DOOLITTLEDAY –

Yes, I did little, but it was more of a case FOR Dr. Doolittle.

It wasn’t the angora cat sitting in the middle of Hoffman Avenue as this is the upper, quiet end of the street.  It wasn’t even the six-point (furry) young buck eyeing me from the center of Terry Street (east of Prescott, again, a bucolic by-way).  No, it really began with the gull grappling.

Two adult gulls, probably both males and watched/admired? by what I assume to be a female, scarfing out redwood leaf scruff from the gutters of the house Wildman used to live in.  And then arguing about it.  Grabbing the stuff out of each other’s beak.  Gulls don’t make nests typically.

More than a mere lamp, yet not quite a space ship. Dreams no extra charge.

As if that wasn’t odd enough, they then commence to wrestling.

One throws a half-nelson, the other counters with a chicken ….er, tern wing.  They summersault down the pitched roof to fall into the courtyard.  I couldn’t get a clear line of fire.

This goes on for 10 minutes.  The ref calls a time-out.  The bout is resumed on the roof of the house just up the hill.  All the while they and the female are screeching I-EEEEEE, I-EEEEEE, I-EEEEEE.  I about shot my own self just to put an end to it.

I’ve never seen this behavior before.

And then I espied Marlin Perkins lurking amid the shrubbery and things got more weird.

At dusk, there’s a yearling doe standing in front of the drive, like it was stunned or stupefied, probably voted for Obama.  Seeing one of the town herd isn’t unusual.  Having one of them alone, and seemingly inert, like a state legislator unless their perks are on the chopping block, is unusual.  It bedded down for the night in the strip of mulch and hedge just across 8^th Street.

Meanwhile, Snaaackkk is sounding the CAT-CAT-CAT! alert, but with a difference.  Is it a crow in the redwood?  Why would Snaacckk care?

I’m happy to report that the Snaaackk’s seem to have chosen the Zarathustra bush in the NW corner of the garden for their nest this year, which is a good call and one which brought forth three fledglings two years ago unlike last year’s disaster in the disused (they thought) squirrel nest in the oak tree.

Anyway, Snaaackk is all CAT-CAT-CAT! But with a slight catch in the call.  Then I see why.  It isn’t a crow, it’s a coon.  It’s dusk, not dark.  Even during the hook-up season I’ve never seen a coon in daylight here.  And here it is boodling about in the oak tree in the lot over to 7^th Street.

Strange.

INFRASTRUCTUREDAY –

The Professor wanted me to ride shotgun to Los Gatos, pick up a Mother’s Day present for his favorite wife.

This:

Your first thought might be: “a fine Mother’s Day gift for some, but not all mom’s.”

But your second thought ought to be: “I wish my mom WANTED one!”

Alas, no shotgun, no dirt bike.

My schedule loosened up after the ride to Los Gatos was cancelled.  Apparently, and I’m not privvy to the marital dynamics, there won’t be a dirt-ridin Mom out Asilomar this year.

With the morning freed up, free to take the hydroplane over to The Shop tor today’s infrastructure projects:

1 – ferk out something that will allow Jefferson’s Revolving Bookstand to sit atop the floor standing Revolving Bookcase and

2 – install the new shower soap, conditioner, acid rain, and kryptonite-Be-Gone dispenser.

First – determine how to perch Jeff on top the Revolving Bookcase.  Actually, that was Zeroth as the Midnight Study Hall had already suggested an approach.  Thin ply ‘feet’ to straddle the two top angled bookrests merging under a horizontal support platform of some nature (likely ¾” ply)  itself supported outlying by vertical columns.

Design: Good enuf.

What I truly wanted was to kerf the underside of the horizontal support 60 degrees so to lay the up ply feet into it.  This was not to be.  Table saw will only angle to 45 and even though I’m sorta good at math, couldn’t figure how to add 15 degrees through the center of a sheet of wood either way’s.  No worries.  No exam after reading this.

Instead, cut out shims to  30 – 60 – 90 degrees, glued those to the top upper side of the ‘feet’, then screwed them to the underside of the support platform.

From the woodpile glommed some 4 cm square cross-section something, cut the 30 degree angle, then loped it to about 7.5 cm in length.  These four columns do the bulk of the anti-gravity once positioned and screwed into their beneficial positions.  Yes, they did.

So happy couldn’t wait for the stain to dry before spritzing on the lacquer (had nothing else on hand, which is a filthy lie as I have shellac, to create a sheen that wouldn’t take until tomorrow to dry, and I was keen, too keen on having this project DONE, Harvey I Am, and still stinking plopped the thing on the bookcase.

It’s all Blade Runner in pine.  Waugh!

2 – lam the new, cheap, chinsy, two-reservoir glick dispenser inside the penthouse shower.  This was simple … in a way that nothing here is simple … simply lam out two lengths of redwood which will span the extant mounting blivvies, pre-drill and countersink, put the redwood to the wall then mount the new, cheap, chinsy dispenser to.

