Year 16, Week 13, Day One (week 847)

Year 16, Week 13, Day One (week 847)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-09-16 Saturday

68 degrees early morning, 72 degrees after breakfast, 78 degrees as the high. Blue skies with smeared chalk marks across some areas. Light breeze in the morning, becoming stronger late in the day. This was a perfect day to be outside and doing projects both out in the sun and in the shade. This weather report was brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

During the week, I picked up a new toaster oven. The oven in my stove is broken, but the burners work all right so it is not worth replacing yet.  I’ve used a toaster oven for a few years to bake casseroles and bread, roasts, chicken, and such, and I like using the toaster oven. While my old toaster oven works fine, I decided it was getting quite old. I have no clue how much life is left in it.  When the new Walmart opened nearby, I had seen a bigger one that has a rotisserie in it among other new features. I decided I had enough spare change accumulated and picked one up. 
The first thing I found when I took it out of the box was that my shelf, that the old toaster oven is on, is too high. It has to be lowered possibly 3 inches. I decided to wait on dealing with the shelf as I knew it was going to be a project. 

After breakfast, I headed out to yard sale by my self. I had a limited time in the morning, so I only hit two sections of my possible yard sale runs, which was basically out and back loop. I found five yard sales, which is not many for the distance driven. I did spend money on some items I did not need. 
One guy had friends who buy at estate sales. What he had was items that they classified as junk. If I was starting over on decorating my place, his stuff would have been nice. They were oriental collectibles, fine design dishes, quality items one would seen on display shelves. Because I am not starting over, I did not get any of that stuff, though they were pretty. I got from him one of those battery powered TV, Radio, Flashlight, flourescent lamp units. I was mostly interested in the radio since over-the-air TV broadcasts are no longer done that this kind of TV could pick up. Also the lights might be useful. It was in an unopened box. I gave it a try when I got home and have not quite figured out how to get it to work. I have to play with it a little more.
Another woman was an artist and had some craft stuff out. I picked up a fishing tackle box with some shells and jewelry and a little item drawer unit on wheels. In the jewelry, One piece had three black stones with dozens of dangling bead strings below it. Mom saw the picture I took of it and said it looked like a dog. She has that now. She is going to check to see if the drawers will work for her. I got a little device to amplify sounds through jugs and stuff. When later trying to get it to work I found there were corroded batteries in it. I do not know if I can get that to work. I will say that the hunt, at least, was fun. 

Mom had reservations for the CITY OF PLANTATION WOMAN OF THE YEAR AWARDS. My dad is sick, something he caught when they went to a seminar out of town last week where one person was sick. Now five people who attended are sick. No fun. Mom spent a lot of money for these awards tickets and did not want to waste the money. She kidnaped me to go with her. 
Mom was one of the Woman Of The Year last year.  There are like 10 woman’s organizations that are involved and they select a person, usually a member, who is worthy of the title. These gatherings are attended by the city’s rich, famous, and well connected. 

The gathering went twice as long as Mom expected and once we got home, both of us laid down and slept until it was time to get going. 

I am sad that I had such a good day and nothing got done. I don’t really expect to do anything tomorrow either. I would like to replace that shelf, as along with being lower, it really should be a lot wider. The instant I choose to take that on, I am committed as I have nowhere else to put my toaster oven.  And it would be in the way no matter where else I put it.

I will see what I do tomorrow. 



Year 16, Week 13, Day Two (week 847)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
04-10-16 Sunday

74 degrees in the late morning, 78 degrees in the afternoon. The sun played tag, using evenly spaced puffs that strolled across the sky to hide behind now and then. A light breeze made this a perfect day to be outside and having fun or working. This weather report was brought to you by the City of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

On a lark, just before I was ready to leave, I took down the shelf that the toaster oven was on and took it with me. I had plans on how to cut the material, exchange the brackets. 
My brother was there so he insisted on doing the project right, rather than the way I was going to do it. 
I could not find the circular saw. He had a battery one so we set up the particle board for cutting. We took a long board and he got out his little saw and used the board as a guide. He had me do the actual cut, but the setup was the important part. He also did the measurements and drew the lines. Once we got the board cut, I then matched the brackets to the board and marked the hole locations. I put the screws in myself. 
My brother said it used to bother him to watch someone like myself doing this kind of work, but now he takes it as entertainment. I got the shelf brackets installed and it was ready to take home.
When we were all finished and had put everything away, then my brother saw the circular saw, sitting on the work bench among all sorts of stuff piled up around it. I later put that where it belongs. 
He also found that the board I was using to guide the circular saw had a bow in the edge (like missing wood) that caused the cut to not be straight. In this case, it is not horribly critical a thing and we never noticed the bow until my brother accidentally looked down the edge of the board. 

My brother would have really had a kick out of watching me install the shelf on the wall. It goes over a pass-through in the wall.  When I took the shelf down, I knew I would have a project to put it back up. It was a penalty of my decision to take it down.
My place has metal studs in the wall instead of 2x4s and near the edge of the pass-through has metal in it. 
I will just say that the Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy could not do it as funny as I did it. I kept having to get different tools, different parts, stack stuff to hold the shelf up, then try to put screws in (which was at the point where regular vision, no glasses and reading glasses did not help to see the hole clearly), and then go with plan D when plans B and A failed. The battery powered drill I tried to use first was not charged up enough and was not strong enough anyway. I found a powered drill, but it has a short cord. I had to find a longer cord, then had to find the right bits, and then some more screws as a couple fell out of reach. I then had to find a drill bit of the right size to start the holes so the screws could go all the way in. That plus getting the screw bit onto the head while keeping the screw in the hole and get started. About the only way I could have been more funny to watch was if I was standing on a rubber ball while balancing plates on long poles and singing opera.
  I did better this time than when I put the first shelf up. It is fairly level and seems reasonably solid. I have three shelf brackets below, two on one side where there is room (on the side the refrigerator is located) and one between the passthrough and cabinet. I also had a shelving bracket going up the wall from the top of the shelf on the short side. Since I was not using anchors, I figured the more places to hold it would be enough. While I was putting these up, I added another bracket going up on the long side just for added support. Since the brackets are hidden by stuff on the shelf, it is not bad. 
ANYBODY could have done it better than I did, but I did get the job  done and the new toaster oven is in place and ready to use.  I am proud that I actually did it. I am sure that if I remember what I did, I will be able to do a whole lot better next time. A little more set up before I started would have saved me a whole lot of effort. )I think the professionals put the brackets up first, then put the shelf on it.  Screwing up from the bottom would be tough to say the least.)

I am hoping to do some woodworking next weekend, I have a number of projects in mind. It really depends on what comes up. The 7 day weather report is not as good next weekend as it was for this weekend. If the weather is halfway decent, I do plan to drag the lathe out.
I am considering making another platter in yellow pine, and also would like to make another goblet. I broke, again, the one I made a while back and lost the piece that broke off.  I have some Christmas ornament ideas I want to explore and have some in process that needs to be finished. Some of that work can be done if the weather is not horrible, but not good enough to get to the lathe. 

I will have to see what happens next weekend. 

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