I only read Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in winter.  At night.  When it’s raining, and with a plate of chocolates.  It’s winter, night comes once a day, I have the chocolates.

What we don’t have is the rain.  There’s no app for that.  Or is there?

SANTACRUZDAY –

I had a double assembly in far off Santa Cruz last Friday: a desk with hutch atop and a bookcase.  The desk was a blind bitch, but only because the solons of Office Max insist that the hutch must be assembled First, Attached to the 55 inch long by 24 inch deep Desktop, and then the entire edifice lifted 32 inches to set upon the desk bottom.

The assembly instructions do no indicate from where comes the ‘assistant’ who is required to prevent shoulder shredding.

The good news was that in shredding my left shoulder, it has come to pass that it wasn’t a joint injury, most likely the tendon insertion in the humerus.  The bad news is that I was so nackered that I couldn’t do the bookcase.

And so I must return, and that day was today.

On the way, sort of, slip into Applied Industrial Technology Spreckels way for my four Applied Industrial bearings.  Here, things turned ugly.

I must have heard wrong when quoted the price, I must have heard what I wanted to hear when the confirmation call came, for when the bill arrived, the dock for the four bearing came in at $53.

I balked, refusing two of the four.  Miguel plays the “I don’t know” game about the pending ‘restocking fee,’ he’ll have to ‘call the distributor.’

I leave with two bearings and a certainty I’m going to be credit card raped for just about the same money as I would have paid for all four bearings.

The desk I assembled last week is on the right – the bookcase in work on the left.

North to Santa Cruz and 924 King Street and the bookcase.  I’m early, ‘natch, but happily, Jerry Garcia’s avatar is there and I set to work.

The assemble took two hours, a Real Guy probably could have done it in one, and maybe IF I ever undertake such a build again, it will me.

Missing holes tend to slow the assembly process – that dime-sized hole at the end of my finger ought to be connected to a smaller diameter hole through the edge of the particle board for the cam lock bolt, but isn’t.

Thanks to my two weeks as a Boy Scout, I had with me my satchel-sized 3,674 part drill and driver set which allowed recovery from a shelf with a missing hole.  Otherwise, the assembly would have stalled out at that point.

The Tally.

The desk and bookcase grossed me $65.  That includes a generous $25 for gas granted me by my boss, Dave Lando – hale fellow well met.

The desk build took 4 hours, the bookcase 2, factor in the 2 hours getting to and fro each time and we come to a time cost of 10 hours.

Thus we have 180 miles of travel (two round trips from PG to SC) and at 13 mpg and gas at $3.60/gallon the cost of running the truck (not including wear and tear) comes to: 180 miles x [$3.60/gallon]/[1 gallon/13 miles] = $49.84.

Subtracting the cost of the gas $49.84 from the gross pay of $65 leaves $15.15.

$15.15 divided by the ten hours it took to do the job grants the wonderment of making all of One Dollar and Fifty One Cents An Hour.

Don’t think I’ll be doing that again.

XRAYDAY –

The Monday consultation with the Physician’s Assistant did not result in the Best Case Outcome, which would have been a wave of the magic wand and my swollen joints return to normal.  I think it’s gout.  The PA has a different view.  Her admonition: get an x-ray.

The 1930 hospital on Hartnell’s town lot.

And so this morning, just after I greet the workmen Jim and Dave, who are here to remove the dilapidated draw bridge and erect its replacement, and showing them hither to the water source of the moat and thither to the power sources at the tesla coils, I motor into town and to the nearest Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology shop, which is in the old town hospital on Hartnell Street.

Hartnell Street is so named for a phenome of early Yankee – Californio history, William Hartnell, a limey who arrived in Mexican Monterey in 1822, just after Mexico succeeded from Spain.  He ingratiates himself into the Alta Californio nobility, learns the language, marries into the de la Guerra family, the richest of them all, converts to Mexican citizenship which allows him to obtain land grants, speculates in business and becomes the Mexican tax collector, customs inspector and province treasurer.  Notice how close to money all those positions are.  And he reaped the benefits.  He was instrumental – second only to Thomas O. Larkin – in facilitating the Yankee hegemony and near-bloodless transition from Mexican province to American statehood.

And here I am on the hospital grounds built in 1930, supplanted in 1985 by the temple of healing up the hill, on his town lot.  The former hospital is now …. well, I’m not quite sure what it is now, didn’t see but the former lobby where my particulars are documented by an able factotum, and then I’m ushered into one of the wave form gun rooms, have three poses taken and I’m in and out of there in less time than a typical grocery shopping stint.

It looks better gone.