And so it was.

And so it became better, contrary to trend.  Above, out over The Bay, there’s a sound like a constipated blender.

It’s two ultra-light aircraft, a type of sky-skippers – and we’ve hang-gliders and para-gliders here enough to confuse all the condors – which I’ve not seen before come out of the west and they’re not descending to land at MRY near as my spotter’s can tell.

I’m not given to paranoia, there’s enough real threat.  The lack of a significant attack on us – since 9/11 –  aside from the very real peril of Chinese hacking, by the sub-human nutsacks isn’t because we possess impenetrable intelligence and security services.  It’s more to do with the stupidity of our foe who does not lack in money or resources.

The morons haven’t a clue about how to wreak havoc.  Not there’s not a few brains among the malignant who use religion as a control mechanism, and I can’t but help think these vicious strategists haven’t thought of organizing an ultra-light, anthrax spore bearing flying squadron, a sleeper, long ago vetted by the FAA which does state fairs and outdoor concert displays.

Yes the maladroit knuckle-draggers could do us great harm and it’s about time we as American got up on our hind legs and challenged the forces of evil to man up.

Want to blow up some children?  Shit.  We’ve got the home-grown product cutting down whole elementary classrooms.  That all you got?

Want to take out a concert crowd?  Where you from?  We’ve got gaffers who can’t string cable so’s the outdoor stage don’t collapse in a wind gust.

Now let’s up the ante.

Unless and until this nation has the intellectual courage to discard all pretense in support of mythical theosophies – the mass-marketed mind control and the lesser, but no less idiotic cults and sects – we as a people cannot confront the evil employed by malignant cynics, no matter to what imaginary friend they claim allegiance, and cannot effectively promote the education necessary to raise the masses of the ignorant up and out of their dolorous four thousand years out of date coma.

True, dropping trouser on the facade of religion will inspire mass tumult, but would this be any worse than the tit-for-tat my god can beat up your god imbecility?  And in the end, every …. well, many more men and woman will recognize that he or she is not a sheep to be led, or a sheep to be led to slaughter with a jacket of C-4 strapped to his torso in the service of his ‘god.’

Let’s take the offensive.

TOURDAY –

Obligations.  Stress.  Bad Dreams.  Harvey misses the Barstow off-ramp and we find ourselves in a hallway in a housing project.  The human dreck oppose our imposition.  They’re pistol-packing, but so am I and as they abuse Harvey in the nicest sort of way I’m roving over the parking lot like on a full-body skateboard until the cholo’s lade Harvey’s slack ass back into the Eldorado.  Have to pound one of them just to keep his trigger finger soft.  As Harvey drives off and tries to pull into a railway station I realize in all the fun I’ve missed my Berretta and copped the Saturday Night Special of the Mex.  I howl and so wake, shuddering.

As Monterey City Commissioner – sub-Docent, I’m the town apparatchik for the Cannery Row Foundation (CRF) tours at Ed Flanders Rickett’s(EFR) Lab.  My shift is between 11 and 1 on this, the 65^th anniversary of his death.

Michael Hemp, the CRF heart and soul, is certainly among the most ardent of Ed-Head’s, and possibly he’s capable of conducting a tour of The Lab that summarizes what the place means and why EFR ought to be more widely acclaimed.  But he doesn’t.  It’s sound-bite here and anecdote there with a few linear facts dosing the stream of consciousness, and then he turns the program over to Frank Wright.

Frank Wright met EFR in 1942 and became a member of the PBL Club when Harlan Watkins bought the place from the Wing family in ’58.  His reminiscences are pure gold.  He tells the story of nearly blowing up The Lab turning on a floor heater that to him is just a clear as that first splash of cold water on the face with today’s dawn.

But it’s just that – disjunct stories, Episodes of Ed.  I’m not dissing him, but I’d like to see more rigor in the tour: Who, What, Why, When.  And that’s how I run mine.  If it were my place, I’d suggest to Michael that he disconnect the tour from Frank.  Have Frank there by all means, but run the tour like people were actually interested in what happened when and why, which I think they are, and position Frank in the bar out back to be admired and questioned after the formal show is done.

Suum cuique.

Pat Hathaway, the man with the Iron Grip around 100,000 historically significant Monterey photographs, is not a happy man.  He’s closing his shop on Pacific Avenue because the landlord is upping the rent, he can’t find competent interns to scan his hardcopy images, the tourists paw through his selection but buy nothing.  Probably I’m the intern he’s looking for.

And Look Out!  Here’s my relief and I’m off to homeslice, prototype in my future.

It’s the Borer Stool Prototype, from now on referred to as the Splay Stool as the legs are canted out ten degrees?  Fifteen degrees from horizontal.  I can’t make out from the single catalog  image whether its double splayed – angled off vertical in both pitch and yaw, so for the purposes of the prototype, it’ll be just one and not two directions of splay.

