With wild abandon...

Ever had that dream where your mind was running at 110% but your body was only moving at 60%. You can see the impending doom bearing down on you but despite your attempts to move faster forces greater than you keep you running at a predetermined rate. If you're lucky enough you are able to morph the dream and pop out of the molasses like environment and get to safety. After the whole rain and jig saw fiasco I feel like I've broken free of the heavy shackles and I'm able run like the wind. And run I did....perhaps with a little reckless abandon.....
The next order of business was to utilize some open wall space and create some storage. Like the other side of the fridge cabinetry I want to have the rounded corners as well

So, I cut, trim, biscuit join, glue, clamp...

Create a jig to cut mitred corners.... this is going great!....all going according to plan...I'm flyin'...

Whoops! I knew I shouldn't have been so cocky....................grrrrrr...............

All was going so well, I made a cutting jg so that the mitred corner would be perfect. And it would have been, but the orientation of the work piece is of the up most importance. I put the top on the bottom and the bottom on the top, I never took time to think at a stop....(sorry I channeled my inner Dr Suess)

So, take a big step back and remake the piece....

Then put it back into the dummy proof cutting jig in the proper orientation.
Good thing it's all about the journey!

cabinet construction

The last time we left off, I had just gotten set up for the third time to work on cabinet construction, installing the fridge to be exact, when my jig saw calved. I was soooooooo frustrated. But I vowed to make lemonade from the situation. And lemonade being yellow......

I went to RONA and looked over my options. I kept coming back to the cordless jig saw. I liked the feel of it, I could easily see the blade from multiple angles during use....AAAANNND I already have multiple cordless DeWalt tools all using the 18V system, so it was a no brainer. As soon as I got home it was time to get to work. I had scribed the wall contour before the jigsaw fail so I could dive right in and see if I had made a mistake or not. "Survey says?".....winner winner chicken dinner! I love this thing!

Now that I had the wall surface scribed I could move on to the horizontal pieces, which were rebate joints. First job was to router the vertical wall

This is just like dentistry, the actual procedure doesn't take long, the real time is prepping the work piece and making sure you only cut once, 'cause if you need to cut twice....it's called a mistake.

A lovely 3/4" (18mm) rebate, nothing like a good clean crisp edge to make a guy happy.

After a 'few' hours, the left side of the fridge cabinet was done, after a fresh brew of coffee, I decided to get one more thing done. It was time to cut furnace ducting access holes. The jig saw cut through it like a hot knife through butter.......I should have listened to myself.....


Like a HOT KNIFE through butter......what part of HOT did I not understand?










Yes, after very slowly and methodically cutting two beautiful, and mighty round I must say, holes through 3/4" ply. I was so happy with myself that I grabbed the blade to remove it from the saw. The thing had gotten so darn hot it tempered the blade, and left a nasty burn on my left thumb pad. You can even see the shape of the teeth from the blade.
Bone head award goes to?........

Rain rain go away

So life changes at the drop of a hat. Just when you think you have everything planned out....fate alters the chain of events. And that's OK! Whether we are talking about doing poorly on a school test, or executing what you feel is a sub par performance on stage, or not living up to your expectations/desires on the sport court. Not achieving your desired result despite your intention could be argued to be fate. Now there is a whole other philosophical discussion about fate. Whether we have influence on our fate, or whether despite our actions we would end up to where the universe has fated us to be....but that is waaaaaay to deep for this blog today. Suffice to say that our immediate reality is, whether by mistake or purposeful design, the fate of our recent history.....clear as mud?.....good!  As I told my son recently, "It's not whether you make a mistake, we all make mistakes! How you handle your adversity(perceived failure) is what defines you as a person." For me, I recently had to cancel a pleasure trip to Deloraine for some hedonistic golf, the reasons were sound and important and without reproach. The extreme positive(for me) was I got to take Jeff and his buddy to a beach volleyball tourney in Sylvan Lake, AB.....in Fillmore.

For Jeff and Oog(what an awesome nickname) they lost in the B side final. They were disappointed in their placement but they handled it with class and  I was so proud of them for what they did achieve and how they carried themselves.They are champs in my heart.

And they slept like champs all the way home from the day of sun, and, and vball!