Back to The Castle.  The yeomen have removed all the defunct drawbridge saving for me some of the main planks which look deserving of incorporation in future projects.

But we nay need think of the Future now, only get that new bearing into the bandsaw and get it back on line.  This is straightforwardly accomplished.

And still the blade veers on cutting.

Reset the blade guides.  No change.

Mayhaps the top thrust bearing, even though spinning freely, should also be replaced?

This is done and some improvement in cutting is seen, and yet smoke still ensues.  I do not know what else to do, except to re-align the mitre gauges to the new blade lay.  And wonder where the $2000 is to come from whereby to purchase the long-needed Real Guy bandsaw.

With this challenge put aside, turn to the Pencil Case Case.

And I’ve decided the Case isn’t for a pencil.  Maybe for crocheting needles?  Dunno, but not for a pencil.  A guy would just slip a pencil in his pocket, but a lady would need a small case for …. well for whatever it is for which this case was made.

Anyway, lam out some cedar in four parts, mitre’d for the top of the case, then cut the glass.

Phone rings.  It’s Miguel “I Don’t Know” from Applied Industrial Technologies who tells me that he’s rescinded half the credit card charge and no mention of a ‘restocking fee.’  My rectum unpuckers and I thank him for his consideration, although I’ll keep a turkey’s eye on the AX statement….

Phone rings and it’s the Carmel Glass Artisanette – The Glaswegan.  The five sided whirling dog paean is a GO.  Consultation at 0715 tomorrow.

NEXTDAY –

Neither did the scheduled consultation with the Glaswegan occur at 0715 nor the lads – James and David – tasked with building the new drawbridge get as early a start, likely they were at Home Despicable collecting material.

The doggie memorial genesis.

It wasn’t until 0903 that they arrived, and shortly thereafter, the Glaswegan, flush with the doggie paean concept, we’ll call it the Kohl Cenotaph, for that was the name of the good doggie now gone from this place.

It is to be a five-sided pedestal about 14 inches high and about … well, I don’t know about how wide across as the end design will rely entirely on the six pieces of glass – five with images of Kohl and the top piece of … well, whatever it will be.  Non-revolving, no music box, but lit from within.  A tasty challenge for JohnsonArts, and if I can pull it off in 10 hours I can make my avowed rate of $50/hour.

Step One with the Kohl Cenotaph: await delivery of the six glass panes.  This is also tasty as it gives me plenty of time during the Midnight Study Hall(s) to address the design issues and sort through the fabrication and assembly sequence.

Amid our design discussions and coffee, The Glaswegan remarks upon Leonardo’s portrait, apparently one of her hero’s as well.  She says his motto was “Relentless Rigor.”  From what I know about Leonardo, this seems an ex post facto imposition, have never seen this quote attributed to him and certainly is the antipode of JohnsonArts where our mantra is “Unsuppressed Slack.”

Isaiah 14-6 has this to say: “He that smote the peoples in wrath with a relentless stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted unsparingly.”

Much more aligned with our zeitgeist …. Anyway, the commission is on and I’m jazzed, or will be on once I see the cash.

Step 43 on the Pencil Case Case that is not a Pencil Case: glue up the base.

Step 44: glue up the case top.

Step 45: glue up the back door.  The back door is glass in a fir frame the outside dimensions of which are 13.5 x 8.2 cm.  The smallest frame ever assembled here at JohnsonArts.  How to clamp it, Jed?

Rubber bands sproing to mind, but how to hold fast the five moving parts of the glass and frame in order to get the rubber bands around the periphery?

A Solution: deploy the balsa wood work platform on which all my model airplanes were built; thrust small nails into the platform just outside the dimensions of the door; stretch the bands around the nails; put the glue to the frame and glass; place the frame inside the already stretched bands; and finally, carefully, slip the bands from the nails and onto the frame.

It worked.  Better than it should have.  The Gods Ignore me.  Ra Be Praised.

Back to the base and case top – the monkey glue is sufficient cured to remove these case parts from the clamps.  Can now fit the verticals that will connect the base with the top.  And discover that the top does not quite overlap the verts.  I have two choices: 1 – ignore this slop; and 2 – make new verts.  Jury still out.

That 2 mm offset between the vert and the base would, if gone unremediated, result in a like sized, glaring gap between the base and gas. No Good.

In spite of this blinderpox, fine-tune the tenons of the verts to fit into the mortisii of the base, then using by friend (ever possible sudden, traumatic, multiple finger amputation) the table saw to kerf the verts for the glass that will form the front and sides of the case.

Not as precisely as desired, in this case.

