Everything AND the kitchen sink.

I always pride myself on where I grew up and how it helped shaped me into the person I am today, yes..yes I know that opens the door to all sorts of comments. Truth be told, where we grew up and with whom, and the opportunities awarded to us makes a huge difference in who we become. My intent of the comment was not to get to deep in the philosophical realm, but rather I was just going to say that I have always considered myself a winter person. I love the crisp biting air of a cold clear winters day. HOWEVER! ......Man I love spring time.

There is nothing more wonderful than sitting outside in the early morning sun with a steaming hot cup of coffee listening to all the birds chip and whistle the world from it's slumber. So as much as I love winter, I really appreciate the way the world grows and blooms in the spring!

The weekend saw me pull the bus into the sunshine and work in shorts and a t-shirt for the first time this year. I was able the "finish" the back bench......I mean when is it really finished. I will confidently say finished for now, until I paint, and maybe tweek the design.

But for now ,we have a rear bench that pulls into a bed.

That being done it was time to move to the kitchen, my goal is to have running water for the road trip to the Grey Owl golf tourney in Manitoba....so that my brother can make me fresh coffee while en route!

Started with a basic test fit to see if the counter selection would work. The colour is perfect, it pulls together the colour of the rear bench cushions and the flooring.

I don't like the sharp corners so I cuta radius into them....which means I now have some creative edging to take care of.

All the while I keep trying to look ahead to the next step so that I have all the parts and pieces I need. My last puzzle was to figure out plumbing. I need to be able to hook into city water, so I need check valves to eliminate back flow and manual valves for isolating fill vs pressure....as well as a pressure regulator.

I'm always amazed at my inability to keep pace with the progress schedule for the day when I am working, having said that I will take it and say...not bad for a days work...

Long Long Ago in a garage Far far away...

I am ashamed at how long it has been since I posted in this blog. Having said that I have not been sitting on my hands, there is plenty that has happened...just not all bus related!
This year proved to be another busy and fruitful year for the kids. Anna, once again, blew our minds with her commitment and talent on the stage, she truly is radiant when she performs and is able to break through, what in the biz we call, the fourth wall and easily and concretely makes a connection with the audience. This year she rocked it out in front of Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, cousins her parents and her little string bean nugget (brother) took home a lot of bling and very strong accolades from the judges!

Jeff, although battling some health(back) issues was determined to have as successful of a year on the volleyball court. He demonstrated skill,commitment, team work, and overcame physical and mental challenges to help his team hit the podium once again taking silver in U15 Boys Tier 1.

I think it's probably pretty apparent how proud I am of these kids, they are good students, good athletes and good people...frankly makes me wonder what genetics they got from me.
Needless to say when the choice was between watching ,( I like to think of it as helping-even if it looks like I'm just drinking coffee on the bleachers talking to other parents) or working on the bus. The kids won out.

To complicate matters even more. Jeff has acquired a 1970 Datsun 240Z, and as you can guess...when the choice is between working on my car or his....I tend to prefer to be rubbing shoulders with my boy rather than working solo in Fillmore. Although I did propose we should alternate vehicles but continue to work together!

None the less, the cabinetry moves forward...all be it at a snails pace, we are still making progress.

I redesigned the back rest for the rear bench/bed area. Moving the back support forward and in the process creating some areas for storage.




















I'm trying to squeak out as much storage as I can, every nook and cranny, every useable space gets a drawer. I have become very aware that we have another journey to Manitoba right around the corner and I am nowhere near where I wanted to be in terms of level of finish...but as my daughter says when faced with a potential road block stressor......Meh!

And proud of it

Michelle and I have come to the conclusion(many years ago) that Anna is a performer. She admittedly isn't the most flexible dancer in the studio, or have all the acro tricks, but (pardon my language) holey shit can this girl turn on the stage presence and rock out a performance. So when Michelle came home with my very own "Dance Dad" swag....I was a happy man. I am a dance Dad, and I'm proud of it...because of her.

Now on to more mundane things, I am still working on cabinetry.

I am afraid not much has changed in the last month, I have made progress on the new rear bench back, this past weekend I was trying to run the 110v wiring through the bench back.

Notice the language I use...

