Mining Scraps in the Shop

Sometimes I just need a fix.

You know how it is.

Got to have that whine-of-saw in my head.

That smell of fresh-cut wood in my nostrils.

The slimy slick of glue on my fingers. (OK, maybe I could do without that one, but sometimes it's unavoidable. . .)




So I started grabbing wood scraps from my rack and giving them a quick swipe with a damp rag to create a temporary window into the grain.

After some messing around accompanied by a little contemplation I decided to keep the Walnut (bottom) and the Red Oak (second from top) but leave the yellowish Poplar (second from bottom) for some other project and, because the idea forming in my head only required a single strip of it too narrow to show off the figuring, swap out the highly figured Maple (top) for some less precious straight-grained Maple instead.



Then I sliced up a little of all but the Maple into some random-width strips roughly 15 inches long. (There was no tape measure use whatsoever for this project. It was a free-form project.)

I also sliced a single long narrow strip off the Maple. (All the way over on the left in this photo.



Setting the Maple aside for now I shuffled the Oak and Walnut around until I had a pattern that I didn't hate then used a pencil to mark a V across what I had created.

The V ensures that if I trip and scatter the strips around the shop like pickup-sticks I can still get them back in the order I had without having to start all over again.

And yes, this would have been slightly easier if I had planed the Walnut down to the same thickness at the Red Oak first, but there will be plenty of planing later so I didn't bother.



Next step was to start spreading glue between all the various scraps.

I start by rotating the furthest stick  90 degrees away from me so it's laying on it's side, then the next stick and so on, all except for the stick closest to me. Now all the sticks are still in order with the glue-side facing up.

Then starting with the second closest stick I spread the glue, tilt the stick 90 degrees towards me and pull it against the growing stack, working from stick to stick until I've got them all glued.



Then it's time to start clamping, lightly at first,



making sure each stick is lined up properly with the stick beside it and all are pushed tightly against the bench which has been protected with some waxed paper. (Take my experienced word for it, it's disheartening, to say the least, to find you've glued your project to the bench!!)



Then gradually, a little at a time across all the clamps, they are pulled up snug enough to ensure full contact across all the joints but not gorilla'ed since this can squeeze out too much glue. Then all that's left to do is wipe off the worst of the squeeze-out and walk away.

That's right, just drop the tools and walk away, because a glue-up like this needs to cure at least overnight.




Next morning I remove the clamps, run the glued up block through the planer to flatten both sides, then trim the ends. That last step isn't necessary yet since there will be some more trimming of the ends later, but having them straight and square at this point will help make things easier in a few more steps.



Despite what the girls, at least the 'good' girls, in school said, or would have said if I was a 'player' (And boy! I was anything but a player. . . Come to think of it, always was and still am anything but a player. . . No wonder they won't let me into the good-old-boys club!) I didn't evolved with enough hands so I set up some clamps to help me bend the Maple strip into an arc I like then strike a pencil line



which I use as a guide over on the bandsaw.

This is a pretty scary step since any screwups pretty much turn everything back into scrap.

The trick is to keep the block moving at a steady pace during the entire cut, otherwise I'll end up with a bobble on the cut surface that will show, badly, later on. I also need to steer the block through the blade smooth and even to get a clean arc.

I pretend I'm driving a car with a salad bowl bolted to the hood and I need to negotiate a slalom course without flinging out the loose tennis ball riding in the bowl, (An actual technique used by my brother when teaching precision driving courses.) no sudden moves, just smooth and easy does it.



If I had a brand-new, low-offset blade in a perfectly tuned and balanced bandsaw the sides of the cut would be silky smooth, but I don't so they're not.



For me the best way to get rid of the kerf-marks while keeping the surface square and even is with an old-fashioned card scraper.


Card scrapers are thin sheets of tool-steel with the edge rolled over with an even harder steel burnishing tool to form a very tiny little hook all the way down the edge.

This hook takes off very fine shavings and I find the scraper easier to keep square and even than sandpaper on a block.

Card scrapers have fallen out of favor over the past 50 years but I think anyone that gives them a chance will become a fan.