Maybe I am indeed going to form four new verts.  But on the other foot, my inclination is (always, the Johnson Tradition) to fnerk the parts I’ve got and make the best of it, particularly since no one will ever more than glance at this little case and I’m the only one having or will ever have a stress attack about my lack of precision.

But of course the issue isn’t about anything other than my own inability to meet my own expectations.  Send Prozac.

Cirque du Soleil is coming by later to practice on the new stair stringers.

While I’m eyeing the seppuku sword, Jim announces success for the day and asks if he can store most of his tools in the Slackrage overnight.  And success it is as all three drawbridge stringers are in place.  I took it as a compliment that he’d trust his tools to my (tacit) care.  Or maybe he was just that flagged.  His helper, David, is wearing a Modesto Wrestling shirt; he was a bruiser grappling at 192.

I wonder if that Skil worm-drive circular saw will not mysteriously disappear overnight….

AFTEROVERNIGHTDAY –

Cheese stockpiles being adequate, but monotonous, mandate a foray.  James and David are on-station at 0830 and I leave them to their task and I off to TJ’s to supplement the adequate, but happily monotonous O’boom rations.

This done, to The Dump which is in a Slump.  Nothing for JohnsonArts.  Saved 43 shillings.

Spent 53 shillings at Grocery Cheaplet not all on cheese.

Colton Hall in winter.

Took the scenic route through town which caused me to slip into Colton Hall, could remind Claire that her favorite husband promised, at the party last week, to show me his father’s WWII flight log book.

No Claire, but Dr. Copeland was hammering out emails.  He gave no intimation nor did I ask for any hint on the decision about the Program Manager position for which I interviewed with him a month ago.  Instead, I asked about that antique box on his shelf.

Turns out this was the portable desk of Sheriff Bill Roach, the first American sheriff of Monterey County – circa 1850.  While the eminent doctor is laying bare the ugly story of the Roach – Belcher feud, I’m gloming the tiny cabinet, the third I’ve seen here –  the other one upstairs in Colton Hall, the second in Casa Serrano – because I want to make a replica.  And will.

The restoration of this vital artifact of early Yankee Monterey would be a fine task for JohnsonArts.

I leave him with a question – “Whatever became of Lt. Archibald Gillespie?”

Spent 13 pence at Ka-nob Hill for Palermo Rolls and A Dollar Fifty for One Green Pepper?  What!!!?

Back to the Slack, the lads are hard on it on the drawbridge putting in the risers, their goal: have the thing operational by end-of-day.

In spite of this overly optimistic intention, I ignore them and turn to the Case Case.  First, can I narrow one side of the front vertical tenons so as to have the glass, once installed meet the front edge of the front kerf?

I try.

Can I do the same with the back verts so as to make the side glass panels tight to the side kerfs.

We here at JohnsonArts prefer our grooves to be aligned.

I endeavor.

Now, cut another floor and fit it to the base.  So far, so plywood.

To the back door.  More slack (SLACK!) than Leonardo would have permitted between the door and the two flanking verts, but press on with drilling holes in both verts and the door for the brass pivot that will form the hinge.

This done, there’s a growl up the motte, why it’s Curtis and Kathleen and Doggle! fresh from their roadtrip to Vegas and the CES.  Sidetrip to Death Valley.  We have nothing here at Castle Slackton that can approach the mind-clearing experience that is the Mojave Desert.  So we don’t try.

PC911DAY –

A good day that started badly, except for the waking up part.

And this is what passes for a ‘bad day’ here in Slackville – the desktop will not boot. I’ve had this difficulty before, 6 months ago. Took the box to PC People who could not replicate the problem, wrote me off as a crank, and probably I am as I blame in on malignant Castle spirits.

But this day, no amount of swearing, incense, doning of robes and muttering of incantations could resolve the car which won’t start.

James and David arrive to finish the drawbridge and I motor off to town and once more to the computer boffins of PC People.

I’m like a Prestige Class member, there’s a lane to the counter for everybody else, and then there’s a lane for Johnson’s Antique Haunted PC, so I was right up to Michael and my box into the queue even before I could offer a bribe to move me to the head of class. Monday at the earliest, should their shaman proffer the proper incantations.

Back to The Castle where James and David are putting the hurt on the lack of railing.

I launch into the Case Case where Critical Path has me glue a ply slab on the underside of the case floor. I figure for some kind of elevated support for the actual case to be displayed, possibly a pair of copper nails to the heads of which are soldered …. something, and so the nails needed more to sink into than the 3/16″s of the floor.

Next was drill out 1/4″ holes in the top ends of the case verticals for dowels.

There once was a guy here who was going to screw the case top directly through to the verts, and then figure out, somehow, how to cover over the screw holes.

