After talking more or less none stop of a car over the last 3 years, watching 18 seasons of top gear and researching every possible fact, we bought us a 981 Porsche Boxster a couple of weeks ago as christmas gift (for the next dozen of years or so)
Due to an issue with the AC system and a couple of annoying rattles in the dashboard, the jeep is back at the dealer and getting fixed/resolved.
Meaning I'm getting another toy as loaner car. So that I keep getting to work.
This time we got a 2013 Toyota Tundra/Crew Cab to play with, which reminded me how much I miss driving a pickup truck and how happy I am that I do not have to pay this gigantic gas bill anymore.
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| we got about 12.5mgp during the 3 days of driving... |
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| as size comparison, a 5 door A3 parked next to it. Nose to nose. |
Over the last couple of weeks, I was working on a little side table as prototype for our planned living room furniture.
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| already under heavy use... |
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| little necklace hanger for my wife, made from left over bloodwood |
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| finally enough tomato for some food |
So our 2013 grand cherokee, pretty much turned 1 year old with 12k miles and the check engine light goes on and off to the dealer it goes to get it fixed.
What do we get as a loaner? A small little chrysler c200 convertible, which is a bit limiting for my frame and kinda tight. But it's nice to have a convertible to take advantage of the sunny days right now and to demo, if we really want to buy a convertible as next car.
recently we got our new couch and this basically means that we now need some end tables for it, since our existing ones neither match or look that great and they are getting a bit old.
At the same time our finacial situation also improved a little bit, which gave me the opportunity to buy some nice wood and build them myself. Since mahogany is quite expensive, we decide to build a small side table first. And if all works out, we will create a big one afterwards. If not we just buy some cheap poplar and stain it mahogany colored...
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| 69$ of wood, it's not a lot, but enough for a single end table, which sells for the mid to high 300$ |
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| everything cut to size, sadly not precise 90 degree angles, since I still don't have a jointer |
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| shaping the legs, I want that they all have a slopped angle 2" from the top |
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| about 3/4 of an inch to remove with my fore plane, while trying to keep the correct slope |
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| after roughing out the shape with the bandsaw, it time to finetune it with the rasps. |
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| about 70% complete, just need to add the bottom shelf, sand it and apply a french finish. |
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| time to cleanup the mess |
Two weekends ago we took our little summer trip and went camping for a couple of days. Nothing big, just 3 days of relaxing and doing nothing, but reading 'The legend of Drizzt' or in other words, the Forgotten Realms series, which spanned several of my favorite computer games of all times. I'm actually playing baldurs gate again, when I can't sleep. But this is another topic all together.
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| the area around Black Butte Lake |
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| making some dinner |
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| our little family, just being happy |
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| first couch I bought in my live... |
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| wide angle lenses make our house look huge... |
after we finished tilling, leveling and seeding our right side of the lawn, we are now literally waiting for grass to grow. It should be all nice in green in 6-8 weeks from now.
So now we are focussing on the left side and improving the look of our planters.
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| slowly adding red mulch to the planters, to improve their look |
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| bell peppers are finally showing up |
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| so do the cayennetta peppers |
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| as our tomatoes. Well frankly we going to have hundreds of tomatoes in 3-4 weeks. |
now that everything is tilled, it was time to put a little temporary fencing into place. So that the pups don't mess up the grass we plan to put down sometimes next week.
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| temporary fence is build and up. Cheapest wood construction possible and I just hope it lasts 6-8 weeks |
now that the dogs are getting a bit older and start to listen, sometimes even successfully we decided it's time to replace the sad excuse for 'grass' with a new coat of grass.
Little did I know how much work this is going to entail. And so this is the first step in my thirteen step program, at least it feels like it.
tilling the right side of the yard (next year we do the left, yay...)
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| step 1 - tilling the yard |
Well over the last weeks we are finally starting to making progress with our backyard improvement project and creating a little suburban live-style vegetable garden.
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| newly installed fence next to our wild roses and heirloom tomatoes |
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| the worlds smallest orange tree. Hopefully in 3-5 years it's going to bear some fruits. |
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| bell pepper, zucchini and half dead sun gold tomatoes. Still have to build 3 more boxes for artichokes and arugula in the winter time |
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| basil, chives, mint, oregano, stevia. Need another barrel for rosemary, tarragon and sage. |
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| finished restoring a Stanley #6c hand plane from the late 1940s. Need to find some 3x3x3 maple to redo the knob to make it match my carved tote a bit better. |
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| rasberries a week ago, sadly they did not survive the 120F days we had and we might have to replace the canes |
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| don't pay attention for a minute and the puppies are taking over the bed... I guess this is another lost cause. |
recently my friend Kristen joined the organisation, 'Girls who code' and started teaching these kids the basic about programming, robotics and microchip programming.
To my surprise she invited me as a speaker to 'share my wisdom' of developing for close to 20 years to tell these girls what they have to be aware off with software development and where the use usual challenges and problems are.
Needless to say I hate a lot of fun talking to these extremely bright and smart kids, who obviously have a huge potential and wouldn't mind working with some of them some day in the future.
I might even apply to become a teacher for a summer there next years, since I had way to much fun and they even play with arduinos (can't wait till the next 5 I ordered arrived to automate my veggie garden...) !!!
Since we all work a bit much, we needed to get a way a bit and drove up north to fort bragg to camp a little bit.
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| Surrounded by several 600-800lb's elks. Needless to say the pups were upset |
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| basil bee is watching over our tent |
finally managed to remove all the rust from the hand planes and starting to paint them now, before flattening and polishing them.
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| masking the sides |
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| first step done - priming it |
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| The little plane was feeling lonely.. |
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| so during a visit to an antique store I picked up some bigger plans. A No.3, 2xNo.5 and No.6 handplane, which need a lot of work to shine again, since they are about 50-100 years old |
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| using electrolysis to remove the rust from the first cap iron and polishing it a bit. |
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| since all the handles are broken/ugly it is time to use a couple of rasps and carve/file new ones from mahogany. |
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| first handle is done, now we need to do 4 more and also 4 knobs. |
Since I still don't have a woodworking vise, I put it into my mind to just build one, from some wood I had laying around.
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| My tiny plane is a bit small to smooth about 36" inches wide jaws, after prepping them with my 15$ Jackplane |
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| Slowly getting better with using a handsaw. Still long ways to gogo to get it perfect |
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| But sadly the stupid oak split after assembly, so it' yet again back to the drawing board |
