Scattered Thoughts . . .

I knew I wanted something different for the lighting in the playhouse.  I quickly decided to create my own lighting out of leftover cans from large cans of tomatoes.   At first I thought about creating something with a sailing theme but my artwork consistently moved too far into complicated territory and I wanted these lights to be simpler.  I especially didn't want the building of these light fixtures to be any more difficult than necessary because I was on a tight schedule at this point to get the whole playhouse project finished. I decided to create star patterns...  one recognizable group of stars for each light.  I chose The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper and Cepheus mostly because these star patterns would be easily recognizable and fairly easy to drill into these old cans.   I set my drill press on the outdoor kitchen countertop so I could work on this project during a rainy day then I went back to work on some of my many outdoor projects including renovating th

Yesterday, Sheila helped me install the ridge cap on the play house and outdoor grill kitchen.  Once we had the roof all sealed up, we then tackled some electrical including installing the lighting.  It looks pretty good! Even though we made some noticeable progress yesterday, it was slow going.  First, I needed to remember how to join the ridge cap for intersecting ridges.  Then, I had to cut, then bend, then flash, then install.  This first piece of ridge cap was bent in a way so it could be folded over the adjoining perpendicular ridge.  I also added some flashing that was cut and bent to shape.   Installing was slow going because it was difficult to reach the area where the two ridges meet.  I had to lay across some boards on the roof while Sheila held the step ladder in place.  Plus it was hot up on that metal roof and the sun was blindingly bright reflecting off the new shiny roof! The second piece of ridge cap was also cut and bent so it could fit right on top of t

One of my cousins, Kathy, recently posted a photo of having morning coffee while relaxing on the edge of a river. Her photo immediately reminded me of many years of morning coffee at my own home on a river quite a few years ago before my health took a serious nosedive.  Thinking about this old home also reminded me of all the visitors I had coming and going... all the weekend parties... all my friends' kayaks and canoes that resided in my yard all summer... and it reminded me of all the friends who still talk about my old house on the river whenever I bump into them. We had some really great times at that house! View from the firepit in the backyard. Seeing Kathy's photo encouraged me to dig out some old photos of this house to share here. For the most part, these are really lousy photos but they are good enough to see some of the memorable parts of this property and to remind me of some really nice times.  I wish I had better and more photos to share but this was a

Back a couple of years ago, I happened to win an O scale (the old Lionel size) diesel locomotive on eBay for about $25. It runs on traditional 2 rails rather than 3 rails and can even run well on the tight curves necessary in a relatively small room (I have no room for large sweeping curves). I wanted to find a few more of these EMD F9 locomotives. About a week ago, someone advertised three of these locomotives up for auction on eBay. Finally! Long story short... I won the first one... was quickly outbidded for the second one... and then won the third one! The two diesels I won are still in the hands of the US Post Office but I'm already putting together a plan for this small fleet of locomotives. First, I needed to come up with a numbering scheme. There is a big "853" on the side of each of these diesels. Repainting is too much work so I decided to just add a suffix to each number...  853A, 853B, and 853C. This morning, I set out to create backlit numberboards for

This morning was another morning darkened by a medical appointment for ongoing cancer. Sheila and I seem to share everything and, unfortunately, this is one of those things we have in common. Today was my turn.  To be honest, even after all these years of never-ending medical appointments, I still have difficulty seeing anything on my calendar beyond these important medical appointments... I just see darkness. When I pictured my calendar in my head, the months and days only went to January 11th... Monday... 2016... then complete darkness.  No matter how hard I try, I just cannot shed any light on this calendar in my head until I get beyond these dark appointments.  On the positive side, these appointments allow us to spend more time together rather than apart while Sheila is at work. We always eat out on these days as well. And, that is always nice.  Before Sheila was in my life, I seemed to know more medical professionals than others. I would walk into a hospital and the peopl

I rarely will take on a portrait session, or any photography session for that matter, simply because it takes too much out of me and any activity impacts my health in a negative way but... sometimes there are exceptions! A good friend of ours, Judy, called us last week asking if I could shoot one photo of her for work. There was a rather short deadline and the project seemed simple enough... One headshot on a black background, traditional portrait orientation, a jpeg file emailed to her corporate office. I happen to enjoy photography as an enthusiastic hobbyist when my health allows and I have the equipment as well as the experience necessary for a small photography project like this one so I felt this was a favor I could easily tackle! I was feeling pretty good, healthwise, when I spoke to Judy so we scheduled a time to do a quick portrait session...   As luck would have it, my health suddenly declined in the next couple of days so we needed to reschedule this session. This h