Where to start?

Lacking sufficient 600 year old Italian walnut, I turn to the ¾” birch faced ply, but ¾” seat thickness isn’t enough.  Perhaps if I laminated two beneficially sized slabs, in this case about 50 x 36 cm, which approximates the catalog dimensions of 20” long by 14” wide, I’ll have a start.  Since this glue-up will require a few hours, it’s on the critical path.

Once in clamps, can turn to the legs.  Ram out four legs from alder about 3 cm square in cross-section.  Now, for the learning.  There are at least three ways to splay the legs:

Buy an already angled bracket

Mortise in at the desired angle, or

Angle the tenons on the legs.

I chose the latter and in fact is the most interesting challenge (He Said) of the prototype.  But at what angle.  Drew out a 15 degree angle, but that seemed too severe and physically unstable.  Let’s go with 10 degrees.

My tenon jig for the table saw will accommodate angled tenons, but as an exercise, I’ll use the sliding mitre gauge on the table saw.  Yes, once I get that far.  First must come the sizing of the tenon on the leg in pencil.  Turns out that with sufficient tenon shoulder, it’ll be about ¾”.  I have no ¾” mortising bit for the mortising machine, so I’ll use a forsner bit and then square out the corners with some tasty chisel action.  FUN!

But all this is in the future as the seat lam is still curing.

Turn attention to: Snicklefritz!

As you can perhaps perceive from the catalog photo, the seat is scooped out for better butt beneficence.  Krenov would have busted out his chisels, maybe his draw shaves, but I have a better (cheating) idea – use the router.

With a modicum of artifice, and slacker like me can craft a jig whereby his router can form the scooped out butt-friendly profile, and that is Snicklefritz.

It’s a two part jig:

Snickle is a sort of tray or trough with raised edges on either long side which confine yet allow back-and-forth of the router, and for the router bit, a gap amidships.

Fritz is the real magic.  A pair of gently curved concave guides on which Snickle reposes and slides.  Incremental movement from one lip of the curve to the far end gradually introduces the business end of the router bit to the seat causing the scooped out profile.

In theory.

But that’s the reason for a prototype and NOT going with the 600 year old Italian walnut out the gate.

Significant seat dimension variables suggest Snickle ought to be formed outsize of the current ply proto, and so it was.  Crafting Fritz is left for another day as the depth of the concavity of the pair of flanking masonite guides is a function of seat thickness.  I’m working with about 1.5” on the prototype, but if The Professor likes the prototype, the wood for the production set might not be 6/4’s, as is the parlance at the lumber yard.

I can fab Fritz to be adjustable; it’s just another slat with slots in both and a carriage bolt securement, but left for tonight’s Midnight Study Hall.  Yowsa.

ANGLEDAY –

Wasn’t going to open The Shop, but the flowery air and bright blue skies urged otherwise.

And here’s Congo on his way to Home Despot, would I like to ride along.  Not only did I avert the Gorilla Glue shortfall, but enjoyed bonus Gnuggie doggie scratchings.

After a carb-overintensive luncheon, most of the week’s dinner has been the stylish and ever-so-zestful grilled chicken, ripe olives and kim chi, it’s down the ion tube to the Slackrage where the only order of non-business is the Splay Stool.

Unclamped the bi-layered ply, then turned to the drill press and a ¾” forsner bit to make the mortisii.  I have no ¾” mortise bit which I would purchase – but not from Lee Valley –  if I am to engage in a production run of this type of stool.  Squared out the holes with a chisel, which is easier takes less time than you might think and was thus ready for the Big, Big Shew: crafting the tenons.

Deployed the sliding mitre gauge.  Made a masonite triangle to ensure a 10 degree angle, then cut the ‘side’ shoulders.  The tenon shoulders are where the tenoned part meets the surface around the edges of the mortise.  The tenon cheeks are the sides that slide into the mortise.

Cutting the ‘front and back’ cheeks was less straightforward, and it turned out that I used the table saw for one, then free-handed the other on the band saw.  It could go either way, OR I could learn how to set up my tenon jig to cut angled tenons.

That’s why you make a prototype you learn what works and what doesn’t.

As I purposefully cut the tenons large, there was some hand filing to fit – you’re looking for snug but not force-fit or wobble.

Now that the legs are in, I can see that the splay angle might not be as great as 10 degrees, might be 5 degrees.  The less the splay the sturdier the stool.

Can’t see how this thing will hold up under 300 pounds load, but the full-up test awaits scooping out the buttbowl and friendlying up the raw edge of the ply.  Then I can present the prototype to the potential customer – Congo – for his appraisal.

Even should the prototype not lead to a production run, I’m ahead on points.  More mortise and tenon practice, learned something about crafting angled tenons and have the Snicklefritz (nearly) jig.