More sticks to sand and seal, but by the end of the day (interrupted by driving around town during a Huskies, Mariners and Sounders game) all the cross pieces were on the drying rack with all sides completed.
Remaining — the wine bottle dividers, these multitude of ½” x ½” sticks. Not sure how I’m going to seal those, but they will be in gloss because I’m out of matt finish.
I did stumble across an educational (for me) item on Slate’s website:
Cold Shower: How to spit with the wine pros.
Spit or swallow? For wine aficionados, the choice is usually dictated by circumstance: At meals you swallow, at tastings you spit (unless the wines being tasted are liquid gold; it would be criminal to cough up even a drop of the 1989 Haut-Brion, for instance). But as with so many other wine-related rituals, spitting is no simple matter. Proper technique and correct form count for a lot more than you might think in wine circles.
The flight was a little more full (only 1 free seat after they started selling them off for $150), so Señor Lobster decided to book himself into the “sleeper” compartment for the red-eye home:
At least he got some sleep. Me, I was up reading, watching junk TV, and marveling at the “old skool stew”… I kid you not. I thought I was on a preview of the new network TV show PanAm scheduled to start in September. 38 double D’s, 24 inch waist, and blond teased hair that would make any lady from Texas proud. It also looked like her Alaska uniform sweater was designed for a junior high school girl it was so tight. I didn’t think polyester stretched that far. Or maybe it’s closer to the new The Playboy Club series also slated for this fall.
And when I say “old skool”, it was two minis of Glenlivet (still in the bottle) with each round, coming so fast I started stuffing spares in my pocket. At the end of the flight she slipped me TWO MORE. Geez, I left the plane with a total of six x 50ml, which is basically a pint of single malt. Just remember, those are OK to put in your quart-size liquids container for carryon, but the airlines tend to get nasty when you pull them out mid-flight.
Having parked so close to the terminal, it was a short walk and $29 for three days parking and I was on the road… to the closest rest area to finally get a little sleep. If only Senor Lobster could drive!
Home at 11am and to bed for another couple of hours and then back to the grind.
More computer work, more wood work, more of everything.
Checkout time is 11am, which means I have to leave by 10:45 to walk over to check out at the Royal Kuhio, a minor inconvenience, but still 15 minutes less of sleep. Oh, and the monthly bug spray team is coming through sometime after 9, luckily I’d finished cooking before they showed up.
Got checked out after a 15 minute computer glitch (3rd in line), but as I was the last person to check out, they were able to waive their policy of doing on-line check-ins for airlines only between 5-7pm, and issue me a boarding pass at 11:30am, no wonder they got all 5’s on the comment card for the office staff.
Next stop is Hilo Hatties to see if we can find Mr. L some more clothes. Unfortunately, all he got was a puka shell necklace — looks good doesn’t it?
After the “bust” at Hilo Hattie’s I tried to find the bus stop for the city bus to the airport, failed, and just went to Sam Choy’s place for a light lunch of a crap, scallop, snow crab, clam, and mussel steamed stew with a load of iced tea.
Walked back to Hilo Hattie’s and caught the bus back in the direction of Waikiki, but had them dump me at the Ala Moana Mall where I knew the 19 and 20 busses ($2.50) stop. It wasn’t until I was back near Hilo Hattie’s that I realized the bus stop nearest was on an adjoining street. A lesson. Men, ASK where stuff is. Not that I didn’t have time as my flight isn’t until 10:35pm or something like that.
Got to the airport about 3pm — which is crazy early for a 10:30pm flight, but HNL isn’t a bad airport to hang out in, especially if you have access to the Delta Sky Club (formerly known as the Crown Room before their merger with Northwest). Snacks, drinks, and decent airport food (outside the club). I actually had a really good prime rib dinner with three sides (doing the Atkins thing my sides were two portions of green salad and one of cole slaw though the mac salad looked good and the mashed potatoes and gravy even better) for $12.50 (that was the 6oz. serving of the Prime Rib).
Mr. L even got in a little shopping while we were at the airport:
I didn’t realize he was a cross dresser. But that is none of my business.
There will be some more details of the flight home on tomorrow’s blog, but I might as well get this one posted and head off to the gate (after another cocktail).
