Schedule indicates an early mid-week boring no-drinking lay around feed the mind instead of the body no shop day.

Events dictated otherwise.

No, not the mid-Pacific Plate upheaval which sent us all 3000 feet up into the Sierras to bask in the no-snowfall, but a simple email from Curtis, who apparently is in-State and will visit the Slackrage this day.

Rise from my catafalque, open The Shop.  Can now test drive Ed’s Sled.

But not so fast, first must install a back-up board the same width as the saddle, which is simple enough since most of the jig is formed from 3/4″ ply, and so is the backer board, which is intended to reduce (and we hope, eliminate) tear out from the dado blade.

Install the dado blade and test cut – results: Not the 0.25 inches you’d like to find, but measures out at 0.2485.  Probably that 0.0015 is outside of the  plus/minus of my digital gauge.  We’ll call it close enough.

The depth of the cut is a shy bit shallow, but the fit: tighty is righty!

Install some near-1/4″ ply into the saddle.

And now the real test – does one turn of the crank move the saddle 1/16th of an inch?

I do not know, even after the flight test.

You be the judge on the test cut fit.

Waste some time fenobulating those multi-type sticks glued up weeks ago when there’s a presence in the drive – It’s Curtis bearing bevutainments.

Pliny, of course takes the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Bismuth. The Hop Knot nails Judge’s Reserve Prize.

They range, as do our appetites, from what would have been a top-tier IPA 15 years ago, sink to the meh and soar back again to Pliny the Elder.

The Prof joins us, and we are glad.

Kim chi and nuts are unconfined.

And so are we.

DAY –

Hoping for a dayo calm, clear, collected.

Never going to be.

Financial lifeline spurts in the desired direction, I to the PO and off with the Sully mail including the quarterly passing the hat from the filthy rich Collins Foundation.

Tranquility, until I must ‘manage’ PC People’ where the report from Mitch is: “It won’t start up.”

This I knew 5 days ago, which is the reason for engaging Mitch, et.al.

“The tech isn’t here, but it’s open and on the bench.”

It’s 1030 of the AM, the tech isn’t here, maybe I called on his off day.

All I want to know is which is the bad actor: the processor or the mother board.  If the former, I’m better off buying a new box; if the latter, I’ll buy a new motherboard and swap it out.  Yet I cannot know talking to Mitch.

In other news, I’ve signed for and taken up a MOOC from the UVA: Jefferson.

At first, I was off-put by the pedagogue – it’s a form of learning I’d forgotten: a learned sage pontificating from the podium.

But by the second or third episode – the Trusties have broken up the course into 8 – 15 minute bites – I was happily engaged.  Not only by the subject matter, and the impressive capacity of the lecturer, but by something more subtle, and more valuable.

As Professor Onuf broached point after sentient point about how Jefferson’s legacy had risen and fell, lapsed and rose, the stimulation, and more significantly, the ability to digest and consider, compare and consign what the Professor was emphasizing became a rhythm that toned my thoughts.  So unlike reading where the brain, well, mine, at least, is hardly restrained, eager to consume, yet reluctant, or unable to reflect upon.

Here, the neurons fired in a different pattern allowing for an expansion of consideration.

So far, so good.

GOODAY –

Mostly.

PC People have been sitting on my desktop for four working days.  Nobody knows nothin.

After the not-at-all-emergency foray into TJ’s for extra bonus even more O’boom, it was confront the Know Nothings.  “Paul the Tech isn’t here.”  “It’s open on the bench, so something’s being done.”  “I see he connected up a spare power supply.”  “We can’t tell if it’s the motherboard or the processor.”

They could if they had secured a replacement mother board and swapped it with the processor.  Which is what I’ll do when the continued lack of urgency and Week of Fail are at an end.  Can only assume that the PC People once I did know, and who have saved me from having to buy a new computer at least three times are no more at this location.  I’ve come to the Leftover People when the Real People have left.  End of Line.

End up out to The Dump where nothing is stirring, stir some cash out of the wallet at Grocery Cheaplet, more than you’d like, but stocked up on olive oil.

Taking stock of Ed’s Sled once to The Shop, there were some fine adjustments necessary (desired) before putting the thing to its second Flight Test.

Drilling tiny holes = Large excitement.

1. Insert another spacer between the two dado blades, this one 0.010 inches.  This will bring the dado cut out to 0.2495” if we can believe my calipers can measure with that degree of accuracy.
2. Drill through and cotter pin the bolt on which the crank handle turns so that that knob actually does turn
3. Improve the replaceabilty of the sacrificial backstop that is unique for every box joint thickness
4. Install a mirror so that I can see the cut in work without having to attain Suranama Venda Yoga Position Bending Willow.

