Well we picked up the new Mini on Tuesday (5/25/2010). Our first stop was Discount Tire to have the Run Flats removed and a set of slightly wider, definitely quieter and a little smoother non-Run Flats installed. So now I have a set of new Run Flats for sale on CraigsList
this ad.
My apologies to Rick Nelson!
We've been married for going on 37 years and pretty much every year for Valentine's Day I've given Carolyn roses ... very traditional ... but I have to tell you after 37 years it's getting tough to be 'original' with roses!
Pretty much since we've lived here in Bulverde, Carolyn has maintained some sort of vegetable garden. But, the last few years production from that garden has been poor primarily because over 25+ years the trees around the garden have finally gotten so big they effectively block the sun. Consequently, "the garden" has been transformed into more of a flower garden than a vegetable garden.
A few weeks ago we decided to act on the notion we have had for the last few years to 'move' the garden to a sunnier spot and significantly reduce the size, concentrating on tomatoes, peppers and maybe a couple of other things in small quantity. We have debated the best way to do this for a few years now and never came up with a plan both of us liked. Inspiration struck when I saw a 'doggie kennel' at the local Tractor Supply! It already had a gate, was 6 feet tall and a manageable 10 feet square. We loaded it up in the truck, bought literally a ton of limestone border rocks and two yards of good garden soil and had "instant garden"!
Cool ... except ... to my eye the damn thing stuck out like a sore thumb on top of the hill. I thought about painting it green, hopefully to camouflage it a bit and had even gotten Carolyn's permission to do so. Happily I procrastinated just enough!
As I was viewing the 'sore thumb garden' from inside a few days ago it seemed to me that if there were just some 'color' it wouldn't look so bad. And like a Senior throwing a rock at a Freshman it struck me that this would be the perfect Valentine's gift ... staying with the 'flowers theme' in general but at the same time giving Carolyn yet another excuse to feed her 'flower buying sickness' (she has it pretty bad!) and dealing with what I considered to be a bit of an eye sore.
Today, Carolyn and I spent a very enjoyable day picking out planters, figuring out how to mount said planters, buying appropriate for the season flowers and planting them.
It was a good day!
Happy Valentine's Day my dear!
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
Carolyn had made a commitment to Zach that when they moved into a new house and had a yard big enough we would see to it that he (and now Zoey) had a nice new "Playscape" (the modern day term for what was called a "swing set" when I was a kid) ... and so for their "big Christmas gift", Carolyn did appropriate internet research, some local shopping and comparisons and ultimately ordered online a "Gorilla Blueridge Outlook" playscape ... free shipping and no tax were both considerations plus the typical "end of year special pricing ..."
I'm not REAL SURE there was TOTAL awareness of the scope of the actual "construction" considered by all parties involved but regardless after a few shipping hassles were resolved a big semi truck pulled up to Scott's house a couple of weeks ago and "dumped" out 4 HUGE boxes that basically filled their garage ...
We arranged to at least start to build the playscape on Monday 12/21 while Brandi and Steven were in town and could lend a willing hand and as it turned out we were also blessed to have Scott's boss give him the day off unexpectedly, and a couple of Melissa's relatives on hand to help as well ... so we had a good sized team of willing labor even if NONE OF US had a clue what we were doing ...
The online reviews of this particular "kit" indicated 2 or 3 people could if all went well finish construction in 12-17 hours ... somewhat more than the 8-10 hours the manufacturer advertised ... I was not looking forward to this task.
The weather was good and we got started at 10AM ... we followed the recommendations to open all boxes and verify there were no missing parts, lay things out in an organized manner and carefully follow the 50 or so instruction steps ...
I've included a couple of photos here and there are MANY more taken by the official project photographer Brandi in the web picasa photo gallery at
Photo Gallery
A few pictures below ...
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
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| From Playset |
Carolyn's dad, N.B. Willey will be 90 years old tomorrow, November 16, 2009. That is a pretty momentous milestone in one's life and we are glad to have had him around to enjoy our children and grandchildren. We hope he will be with us for many more years to come.
I was struggling with a "unique" idea for a birthday present several weeks ago and as it happened Carolyn mentioned on her return from a recent visit that her dad had lost his walking cane and had taken one of her mother's old canes and erroneously cut it too short for himself ... and that lead me to thinking that I ought to be able to find the "elements" of a handmade cane on the internet ... I have PLENTY of available cedar limbs that have been cut or broken off and dried for some time and should be very light and easy for an elderly person to carry.
Knowing absolutely NOTHING about how a cane might be fashioned I started wandering around the internet in my typical "research mode" and determined that there were not really that many things one had to know ... a cane has to be dry, comfortable to hold, have a handle that is comfortable to grip, a tip that will assist with stability and be of "an appropriate length for the user" ... that last part is a little nebulous but other than that it seemed within my limited skills if I could find the necessary parts.
A little more research and I found what I considered to be adequate pieces parts and went out in the back "yard" and mused around some piles of dead cedar until I heard a "stick" calling to me ... clearly this was "the one" ... so I drug it over to the back of the shop, cut it down to a manageable length and started pealing the bark off ... this exercise proved to be the most "difficult" part of the whole escapade but honestly was not that big a deal ... pealing, grinding, rasping and a little blood and I had a "naked" cedar stick. I cut enough off of the "big end" to serve in my judgment for a handle and proceeded to whittle, carve, cut and saw until I had a "stick" that I figured looked pretty "cane like". I fitted the top brass piece by whittling a round 1 inch "tenon" on the end and then went to work on the "handle" ... more carving, sanding and whittling I had had what I felt like would serve as a comfortable handle ... a bit more sanding and some finish application and I came up with this result ... I'm pretty pleased with it ... I will present it to Mr. Willey tomorrow night (11/16/2009) on his birthday at a small party arranged by one of his friends in Hondo, Texas ... I will try and get him to decide how much too long it is for him and then bring it back with me to get the final length set and the end cap/rubber tip installed ... I think he will be pleased!