That guy wasn’t here today, thankfully.

Dry-fit early look – showing the back door – before the application of Wildman’s Elixir of the Case Case.

Precious little accommodation there was in the ends of the verts for the 1/4″ hole, but we managed – dowel centers mark the corresponding sites for the holes in the case top, but its 3/8″ thickness mandated careful hole punching.

Success!

Can now mix up a vat of Wildman’s Elixir, the details of which cannot here be revealed save to say it involves tung oil, urethane, pixie dust, and turpentine.

This was applied to the case parts, still unassembled. We like it this way, even though the glass aspect will have to be scraped and the glue meet surfaces abraded; it is still easier than trying to clean the glass (particularly on the inside of the case) ex post facto not to mention, although I will mention it, properly abrading the finish between coats. You can’t get the steel wool (0000) into the corners.

Suddenly, Winter arrives in the form of a 15 degree drop in temperature which sends all of us searching for another two layers of wrap.

Still …. no rail.

After solder clean-up, I’ll cut the copper and bend the leaves upward to cradle the Case inside the Case.

While the Wildman Elixir matures, I solder slim copper slives to the heads of two copper nails, then bend the slives to cradle the case.

No where to go from here, the Elixir will take overnight to dry. Nowhere to go but now that the lads have finished the gross construction of the drawbridge, we may now conduct the ribbon cutting ceremony.

David has to be off to train at some dojo in Gilroy – he’s a mix martial arts student – but James can carve out enough time for a few refreshing beverages.

James is a Can Do Man, his fore-bearers all general contractors. He’s honest, forthright, genial, smart and as I found out, an avid reader thanks to his mother, an English teacher. We have much in common, except for me not being honest, forthright, genial, smart and having an English teacher for a mother.

O’boom good. Stairs good. And today, I Broke Through.

James was right – these tatty boxes do not belong on the new drawbridge.

As the job is winding down, before the beers, James asks should he re-install the two mail boxes that did once flank the former drawbridge?

Of course, but I see he is reluctant, he doesn’t want to put, in my case a vintage 1970 metal box or Sam’s less vintage plastic model, onto his new creation.

Without knowing why, I accept this and volunteer to do the install myself.

And then, as the brews flew – it hit me: I’ll make two new mailboxes from redwood which will be in keeping with the new drawbridge.

You get lucky sometimes.

LUCKDAY –

I’m camping out, apparently and a cat I encourage to come near for petting takes on a doused in freezing acid look. Better cock the Berretta. And then I wake up in a bank lobby. Lit like a movie set all marble in bright colors and Lauralan adjusting the sleeping bag. I wrap around her like hot towels at the spa; I could be happy sealing the deal. But no, I never did. This is a dream and I tell her so. And cry.

Was going to devote the day to cringing in bed, but no. Too much fun to be had in The Shop.

Took the hovercraft down the lava chute where the Case Case wanted another coat of Wildman’s Elixir, which it got.

And now, the Breaking Through Product – design the fab the new mailboxes. Mailboxes in keeping with the new drawbridge.

Plan for a pair of flip-top mail boxes.

The Midnight Study Hall considered a variety of styles including a sort of covered bridge in miniature recapitulation of the standard, hardware store hasn’t changed in 80 years rounded top metal box flap down front door horizontal container, but in the unthinking hours of inspiration, we decided upon a more vertical, flap-top bivvie.

Figure for a box about 32 at max by 14 deep by 16 centimeter wide, outside dimensions. Angled upper for a hinged flap over lid.

Redwood in wood, of course, until I cased the wood lot and found that while I could knock out 12’er’s out of the salvaged Wildman front deck dreck, I had not the 16 cm wide lumber.

But I do have ample More Than 16 cm wide something – the former drawbridge risers.

All need re-sawn to half their width.

All are re-sawn. Much hand sawing – little swearing, I knew what I was in for.

Much planing the flotsam down to a uniform thickness – and that was the easy (noisy) part. Next is kerf the front and back, and rabbet the sides.

As I’m on this there’s a clamor and Limpy, the Lumpy Professor oozes out on to the Slack Deck. Poor guy, all bent and hunched over. It’s his own fault, really. Last week he was blowing bubbles out the top hatch of his Filson Custom Jeep when Andre The Giant leapt off the pinnacle of the Monterey Tower and like a dunce he forgot to drive out of the way and like a boulder Andre slams into his stretch Pantera crushing not only his knee, but the sun hatch.

Thus he needs medication which the JohnsonArts pharmacopeia can, and does, fortunately, supply.

James is here readying the ribbon for the inaugural ribbon-cutting ceremony.