Arches

Hit some rain on crazy wind on the way back from a hike, had to book out of there!

Rocky Mountain

A trip at Rocky Mountain National Park, interrupted by rain (a theme on our trip).  Planned on staying for a few days but got rained on and raced to Arches instead.  Super busy park and camping was really hard to come by, we lucked out just as a few folks canceled their site.  The online booking system is a free for all.

Beautiful flowers abound in the alpine environment (and lots of elk)

This is at 12005 ft of elevation! 

Managed to get a little bit of the milky way in there at about 2am.  Being by awful camping neighbors is becoming a common theme.  (Leaving a crazy amount of lights on, super loud kids, and just overall annoying yuppies) 

Got up super early to snag some parking and do the Emerald Lake Hike

Mammoth Cave - so difficult to photo

The "strenuous" hike was cake, but we got to see some really neat things.  Really hard to photograph.  Kentucky is really hot and muggy in the summer!

All the way to Badlands

One heck of a drive to get there.

Grand Tetons

 Thunderstorms threatened.  Glad we got out of there when we did, it sure rained on us hard on the way out.

 Really cool drive up a mountain, but some seriously wicked mosquitos. 

Wish it wasn't so cloudy - storms were rolling in

Yellowstone

Lots of construction - really difficult to pick a hike here, but we found a short decent one.  Weather wasn't great so we kinda had to bust through there.

Passing through Glacier

Thought the road to the sun hwy was open, it was not.  Snagged this picture and left!

Painted Hills Oregon

One of the first things we did on my sabbatical was go to the Painted Hills in Oregon, it was a beautiful day, difficult to capture as this was in the middle of the day

One last time lapse. This time applying the stain

I figured out how to actually paste a link

http://youtu.be/4yt-coZ-Yrs

Some more time lapse - this time of hardwood floor install

Living room:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPf7erM4F5w

Dining room:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtEvbK76ZFM

Coming up - sanding and finishing, then the family room

2014 Shop Cleanup

Every year towards the end of the year, I change up the shop to make it more dust free, safer and more welcoming.  This year I wanted to put everything away in such a way that I could the leaf blower to blow out dust unabated.  Not the best neighbor, but oh well.  I did these pretty much all during christmas break.

Started with the outfeed table for the table saw.  The old one moved too much with moisture changes and caused the table saw blade to bind on the workpiece.  Made out of some really nice 1" thick appleply.  Torsion box-like design using clear cedar saved from the deck demo from "Epic 2"

Painted with a bunch of layers of finish to make to glass smooth

Also added a piece of flooring on the holtzapfel bench at an angle to help with supporting longer boards on the table saw.  The previous solution made out of softwood worked really well on ripping all the redwood for the pergola (epic 1).  This new one works even better. 

Decided to build a "roubo split-top assembly bench."  This was made out of the remainder of the clear cedar I saved from Epic 2.

Painted base, it's deeper than my main roubo at 32" vs. 24" and lower at 28" vs. 32".  This should make it easier to do glue ups which were kinda of a pain on the garage floor since I could never be certain the floor was flat.

The bench is a split roubo and is designed to be knocked down.  The center section is also where I plan to run the festool track saw.  I also plan on having some replace-able pieces cross wise (in dovetailed ways?) so I can cross cut using the saw when I'm traveling and need my tools.

 Got myself a refurbed Veritas shoot board plane and track system over cyber monday.  Used leftover plywood to make the board and designed it such that the oak fence can be adjusted and replenished as it's cut into.  So far, pretty nice.

Not enough drawer space caused me to leave things out which then got lost when running the leaf blower.  Instead, just cut up a bunch of left over plywood to create some drawer dividers (simple, detachable, disposable)

Clamps were falling everywhere, hung them up instead in the used spots of the shop.  Also, built a french cleat charging station.

Notice anything?  This style of tool rack when it's just a 1/2" wide slot allows all your screwdrivers to constantly fall over on each other and eventually out of the slot (when running the leaf blower).  Toe-nailed small pieces of wood (not shown) to hold them upright. 

Doesn't look like much, but this was a disaster before.  By getting rid of my tool cases, I freed up 50% more space.  There are a lot more hand power tools that I did this to (not shown). 

 Finally, a storage spot for my super expensive 9' long festool track.  It's simply too expensive for me to just lay around.  They say "Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten," I guess I'm still in the latter phase, I haven't forgotten about the price.

2014 - The year of the stinky cat

2014 is the year our cat named "Stinky" become super needy.  Regularly sleeps in my chair, steals the office desk as soon as I stand up and sleeps in my armpit at night.  After a couple of trips to the vet this year, the cats caused us to pull the trigger on hardwoods throughout, caused me to ask "you can spend that much on rugs?" and we considered their safety in designing our deck.

We have lots of nick names for her, what is your favorite?

• Stinky Meatloaf
• Stinky Sausage
• Stinky Royale with Cheese
• Stinky Butterball Turkey
• That Furry Little Sh*tface
• Princess Licky Licky
• Princess Bitey Bitey
• Furrocious D
• Stinky Bo Binky
• Stinky Turbo