A Study in… Busy

Ha, yeah, so I’ve been busy lately, plus I was just too lazy to post. So after a short sebatical, I am back! Yeah, that is a picture of a set of steps that were built for our Church cantata, or “Christmas play with a biblical message” for you people in Alaska! Anyway we were going to a first centuryish look, so I poured gasoline on them and lit them up. They turned out pretty good, and structurally sound, I think.  Christmas is almost here and things are starting to get even more busy. I do however plan on posting a little more often than once every two weeks, LoL.

The makings of a knife

While at one of my favorite local stores, WoodCraft, I discover a knife kit and decided I would try it. The knife looked like this

and the wood like this

(sorry that’s kinda blurry) anyway it’s a drop point knife and the wood is “Bolivian Rosewood”

I had no clue how I was going to get these blocks of wood into the shape and size of a knife handle. So I went a googling and found a couple ideas. I decided to go with the bandsaw approach.

After cutting the wood to the shape of the handle, I took it to the belt sander to bring it down to size.

After belt sanding came drilling the holes for the hidden rivets

Then came alot more sanding, working my way from 60 grit all the way up to 220 for a smooth, gouge free finish. So a couple hours later I now have a new kinfe. Now I just have to figure out how to make a leather sheath for it and I’ll be good to go!

rAndOm

This is just a random picture I took at work a couple days ago. We loaded the truck down just a little too much with wood. We had 50 2×4’s, one 12ft 6×6 and other assorted pressure treated wood as well as pressure treated 16ft 2×10’s sticking out the back and making the whole truck bounce with every bump in the road. I’m happy to report we made it out alive and safe.

Ramblings

Artemis Fowl

Yes, yes, I know Tobi has already posted about this, but I haven’t. During my recent trip to Alaska I was lead(by Tobi) to the author Eoin Colfer. He writes books for kids, some of which are dumb, but his Artemis Fowl series is pretty good. I have yet to read that latest book in the series, but it will only be a matter of time. 

Barnes and Noble

I have started to frequent Barnes and Noble weekly. It’s nice to go somewhere to read and study. Unfortunately our’s doesn’t have a really cool fireplace. I heard a rumor that they are building another B&N nearby, so hopefully they make it nicer.

Fall

It’s finally starting to get cold at night, so I can now take my air conditioner out of the window. I’m really ready to lose the heat during the day too. I would much rather have to add layers than sweat. 

Work

Work has been ok lately. We’ve been working on the Boss’ addition for several weeks in a row, but are now starting to pick up some fall landscaping jobs. So I’m happy for thesmall change of pace.

That’s about it though. Our Bible Conference is coming soon, so things are gonna get even busier. I’m hoping Jordan will post pictures of his hunting trip on Tobi’s blog… HINT. Anyhow that was really boring but I had to post something.

And Life Drags On…

Around 2 and half weeks have passed since my wonderful vacation ended. All seems to have settled back into the daily grind. Bible Institute started again, populating yet another night of my week. All the fun of the trip has faded into plain old life. Depression battles to set in, and sleep doesn’t seem to help anymore. Ok, so it really isn’t all that bad. Hey, fall is on the way. The mornings are now crisp with the hint of fall. And with fall comes Pumpkin Spice Lattes, apple cider, and slight cold. Fall is definitely my favorite season. It provides the perfect opportunity for us Paions to don a whole new line of clothing, shedding the boring t-shirts of the summer, and once again take pride in the beauty of our state as the leaves begin to change. So while things are slow and boring, fall is on it’s way. So I shall chin-up, and think of what is to come… Oh, I also get to bring a little Alaskan fashion to PA to…

So that is pretty much what my jacket looks like. It was a good friend to me in Alaska…

Rustang

I promised I would post pictures of the rustang, and after a week or so of trying to come up with something else to post, I give in. The first two pictures are really of the new top, try not to look at the poor rusting, dented body too much. The third is of my weekend project. I installed CAI or Cold Air Intake. Yeah, it gave more horsepower, and a better sound, but the real reason I did it was for the gas mileage. It is *supposed* to give me an extra 3 miles to the gallon, which is a nice bump up, especially with gas prices the way they are… I was going to spray paint it yesterday, but it was raining, so I decided not too. And yes, I am planning on doing more to the car to make it look better…