I managed to run the wires with no issues, then I started on creating the top cap for the bench back. All was going along swimmingly. I was cutting the tops with a modest bevel, when tragedy struck.

The table saw busted. To be more specific, the threaded rod responsible for putting a tilt on the cutting blade gave way and I could no longer change the pitch of the blade.

So my 1 hour project turned into a multi hour repair as I had to dismantle the table saw, remake the wood dust skirt(it broke after I took the above pic when I attempted to remove the PVC dust attachment.

I was afraid that there was a weld that busted or something more serious. In the end it turned out to be a retention ring snapped. The bad news was I didn't have a spare....so necessity is the mother of invention. A little picture wire and a few scrapped knuckles, and we were back in business.

El Ramate

There are a lot of pros and cons to what I do. A big con is most people really don't want to see me. Sure maybe in the mall to say "Hi" or from across the stadium at a football game, but in reality most people actually say to me "I'd rather be anywhere else that here." Don't get me wrong, I get it and I don't take it personally. A big pro of what I do is that it is a skill set that is needed and can help both at home and abroad. I have been a member of the charitable organisation Dentistry For All for many years now, and we travel to Guatemala and Nicaragua to provide dental work to remote areas where the need is great and the access to care is none. I recently just returned from another trip to the northern region of El Ramate in Guatemala, and it proved yet again to be both exhausting and rejuvenating. I had the pleasure to travel with some absolutely wonderful, hard working, dedicated and compassionate   individuals

We worked hard and helped a lot of people

Saw some unique scenes

and worked in hard to reach areas,

Making sure we savoured every moment

Made new friends, and fortified relationships with old ones...

And found no problem getting out of bed at 5:30 every morning for a coffee and a beautiful sunrise before heading out to put our drop in the bucket of need.

Boltzmann was a wise cookie

 Entropy may be understood as a measure of  disorder

Ludwig Eduard Boltzman,An Austrian Physicist and philosopher, (wow! there is a career path the guidance councilor didn't talk to me about in high school. )This guy studied the statistical  mechanics of atoms, which in coles notes for dummies would kinda explain that all things, if in a ordered state, will eventually degrade to a state of chaos....or what scientists like to call "thermodynamic equilibrium, the state with maximum entropy"!

The change in entropy (ΔS) of a system was originally defined for a thermodynamically reversible process as
${\displaystyle \Delta S=\int {\frac {\delta Q_{\text{rev}}}{T}}}$







Soooooooo, a pictorial way to say this would be, from neat and tidy to:

In very short order!

As most of the ducting work has been handled(note I said most, and by most I mean some)

It was time for me to be a little creative with a two fold problem.
1. I need to run the 120V electical wires to the AC panel.
2. I need to rectify the fact that the seat portion of the rear bench is too deep.

So I am bringing the seat back forward by 4". This will allow a electrical wire chase, as well as solve the seat depth problem, as well as give us some extra storage behind the seat back for blankets and sheets.

It took a few trips up and down from the woodshop to the bus but we eventually got what we were looking for.
I will now bid you farewell for a few weeks as I am off to Guatemala to do some volunteer dental work in some remote areas of the country. Hopefully by the time I return the grass will be showing....or not....at least not as MUCH snow?

Interupting Cow

 Now... we' are all different and we all have our own ways of communicating and concentrating. As such I have found that I don't like to be interrupted. It's not because I don't value what others have to say, I really do! It's just that in a discussion, I have learned that my form of effective communication is more of a 'case presentation' format rather than a group brain storming discussion. I think its safe to say my wife would agree with that sentiment.
I find the same rules apply to when I am mid project, I get into a groove and sometimes it's hard for me to change directions.

Just the other day I was working on the furnace ducting....still.

I was having issues with effective design. Not just design of delivery but design of  retrieve ability. I want the option to remove a section or two of the cabinetry to access other system components like, oh I dont know the battery bank perhaps. So the ducting has to be able to be disconnected at various points to allow cabinet removal.

 I would like to say easy enough, but the truth is I was having issues moving from a 90mm diameter duct to two 60mm ducts. The reducer I had, but the orientation of it created a "bundle" of pipes which ended up getting in the way of the drawers. So, I had to re-position the reducer...to behind the fridge.

