Glenn's Daily Script » Hobbies

Wondering if my family is coming to Portland for weekend

Glenn — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 04:51:46 +0000

I’m down in Portland, OR for a week. I’m attending 2 woodworking classes (see my woodwoorking blog, This Week in Wood for more details).

Before I left, Kathy and I had a tentative plan that the family would come down for the weekend. We’ve never really come to Portland before and we figured it was a good opportunity to explore and play. Unfortunately, the weather decided to not cooperate. When talking about the Pacific Northwest, when some says the weather isn’t cooperating, you would usually think about a big rain. That’s not the case in this instance. The weather has decided to go to 100+ degrees for the past 4 days and will likely be in the high 90′s on Saturday (when the family would come).

Now, even the boys aren’t excited about coming to visit with the weather being what it is. I suspect that they won’t as one of the key things Kathy thought would be fun was an outdoor activity (not so fun in high 90′s).

It’s a good thing I have movies and a few things I can do on Saturday since it’s a gap day between my 2 woodworking classes.

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Wondering if my family is coming to Portland for weekend

Shop Layout

Glenn — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:08:50 +0000

One of the things I’ve found that I spend a lot of time as a woodworker (hobby not professional) is organizing my shop. I’ve read that many hobby based woodworkers do the same.

I suspect that my reasons for this is multi faceted. One reason is that my shop is relatively small. Another reason is that I’m retooling my approach to woodworking by incorporating some hand tool skills in addition to my power tool usage.

For instance, I’ve kept my hand planes in my tool box. This has caused 2 problems though. First, there is some rust issues due to the metal toolbox and crowded hand planes. Second, the planes are spanning several drawers so remember using a certain plane for a certain job is challenging. All this motivated me to move my planes outward and put them is easily visible and easily accessible shelves.

Now I have to clean off the rust but the tools are where I need them and all the planes are ready to go.

Of course, now I have a few drawers that can be used for other purposes.

Guitar Practice

Glenn — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 09:21:08 +0000

So for the past three years, I have been actively working to learn how to play the guitar. My view on what this means has changed over these three years.

When I first started, I wanted to learn to play chords so I could play campfire songs. My first year or so was with a teacher who taught me exactly that. He would occasionally insert music learning or technique learning but I would resist it and back we would go to songs.

After a while though I realized that my memory of campfire guitar players was clouded. In the beginning, I thought that playing campfire songs was playing the hyper simple versions of any song. I was wrong and realized this when I revisited my memories. Guitar players that were comfortable playing campfire songs were often very skilled yet never in your face about their skills. Yes, they would play simple songs with chords but they would also have complex strumming patterns, finger picking, actual guitar riffs and other elements that made the songs more interesting and fun.

So I changed teachers and began learning technique, music theory, and a more complete view of guitar playing. At first, it was great but after a short time I had an issue. I stopped having a focused practice.

About a month ago, I began the process of refocusing my guitar practices. I defined ahead of time what I was going to work on. I defined the length of time to practice. I either picked a time when my family wasn’t around and asked them to respect my practice time. About 2 weeks ago, it started clicking again and I feel like my progress forward is more definitive rather than haphazard.

It does seem that you can take 10 years to learn something but if you put some mental focus and effort behind it you can greatly shorten that time and be more satisfied with your day to day progress.

Paint Changes

Glenn — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:17:35 +0000

I painted the kitchen walls yesterday with our choice of yellow. It’s a friendly, inviting yellow that has mustard tones in it – not Dijon and not French’s yellow though.

Once it was on the wall, Kathy began the process of changing her mind. She liked the Kitchen color but wanted to change the dining room area to the same yellow rather than the two tone Brick/Teracota colors. I put a quick coat on last night and she likes it so that is what we are going with.

There will still be delineation between the two areas. The Kitchen area has simple walls while the Dining Room area has crown molding, chair rails, and a simple detail below the chair rails. These details in the Dining Room will get a gloss white treatment.

Maybe I’ll finish the yellow today.

Time to Paint

Glenn — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:12:13 +0000

The kitchen remodel that we are doing is going well – in fact, we may be ahead of schedule by a day or so.

