First weekend in May

Off to Opal Creek.  Secretly jealous of the hippies that live in the village.  Trails were covered in Trillium and calypso bulbosa

Really hard to get a picture of Calypso Bulbosa since the flowers face downwards

The light hit this trillium just perfect

My artsy fartsy pic

Not opal pool but an idea how clear and opal colored the water is

Seattle for Terracotta warriors

To Seattle with the Shahs to see the terracotta warriors at the Pacific Science Center.  Amazing these were buried for over 2000 years with very little record of them.  8000 bigger than life solders and countless other artifacts!

I'm a woodworking snob.  This travesty was in the condo we stayed at.

Dog mountain on tax day

Had great weather in the middle of April.  That is what everyone was thinking too.  Left PDX at about 8am and the lot was full by the time we got there.  We had to park way down the road or take the shuttle.  Inconceivable.  That's probably the last time I'll do that hike, yuck.

Still, the views and flowers were great.

A truck at sunset

It was a nice day, not raining early April Sarah and I went for a walk.  I snapped this picture of a old truck.

Icy Tumalo falls

Nice walk to Tumalo falls weekend of 4/10, less crowded than in the summer, but couldn't quite make it to the next falls up the trail due to snow.

Derrick Cave

A lava tube that is 1200 feet long.  Had the coolest looking ice on the floor of the cave.  Amazing colors and shimmering like jewels.  Thank you David and Lili for taking us.  You can find it on wikipedia, really weird drive to get there.

Tritrix MTM sealed in walnut

Salvaged from David who had originally built them as a TL.  Look nice (obviously, I built them), sound ok.

Stinky Bandit

A picture of our cat after stealing my seat.

My french cleat clamp rack - and LED light setup

I don't have matching clamps.  I just bought whatever was on sale.  Storing them has become a pain.  Resawed some reclaimed doug fir and done made me a french clean clamp system.

And LED light system that kicks in when the garage door opens so Sarah can see when she gets into her rocket in the morning.

A hike to Tamolich Pool

It was sunny, so Sarah and I decided to hike to Tamolich pool which has been closed for a while.  It was worth the drive.

Forest ground blanketed in snow, really beautiful looking as the sun hit it and caused a little bit of localized fog.

Tamolich pool - little bright to take a picture of how blue it is

2017 Tool Purchases

At the end of last year, I decided to stop buying tools since I should just use the ones that I have.  They are more than enough to build anything and everything that I'm building.

There were a couple of things that I wrapped up to officially stop my buying more tools.

Lie-nielsen Froe that I got to split wood for carving spoons.  So far, I've only used it on firewood.  It works!

Some Nic Westermann carving tools.  The hook knives I made handles for from apple wood.  The sloyd knife was through Lie-Nielsen

Some blue spruce sloyd knives.  Used them a bit on a plum tree branch that was way to hard and gave up.

Some floats from Lie-Nielsen to help with a couple of planes I was going to make.

My Blue Spruce Chisels.  Got the 3 on the left in 2016.

Blue spruce measuring tools (technically 2017).  I've got more squares than I know what to do with.

The levels I had were junk and not even close to level.  Bit the bullet and got stabila levels for the bathroom remodel.

Constantly working on the house and needed something to tote my tools while on the ladder, etc.  This one is from occidental leather and is just a 2" wide belt with a 5in1 tool holster and the drill holster.  Plan to use this in place of aprons which I don't like to wear.

Not really a tool purchase, but I got rid of all the festool systainers and built a cabinet underneath the power tool work bench to hold them.  Saved a ton of space.

Festool Domino XL.  I bought this and got rid of my mortiser.  For larger mortises, it just doesn't make sense in my shop to bring the work piece to the tool

I'm just not using the rotex for what it is.  This probably means it'll get sold, but I have used it on the car...  Got tendonitis from what I think was too much sanding, so really wanted a low vibration sander.  Not entirely sure this is next generation performance, but low profile is nice

Decided to spend all my gift card money on Dubuque clamps.  For stuff that I'm building, the lighter clamps are kinda nice during stressful glue ups.

I done cut some lumber

Saved these from our cherry/plum tree that cam down.  I wish they had but cut into longer rounds, but the tree was way to big for me to chainsaw myself and so we had to hire someone.  They're still long enough for me to use as boxes?  Cutting boards?

From the firewood pile.  Pretty much just right after I cut one straight edge with the chainsaw

Lots of waste coming off the bandsaw.  Everything was just so irregular

A couple of blocks (a little short) that I hope can try and turn into end tables or foot rests after drying and cleanup

Doesn't look like a lot of lumber, but there are a few bowls in there and quite a few boxes or cutting boards.  Cut all 8/4 since I wasn't sure how much tension they'd dry with and hence how much I would lose to jointing.  All done on the minimax mm20.

Boards were all variegated, almost like tulipwood / tulip rosewood.  Also super heavy and super hard, probably because it was a tree that grew in the shade?

The computer desk build and office remodel

I couldn't stand the home office.  So Sarah and I decided to remodel.  I built a new desk/built-in to replace a desk we had that never really fit well or worked well

Top and drawer fronts are all solid same tree walnut

Had some "leftover" super wide popular (18") that had really cool colors for the carcase.  It's a shame this is being painted black.

All the drawers were solid soft maple.  The offcut side (not as figured) of the curly maple boards i bought at the same time I got the walnut.

Stripped and ready for sconces

Cut the wire chase out of the top with the japanese plunge saw, then used a ryoba to finish

Finished desk in place.  Still have some moulding, speakers and a matching file cabinet to built.  Knobs are offcut african blackwood i have.  I like that there is so much drawer space and the computer actually fits in the cabinet.  My legs also fit underneath the desk unlike the old one.

Our trip to AZ and Joshua Tree

From our road trip in november:

 From a hike in Zion

Near wonderland? in J-Tree.

At super crowded antelope canyon

Barely any light, i'm surprised this photo turned out this well at Horseshoe bend

Vacuum boom arm

To keep the hose from being caught on the edge of the bench.  Over the holzapfel bench, which is now a hand power tool bench.  Made from 1" appleply, working good, probably needs a better mechanism for the hose to have some slack when the arm moves.  But overall, really nice and makes hooking up festool power tools really easy.