A little flavour of the past

At Jeff's last AVA beach volleyball tournament I got talking to one of Jeff's buddy's grandfather, who incidentally, is a bus guy. We started chatting and the next thing you know he was telling me about working for Brewsters bus line here in Alberta driving the sightseer coaches. We had a great talk and shortly after he sent a picture of a buddy of his with one of the buses. They talk about degrees of separation, and there wasn't a whole lot of distance between making a connection between his world and mine.

The tournament ended Saturday, which meant Sunday was a bus day! On my list of things to do was to finally get to installing the turning cameras. First I played with location, but in the end it was exactly where I thought it would go in the first place. Top right corner of the first window behind the driver.

I have to admit....THIS was a hard thing to do...drill into the beautiful side......ARRRRRRRG!!!

In the end it all worked out. Now I just need to get the electronics working.....add it to the list.

Call me a little sentimental, or maybe it's just dramatic, but I like to incorporate a little special connection with some of the pieces in the work I do. In our house we have leaded glass saved by Verna from a house being torn down in the 70's, our kitchen table is made from wood reclaimed from a factory from the west coast sourced from my childhood friend Cam. Today I decided that the 'end table' top was going to be made from some beautiful clear Fir that Ron and I salvaged years ago from his fathers farm. The wood if I remember correctly was salvaged years before from a church floor from the area. Weather it's knowing where something came from or that it's something that has a special connection to you.....it's kind of like salt....you don't NEEEEEEED it....but just a little here and there makes the dish that much more memorable.

Ill have to spend some time to get the surface nice and smooth, but the wood is full or beauty and character!


















While I wait for the glue to set, it was time to prep the area, and the cabinet for install.

The good news everything is a really nice tight fit.....the bad news is, everything is a really nice TIGHT fit....

A slow burn

 My good buddy Trevor's son Mitch came to town this past weekend. He's been road racing on a team based from Victoria over the last 6 months. It was great to see him, a real genuine feel good kinda guy, always smilin'! Anyway, filled with dread that he would kick my butt up and down the mountains, when he came, we went for a mountain bike ride. Both Mitch and my son Jeff were extremely gracious to me. Never once did they tease or mock me at how slow I was, or how loud I was wheezing. They simply would wait at the top of a climb for me to show up, and then quietly wait for the gasping to slow to a quiet rattle in my bronchi, or my 'exercise purr' as I like to refer to it. On one climb in particular Mitch called out from the lead "feel the burn boys!" And a burn it was, slow and steady. Just like the coals in a bonfire, the drama of the flames are gone but the fuel burns slowly and steadily.

When all you see is coals soldering away you don't think a lot is happening, but there is. I seem to be playing a lot with wood these days and like the coals in the fire, I continue to burn through the 'to-do' list, slow and steady. Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle like chasing Mitch and Jeff up a mountain, but progress is made.




















Now that the cabinets for the fridge are roughed out. It was time to wire and install the fridge. A seemingly simple task, but required me to splice into the 'coach 2' wiring harness, travel sub floor and then up under the fridge for the 12V source.(the fridge is purely electric but runs off of 12V or 120V if plugged in to shore power.

you may remember last time a good start was made on the "bedside table" we'll call it. Slowly, progress has been made on this front too. It will double as a arm rest for the U shaped chouch that will have drink holders, charging station, and storage drawers.




We had to map out the furnace ducting, which affected the lower drawer design.

With a little help from my friends,I made drawers  while "Hefe" began to hang them in the cabinet.

I get teased by the kids that I have a bit in my mouth like a horse....but it's the best way not to loose my woodworking pencil. My ears are too small and delicate to hold the pencil behind them.....

Artist's Wipe out

Have you ever watched a painter? I'm not talking about a house painter...although a good one of those is worth the watch, but I'm talking about someone who is painting a portrait or a nature scene. They start with a blank canvass, start adding the layers. At first to the observer it looks a bit futile, they seem to be doing a lot of brush strokes with not a lot of "meaty" results. But then with time you see that they are layering and building a foundation of visual texture and forms begin to take shape. To the observer you go from a sense of puzzling frustration to a general feeling of ease when things begin to take shape. Then an odd thing happens. Just when you think, you have things figured out, the artist begins to wreck the order to your world. I liken it to watching your child make an impending wipe out on a bike. You know it's going to happen, you know it has to happen, trying to stop it from happening only delays it from happening. So you let it unfold (usually in slow motion) before your eyes and trust in the order of the universe. Your kid gets up, maybe a skinned knee, better for the experience just a the painter continues with her brush strokes going from order to chaos back to a richer deeper visual order, just as you trusted she would.

So, this is my bike wipe out, my brushstrokes of saboteur. After spending so much time getting the curved edges and the mitred corners, it was time to create some chaos for a richer result!

If you remember the creation of this cabinet, was to grab some extra vertical wall space for "storage". Well a cabinet without doors is like Ferrari  with the keys locked inside. Nice to look at but it might as well be a picture because if you can't use it, it ain't real!

I had considered making the cuts in the front frame before I put everything together, but decided this was the best way to go....at least for me.

Of course there was touch ups and nail holes to fill

...and sand

But the end result is what I had envisioned. I will have to spend time and get the doors just the way I want.

Next step is the cabinet below.....