LDKBox

I had a great day on Friday so I went to bed with a smile on my face.  I was tired and I knew why I was tired.  I am old, tired and out of shape.  But I had accomplished something.  Hence the smile on my face.  Oh, we are not even counting the time that I picked up all the tools that I had used for a previous wood project.  Nor are we counting the efforts of moving machinery around the shop to better facilitate a better working environment.  Those things in addition to mowing the lawn(riding lawn mower no trimming needed), carrying water for morning coffee(my shop has yet to be fully plumbed.  I have a well hydrant valve near the road), general dusting(in a wood shop…? now that is funny!!), and leveling the area behind the shop where several hundred yards of material were placed by the water line installation crew that has been installing water lines throughout the neighborhood all summer.  I scored a bigtime with the material for the property.  It cost nothing yet added value to an unusable space.  I got the pleasure of operating my tractor to make it all look pretty(Well, it may not be pretty but to the eye of this beholder it does).  Luckily when the tractor tasks were completed  it rained 4.5 inches.   So I managed to get the material settled and compacted all in one felt swoop.  It is all draining away from the building and did not wash away from the gully washer that we did get .  Oh I forgot I was not counting this stuff.

I remember  now what it was that made me so sleepy on Friday night after all of those tasks that I described and they were not the reasons why I was tired and sleepy?  It was camping gear.  Yes one wouldn’t think that camping gear would make a body tired but this old soak sure gets tired of camping gear.  You know… camping gear is only good when you are camping.  Did you ever notice that?  Boy of late I sure have.  I have camp gear to keep a body warm, dry, and as comfortable as one can be when one lies on the ground in a tent with a sleeping bag 0n an air-mattress.  Then I have to have the stove, the grill,the cooler, the pans, the coffee pot, camp cups, knives, forks, and spoons.  Then there is the fire starter, fire wood, fire pit, fire pit ring, fire grate, fire shovel, and fire extinguisher.  All of these items take up a rather large space when being used.  No problem when you are camping because you are at the campground.  Picture this…all of these items are laying on the shop floor in piles.  Sorted by size,  shape,  and gender(yes my wife has attended camping weekends).  Each pile takes up more space than is needed since it was put away improperly because of the wet dew from the morning pack up from the latest boy Scout camp out almost three weeks ago.  In that time each pile now has a nice layer of sawdust and good old dirt mixed in with the dew that was brought in from the early morning pack up.  Situation clean up is about to take a good turn.

I had finally had had enough of those messy piles(that… and the fact that Kellen has a Boy Scout outing Halloween weekend). The camp gear had been hastily packed up.  Now one must take the time to make the necessary adjustment(clean it up) to get it back into to camp out shape.  Because the tent is so big I needed more space on the shop floor.  Which necessitated the cleaning up of more shop floor area.(which is a good thing albeit more work)  This took quite a long time.  I have been letting things pile up so what should have been a few minutes to an hour show turned into the morning play time for me.  The extra work paid dividends when it came time to pack up all the mess that needed to be cleaned.  The all in one tent was erected with easy.  I was able to get a vacuum and a broom inside the tent to get all the dirt and bugs that the boys left from the last camp out.  Then it was breakdown time for all of the camp gear.   It was great to have all items back into rolls,bags, and chests  that will fit in the back of the pickup.  Now that it is all packed away it is awaiting the call of the Boy Scout weekend.

It was nice to see a clean shop as I left on Friday morning.  I went to sleep very tired that night dreaming of what could be constructed in my clean shop with enough tools to build a space ship to the moon with all left handed threads with my son, Kellen, if I choose to embark on such a mission.  I sure love the dreams that a man cave can produce.  Been a long time since I remembered a dream.  Could it be that this dream is not?  It would appear I am living it?

Comments (0) Oct 22 2011

We had an unusual happening occur here at the house today.  We had our first day since moving into the house almost ten years ago of absolutely no internet.  IT must have been gruesome this morning when my son Kellen awoke and heard the news.  Last I heard he was seen somewhere in the neighborhood with a sign around his neck that said he would work for internet time.  LOL!  Not really but my wife told me he was beside himself  not knowing what to do with time on his hands.  He spent the afternoon at a friend’s house.   I am sure that the internet was available to him there so it was not like he was on withdrawal.

Ellen and I are sitting in the house watching TV in the kitchen with our laptops on the table.  she has her closed and is crocheting a scarf for a friend of hers  while I read some pdf. files that I had saved for just such a time.  I also have a movie and a game to play on the computer that does not need  any internet connection when I run out of pdf. files.  I do have a lot of hard back books as well as a plethora of electronic books with many authors to get my literary fix with out the internet.  What I miss most is looking up anything that comes to my mind.  I love that about the internet with the computer.  IF you can spell it Google can find it if it has been on the internet.   I know… what ever I have thought…  has been thought of before.  The only reason that I know this is because Google has found something each and every time that I have tried to search for something.

