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've been a little bit busy this week with a new project... finally!  I've been putting off a bunch of projects lately due to ongoing rainy, hot and humid weather, poor health, and medical appointments for both Sheila and me, but mostly due to the absolutely abysmal weather we've had this summer. I needed to get going on at least one project before the snow flies! I decided to start on a to-do list of about 20 items (most of which I'll never get to this summer) with building and installing a garden window over our kitchen sink. We've been talking about buying a garden window for quite some time but the prices are absurd so I opted to design and build my own. That's my answer and resolution for most things, actually... but this garden window is something new to me.  At this point, I have most of the wood cut and painted with at least one coat of white paint. I still need to cut some wood to length for the frames of the glass panes for the sides of the wi

We've traveled quite a bit by train over the years. Naturally, there have been a few memorably long delays due to derailments. Derailments are quite rare and I've only been affected by two in about thirty years of Amtrak rail travel but, when they happen, it is time consuming, frustrating and memorable! I was on one train that derailed in one incident and, in another, we were delayed by about eight hours due to a freight train derailing up ahead of us. During both incidents, it really would have been nice to know what was happening and to have an estimated time of when we'd be back on track (pun intended). But, how would that be possible? When the train that I was on derailed while I was on my way to my sister's wedding,  Amtrak resolved the issue within a couple of hours. T he tracks were washed out due to heavy rains in the preceding weeks and only one or two of the cars came off the tracks. They sent buses to pick us up and transported us to a station about sixty

I just thought I'd write a quick update on Sheila's treatment problems.   After the ER visit a few weeks ago, Sheila's Oncology team decided that the significant symptoms she was experiencing were probably not due to her new treatment drug.  Since they were fairly certain that the treatment wasn't presenting these significant symptoms as side effects of the treatment drug, we came up with a plan to get back on the treatment plan and give it a shot again. Unfortunately, Sheila was back on this particular treatment drug only two days before one of the significant symptoms appeared again... and now it is only a week later and both of the significant symptoms that landed her in the ER are back again. At this point, we're both quite certain that these are actually side effects of her cancer treatment and they are far too severe to be tolerated for a long term treatment plan. Right now, these symptoms are more mild than the first time around but it is still only a m

My health took a nosedive more than a week ago... and then, more recently, took a deeper nosedive with terrible nausea, weakness and general malaise holding me back and keeping near the bathroom. I'm still recovering but, as always when I am recovering, I am now trying to find little things around the house that I can actually accomplish without triggering my health to crash yet again.  This time around, I decided to scroll through some old photos to see if could find anything worth salvaging. All three of these photos, below, were shot at Oakledge Park on Lake Champlain. These photos were shot back a number of years ago when I was shooting with a couple of cameras that did nothing but cause me grief. I always seemed to struggle to get decent shots and especially when the light was not ideal. Ironically, the light was terrible for all three of these photos below. I really had to search to find good, interesting light. This first photo was shot from a rocky beach looking towar

Talking with the staff at The Presidio, planning our visit... Our cross country rail journey to San Francisco by way of The Lakeshore Limited and California Zephyr trains has been foremost in our thoughts lately (even more than all our health problems so that is good news). This past weekend, we made some progress on these plans as we booked rooms for our stay in San Francisco.  At this point, we're not sure if we'll ever make it back to San Francisco so we decided to choose rooms which are unique, in a great location, moderately affordable, and meet the highest of standards. With this criteria, there wasn't much of a list of options. We quickly chose to stay at an inn on National Park grounds at The Presidio.  We needed to jump on booking these particular reservations because the rooms in this Inn on the grounds of The Presidio have a booked rate of 100% every single day since the inn opened more than six years ago. We knew that if we waited too long to make reser

For many years, Sheila and I have been talking about and dreaming about one day taking a journey across the country by rail. It has always been one of those things we've wanted to do someday when the opportunity presented itself. There is something about train travel... it has a romantic air about it... it is classic... it is relaxed by comparison to other modes of transportation... and it provides spectacular vistas as we wind our way across the country. This was one of those trips that we always figured would have to wait until after Sheila retires since we knew it would be a time consuming trip but Adam recently moved to California so that has prompted us to take a closer look at transportation options. One way or another, we were headed to California to visit Adam. We figured why not do it in style and the way we want? Originally, whenever we talked about a cross country rail journey, we talked about stopping at various cities along the way. We'd spend a night or two

I've been trying to get outdoors with my telescopes this summer but there have been a number of obstacles to this seemingly simple endeavor.  Most importantly, the skies on most days and nights have been obscured by clouds or fog. On the rare occasion when the sun is shining (and it has been very rare this summer), it has been incredibly hazy ruining any chance of seeing detail on the sun. The very few clear nights we've had have been incredibly hazy too.  Another big problem we've had this summer is a big Black Bear wandering around our neighborhood at night, getting into things and causing a big stir. I have no desire to have this bear join me out there in the darkness so I've been reluctant to get out there even on the rare hazy, mediocre nights. We've been struggling with some health issues in recent weeks so when Friday came around last week, we were both planning to eat dinner, watch a little television and then head to bed as early as possible. Neither