Two or three minutes and a couple dozen careful and deliberate swipes with the card scraper (It takes two hands to handle so no action photos.) and the cut surface is ready to go. (Compare this scraped edge with the un-scraped one two photos ago.)



And ready to go means it's time for the next glue-up.

And no, I wasn't using my shop time to play poker with the guys! Plastic coated playing cards make consistent, stable and cheap shims. In this case I used four stacks of three cards to lift the two pieces of the glued-up block just shy of 1/16th inch above the bench's surface. That way the Maple strip, which by design is thicker than the block, can be pushed down to the surface of the bench and will extend beyond the bottom of the block as well as the top.

It's a heck of a lot easier to come back later and trim the little strip down even with the surface of the block than cut the whole block down to the surface of the little strip!!



Then it's time to glue the block, which admittedly used to be all one perfectly good piece before I went and cut it in two, back into one piece,



only this time with the Maple strip in-between.



I've got five clamps pulling all the parts back together but I also need one more clamp to keep things aligned lengthwise, or from end to end.

For one thing, because of the angle of the cut, as I tighten the clamps the left side of the block wants to keep sliding towards the top of the photo, For another, unless the strip I'm adding is exactly the width of the saw's kerf, (the gap the saw removes when making the cut) which would be pretty narrow and visually hardly worth the effort, I need to shift the two parts of the original block lengthwise to exactly the right spot in order to keep all the joint-lines aligned properly.

Here, even though I once squared up the ends of the block, you can see that the two ends don't align with each other anymore yet the joint-line between the lighter Red Oak on the left and the darker Walnut on the right looks pretty much straight, right through the Maple strip. (The alignment is eyeballed since the eye is a remarkably sensitive instrument.)

OK, now I've got to wait overnight again. . .



Two more times I struck an arc, cut the block, scraped the edges and then glued it all back together again.



After that final glue-up had cured I trimmed the edges, eased all the corners, and flattened the surfaces.

When I started this project I really didn't have a clear idea of where I was going with it, but along the way it gradually became clear that The Van's high-tech plastic and rubber cutting board, as convenient and faithful as it's been for many years, should perhaps step aside for something a little more traditional.

So after a final hand-sanding to 150 grit I wiped the entire board down with a really damp cloth and let it dry before lightly going over the board one last time with 400 grit paper. The damp raised the grain and the 400 grit knocked it back it down smooth which prepared it for the final step.



Which is a good oiling. While from a worry-free ingestion standpoint any kitchen cooking oil will be OK for this step, over time they will all oxidize and turn sticky, some will also turn dark and cloudy. But a food-grade mineral oil (If it says something on the container about use as a laxative you know it's food-grade.) worked into the grain and wiped back off will never darken, oxidize or sticky-fy.



The trick with raw wood is to wipe on a good heavy coat with a lint-free cloth (Not paper towel!!) then walk away for a half hour to let it soak into the grain. Come back with the same cloth, which will be plenty oily enough, and thoroughly wipe the board down again, both sides and all the edges and walk away for another half hour.

Repeat this process until you no longer see dull splotches when sighting across the board at a sharp angle with a strong light on the other side.



Then take a clean cloth and scrub off all the oil you can. (Again, unless the effect you are going for is fuzzy and linty, no paper towels please!)

At this point the project is ready for use or display or whatever you had in mind, but I like to let it sit overnight and then give it one final clean-cloth polishing first.

I should note that in some cases you could back up a few steps and eliminate the raise-the-grain-with-water-and-sand-it-off step, letting the first application of oil raise the grain instead then wet-sand it back off. Using 400 grit into fresh oil gives a really rich and deep sheen to the surface, but in this case the dark micro-dust from the Walnut would muddy up the lighter woods so it's not a good idea here.

Once a countertop or cutting board is oiled like this it's ready for some moderate abuse.

Like a finely crafted wood-bodied hand-plane I consider a cutting board a tool, and as such I'm not going to sweat normal wear and tear, though I will wipe up standing water (the worst enemy) and try to avoid setting a sizzling cast iron pan directly on it, though anything less than sizzling is fine which will be a definite improvement over my plastic cutting board.