Sorry if this was boring to you… But hey, it’s a post

P.S. Maybe I’ll upload a sound clip after I install the flowmaster…

Home Again

Late monday evening found us at the airport waiting to be picked up. We made it home about 1:00 in the morning on Tuesday. Considering my body was telling me that is was only 9:00, I really wasn’t tired. So Tuesday was a great time zone adjustment day… It really wasn’t that bad. On an interesting side note I skipped church last night! Don’t worry I had a good reason… Noah was preaching! No but seriously I got some metal fragments in my left eye while at work and had to make a run to the ER to have them removed. And it is true, I do miss the Humphrey tribe. Life just isn’t the same without Bek there to worry about something, and without Jordan there to do something dangerous or stupid with. And I even miss Mr. Jockels constantly telling me that I don’t know how to play the PS3. But life must move on. Anyway I thought I would share pictures of my recently purchase Nalgene, complete with a iFish Alaska and OR stickers

Sorry about the hand in the pictures, I couldn’t find a suitable backdrop so I just used my closet. Oh, I got a new top on the old “Rustang” whilst I was in Alaska, pictures to come soon…

Quick Update

Well, it has been nearly a month since I posted, so I figured it was about time to post. I really didn’t want a repeat of this… Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. Things have been really busy at work lately. For the past two weeks we have been working on a rather large retaining wall/paver patio project for the CFO of a local newspaper. When that is finished hopefully I will post some pictures of it so ya’ll can see what I’ve been doing at work lately. Yesterday I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed. Suprisingly I’m not in alot of pain, they say that the peak of swelling and pain is reached 48 hours after surgery, so we will see how bad it gets. Today my sister and I booked out tickets to Alaska, so I am now in more debt than I have ever been, but hey, I’m going to Alaska! So that’s it for now, and you can expect more coming soon…

Still Vacationing

So yeah, I’m still on vacation, and I will try to post more pictures once I get home. Sorry about the below pictures, wordpress has been acting up lately, and I could only get them on as a gallery… So I realize some of them are confusing, and very odd looking, but hey, it’s my blog and I can do what I want For now I just want to share a link with you www.chacha.com. ChaCha is a unique idea, if you have a cellphone with a texting plan, just text a question to 242242… yup, any question, other than the kind that wouldn’t be public knowledge… Just ask a question such as, What month to tulips typically bloom in Pennsylvania?, and be patient, answers may take up to 10 minutes… Enjoy!

So we went walking…

It was such a nice friday night, and the promised rain hadn’t arrived yet, so Rachel and I decided to go walking. Yes, walking as in putting one foot in front of the other, the type of thing that Americans don’t do very much of… I decided to bring my camera along to capture some of the more odd moments of our walk… But before we left I wanted to get a measuring wheel, the type that rolls along the ground measuring distances, because I wanted to figure out how many times you have to walk the paths where I work, to make a mile… So I stopped at my brothers shed, and spent ten minutes looking for said elusive wheel. Apparently Rachel was bored and took it upon herself to take pictures of odd objects…

Yeah, encase you are wondering, that is my rearview mirror in above picture… I don’t know, trust me, I don’t know… Anyway, even though my brother promised that said wheel was in his shed, alas it was not, so Rachel, myself, my car, and my camera were the only parties involved on said walking trip… Oh well, some other time. We then traveled the 1.7 miles to my place of work and began walking. We first stopped to take pictures of some yellow flowers, none of them turned out. I decided to take a picture of Rachel

Yeah, so it isn’t the best picture, but hey, I was just playing with my camera so whatever… All went fine on the trip, except for some odd fellow that was powerwalking laps around us, until Rachel got sick. Yeah, it was kinda odd, all of the sudden she said she didn’t feel good, so what did I do, yup I took a picture, and even got her to laugh, go figure…

But then, even after laughing and all, she made me go get my car and come pick her up so that she didn’t have to walk the rest of the way… Yup, she’s that mean

Even though she was sick, she still found energy to take a picture of me coming to pick her up, not sure why… but yup, that is the poor old “Rustang”

And there’s me, like a good little brother… Sorry if the pictures look really weird, the ISO sensitivity was all messed up, anyway, if you thought this post was really dumb, that’s ok, it’s a post right Ok, so maybe I could have done better, but I was getting desperate for something to post, so if you’ve already read this far, you just wasted a good minute or two which you will never get back…