The next day I found myself all alone. Michelle and Anna were in Manitoba, Jeff and Oog went to Jasper for a week long Vball camp. The day started with blue sky, so I set up for a day of work outside. Then  is started to rain. So I moved all the tools inside and backed Fillmore into the shelter. Then the sky cleared and it was gorgeous. So I moved everything back outside, then it rained. For a split second I was furious.....


And then I heard my own lecturing voice to Jeff:
"It's not whether you make a mistake, we all make mistakes, how you handle adversity(perceived failure) is what defines you as a person."
Although you could say this wasn't my mistake, my reaction is within my control. Throw my hand up and say "not today!"? No sir.
Time to be creative..... turn the garage into an outdoor work area!

So, I back the bus into the prime spot, place the tarp out, tie is down, and we are ready for business. Time to make cabinet magic.

Until my (relatively) new jig saw BREAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!
Breathe.....breathe........look for the good.......look for the good......

Push vs Pull

Urban legend has many stories about truckers using the engine heat to cook a meal on long distance hauls. Granted these stories were back in my child hood when cars and trucks were a little less computerized and strictly mechanical. Even then it was something that you listened to with a grain of salt. Yet in your mind you kid of said to yourself "You know its is theoretically  POSSIBLE". It wasn't until my trip to Manitoba for the Grey Owl did I actually believe that it would be a possibility. On  that trip the engine room got so hot that it wouldn't have taken much to slow cook a pot roast in the engine room. A problem that I needed to fix. 
In order to good a good job I needed to optimize the work area, which meant finishing the engine room light install that Harold had initiated in Clear Lake.



Running a switch at shoulder height in that "logical location" was the first order of business. From there Harold had installed the light and left me a simple strip and crimp of the wires.






Once I did this I really kicked myself and said "why the hell did you wait so long to do this?" Seeing is believing and now I can see!!


 The design fail that I created was that the cooling system was pulling air in from outside in through the rad and exhausting into the engine room. The system was designed like that from it's donor vehicle. The difference is that on the donor vehicle, the entire set up was open to the outside not contained in a room with two(relatively) small ventilation windows. Having set up like I did, allowed the engine to remain in acceptable operating temps, but the engine room got hot which meant everything in the engine room got hot! So I decided that we needed to push air through the rad, exhausting to the outside. The way I look at it we need to either change the motor rotation or the motor blade orientation. The motor was not bidirectional, simply swapping the in and out hydraulic hoses won't work. I'm either going to have to rebuild the pump, get a new pump, OR change the fan blade orientation. Keep it simple and do the most conservative (and logical) option first. So it was time to pull the fan.
Now in my type "A" dental way I was able to give my self a clean organized work area.

I set out my plugs and caps so that I could disconnect the hydraulic hoses and not have a river of fluid running all over the place.

The disconnect was easy, the removal was easy too, it made me pause and think OK when is the snag coming?

Thankfully it never did. The fan blades were removed and re positioned with out incident.

A short while later it was all put back together still spinning in the clockwise..... now proof is in the puddin'

Just standing in the doorway, you can feel the air rushing out as demonstrated by my very scientific and technique sensitive air flow measurement equipment.

Now a road test....



 T minus 3....2....1.... here we go.
At the start our temps were close to equal.

After a half hour, we had a temp difference of close to 8 degrees F

After an hour 10.8F difference and it didn't seem to want to move to much, and all the while the engine operating temp. remained in the 180-205 region!


Although this is not a definitive test, it does seem to indicate that the fan blade orientation change is working. Outside temp of 67.2 is about 19C for my Canadian homies, not particularly 'hot'. We'll see what happens under more realistic or 'unpredictable' test conditions. I still plan on putting a cross body air damn just behind the rear wheels. And I may have other design options under my sleeve....