Flight Test #2 was not the rousing success you (I’d)  like: too much chip out and joints too tight.  Might need another spacer on the dado blade.  As to the chip out, head scratching ensued as I had the workpieces fully backed up.  Also troubling was the uneven fit of the box  joints – one set was off set.  Reason: Unknown.

Retire to the Penthouse Dome of Consideration for O’booms and grilling.

LABDAY –

But before the backhanded honor of serving as The City’s rep whilst the Cannery Row Foundation collects a few alms and simple but profound privilege of being in Pacific Biological Labs, field the phone from PC People.  Or rather a garbled message the gist of which was that they have remedied nothing.

From the sea looking into the past.

To The Lab.

It’s a stinking, wretchedly gorgeous cool morning.  The Cannery Row Foundation (read: Supporting Michael Hemp Since 1983!) is hosting tours, which they are permitted to do by The City four times a year, and would like to do more often.  But there exists some sort of strained antipathy between The City – the entity that owns The Lab – and the CRF.  Personality clash?  Ideology short-circuit?  Just plain cussedness?  I do not know.

I’m on station before 11 to relieve The Prof, who introduces me to David Barker, who is in charge of showing the bathroom.

It’s better than you think.  Trust me.

I liked him immediately, and not just because he runs his own computer consulting business, has seen the world, and lives in Pebble Beach.  No.

Frank sat in this very room 72 years ago drinking Burgermeister Beer with Ed Ricketts.

The wonder of Frank Wright is in play, there’s nothing Frank has to say – historically speaking – that is not worth listening to as he is the last, remaining connection to Ed Ricketts.  And what a horrible appellation, to be appreciated not for yourself, but because of someone you knew…

The CRF ‘tours’  are the usual helter skelter It’s Great To Be Here, here’s some disconnected facts, and we’ll turn it over to Frank miasma.

I don’t listen to anything I haven’t already heard, and so spend most of the time talking with David.  Passed out a few business cards, cracked a few jokes (jokes?!!), and got ding-donged by Hemp for talking up the free city tours starting next month.

At the end of my shift, shifted homeslice, harnessed up the drayage to fight the late Saturday afternoon throng into the village where I could be dunned $40 by PC People for not fixing my desktop.

Back to the Fortress of Slacktitude, a few clicks of the mousepad show me that Amazon does indeed have precisely the same motherboard I bought in September 2012 (and summoned up that order without me even asking) for $20 less than I then paid, and by signing on to Prime for free for 30 days, I get free two-day shipping AND access to Amazon’s streaming movie archives.

First out the gate: The Magnificent Seven which easily, without even loosening its necktie or taking off its street shoes nails a solid 8.97 on the Harvey Peanuts and Popcorn Scale.

Even more entertainment drives up to the Castle.  It’s the Prof with a sixer of Mickey’s Big Mouth, which I did not know still existed, and the God’s Nectar you want to quaff – Guinness.  Speculations are unconfined.

BOXDAY –

Ed’s Sled in action.

Today’s exercise: Full Up Test of the new box joint jig – max out the capacity.  Actually, the 42 cm width is defined by the two posts of the saddle clamp; remove them and you can have an eighty-seven foot-long box joint if you really wanted.  But you really don’t.  Although this jig could be used to make dentil molding to any length for which you had sufficient out-feed men to horse.

Shear out some ¼” ply – the most challenging of all materials for to make box joints due to the high chip-out potential – then lam them into about 21 x 39 cm sides and front/back.

Now, to the Jig.

Cutting the individual notches is a tedious process:  snug the ply just against the saw teeth, back off the jig, turn the crank 8 times, run the jig forward – run the jig back, turn the crank 8 times etc.  Except for the stutter step about 3 inches in where I cut three successive passes. Happily, Ed’s Sled accomodates two-at-a-time, either the sides, or the front/back.

Dry fit of the Full Up Test Box showing the stutter step where the lid will be cut from the base.

With the matching insert in that ¾” cut and when the box is glued, I can cut a lid from the base without interrupting the ¼” spacing of the pattern.

Certainly I can.

The box joints are tight enough that no clamps are needed.  Those that you see are holding the 90 degree enforcers so that the box glues up square.

In Sum: There’s an unacceptable degree of chip out (read: any), but I knew it was a risk.  Perhaps there’s a 0.5 mm gap between the ply workpiece and the backer board.  Next go I’ll run tape over the anticipated cut areas.

If next time there be ….