Come see ME in As You Like It by William Shakespeare!
Saturday, July 5 (opening night) Sunday, July 6 Tuesday, July 8 Wednesday, July 9 Friday, July 11 Sunday, July 13 Tuesday, July 15 Wednesday, July 16 Friday, July 18 (this performance will be interpreted for the deaf) Saturday, July 19 (closing night.)
Until I got to 5&20 this morning, I didn't even know there had been a storm. The first indication I had that something was up was that the tall flagpole on the north side of 5&20 at Rt. 12 was bent over at the base. And there were broken tree limbs all over the place. Of course, it was dark when I left the house, and my yard probably looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland (more than usual, anyway).
While the glue hardens, the plywood gussets at the corners of the frame are held in place by strips of scrap Masonite and plywood, nailed in place with a pneumatic brad nailer. After the glue sets, I remove the strips (called cauls) and the brads, leaving the gussets glued in place. The THWOCKsss sound the brad nailer makes is a pleasant reminder of my childhood, working in the garage with my dad.
I went to the lumberyard this morning to get some White Oak to build the frames. While sawing and sanding, I noticed a pervasive odor that smelled like whiskey. Aha... White Oak is the wood typically used to make whiskey barrels.
The frame parts are temporarily screwed down to the layout board to hold them in position while they're being assembled. Plywood gussets will be glued on to reinforce the corners, as soon as my resorcinol aircraft glue arrives.
I started building a boat this week. A real wooden speedboat.
The boat is constructed upside-down on wooden legs which are later removed. Because my barn floor is so wavy, I marked level-lines on the legs using a laser level.
I've made full-scale Masonite patterns of all of the frame parts. I can simply trace around the patterns to transfer the shapes to the wood for cutting.
Here's the frame layout board in my workshop. It's a pleasant place to work.
Here's a link to pictures of another boat built to the same plans. Mine will look a little different, but it's enough to get the idea. Right now I'm planning mine to be powered by a Jaguar XK 6-cylinder engine. Scroll down in the page for a great picture.
Our secondhand understanding is that they're moving south from Rochester, along 15A , 390, and 15. I guess the newly plowed fields are slow going, and they're moving faster on the paved roads. Henrietta and Rush are gone, but it's uncertain whether they've reached Honeoye Falls.
The electricity is still on, but I've rigged a windlass next to the old well, so we will still be able to get water when the power grid goes down. The neighbors to the south and north of me have helped set up a system so we can warn each other in case they get this far. During the daytime we'll be able to see them with our binoculars long before they can lurch close enough to be a threat; at night we can only squint into the darkness and hope for the best. We've already cut the electrical connections to the few streetlights at the intersections, hoping that'll make us less conspicuous, and we're maintaining strict blackout after dark.
I just hope the CDC or whoever the fuck is supposed to understand this shit can come up with something soon. The canned peas, diesel fuel, and 30-06 will only last so long.
Hmm. I can spell "clevis", but I'm an engineer and it's a mechanical term. But "ptilopod"? I guess words that are used outside of extremely specialized fields are far too easy for kids who can memorize whole lists of weird words.
I got a personal e-mail from Wendy Carlos on Tuesday. Which is cool.
I've driven over 1800 miles since Friday. I went back down to StL to pick up a car that I'd given to my dad years ago and I subsequently re-inherited. It's a late-'60's Fiberfab body on a 1959 Triumph TR3 chassis. I bought it at the Victor Car Show in 1994, I think. The registration sticker, which has fallen off the windshield, expired in 1995.
It's damn claustrophobic inside. It's barely waist-high to the top of the roof.
The dashboard instruments are all in one pod in the center.
The engine doesn't run, and all the clutch and brake hydraulics need rebulding. But it's all there, and thankfully, fiberglass car bodies don't rust.
I had my teeth cleaned today and they're all achy now.
And then, on the way back to work from the dentist's office, my left rear wheel bearing started going howlhowlhowlhowlhowlgrindhowlgrindlhowlhowlhowlCRUNCHgrindhowlhowlBANGhowlhowlhowl. So I called my boss and said I wasn't coming back to work today because I had to fix my car. I drove back home on 15A with my E-flashers on, and by the time I got within 5 miles of my house, I was afraid to go any faster than 15 because of the horrible noises from the back of the car.
Back in January I changed both sets of rear wheel bearings, so the offending bearing is only a couple of months old. At the time I didn't see a whole lot wrong with the old bearings, so I kept them. Good thing too - I picked the best two and put them back in. The bad bearing is really smashed all to shit. The races look fine, but the balls are all polyhedral now, rather than spherical.
I'll tell you one damn thing though - the other two bearings I installed in January are on 24-hour suicide watch and are coming out as soon as I get the opportunity.
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tinballoon's journal