Then relaxes on the lanai (that’s white person for deck):
And then for cocktails on the deck in his new shirt and hat combo from the Food Pantry:
Before a surf and turf dinner (Mr. Lobster being the Surf!):
Meanwhile, I’m the one who spent most of the day hunched over a computer (well, except when I went out with Señor Lobster to get a Hawaiian shirt and hat for him).
And I almost forgot to give you the video of the room — which someone already commented on YouTube about my “puke video” camera work:
That video is for SurfBetty to see if the room is better than ours in February.
The flight isn’t until 6pm, and even though it’s out of Bellingham (2 hours north), it still means there is time in the morning for more sanding and sealing. I’m looking forward to 3 days to let my carpal tunnel built-up subside.
Left a little early to hang out with SurfBetty for half an hour before continuing onto the airport which is about 10 minutes north of him. He was working on getting the photo studio set up so he can photograph all his new glassware so that then I can put together a website to sell it all. Finally, a paying gig!
While at SurfBetty’s place I got THREE text messages from Alaska Airlines. My 6pm flight is now at 6:47pm, my 6pm flight is now at 7:45pm, and my 6pm flight is now at 6:45pm. The flight was an hour and 20 minutes late getting in from Las Vegas, but we did actually get out of their at 6:45. Before I go further, check out the new Bellingham Airport Terminal:
Really nice, and free wi-fi. And there is Mr. Lobster having a Diet Coke while he waits to load.
He’s from Boston, the plane says Alaska, and we are headed to Hawaii, in STYLE.
Yes, Mr. Lobster had a First Class seat to himself for the whole trip. I do think he may be getting spoiled. Actually the other two bulkhead seats were open in first class as well, something I’ve never seen flying out of Seattle (and the reason I flew out of Bellingham, for the free upgrade, and, of course, the miles).
It was after eleven (plane landed on time at 9:20, having made up the 45 minute delay) by the time the turtle-like hotel shuttle got me to the Royal Kuhio to pick up the key, walk to the Fairway Villa, dump my bags and head out for groceries. Talk about a convenient location, the Food Pantry (the largest grocery store in Waikiki) is at the end of the block from my condo. Score.
Picked up breakfast stuff and some poke to nibble on with my nightcap.
Checked email (phone tethered to computer, no free wi-fi), logged in to Alaska Airlines and found I’ve been upgraded for the return (red-eye) trip on Thursday. Same seat, but less food. No full dinner as they are expecting you sleep, and with the selection on the DigiPlayer, that might we what I do. On the way over watched two movies: Win Win, and some middle-kid coming of age story, Adventures of a Geekie Kid or some such thing.
The cross pieces waiting to be sanded tomorrow before I head to the airport.
And for that “dip tray” to speed the process. Total failure — too much polyurethane. I’m back to thinking I need to get a real sprayer since the Kirby one was woefully under-powered, even with using the shop vac to provide a ton of air.
When will it end! Didn’t I say that yesterday? At this rate I’ll have carpal tunnel syndrome by the time we open the shop.
And speaking of syndromes, or at least medical stuff, one of the colonels (the male one) is going under the knife tomorrow to get a new knee. Please send your thoughts and hopes his way for a speedy recovery.
Another day in the shop, another batch of dust followed by sealing both sides of the champagne shelves, and making a trough to dip the uprights a drying rack to hold them. Will this lumber ever end!
I’m thinking (about Waikiki) that I can actually make due with just my roll-on computer case. The temperature in Bellingham is supposed to be nice, and we know Waikiki is. I’m thinking the computer, the accessories, toiletries and a couple of rolled up shirts. Just the flip flops and the shorts that I’ll be wearing. Oh, and a sun hat. Getting excited. It seems like months since I’ve been on an airplane.
CaddyDaddy showed up around 3 to return my carpet cleaner and wireless router, and stay for a lovely pork chop dinner. He actually has tomorrow off from work so the guest bedroom is full tonight.
Nope, just cross supports drying after getting sealed — we don’t want anyone getting splinters in the shop. In the upper left hand side you see the wooden wince boxes that we’ll be using for the lower display shelves.
So, you can tell how I spent my day; sanding and sealing, followed by a partners meeting at 4 and dinner with Swanda and Dancing Bear at 6 and more sealing (the other side) at 9.
And to think, I get to get up tomorrow and do the whole thing again, but with different parts.
I did get some good news after I got back in from the garage. My upgrade to First Class on my Tuesday flight to Honolulu came through, I’m now in seat 1C. Yahoo!
