For the first time in my short life, I’ve felt Autumn before smelling it.

But so much for the good news.  By the only measure important in America, today was a disaster at Castle Slackton.

Last Friday’s adolescent antics by AOL’s CEO drove the stock down more than 3%.  The almost incomprehensible pressures of turning the company from a portal to a media player have unhinged the lad.  As if anything could be worse, Mr. Armstrong’s hand of doom also swept out from AOLssgard two nobles who Curtis admired, respected, and relied upon.  He’s shocked, dumbstruck, and angry.

Me, I’m just pole-axed.  CPST face-planted and flat lined.

Nothing for it but the week’s second of what we hope will be five rikes.

It’s been four and a half months of near-consistent effort, slowing building distance and time and weight carried.  It’s working.  I’m feeling less of a slug and more of a master of the steepness of Huckleberry Hill.  And nearly every rike brings home a blue jay feather.

And since it’s been 4.5 months in the same shoes, it’s time for a fresh pair; and so out of the glorious PG gloom and across town beneath the oppressive blazing blue sky to Large Five for two cheap pair.

Lunch didn’t bite me back.

The nap didn’t arrive on time, or was diverted en route.

I tried to hang myself off my half-scale copy of the Statue of Liberty, but the damn rope broke and landed, hard, in The Shop.

Nothing for it but to give a few more coats to the Box Joint (Refuse) Table.

Guess which table I’ll have to do over and which I won’t.

Between coats, how best to divert my self, sore neck and all?

I know!  Form a sort of chalice to hold one of the glass globe industrial lightbulb protectors!

It’ll be fun!  It’ll be easy!!  I’ll be pointless!!!

Step 1 – form a form-fitting jig the shape of the outside of the glass globe – less of a globe and more of a liter and a half tumbler, but with a circular ‘bottom.’

Step 2 – translate the shape to some redwood.

Step 3 – wonder why I’m doing this

Step 4 – ignore Step Three

Step 5 – form the outer shape of the three chalice support bloits

Step 6 – cut the 60-degree angles where the three bloits meet

Step 7 – wonder why (and here was a call to action since my razor saws are DOA, having been used on the Secret Table to cut aluminum, or order those mortise saws from Lee Valley) I’ve actually cut 30 degrees.

Step 8t – gnash out from copper flashing the connectors that will link the three bloits together

Step 8.1 – pack it in for the day.

RIKEDAY –

3 for 3, three days, three rikes, a feat not seen since Lindbergh flew naked over the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Beer supplies harrowingly narrow, fruit exhausted, I can shop later, or I can shop now.

Now.

The Chinese have hacked the Lighthouse Avenue traffic lights, eastbound backed up three blocks behind David Avenue.  My robot truck executes a perfect triple axel, takes a short cut through the endangered sea turtle hatchery, and comes out seven furlongs ahead of the stalled conga line.

Trader Hoe’s has parking?  Has O’boom!?

At Ka-nob Hill Market, the manager does the honors, still does the change in his head.

The three-legged glass support is Right Out.

Change of plan in The Shop.  Yesterslack’s design is today’s compost.  Ixnay’ed the three-post chalice in favor of a dowel and surround ply stand.

A top ring to comfort the glass, a somewhat tailored lower seat and four dowels up-down to connect the top ring to a base.

It’s all good fun that necessitated making another circle cutting jig for the band saw.  Bone simple: a ply platform with a runner that fits to the band saw table mitre groove.  A cut off nail seats the ply to make into a circle, then one pushes the platform to address the band saw blade, then spins the ply to cut out the circle.

The inside cuts – to make annuli – require using the band saw jig to form the outer radius, then summoning up the scroll saw chi.  Rough out the inside, finesse on the spindle sander.  Told you it was fun.

The 4:30 phone message wasn’t the Google no-responsibility, high-paying, 100% telecommuting job offer you wouldn’t expect to field, but a cryptic message from Skifflington.  “I’ll be there at 10.”  Ten?  Tonight?  What day?  Morning?

It WAS today, he was here at 10.  What?   His roadtrip schedule had him prowling the high country of Colorado, what’s he doing here?  Lammed him over the head with a Penang Lawyer and stuffed him in the Costume Closet for study in the morning.

Here’s his proposed itinerary and my suggestions:

August 10^th   Drop Mom at DRO, drive to Fort Garland & Pike’s Stockade

• Good call on Fort Garland and Pike’s Stockade –  on your way east on 160, about 8 miles west of Paragosa Springs you’ll want to know about Chimney Rock, just south of 160 on 151 south.  Also be advised that whilst in southern Colorado, you’ll be crossing paths with the Escalante Expedition – the text of the journal is here, but advise reading The Dominquez Escalante Journal ed. Ted Warner because these blokes have traced the route and provide present-day location information

• What route do you intend to take from Fort Garland to Montrose?  Although I haven’t been there, certainly you must take in the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  And I can recommend exploring Salida, due north.  From Salida, 50 west takes you over the Continental Divide, down into Gunnison and thence to Montrose, I route I have driven (in that giant yellow Ryder truck that brought all the phonographs west).

