Supersmith arrives for the in-home tech support, and it takes him an hour of intense hacking to have his (now mine) Linux driven box recognize my ntfs disc drives.  It shouldn’t be this difficult, but then again, Linux and its stalwart band of adherents prize themselves on not playing well with others. We then lunch […]

Wildman and I ride out to Watsonville and Jackel: Alder $2-4/bf, red oak 4-5/bf, cherry same, acacia 10/bf.  This foray a speculation on my part.  I wanted to have some ballpark figures on a range of woods should the Factors at the Naval Postgraduate School commit to having me build them a display case for […]

The job interview was at 0900, 200 miles away in Sacramento. Rise and drive at 0400 to allow plenty of time for unplanned delays? Or motor over there the preceding day? Which would you choose. It wasn’t so much the getting up for the opening of fishing season, it was that I knew I’d wake […]

BESTDAY – In a long time. Began with a lucid dream, and you know what that means to a man.  Hubba-hubba. Down to The Shop to work the Lovely Kelly’s Christmas present – a box. Learning: don’t undercut the insie and outsie for the nestled lid-base; 2 rabbit the top of the top so that […]

Yosemite.  Towering granite pinnacles.  John Muir.  Teddy Roosevelt.  Indian pogroms.  What American doesn’t want to visit? I didn’t particularly, but I was invited to camp with the Noble Supersmith and it has been too long off the road for the truck and I. Packed, equipment triple-checked, truck oil and fuel nominal, departed the Pacific for […]

TDAY – As in Physical Therapy, which the benevolence of the Social Welfare State has permitted me, but only twice a week for four weeks. I’m early, complete the paperwork and become grumpy when Allison, my handler is 20 minutes late in starting. I cheer up once we hit the recumbent bike where I enjoyed […]

It’s the final Final exam for Engineering, oddly enough taken in my high school.  Everyone taking the test is in the Brockway cafeteria; I have chosen a small table and chair just outside the cafeteria in the hallway.  At first, all is well.  I’ve the test booklet and the answer sheet on which to record […]

Sunday – Knee is bad, ankle swollen(?) – Good news: Here’s Wildman honking his horn at me.  He’s not dead! I get his overview of his recent trip with his kids to Portland.  He found the downtown overrun with creeps, queers, dopers and beggars.  I give him some prime mahogany. Voyage to Hometek for a […]

I’m on the 14th Street Job – putting in the other two curved beams, but first, I got to rout out the set-in places for the north ends of the beams.  Not safe, and not precise, but good enough. Afternoon seemed over long.  Primed some plastic fascia around the lower aspect of the new turret.  […]

All day Day 51 – at Eastfield sanding what’s left of the oak stair case.  Some part were accessible, some parts not, some parts get down on your knees until they bleed. The sheet rockers and the plasterer’s arrived in full force.  Sheet rockers in a day pretty much covered all the naked studs on […]