The sander head for the Kirby came in the mail today…
Which got me motivated to see what other shop tools I could make out of Kirby vacuum cleaner parts. How about a spray gun to apply all the polyurethane to the wine rack pieces?
Sure, it’s supposed to be for spraying sudsy water, it will be interesting to see if it will spray water-based polyurethane.
And here is a rundown of the three Kirbys that I own:
Number one is a Model 509 from 1949 (I kid you not), next up the the Sanitronic-VII model from 65-70, and finally, the streamline Kirby Classic Omega 1CB from 73-76.
Jimmy and Greg showed up around 4:30 just as I finished drilling the cross support 2×4’s. Now I just need to do A LOT of sanding. But that’s tomorrow.
Eat, Sleep, Code. That’s how this week is feeling.
But this did come in the paper today from the Wall Street Journal, talking about the “Waffle House Index To Tropical Storm Damage”. Here is the link to the whole story.
But I did get a chance to cut down the panels and make tops for the wooden wine boxes so we can trim in half to make two display boxes out of each of the 9 wooden boxes we have so far.
A quiet dinner at home, and then back to the keyboard.
Work on the Madrona Wine Merchants website in the morning before meeting up with Jimmy at a wine tasting downtown at the Pan Pacific. Here was the line-up:
16 French Wines
23 Spanish Wines
9 Assorted Rose Wines
And some nice appetizers to refresh the palate.
Then it was off to Jimmy’s place to pick up wood wine boxes, then to Costco for pills and bags, then Encore Restaurant Supply for stove knobs (I’m missing one, and had to settle for red ones rather than the black ones which are on backorder), Home Depot for two gallons of paint and two 4’x4′ ¼” panels — that was fun driving home!
While at Encore I was checking out coolers (for the wine shop) at under a grand. Here are the two:
My choice would be larger, it’s cheaper, and would look good with custom wood racking inside.
Steak dinner before back to work on the website while watching junk television.
Met up with Jimmy at the apartment where I picked up the store copy of Windows 2010, some groceries, and Jimmy. I shaved about an hour off his commute from the Madison Valley to South Park.
Today’s chores for Jimmy, drill baby, drill. Many 1″ wide holes through ¾” plywood. Not an easy task at 16 holes completely through 17 shelves, 16 partial wholes through another bunch of shelves. That a whole lot of shoulder action.
While Jimmy made big holes, I made 1/8th inch holes, lots of them but which much less effort using the flexible drill shaft attached to the old Kirby Home Butler unit. I finished drilling all the holes on the uprights and crossbars, and I have to say that I felt like an Elf in an IKEA workshop.
Next chore was to main (jet another) jig route the edges of the middle shelves. The top shelf will have a cap, and the bottom shelf will be covered by the wooden wine crates.
Between yesterday and today we kicked out the rest of the components to make about 60+ feet of the racking which will be about 5′ tall around the outer walls of the shop.
Whew!
My friend MB came by with her daughter just as we were finishing and moving onto cocktails. 30 minutes or so later, her laptop (actually, now the daughters laptop) is all fixed (again) and ready for action.
The plan for Jimmy to stay for dinner (if Dancing Bear showed up with a ride back to the city) or dinner at Shilla (Korean) if DB didn’t changed to just headed home on the bus since we finished early. What we have left is mostly sanding which I am waiting for my Kirby Sander Accessory to show up before I start that task.
DB did show up for dinner. It was a quick change from lamb chops to veal chops as it seems someone doesn’t like lamb. It is now in his contact information in Outlook — who knew, well, he says he told me in the past, but who knows.
I don’t know why it was a late night for me, but it was.
A full day in the shop with Jimmie showing up at 11:30 after a REALLY long bus ride. It’s not convenient to get from the Central District to South Park.
Today’s word of the day is “jig” (courtesy of Wikipedia):
In metalworking and woodworking, a jig is a type of tool used to control the location and/or motion of another tool. A jig’s primary purpose is to provide repeatability, accuracy, and interchangeability in the manufacturing of products.[1] A jig is often confused with a fixture; a fixture holds the work in a fixed location. A device that does both functions (holding the work and guiding a tool) is called a jig.[citation needed]
An example of a jig is when a key is duplicated, the original is used as a jig so the new key can have the same path as the old one. Since the advent of automation and computer numerical controlled (CNC) machines, jigs are often not required because the tool path is digitally programmed and stored in memory. Jigs may be made for reforming plastics.
