Scattered Thoughts . . .

I've moved on to the second phase (and unplanned phase) of our garden window project by working on refinishing the window sashes for this window.  Our homebuilt garden window has a couple of removable window sashes that we can insert into the frame for colder weather. In the warmer months, I will leave the sashes out (as seen in the photo to the right) so the view is wide open with no obstructions. These sashes were in pretty lousy shape. It seemed silly to design and build this nice new garden window and then just install the same old worn-out sashes when the weather cools down and during the longer part of the year when we need extra insulation. I've been experiencing this throughout our renovations... you know... when you make a clean spot, everything else that didn't look so badly before you made a clean spot suddenly appears horrendous... I needed to do something about these window sashes.  I also needed to replace the window sill... something else I hadn'

This week, I've been working on building a garden window that I designed. There were a few setbacks but the window is now closed in and in a finished state, finally! We had some lousy weather... first far too hot and humid which is particularly catastrophic for my health and that did affect my health. The sun and heat actually caused what appeared to be hives (according to Sheila) but it didn't feel like hives... regardless, my skin did not look pleasant. One day this week was so humid that I couldn't breath so I went back indoors and laid in the air conditioned house for the remainder of the day. Then we had intermittent rain causing some more delays.  Near the end of the project, I needed to use my drill press. I don't use this benchtop tool often so I had to dig it out of the shed and dust it off. Well, I needed to do more than just dust it off... it was seized up completely.   Clamping down the straight edge for cutting glass. I opened the lid to the dr

As has been the norm here for the past few months, it is dark and dreary outside this morning. I'd like to get back to working on our garden window but I'm not going to pull all my tools outside when it appears as though it will rain at any moment.   On the positive side, it is far cooler out there today! The humidity seems to be at far more tolerable levels too!   I should be able to get out there to do some work in another hour or two... I'm looking forward to making more progress on this window project.

I'm laying low for a while since I'm fighting off a cold. The cold isn't so terrible (yet) but my mast cells are angry causing some serious problems related to my primary illness. While I'm recovering, I am taking advantage of the quiet time to catch up on some blog entries.  One thing I have been meaning to write about is a wooden telescope case I designed and built. I have this nice, new, high-quality telescope but I had no way to store it. I feel a telescope of this quality deserves a nice case. Actually, I'd like to do this with all of my optics and I do have plans to do this very thing... I just need to find the time and energy!  I just finished the first homemade case which is for storing my better telescope and I have another wood case almost finished which is to store the tracking mount for this telescope. I also want to build a few other cases for other astronomy gear. This is something I should have started doing many years ago with my camera gear and

As if my current 'to-do' list isn't long enough, as I've been recovering from a foot injury over the past month, I've been sketching some designs and plans for a new digital grand piano to add to my 'to-do' list! I've been thinking about designing my own piano for many years. Long ago, I accepted the fact that I would never be able to afford to buy a new commercially manufactured grand piano so I've been creatively designing my own piano. The truth is, this plan has been simmering in the back of my mind for quite some time but, lately, I've been more persistent and detail-oriented in figuring out dimensions, sketching ideas, and working out design issues. Some of the many sketches of a bored maniac... For the most part, I've been laid up with my foot elevated for at least a month now. While I installed that new flooring and new ADA toilet in our master bathroom a bit more than a month ago, I somehow injured my achilles tendon and my

I've been writing about some of the gifts we received for Christmas and another one of the gifts we received was a new wireless doorbell. I must say, this wireless doorbell is good enough to have put together a short video and write about here! Our old wireless doorbell was not all that appealing. The quality of the sound was rather poor. It sounded more like a child's toy than a real doorbell. Every time the doorbell rang, the quality of the sound really bothered me. Of course, those who know me probably aren't surprised by this since everyone knows I probably pay far too much attention to the tiniest of details and I'm a hopeless perfectionist. The sound of that old doorbell was really lousy though. I knew that if I was going to replace our doorbell I wanted one with better sound. The other problem we had with the old doorbell is that whenever the temperatures plunged below zero (which is often during six months out of the year) , the doorbell button contacts c