busy days
I've been working on a friend's various computer disks, including units that were always external backups and disks removed from internal service and connected to my computer via Firewire enclosures and USB adaptors. It got to the point where I had more of his computer equipment than he did! I'm trying to build down from that now.
Thursday the aforementioned friend and I ripped out what was formerly an overhead door in the barn: some of the tracks had been removed, so the door could no longer be rolled up. The door frame where it was in contact with the ground was rotting, and various of the hardboard panels in the door segments were rotten, falling out, and generally in disrepair. Since that doorway opens on to a yard where there are sometimes children playing and almost always a small dog loose to roam we were in danger of being maintainers of (as adrian_turtle put it) an attractive nuisance.
Anyway, Thursday's demolition was followed by Friday morning shopping for lumber yesterday and building a fence with eight-foot tall pickets in the doorway. The rails of the fence are secured in the doorway with steel L-brackets, the pickets are secured to the rails with deck screws, and the two feet of otherwise open space at the top are covered with some garden or deck lattice which we found in the barn and cut to fit. The construction work only took a few hours, but my legs were aching afterwards.
As so many projects do, the shopping phase of the barn door project ran late and overtime, so about 10:20 AM I called the interviewer for a prospective employer to say that I wouldn't be able to participate in a 10:30 AM telephone interview we had scheduled. The interviewer and I agreed to talk at 11 AM, and my friend and I hurried through the shopping and got back to my house at 10:59 AM in spite of a road closure and stupid motorist tricks.
Unfortunately, the interviewer had had other things come up and didn't get back to me until about 11:45 AM. We had a very short conversation and reset the interview for 10:30 AM on Monday.
Today I spent a few minutes admiring yesterday's handiwork, then used a cordless circular saw to cut the heels off a pair of women's boots for J's pirate costume for a Hallowe'en party today. I managed to cut my thumb on a piece of metal sticking out of the side of one boot after sawing, and when I cut that spur off it flew up from the cutters and hit me in the face in the right cheek. I was glad I was wearing eye protection, even though it wasn't a very close miss! Then I applied friction tape to the heels of both shoes to cover any remaining sharp edges and slightly disguise the fact that these are repurposed boots.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do next. Sawing up some more of the pipes from the old heating system, still in place in the basement, is somewhat attractive. Sending out more job applications is an ongoing task with relatively high priority. Going for a walk would be nice...
Thursday the aforementioned friend and I ripped out what was formerly an overhead door in the barn: some of the tracks had been removed, so the door could no longer be rolled up. The door frame where it was in contact with the ground was rotting, and various of the hardboard panels in the door segments were rotten, falling out, and generally in disrepair. Since that doorway opens on to a yard where there are sometimes children playing and almost always a small dog loose to roam we were in danger of being maintainers of (as adrian_turtle put it) an attractive nuisance.
Anyway, Thursday's demolition was followed by Friday morning shopping for lumber yesterday and building a fence with eight-foot tall pickets in the doorway. The rails of the fence are secured in the doorway with steel L-brackets, the pickets are secured to the rails with deck screws, and the two feet of otherwise open space at the top are covered with some garden or deck lattice which we found in the barn and cut to fit. The construction work only took a few hours, but my legs were aching afterwards.
As so many projects do, the shopping phase of the barn door project ran late and overtime, so about 10:20 AM I called the interviewer for a prospective employer to say that I wouldn't be able to participate in a 10:30 AM telephone interview we had scheduled. The interviewer and I agreed to talk at 11 AM, and my friend and I hurried through the shopping and got back to my house at 10:59 AM in spite of a road closure and stupid motorist tricks.
Unfortunately, the interviewer had had other things come up and didn't get back to me until about 11:45 AM. We had a very short conversation and reset the interview for 10:30 AM on Monday.
Today I spent a few minutes admiring yesterday's handiwork, then used a cordless circular saw to cut the heels off a pair of women's boots for J's pirate costume for a Hallowe'en party today. I managed to cut my thumb on a piece of metal sticking out of the side of one boot after sawing, and when I cut that spur off it flew up from the cutters and hit me in the face in the right cheek. I was glad I was wearing eye protection, even though it wasn't a very close miss! Then I applied friction tape to the heels of both shoes to cover any remaining sharp edges and slightly disguise the fact that these are repurposed boots.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do next. Sawing up some more of the pipes from the old heating system, still in place in the basement, is somewhat attractive. Sending out more job applications is an ongoing task with relatively high priority. Going for a walk would be nice...