Jigs or templates have been known long before the industrial age. There are many types of jigs, and each one is custom-tailored to do a specific job. Many jigs are created because there is a necessity to do so by the tradesmen. Some are to increase productivity, to do repetitious activities and to do a job more precisely.
Here is one of the now half dozen plus “jigs” that Jimmie and I have made to make sure all the pieces we are making end of being the same dimensions:
This is a spacer used for making sure that all the shelves line up. Thank the goddesses that I own a compressor and a brad nail gun, otherwise my wrist would be killing me!
And here is a pile of upright members (that sounds DIRTY!):
The stack of uprights is hanging out on top of a single drawer Thermador warming oven I’m hoping to install over the dishwasher in the show (for holding warm appetizers).
And one of my favorite photos — how to hold all those small bits of wood before they are assembled… repurposed wine holders from Safeway:
And a stack of drilled middle shelves:
Jimmie didn’t get all of those drilled — it’s a lot of shoulder power that needs to be spread among days.
Dinner tonight was a $25 Restaurants.Com off coupon (on $35 bill with mandatory 18% tip, really meaning really you need to run up a $28-29 bill, which is NO problem when order Sashimi). Daimonjisushi is the name of the place, just over the bridge in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. Fast service, friendly staff, good food — not really cheap ($4.50 seaweed salad, $19.95 sashimi plate, $5.50 tempura unagi, $15 split of cold sake [they were out of the Nigori at $11) yielded a bill of $33 AFTER the coupon. Damn.
You know you have spent too much time in front of the computer when you neck and shoulders star complaining. I’m working on a more easy to post to website for www.madronawinemerchants.com so you can see the latest and greatest. Locating photos, making static pages, doing some sample posts. The list never ends.
But then there was the mid-day E-Bay search for yet another accessory for the Kirby system… the sanding (polishing, massaging) head:
The damn thing vibrates and attaches to the Kirby vacuum, a nice addition to the flexible drill shaft. The review is that it sucks 60-80% of the sanding dust up. That would be nice considering how much shit we have to sand over the next couple of weeks.
The other mid-day excitement was an email response:
“How about tonight, then? No time like the present, huh? Good to see you too.”
Time to defrost a half a dozen lamb chops, half a pound of marinated shrimp, prep a salad, pop a bottle of wine, pop a pill.
I can’t believe I spent most of the afternoon and into the early evening working in the garage trying to organize and improve the shop. It all started with a run to Home Depot for about $40 bucks worth of vacuum hose and adapters. By the time I had to hit the showers to head off to the Faerie Re-Entry Party up in the north end, I’d put a critter filter on the exhaust from the vacuum cleaner, rigged about twenty feet of hose in various sizes, made a dust collection system for the table saw (now that all the plywood sawing is done!), hooked up a hose adapter to the chop saw and hung the Kirby Vac from the track system on one of the rafters to it can easily be pulled into place. Whew!
All this should help when it comes time to sand all those boards.
Today is all about turning Big Sticks into Little Stick, and get the car back in the garage after leaving it outside last night accidentally leaving the top down.
Jimmie and Chauffeur Suze arrived about 11am and off to work we went.
While Jimmie chopping I’m doing things like installing a vice on the work bench, and devising a quick way to drill counter-sinks for the screws. How? By using the flexible shaft off the old Kirby vacuum cleaner:
And then it was on to making a router table as part of the table saw:
And in the end, lots of little sticks and 60+ shelves:
We knocked off about 5pm shortly before Swanda arrived for a steak and salad dinner al fresco. And better yet, that gave Jimmie a ride back to the hill. No need to take the oh so slow Route 60 bus.
It just looks like I’m missing a flight or two in December. Oh, and one of those flights (Oct. 1st) is my buddy Joe coming to visit for part of my birthday celebration. To keep my MVP Gold for 2012 I’ll need to either need to do another one of those Hawaii (from B’ham to HNL or SEA to KOA) or SEA-EWR and then a SEA-OAK ¯ there is a party in NYC I didn’t think I could go to except now I have a place to stay. Doesn’t a Saturnalia party sound fun.