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
The road home is long!! ... and we are ready to be home ...
Much against my "normal nature" (my anal nature) ... we decided to go "off the grid" this morning as we left Williams, Az (where we spent the night after seeing the Grand Canyon) ... "off the grid" being ... abandoning my carefully laid out heavily researched, strictly timed routing to our next stop in Las Cruces ... and head rather to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest National Park. ... OMG ... neither Carolyn nor I had ever seen either of those sights and we were "somewhere around 50 or so miles from the park ... we think ..." ... so ... off we go, completely without planning, time considerations, routing details ... aaaaggggghhhhh ... my anxiety was ... uh .... high ... but ... we have "Wicked Wanda" our trusty GPS system ... right??? ... so we should be able to locate the park with that and then get home ... right??? .... right??? .... aaaaagggghhhh ...
As we boogie down IH40 expecting to see a sign ... I'm madly checking out "attractions" on the GPS .... no "Petrified Forest National Forest" listed .... aaaggghhhh ... about 30 miles down the road ... FINALLY ... A SIGN" .... so we exit ...
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
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| From Bade's web log |
For those following my Lutherie web log you know I've been pretty focused for the last several days and basically dead dog tired when I get back to the hotel from "camp" and writing up that daily log. The folks at camp seem to really appreciate my dailies and so I've really tried to do that before crashing ... also I sadly have not adjusted to the time zone change and so am typically waking up sometime between 4am and 5am pacific time each morning ... makes for a long day.
The hotel we are staying at in "SLO" (pronounced "slow" and local shorthand for San Luis Obispo) is really very nice ... a suite with king bed, bath, "living room" with sink, microwave, fridge and bar, table, chairs, sofa and bar ... more than enough room for the week.
Carolyn has been chauffeuring me to the camp each morning ... we get up, she has breakfast supplied by the hotel (waffles, sweet roll, toast , juice ceral ...) and we leave around 7:30AM ... it's about 20 miles to Roger's house and takes about 20 minutes ...
While I'm at camp Carolyn has done some needle work and a bit of exploring around SLO ... it's a pretty college town (Cal Poly) of around 45,000 people nestled along the Pacific coast in very scenic rolling hills.
Since my meals are included in the camp price Carolyn has been having lunch and dinner alone and I feel bad about that but tonight (Thursday) she joined us at the camp for pizza.
After dinner tonight Carolyn and I drove back to the hotel (we got out early tonight) and took the trolley right out our hotel door to the "Farmer's Market" downtown SLO ... the trolley was a pricey 25cents per person each way ... the Farmers Market has been held here on Thursdays for the past 35 years or so and is basically a combination of the typical hill country farmers market where you can buy fresh produce and Night In Old San Antonio during Fiesta ... they block off a very long main street and vendors set up booths selling everything from strawberries and onions to psychic readings ... I took a few pictures and will post them later ...we bought some strawberries and cherry tomatoes and a bag of kettle korn popcorn and headed back on the trolley to the hotel ...
My lutherie camp will be over about 3:30PM tomorrow and we will stay the night in SLO and drive to Las Vegas starting early Saturday morning ... we will be staying at the Mirage and from there Sunday morning we will drive West to the Grand Canyon ...
We are having fun and look forward to being home ...
Bade
We left Palm Springs around 7:30AM PST and proceeded to San Luis Obispo.
The wind was phenomenal as we left Palm Springs ... it was blowing sand and small rock all over the highway ... I was gritting my teeth thinking about what I suspect will turn out to be a pitted windshield and paint ... it was UGLY and Carolyn has all she could handle to keep MiniRita on the road through the mountains in the wind.
Palm Springs is a VERY picturesque little town ... leaving Palm Springs ... not so much ... very very desert like ... think Egypt ... worse than West Texas ... hills, mountains, plains ... all sand ...
As we motored thru the outskirts of Los Angeles the wind died down for the most part ... once we got on Hwy 101 we had a better scenic drive but a couple of things became abundantly clear:
1 - California has not spent ANY money on road repairs in a LONG time ... and they need to ,,, pot holes, rough spots ... really bad at 65mph
2 - The further West one drives ... the less attention people pay to speed limits ... whether it says 65 or 70 or ... it doesn't matter ... people drive however damn fast they feel like and it is apparent that the highway patrol doesn't care or isn't staffed to fine the speeders ... I'd wager that a week of passing out tickets on IH10 or 101 would clear up the state deficit ... Carolyn and I have tried to stay at or just barely over the posted speed limits on this trip ... and when we were doing 67mph down 101 (posted 65mph limit) we were being run over by every vehicle on the road ... including highway patrol, trucks, busses, RVs ... I'm pretty sure I saw a horse drawn buggy zip past at 80mph ... and the motorcycles are definitely motoring along near 100mph ... it was scary and rampant!
We arrived at our hotel safe and sound ... it is a GREAT hotel, wonderful 2 room suite, good wireless internet (free), good breakfast , heated pool and spa, fridge, microwave ... I think it will be perfect for the week! The hotel is about 20 miles from the mandolin building camp.
I've posted my first log about the mandolin building camp over on my Lutherie Web Log if you are interested take a look ... it's going to be a great learning experience I do believe ...
Gotta get an early start tomorrow ...
Bade
