Woodworking ⁽⁹¹⁾

Brian Bilbrey November 17, 2013

Holiday Week

I'm burning off a couple of weeks of leave between now and the end of the year. As usual in such times, I start one of those weeks off with a stint of physical labor to kick off the front end. Yup, it's time to finish up the fence. Last month I did the left fence sections. Yesterday, I started by cutting the fence sections away from the posts, and setting them aside nearby: The two free-standing posts are problematic. One of them has a 45° twist in it, the other has a serious lean. So they're coming out. How…

Brian Bilbrey October 26, 2013

Pi tricks

But first, 0630 EDT on Saturday the 26th day of October, 2013, was brought to you by the word "Fahrenheit" and the number '28'. Brrrrrr! * * * I got home from work yesterday evening, and found Marcia watching something that probably first appeared on an obtangular Philco Predicta television in the late 1940's. I threw an ENOTINTERESTED exception, then I came upstairs and started mucking about with the Raspberry Pi. The little credit-card sized computer, named Dortmunder (for REASONS), has languished in a corner for quite a while. I first discovered that my phone life-extension battery (acquired at VMworld,…

Brian Bilbrey October 20, 2013

Fencing, continued.

Yesterday, I got all of the left side front fencing replaced. Today, I executed the decorative arches on those sections: I set a horizontal string line across the sections, and measured down, sinking a screw at each bottom end of each arch. I then used a quarter-inch thick, 7' long cutoff from a piece of cherry, braced against the screws and pressed upwards in the middle to describe each parabolic arch. A quick swipe with a pencil marked each arch. I cut them with the circular saw, first plunging in the middle, then working along the curve to each end.

Brian Bilbrey October 19, 2013

Fencing

At 1100 this morning: The gates are staying. The four fence sections, two to each side, they're toast. I cut them off the posts. The posts are in fine shape on this side of the house. So I measured and cut and clamped and screwed new horizontal 2x4 PT lumber onto the posts, then nailed PT fence boards up. Fortunately, I'm using a nail gun, instead of a hammer. Otherwise I might still be out there now. Instead, at 1530 EDT: I might have kept working, but it was starting to rain, so I hauled all the tools inside the…

Brian Bilbrey September 8, 2013

Launch weekend

Well, it was a launch for NASA's LADEE mission, a lunar orbiter (full name Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer"), from Wallops Island in Virginia. I headed up by the tennis courts to get a better south east view, further from the trees. Using binoculars, I was able to clearly see the ascent from about 10 seconds post-launch, through first stage separation and second stage firing, and on into the distance for a long while. Very cool. Usually the Wallops launches aren't so spectacular, and I'm usually clouded in and can't see them anyway from this distance. * * * In other…