I’ve started to do some of the painting.

Kathy and I have taken more risk than we’ve done before with color though it’s still pretty conservative. We are going with a yellow shade in our Kitchen area which we think goes well with the cherry cabinets, the dark granite counter, and the mixed earth-tone color tile backsplash. In the dining area, which is not separated from the kitchen with a wall or other hard boundary, will get a two tone treatment. Below the chair rail, we are going with a dark brick color and above the chair rail will be a terra-cotta (much lighter in color than the red). We think it gives a richness and formality to the space.

In addition, I’m painting the laundry room, 3 hallways, and a bathroom though these are all going a shade of white.

I’ve painted the ceiling in the kitchen (it needed it since a bunch of it is new drywall), the laundry room, 1 hallway, and I’ve started on the other 2. I’m hoping this week to finish the other 2 hallways and start the kitchen and maybe dining room too.

I’m hoping to slow down a bit because I’ve got �painters elbow� and other aches that definitely came from painting (the ceiling is the most likely culprit).

Remodel Anxiety

Glenn — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:19:01 +0000

Ok, when you go into a remodel of your house, your home, you are hopeful that the choices you make are the right ones. You are hopeful, that the design fits your personal style. You are hopeful, that the functionality is maximized. Ultimately, you are hopeful that the results will be everything that you want and everything that you need.

The contractor though, is about other things. The contractor is about the profit. The contractor is about doing a good job (hopefully). The contractor is about a satisfied customer (who will recommend the contractor to others for more business). The contractor is about minimizing costs, time.

Of course, the contractor works Monday through Friday while you live 7 days a week.

This leaves the weekends to fret and be anxious and be upset about trivial things and with any luck be excited about other things.

In other words, weekends are full of anxiety.

Remodel Info

Glenn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:42:19 +0000

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this at all or very often in this blog but Kathy and I are doing a large remodel of our kitchen, dining room, and laundry/mud room.

So far, I must say that the company we hired to do this job has some really hard working folks. I think they have really made some progress given their schedule.

If you’d like to see progress check out our Photo Gallery with remodel pictures. There are before and ongoing pictures.

Small Project

Glenn — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:21:39 +0000

Kathy and I like having a white board and a place to hang things (via magnets or such). We came up with a space in our Laundry Room/Mud Room to hang it so that defined the size.

I’ve taken a quick and dirty way of making something for the space by combining two inexpensive boards. I’ve even left space for a basket below.

I still have to �finish� it by adding a frame around the outside to give it some polish.

If we are not satisfied with this, I may have to look at other ways including paints (metallic, erasable surface paint) or laminate surfaces (metallic, …).

New Workbench

Glenn — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:49:38 +0000

Recently, Matt from Matt’s Basement Workshop podcast (go find it on iTunes) had talked about replacing his workbench. It motivated me to try the same.

I had a workbench that was collapsable which was a benefit since my shop is small. After looking at it and considering the actual workspace on the bench, I decided a fixed workbench would work better. The length and height are the same as the collapsable bench but I made the depth narrower though the actual workspace is larger.

Overall, I’m happy with the results. I was able to do it with stuff I had on hand (though I needed a 2×6 so I had to get that) so that made the ultimate project better.

The design is basically the same as the collapsable bench. It has a front bench vice and a side bench vice. I improved the bench dog holes and added some along the front to provide support for longer boards (when edge planing).

Here are two pictures. The first shows the overall bench including the storage below. The second shows the clamp and bench dog holes (I made the bench dogs myself which I’m also pretty happy with). You can find these photo’s in our Photo Gallery (check the tab at the top of the page) under Hobbies then Woodworking.

Paint Color

Glenn — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:19:58 +0000

Kathy totally disagrees with me on this but I believe that I have a decent color sense. Mind you, I can be lazy with regards to pick clothing but that doesn’t mean I don’t know things don’t work. Also, I can’t give you the accurate color name but again it doesn’t mean that I can tell the difference between colors.

I suggested some colors for our upcoming Kitchen remodel and Kathy wouldn’t even accept them as choices till the designer we are working with said that they would be good choices.