Beautiful Journey

Anxiety is a funny thing. Not funny ha-ha, I'm sure that those who suffer significantly from a bout of anxiety don't find any humor in it but for me, I rarely feel anxious. I have done a lot of singing in my day, most often in front of crowds, some of which would be in the 300 people range, and I don't get tremendously nervous about it. So when my stomach flipped  and my chest tightened the other day I thought it was odd, and it took me a minute to process what was going on.
The day started as expected, a busy weekend with Michelle going on way with Jeff for Volleyball and me headed the other with Anna for a dance photo shoot. As the clouds rolled in and  we piled into the car I said, "damn we should have planned this better. We should have taken Fillmore so if the weather is crappy you have somewhere to hang out!"
Anna, bit her lower lip and with a twinkle in her eye said "Let's do it!"
So we pulled back into the drive way and started Fillmore up. A couple of extra minutes to make sure all systems were a go, and we were off and running. As I drove I realized this was Anna's first trip in Fillmore of any significant distance!

And we were driving into the mountains! It was a beautiful drive and Fillmore handled the hills beautifully as well. We pulled up to the photo shoot, a few fashionable minutes late and the girls proceeded with the task at hand. As it became Anna's turn I was involved with doing this and that, and snapping a few pictures of my own

It was at this moment that my stomach felt uneasy and my chest tightened, and I started to feel a little panicky....  The mountains were so big and majestic and Anna in all her beauty, it made me catch my breath.

It also made me think...she's almost 16, in 2 years she'll be going away to school...where did the time go. But I put my game face on, smiled and breathed as much of it in as I could.

As it turned out, we didn't need Fillmore for some refuge from the elements....

But it sure was nice to let sleeping beauty stretch out while I trundled us home.

It always seemed so far away...

The end of June is a real magical time. Spring has come and gently caressed us up out of our slumber. It nudges us into action, encouraging us to get outside and smell the magic in the air. The  pine and fresh grass is intoxicating and never fails to bring a smile to my face. In the briskness of early morning with the sunshine warming the skin on my face, I lift my cup of coffee to those near and dear in a silent salute and once again smile at the fortune of happiness in my front yard.
The deer grazing on the grass and the moose on the willows are only a few of the things reminding me that summer has finally arrived. The other is the smiles on the kids faces when we wake them up for school. Puzzling until I remembered they are in the final throws of school days, meaning camping trips and amusement parks are the order of business as Jeff finishes his time at Banded Peak School. The grade 8 farewell is right around the corner, which means I better bust a move and get Fillmore in his dress duds to full fill my promise of taking Jeff and the boys to their "grad" just like I did for Anna's Grad . Back then Fillmore was in much rougher shape, and I thought by the time Jeff's big day came....hell we might be done fixing up Fillmore.....it seemed so far away then.

I decided to put up a valence, not in the design or material that I ultimately want in the end but, it's time to be practical.

Frankly I think it looks sharp...

It cleans everything up quite nicely. After I finish that, it was time to clean, the inside...

And the outside. The kids,loud tunes, a few buckets of soapy water and a hose....what could go wrong?

I am so proud of my kids, Jeff is super confident with who he is, in a wonderful, loving and (mostly) humble way. I'm not sure I would have been able to pull off a pink shirt, a bow tie AND shorts at 13

But his crew is a great bunch of guys with lots of class. They made a great entrance and loved every minute of the night, thanks for letting the old man and the old bus be a part of it boys!!

cushy life

I hate rushing. I like to have time to think, rethink, ponder, test, and refit. So deadlines just make me crazy. But I suppose everyone has to deal with them every now and again
Grey Owl has come and gone, now we have a mad rush for some much needed progress to ready ourselves for the next commitment. The project at hand is Cushions for the rear bench/bed

I was referred to a fine gentleman who works out of the springbank airport, for upholstery work. We met a few times before the Grey Owl, and he agreed to get me what I needed. What he needed from  me though was templates of the top of the bench. So, cardboard is my friend! Sadly my workshop is not the glorious work space it used to be. Half of it has been converted into a gym, and the other half is woefully packed full of all the crap that used to be strategically spread out in every nook and cranny of the whole room. So when Michelle had gone to bed, so I moved in to a larger, and less cluttered work surface. The dining room table.

A late night test fit was a success, so off to the shop the templates would go...

while Jeff and I prepped the area.

And when I say Jeff and I, I really mean Jeff as I was having to get things settled with the stereo install



















In today's immediate gratification world, with the magic of internet, days of waiting has been reduced to only a small scroll down the page for your reading pleasure. The cushions came back and they are great. Perhaps the foam I chose is a little firm...but I am sure we will be able to sit and sleep without to much grief. One step closer...tick, tock...