The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey September 7, 2020

7 September 2020

Yeah, it's been a month. I'm dancing as fast as is reasonable in these terrible and weird times. And sometimes I'm building stuff... Sometimes building stuff means building other things first, in order to build the thing desired. Yep, a fixture: Once the fixture was done, I could work on parts: With the fixture to guide the router, I could cut slots into the schedule 40 pipe, in a specific orientation to the 30 degree angles the pipe was cut at. Then I could screw the pipe lengths onto the final product: The slots at the bottom? Just for access…

Brian Bilbrey August 9, 2020

9 August 2020

The fish jigsaw art piece featured recently is now done and on the wall. I put on a couple of coats of clear matte water-based polyurethane on the back to seal it, and four coats front and sides. After the first coats, I used some 220 grit on the wood surfaces to knock down the nibs, and gently with some single ought steel wool for the face of the puzzle, just to give a bit of bite for the ensuing coat. All the other coats were followed by a light pass with the steel wool. Here it is on the…

Brian Bilbrey July 19, 2020

19 July 2020

The last two weekends have been full of chores, catching up on the early summer yard suffering. Temperatures had been reasonable, and there'd been a fair bit of rain during our absence. That meant that lawns, weeds, everything was growing like gangbusters. But I'm almost caught up. Some of the tomato plants are starting to produce, as are most of the pepper plants. Others of the tomatoes don't look entirely ... enthusiastic about the ONE job they have this summer. Work is ongoing for me. I'm still going into the office once a week for a weekly process related to…

Brian Bilbrey June 28, 2020

28 June 2020

We hope that all of you are keeping well and in reasonable health. Yes, yes, it's been a month. Sorry to those of you who worry. We're all okay here. And for a couple of weeks, we were okay up in Maine, too! Three days before we left for Maine, we learned that they had updated the rules for out-of-state visitors. If we could show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days of arriving in Maine, we could forego the otherwise mandatory two week strict quarantine. We found a clinic, got a test each, and on Friday…

Brian Bilbrey May 28, 2020

28 May 2020

Well, the beginning was a good long time ago. And one thing I can always take away from the Drake Equation is that a primary reason that we're alone is because civilizations just don't last long enough to get past the deeply stupid stage that follows the enlightenment. Whether we do it to ourselves, or Giant Asteroid '20 does the job for us, the bell is tolling. I know, I'm a cheery sort of bloke, eh? You look at the news. I'll go back to the small shit that I have control over. Like ... The garden is alive. Almost…