Now, once we got them on the wall Kathy didn’t like the color. In my view is was a very bright color while she just said it had too much orange in it. Kathy is very conservative so it’s not surprising that she wanted a tamer color.

We got an alternative which was darker and richer and seems like a good fit. Overall, I think we got to the right color pretty easily. We are still debating the white accent/cieling color but that should be easy.

WordPress on iPod Touch

Glenn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:02:58 +0000

I am trying the new WordPress application for the iPod Touch/iPhone. It as simple to set up. The keyboard makes it hard enough that I am not likely to post very often.

Vista and Fusion

Glenn — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:36:12 +0000

I’ve just setup up a new virtual machine under VMWare’s Fusion. Since Kathy has been having good luck with Vista, I decided to take the plunge too and used Vista SP1 for this new virtual machine.

My purpose for this installation is to run a few simple programs that I have yet to shed myself of.

1) MS Money is what Kathy and I use to manage both our daily money and validate and sanity check our financial planners work. If I found something that could replace it on OS X, I probably would at least for the long term planning work. NOTE: If there is anyone out there using something that might work, let me know.

2) Alarm programming and control using HAI’s software only works under Windows. This is not likely to change.

3) UPB home automation software, like UPBStart, is currently only Windows compatible. This could change though maybe not. People have to have a motivation and mostly that is about making money so I’m not sure OS X is a target market for home automation.

4) I’m the treasurer for our kids’ school’s PTSA and so I use Quick Books. I could go to a OS X version but Intuit does a lousy job for transferring the files between OS X and Windows. Also, after I serve my second year, the replacement would likely be using Windows so keeping it there makes sense.

I’d go nearly instantly to OS X versions for the first 3. Maybe someday!

Blanket Chest – Progress finally!

Glenn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:40:49 +0000

I’ve been very busy over the last 2 weeks or so on my blanket chest. It is assembled and sanded and ready for a finish.

Here is a picture on the way to getting done:

Here is the final assembled (still needs knobs on the drawers though):

I have already installed the knobs and drawer sliders. It is sanded to 220 grit and I’ve softened some of the key edges though not all because the design really wants to have crip edges (especially around the bottom molding).

My goal for finishing is to leave it natural so it will probably be poly. I plan on putting a few coats of gloss with the final be a matt finish.

UPDATE: I’ve decided to go with a clear shellac. I’ve done a few coats while sanding with 320 grit between coats. I will do at least 2 more.

Guitar Repair Maintenance

Glenn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:47:50 +0000

I bought a DVD talking about Electric Guitar setup and maintenance. The DVD is titled Fret MD: Electric Guitar and Bass Setup and Maintenance with Al Markasky.

Short of a class on this subject, I thought the presentation of the areas covered were excellent. He covers the main areas of setup which in his process is 5 steps. Some of the steps still look a little scary but that is probably more about changing the current physical setup when you are not an expert.

He also covered a couple of small things regarding maintenance.

The complete process of setup and maintenance would be really useful on a beat up garage sale find. Taking the steps here and maybe adding a few like part replacement (he only covers nut replacement but if he covered changing out electronics, that would be very useful) could turn a non-functional garage sale find into a great instrument.

Overall, this is a good DVD and could be great if it included electronic replacments.

Woodworking: Blanket Chest

Glenn — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:53:53 +0000

I’ve been working pretty steady on my blanket chest and making some progress forward and then losing some progress too.

At the beginning of the project, I had taken a bunch of Cherry wood (what I’m making this blanket chest from) and glued up panels. The glue ups looked great after some scraping and sanding. The outer carcas was made with these glue ups and I had one other that I intended to use for an inner shelf but earlier this last week I discovered it was too short. Rather than going to the expense and time to glue up boards, I decided that the inner shelf could be cherry plywood. After getting the plywood at my local wood supply store, I cut it to rough size.

After a dry fit, I now have to fine tune the dado’s for the shelf which is my next step and hopefully only forward progress.

Once I get the blanket chest, sans lid and drawers, dry fit, I will take a picture and post it.