Happy Birthday to Blog!

It's come to my attention that this blog is now one year old. I've made 53 posts over the last year, so roughly once a week. That includes the summer where I was grossly negligent and posting once a month. Clearly, this thing is a good way to stave off winter boredom.

I'm going to have an annual highlight reel now, because I'll be too hungover on New Year's Day and the week after.

Woodworking/Carpentry
I managed to build a workbench, piano book rack, bookshelf, coffee table, closet shelf, and shed this year. I discovered that the hardest part is getting started, taking the plunge, and buying all the tools and lumber necessary. I was hoping to have added the endtable and console table I'm now working on to that list, but now I'll have them to add to the next October 25 posting.

Home improvements
I redefined two rooms, installed my bannisters, refinished my dodgy, dodgy bathtub, and got a woodstove and new gutter installed. Also secured a decent supply of firewood for this winter. Still not done are the underfloor insulation and the front Tyvek.

Piano
In spite of having halted lessons, I've learned about a dozen new songs, eight of which I've committed to memory. Most are latin/jazz style, with a few rock-ish ones thrown in there. The dynamics probably still need work, so it'd be nice to have an instructor for that; but, hey, I enjoy playing them.

Wedding after wedding
From October to October, I've attended six weddings. Congratulations once again to:

1. Richard & Jennifer
   
2. Sam & Meg
   
3. Paul & Stephanie
   
4. Domenica & Jon
   
5. Mike & Heather
   
6. Jon & Jessica
   

Back
Got fixed. Thank God.

So I guess it's been a pretty productive year. Somewhere between all this, I've managed to fit in a lot of karaoke and drinking adventures.

On a side note, every now and then I have a night of "This Is Your Life". That happened last night while at Starbucks. In the span of an hour, I ran into two girls I hadn't seen since elementary school, high school librarian, former coworker, and an old friend who moved out west two years ago.

Yikes. A very indulgent post, but then, it is a blog, after all.

Stupid rain... (pt. 2)

Well, I kinda got my wish. From Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon it didn't rain. So I managed to get some wood into the shed. The rest of it was still soggy so it stayed out... and got another wash. A 24-hour wash. Followed by a 4 hour wash this morning. And possibly another on Wednesday.

Outside of whining,

Build wood shelf

I had been meaning to make a set of shelves for my kitchen closet, upon which I could keep 3-4 days supply of firewood, as well as kindling and old newspapers (that way all four of my kitchen chairs are free... not that they're used much anyways). It's now my fire closet.

I was surprised: they took me less than an hour, and cost less than $15 worth of materials (four 2x4 studs, one 2'x4' sheet of 7/16" OSB, and 56 nails). Here are the steps:

1. Cut two 1' lengths off each of the studs, so you should have eight 1' lengths in total (the cleats), and four ~69" lengths left (the legs)
   
2. From the bottom of each leg, mark across at 12", 30", 48", and 66"
   
3. With 8d common nails, face nail and glue four of the cleats across two of the legs such that the top of each cleat is flush with the marks above.
   
4. Repeat above. You should have two 1' wide "ladders"
   
5. Cut the OSB into four 1'x2' shelves.
   
6. Nail (with 8d common nails) and glue the ends of the OSB shelves onto the tops of the cleats such that they span the two "ladders".
   

Certainly not the prettiest looking shelves, but quite functional. Plus they've got that wicked OSB smell (what I call "new shed smell"). Good for a junk room or dodgy closet like I have.

There... this blog isn't just drinking stories and modest life updates.

But it is that too. Thursday night I hosted trivia with JP, which was quite a hoot. I love doing it; if only I knew more trivia, I could host more frequently. I got pretty drunk that night, which made for a sluggish day of work on Friday.

The weekend was pretty good too. Kinda productive (as above), as well as choking back a few brews with friends. On Saturday night, this imbibing was purely medicinal; I was stupid enough to grab a 600°F woodstove handle by the metal part. I had to keep a cold beer in my hand to ward off the pain. And by the time I ran out of beer, I was numb enough to no longer feel it. The perfect plan.

Stupid rain...

I've been waiting for a two day stint of no rain so that I can get the rest of my firewood in the shed. In two weeks, that hasn't really happened... and doesn't look like it's going to any time soon. Bad enough that the sun doesn't rise until well after 7:00, but when you're greeted with yet another gray and showery day, it doesn't give ya a lot of oomph. Can't complain too much, I guess, since before that two weeks, it was pretty nice out.

Cat for Lease

I took care of Jenn's cat for a couple of weeks. This is the second October in a row I've cat-sat. But this one was a lot mellower (being 10+ years older than Guinness), and for whatever reason, I seemed less allergic to him. I was kinda hoping that he would gruesomely kill the mouse, but so far I haven't found any corpses. Being declawed probably diminishes his effectiveness as a predator.

Anyways, the whole thing has got me thinking that I could probably own a cat at some point down the road, at the modest sacrifice of lung capacity.

Ethical?

I wrote my law and ethics exam yesterday. I'm comforted (somewhat) that others found it as unsettling as I did. Now I get to wait "6-8 weeks" to see if I'm ethical. But I already know the answer to that...

Rye and more Georgetown Shenanigans

I'm happy to have rediscovered the joys of rye, after cashing in a bunch of NLC gift certificates for a pile of Crown Royal. I'm also pleased to say that we have a couple of new recruits for GTP Saturday nights. Gonna cool it for a little while, until Wine Fest. That's gonna be a gong show of a day and night...