The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey November 27, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

For those that celebrated the holiday, or for those that just like to give thanks, and belatedly, Happy Thanksgiving! We had a quiet week at home. We were both off work for the whole week. I gave a fair bit of time to school work, and a few hours to Skyrim. Marcia quilted and ripped and quilted. We did a big bird for the day itself: 23 pounds. We've now got a pot full of yummy turkey soup, a week's worth of turkey tetrazzini, and more meat left. So, a good week overall. We hope that everyone else enjoyed theirs, as…

Brian Bilbrey November 21, 2011

Continued Woodshop Reorganization

The "cart" I use for the jointer and the router table was empty space at the bottom, and when stored against the wall, I kept the compressor in the niche. But I had to move the compressor every time I wanted the cart out in the middle. Now the compressor rolls with the cart! Previously seen on that shelf: an Aiwa boom box. This new setup uses the old Logitech system from my office desktop, providing an audio input for the iPhone, which also can charge (which is good in the low-signal environment in the basement): Being a wood-hoarder, I…

Brian Bilbrey November 21, 2011

New Coffee Roasting Cart

So, I've got the week off, this week. And we're not going anywhere, so I have time for projects, mixed in with the schoolwork. The first project is to clean up and reorganize the woodshop a bit. To do that, I need to get the coffee roaster and vent hood off of my workbench, where it's lived for the last two years. I haven't minded much, because I've been too busy to do much woodworking, but you never know. Sitting in a box. I had components for a 6' tall slender rack, rolling or standing. An alternative is to build…

Brian Bilbrey November 20, 2011

What happens at UC Davis

is what happened at Kent State, and many other places. Democracy and peace and plenty is a momentary aberration: blind cruelty and painful existence is the normal human condition, and I think this experiment is almost over. Our republic's evolution into a police state is progressing, inch by inch. The beatings will stop when everything is safe. I wonder who it's safe for? In much less important news, I finished up the week's project for class and turned it in. Marcia returned from a weekend-long quilting retreat, and we watched the final Potter film tonight. I enjoyed it. * *…

Brian Bilbrey November 13, 2011

Another week spins by

Whoa! Really? Mid-November? Where are the years going? This week the 'A' for my Social Gerontology course landed at the Academic Records Office at UMUC (I made that name up, but it sounds good). Of course, the class wasn't about whole societies getting older, civilizations dying, etc. Mostly it was an overview of the field of research into anything nontechnical on the subject of aging. You could, I guess, call it Gerontology for non-science majors. As usual, I learned some stuff anyway. The biggest thing I learned, though, was this: To do well in school (as I didn't do the…