What I booked today was a Bellingham to Honolulu trip in early September before the push is on at the shop. Looks like air and lodging will be at $500 r-t and it looks good for an upgrade as I chose days that had lots of seats left, which also matched up with dates available for cheap WorldMark accommodations ($105.00 for two nights in a one-bedroom condo).
In shop news for today, was waiting around for a delivery from Dunn Lumber of wine rack materials… they showed up around 2pm:
So much for parking in the garage tonight! But it did force me to continue on with the cleaning of the garage by getting the rest of the sawdust collected. Still didn’t finish my dust collection system. Damn.
The Steak Dinner with Swanda has been pushed out until tomorrow so that he will be fit company, leaving me with making a Chicken Over Greens dinner from last night’s leftovers. It could be worse.
H20Blanco was out before breakfast was served for a little play time with a new friend so I was on my own to run to Costco for more Alli, luckily the lines were short at 11:30 in the morning.
On the way back from Costco I was about six cars from making it over the First Avenue Bridge which was opened for a sailboat going in one direction and what I believe is a crane barge for the South Park Bridge project which they are finally hard at work on (completion date 2013).
Once Blanco returned it was time to adjust the temperature regulator that he put on the 6-burner Wolf range 6-9 months ago — it would hold a temperature, but it had no relation to what the markings on the dial were. An hour later and we are done with that project and then onto the testing of the sauna heater, which luckily just required a ohm meter. Now all I have to do is build the enclosure and wire it in. Yeah! More projects.
Tonight’s meal are some chicken breasts in a green molè sauce, though that phrase is redundant since molè in Spanish for sauce.
Blanco is off tomorrow morning for Portland, right around the time the order from Dunn Lumber appears for the wine racks.
A lovely sausage and fried eggs breakfast before H20Blanco set off on his errands and then to dinner with his sister-in-law.
As for me, it was errands on the Eastside with a bank run (deposit), a liquor store run (Evan Williams), a Safeway run (eggs and a ton of 30-75% off meat products), and a Harbor Freight Tools run (1″ nails for the airnailer for the wine rack project.
Dinner with Jeff with a couple of the pork chops from the 30% section and a couple of loaves of bread, one perfect, the other, much denser as I forgot the egg.
But there was bad news after dinner. My dear friend Solus+ who was injured during a hosing down of the faeries (strong stream of water directly to his right eye) still doesn’t have vision in that eye. His words:
Home tonight in Vancouver. Eye requires complicated and delicate surgery to restore sight. Consulting with local specialist tomorrow as arranged by University Hospital Casey Eye Center in Portland. Will be in touch. I accept your offer of disseminating information.
It was a fun watersport that went a little wrong.
Here is a shot of the fun a couple of years ago (actually the first year it happened, summer 2005):
My guess is that this will be the last year for this particular gathering event. The only bright side is being a Canadian, we has good healthcare.
300 plus emails later, the inbox is mostly cleaned up just in time for company arriving tonight. Speaking of emails in my inbox, this one labeled “honourary canuck”:
It being Monday, it must be a wine tasting. Not sure why these happen on Monday’s but 40+ swirl, sips, dumps later, I need a serious drink rather than that damn French grape product. Southwest, Loire, Burgundy, Southern and Northern Rhone — Jimmie’s method is start with the whites running from region to region, then the rosè, then the reds, and finally the dessert wines. I have heard others say they like to alternate whites and reds within a region and then have a cracker or cheese between. Time to get a clipboard to keep in my briefcase.
Swung by the apartment to pick up the new wine shop computer, some stuff for hummingbird, and a copy of Quick Books, also for the shop.
Luckily my house guest, H2O Blanco, or maybe it’s Aqua Blanco, or maybe just Whitewater suffered the same traffic hell as I did yesterday. For Hummingbird and BamBam it was even worse on Sunday with an 11-hour trip that should have taken 8. He got to the house around 6:30 which actually gave me a little time to clean up the place for his three day visit.
Dinner was pan-fried lamb lollichops, with asparagus heads thrown in at the last minute. Yum. Add a salad, wine and conversation and voilè, it’s dinner.
After dinner amusement was AquaBlanco checking out my sauna heater (which he thinks works, but until their is power, not final) and having a cocktail above the house in the rain. Good thing I bought that market umbrella.
[219.2 Looks like I didn’t gain any weight on the road!]
yes, if you spit my 89 haut-brion i would kill you, personally 😉