couple of small woodworking projects, and today, I finished preparing the first section…

Brian Bilbrey December 21, 2014

Welcome to Winter

I'm thinking of Jerry Pournelle a lot these days, and wishing for him a speedy and complete recovery from his recent "small" stroke. What I *want* is for Jerry to keep defying odds, and keep putting out first rate science fiction (selfish of me, I know), and for Jerry to keep enjoying life. Not much to ask, is it? * * * Just another busy weekend for me, though. Much of yesterday I was in the woodshop, and repeated that again today. Among other things, I dismantled an old humidifier that was wasting space. Most of it is now in…

Brian Bilbrey December 14, 2014

Year Winding Down

We're about two weeks out, and at 36"+, just a little under eight inches shy on precipitation compared to annual normal. Of course, the tree abutting the deck has put on some bulk in the last couple of years, and it's entirely possible that the current siting of my rain gauge is in tree shadow part of the time. I'm thinking of re-siting it (or even getting a more comprehensive weather thing) in the next year. But that's a project for another day (month?). But this year certainly has flown by. * * * If you saw what I was…

Brian Bilbrey December 7, 2014

"A date which will live in infamy"

So said Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, after the attack at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Here is a transcript of his speech, courtesy of GMU. This important historical even seems barely mentioned by big media these days. I was pleased to see that the flags in Maryland are at half staff today to honor those who died in the attack. * * * Along with finishing up Marcia's quilting cabinet (see the December 4 post), and getting some house cleaning done, I managed to spend some time working on building a sump pit monitor…