I spent the morning at my shop so I did not have a need for the internet.  At my shop everything is in such a disarray that it is hard differentiating the junk from the projects.  In the last two days I have made great progress in curing that particular malady.  My new friend and neighbor offered me two rather large sized tool storage cabinets that he had used as a security box during his time as a general contractors about twenty years ago.  When he went into the millwright business he placed them in his small shop and the poor tool boxes kind of over took the shop since his shop was rather small.  Now he is wanting to upgrade and reduce the stockpile so he offered the toolboxes as a gesture of friendship.  I have to tell you I am not used to anyone giving me anything.  (my parents gave me everything…not counting them)

My new friend appears to be a man of my own convictions.  He has been in construction most of his life.  I glean a lot of great information to aid in all of the little shop projects that I have started at the mancave.  He helped me with the plasma cutter set up.  IT worked like a champ.  What a machine!  Sooner or later I am going to have a small CNC machine and the plasma cutter will be a part of that as well.  The welder will be the next to start my juices flowing.  It is a MIG welder .  I have done some stick welding and I am no union welder but I can strike an arch.  Then make metal stick together.  According to my neighbor the MIG welder is much easier to operate than a stick welder.  So I am looking forward to starting the folding wall/slash door.  I have done all the engineering including the one dimensional drawings almost to scale.  The measurements are accurate the scale is probably a little off since I don’t know how to draw or scale anything.  It is amazing how a bunch of strait lines can make a picture.  I did it with simple force of will(and a real good imagination).

I am writing today using my computer for the first time as a word processor.  I know not a thing about such an endeavor.  It took me an hour to find word processing.  Another hour to read what was necessary to get it all designated, deposited somewhere on my computer, with a name that will make it easy to find it again at a later date.  Sounds like a simple project eh?  Well, it would be if it were not for the fact that I am not considered the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to technology by anyone …anywhere!.  I married into technology.  My wife is a techno whiz.  Often times my queries are to mundane for her.  I have a son that is following in his mothers footsteps so I can go to him if I have any slight problems like….Turning it on?  finding a program?  You know the basic stuff that I never have had to involve my self.  Now if I only had internet?  Hopefully I will post this Monday morning.  I am even more hopeful that I will be able to find it again on my computer.  so if you read this I passed.

Comments (0) Oct 18 2011

Fear and trepidation crept into my mind as I lay in bed in that moment between deep sleep and conscious thought.  Four o’clock in the morning is a wonderful time of the day.  Staying quiet so as to not wake my wife I dress, tip toe out of the bedroom, and close the french doors behind me as I leave so as to not wake my wife with the kitchen lights that would soon burn bright.  Normally I would pour a cup of day old coffee and warm it up while I was making a new batch of coffee.  Not this time.  It would seem that I managed to drink all that I made from the previous day so chore time came much to quick.  Instead I rebelled against my self and went strait to the computer with out the aid of my morning cup of coffee.  Strike one…this is what I had seen in that moment between conscious and unconscious thought.  I really am lazy.  Conscious or otherwise.

Without my cup of coffee in hand I set down in front of a Steve Jobs product to tap out more interesting prose.  Screen is set to the right angle.  Check.  Chair has proper padding for this arduous ordeal.  Check.  Have pencil and paper at hand if the arms will not work at the type writer  since I will soon be typing feverously and they may become tired. Check.  Make sure I sit correctly.  Proper posture is ever so important. Check.  As you may have already figured out I managed to amke a check list that was a mile ling and absolutely produced nothing.  Check.  (Oh I guess I got two paragraphs for my blog.)

NaNoWriMo is fast approaching.  The gut check this morning in my bedroom as I lay in the netherworld of conscious and unconscious thought I really got a knot in my stomach when I saw the effects of declaring a mission.  I have told the world that I am going to write a novel.  I have the in my mind and it is scaring me to death.  the old “Do what you say…Say what you do”  guy!  The guy that says that same thing to his son.  Now I am a weak kneed dunderhead that is scared of his own words(shadow).  Questions of doubt were going to come during the NaNO WriMo exercise in November but I didn’t really think it would come in the nether land  state of in between.  The fear is really deep seeded.

I  fear the battle.  I fear the battle of  ability.  I battle the fear of continuing.  I battle the battle.  Boy do I have battles!  Don’t we all..???  I think  I should chose my battles?  What do the readers think?   Do we chose our battles or are our battles choosing us?  NO matter I  would think?  I choose to take on the battle of my insecurities.  I choose to take on the battle of life.  At least I hope I am choosing?   Such wishy washy thoughts are what keep me in the battle.

I would go to a shrink if I thought it would help.  Actually the best head shrinker(I can’t spell psychiatrist) advice I ever heard came from Bob Newhart playing a head shrinker seeing a patient at his clinic.  It goes like this:

Doctor: We have a unique treatment system at this clinic.  It is imperative that you listen and do exactly what I say.  We have found over the years that this treatment is ever so effective in any kind of psychiatric disorder that has ever been diagnosed. It is so effective that we guarantee you will be cured after only one treatment if you do exactly what I say.

Patient:  Oh thank you Doctor.  I have waited so long to get to see you.  I cannot believe that you guarantee a cure for all of my disorders.  I am a crack addict and I am bulimic.  I also have agoraphobia and a whole lot of other assorted ailments.  I have been treated by some of the best doctors in the world.   They are all still at a loss as to why I have to fight all of these battles?

Doctor:  Yes,  we have had many such as you come to this clinic.  Each saying the same thing.

Patient: So did each one become cured?  I so want to be cured but I have all of these addiction?

Doctor:  Listen carefully.  Here is my prescription that this clinic is famous for.  It will change your life forever if you do exactly as I say.

Patient: Oh Yes, Please tell me!!

The doctor leaned forward over the desk in front of him peering directly into the patient’s eye to garner a more dramatic effect.

Doctor:  STOP IT!!!  That will be fifty dollars you can pay at the office desk.

I do not know if I can just “STOP IT”  but it sure seems like a simple solution does it not?  Good advice is usually hard to follow? I plan on fighting the battle of words to complete the NaNWriMo contest.  I like the tenor of the event.  It was never stated anywhere  that the novel had to be a good novel.  I rest in that thought.

Comments (0) Oct 15 2011