 So once again the fridge comes out(I'm getting good at this now), drilled another hole ran some more pipe!

 Next was to cover all the ducting with insulation sleeves. This will help with heat loss in non critical areas.

 I was just finishing up the ducting on the rear bench cross over, when I got my interruption.
My kids learned at a very early age that they should never come to me and say "I'm bored!" The unwritten rule is, if you are bored and are coming to me to help entertain you, I will find you something to do. The catch is, it may not be what you want(work). But that unwritten rule sword has two edges. So if a kid comes to me and says(paraphrasing here)...." I have an idea, and I need some help", then I have to respect the ingenuity and creativity and try to facilitate the process. Sometimes that means "here are the hammer and nails, have fun!". And sometimes it means it's time to drop what you're doing and help make the dream a reality. The decision to stop what you are doing all happens in a split second and the feelings that run through you are akin to the old Knock-Knock joke:

Knock-Knock
Who's there?
Interrupting Cow!
Interrupting Cow wh-
"MOOOO!"

For the briefest of moments you are annoyed at the interruption, but in the next instant you are smiling and so glad for the opportunity.

 Jeff came to me and said, " Dad? I want to build a snow bike!" I stopped and ran the scenario through my head, and after a brief moment realized my schedule for the afternoon was about to change. After my initial immediate reaction of being put off by the interruption in my perceived chain of events, in truth I got quite excited about the process. Jeff had a plan and a pretty good idea of what needed to happen. So truthfully my input was as shop runner, advice and safety officer!

 Frankly Jeff ,at the tender age of 14, can lay down quite the weld!

 Many of his welds were better, and prettier than mine!

 A wonderful afternoon of creativity

 And in the end something he is proud of and his mother is scared of!

Some Assembly Required

I have been happily puttering away in my workshop....oh yes workshop, that brings up another distraction and unfortunate disappointment. I have been planning a shop on my property, big enough to house the bus, plus a workshop space, man hut, storage etc etc. So the size of the building was, well, significant, so the cost was going to be significant. I was prepared for that. The issues started when we realized I couldn't place the building in the location I wanted on the property because of a set back from the municipal road. So the only reasonable location was beside the house, which had lots of positives in terms of running services, access in and out....you get my drift. But...there is a slope to the land. Which means the engineers had to make sure the frost walls, footings pony walls...whatever they all are called...were strong enough for a building that size. Lets just say we could have built a sky scraper with the amount of concrete and rebar in the plans for this  thing. Unfortunately nothing in life is free, and the price tag matched the gargantuan amount of cement. I could justify a cost to a certain point but this was beyond what my conscience would allow.
In the end we are back to the drawing board, trying to think of what I can do to get a structure to protect Fillmore. All this to say that my work time has been shared between that project and this. Now I can focus a little more on this....for now....famous last words!.

Cabinets have been adorned with the hardware...

Doors and drawers reunited...

Now it's time to reunite all the pieces together. A little touch I wanted was power for 'devices' for kids and peoples traveling in the back. I found a funky USB and 110V power pod that I decided to insert into my cabinet top.





Then there was running all the electrical wire through the cabinets, my heart sank each time I had to make Swiss cheese out of the cabinet walls to accommodate furnace ducting, then wire runs...

I try to keep then small and clean

And see the odd beauty of it all

I've still got 'miles to go before I sleep' but things are looking good!

Putting up a front

The journey continues. I move forward one step at a time. I have been working on the drawer fronts for the back of the bus. Trimming them with some family significant Muvuli wood from east africa. After a good evening of putting 5 of these together and rehearsing  to my song list for the open mic night at our local pub, I finally had the presence of mind to film me putting the last drawer front together!

The two chest of drawers are complete enough to reinstall in the bus. I say complete enough because I still have to laminate a table top for the drivers side drawers out of the same clear fir that I used on the passenger side top from Michelle's family farm that Ron and I saved many years ago.


















I will spend a little time refining the corners. I don't want them to be so sharp, I would  rather they be a little less severe , I will gently round the mitred corner, just soften it a little.

Overall I am happy with how they turned out. The high gloss surface and the chrome button give it a nice finish.