August 11^th   Montrose/Ute Indian Museum

• Best to factor in some more time, boyo.  You’ll get the feel of it once you clear Durango, the feel that you just don’t have to be somewhere at any specific time.  You can stop where you like, dawdle as long as you wish.  And never forget, The Road means opportunities at every intersection.  This Is Essential: Try not to let a plan interfere with the freedom to take a road on a whim.

August 13^th   Pinedale, WY/fort Bonneville/Museum of the Mountain Man

• Damn Boy!  That’s a healthy haul out of Montrose for one day.  You might want to consider staying over another day in Pinedale, take in the Mountain Man Museum fresh in the morning, then boodle around north toward Jackson.  Another night in Pinedale (I think I remember there being at least one bar, maybe a brewpub and two motels there, I considered staying there, but pressed on to Jackson) and you’ll be primed for the short hike to Fort Bridger.

August 14^th   Fort Bridger/Museum & grounds

• After Fort Bridger, I’d recommend veering northwest, take in Fossil Butte National Monument (I don’t know, haven’t been there, but the name sounds cool) and down the pike a piece the Bear Lake Valley, supposedly jaw-drop gorgeous, or so the Oregon Trailers wrote…I don’t know from Pocatello, but I can recommend Twin Falls, Idaho.  Here’s an 1874 view of Shoshone Falls taken by Timothy O’Sullivan.Your options westerly from Fort Bridger and/or southwestern Idaho are limited.  I-80 is what it is, expedient, and the surrounding vastness awe inspiring, particularly when you imagine walking through it, this time of year, behind an ox drawn cart.

August 15^th   Return via I-80 Carson Sink, Virginia City

• Virginia City – good call; you’ll dig it.  Plenty of motels in nearby Carson City.

August 17^th   Over the Sierra via Ebbett’s Pass to Angels Camp

• Good school!  I haven’t been on this one, closest I’ve driven is on 88, the Carson Pass Highway, next pass to the north.

August 18^th   Drakes Brewing, Pacific Grove

STUDYDAY –

No, I didn’t dream it up, there he is drinking coffee and trying on the tutu’s.

Turns out that Skiff blasted through Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada like his face was on fire and only water was the Pacific.  He’s not new to The Roadtrip, just unpracticed.  He’ll do better next time.

Since I wasn’t expecting him for four more days, I hadn’t provisioned which mandated, after the fourth rike this week, a slip out to Grocery Cheaplet for salad makings and grillstuffs.

Once safely back within the Castle precincts and lunch tucked in, it was tuck and roll down to The Shop to complete the lightbulb protection globe beverage bowser cradle.

The Chalice of Choice

This was mostly just connect the upper ring to the base with four dowels.  The hard part was waiting for the glass globe to ice down in the freezer for the Full-Up O’Boom test.

Testing was unconfined.

CARMELDAY –

Skiff wanted to look over Carmel-By-The-Sea, and so after the rike – 5 for 5 this week – we launched into deadly and 405-like crawl on 1.  Torching off full afterburners, I diverged off the slog and down the hill where eventually, after getting directions from three Hobbits and five of the Seven Dwarves, we made the Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo.  Donning our Cloaks of Inconspicuousness, we successfully shot through the gift shop and into the mission precinct without paying the $6.50 the Junipero Serrians want at the gate, although a fellow can always sneak in the back way through the adjacent school.  The mission is certainly worth the six fifty fee if you’ve never seen over it before, but I had.

As beautiful as it never was.

Next, we cruised the town, down to Carmel strand, gawked at the lux fizz boats moored off Pebble Beach, and then beat on out of the Heaven Where Rich White People Go When They Die.

Rite Aid for Lag

HomeTek (and Todd, here’s a man you can help, although I don’t know how you can approach him to tell him how much his website needs help without insulting him) to look over Tom Long’s shop where he was engaged in building a square based, four-sided, sloped polyhedron, or rather the external forms into which will be poured concrete to form a 10-foot tall pedestal on which will be mounted bronzes.  The man has every tool and 2037 skill sets JohnsonArts ought have, and so I wanted to remind him of my existence, and have Skiff meet him as we were next to visit The Professor’s manse, the additions, and renovations on which Mr. Long had presided.

At The Professor’s, we got the admiral’s tour, then got the flock out of there and home to lunch and a nap.

Lag unconfined.

Grilling satisfactory.

Bar raised on FUBAR.