Once the wood has been treated once it only takes a sparing amount of oil quickly wiped on every couple months to a year, depending on use and abuse, to brighten it back up again. And if it gets rough enough looking, I can always give it a good sanding back down to fresh wood and start over again. Given the thickness of this board I can probably get away with that several times before the board starts getting thin and fragile.

As far as daily care, I keep a spray-bottle of white vinegar in my kitchen and use it as a the final step in cleaning up (One hell of a lot less expensive than those other disinfectants and sanitizers and there's evidence to indicate vinegar is healthier and more eco-friendly in both the short and long term.) and will be using it on this cutting board too.

One final thing I could have done, and may still do yet, but later since I'm about to head out the door on a trip, is to inset a small circle of dyed Maple in the corner of the board. Red on one side and green on the other. The red side will then be for meats and fish and the green side is for veggies.

(Note that I for security reasons I never blog live when I'm on a trip and I also use the scheduler for many posts, including this one, so even though in real time and I write this I will be heading out in a day or so, by the time this post actually - well - posts I may or may not be back home again.)

Just Stumping Around

Stumps can be contrary things

















You can try to make artwork, or a statement piece out of them



















but mostly they're just in the way.











When felling trees I usual make my cuts up around waist level because that's a natural position for old guys to be handling a 25 pound chainsaw, which makes one less thing I have to worry about during the dangerous business of felling trees.



Sometimes, if the stump is in a high traffic area, once the tree is down and taken care of I'll put an old ratty chain on the saw, strap on my knee-pads, pull the vegetation away, and cut the stump off at ground level,















but that's extra work and let's not forget that the incredibly tough end-grain of a waist-high oak stump makes a remarkably effective anvil, such as when I was closing up these two heavy steel hooks the other day. The one on the top has been done, the bottom not.






Unlike a steel anvil, if I need a different shape or edge to work the metal over, a few passes with the chainsaw and I'm all set. Sure, a few of those and my anvil starts getting a little short, but I have plenty of other stumps around to chose from.

As an added bonus for those of us already living with tinnitus and wishing we weren't, as well as those that are smart enough to not want to live with tinnitus in the first place, (Unfortunately I didn't get smart enough until too late. . .) oak stumps are surprisingly quiet anvils, thumping the energy of the hammer on down into the earth which swallows the blow as easy as it takes the weight of a footstep.

The Oxford Comma: Use the Damn Thing!!

Oxford comma: A comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and or or) in a series of three or more terms.



A couple weeks ago an interesting story about a milk producer, some of it's truck drivers, and comma hit the news.

The milk producer claims that the state of Maine clearly exempts truck drivers carrying perishable foods from overtime pay with this following clause in state employment regulations:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:

The truck drivers claim that they are not exempt from overtime pay since they don't pack anything for shipment or distribution, they only deliver.

And a high-court judge has agreed with the truck drivers.

If the clause had been written with the Oxford comma to read:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distribution of:

then this small privately owned milk company would not be looking at the potential of having to come up with some $10 million dollars in back pay!

To be fair, the milk company may have a case of their own against the state of Maine since the Maine Legislative Drafting Manual states: “Although authorities on punctuation may differ, when drafting Maine law or rules, don’t use a comma between the penultimate and the last item of a series,” 

This despite the fact that the only modern English language stylebook that says don't use that last comma is from the Associated Press. A news agency that, at the time of it's inception, had to pay for every single character, including punctuation, that it used in telegraphs and in print. (And in the 2013 60th anniversary revision of their stylebook they still say don't use it.)

Me? Editors can red-line me all they want, but I'm playing it safe and using the damn thing!



Oh, by the way, if you still don't think comma use is a worthy topic of conversation, consider this:

The Library of Congress displays the ratified version of the Second Amendment and it reads:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Yet the original version apparently sent out to the states for consideration of ratification, and also the hand-written one on display in the National Archives, reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

In a rather tortured way, for grammar-ists the extra two commas in the second version in effect make that statement read:

A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed.

Anti-gun ownership-ists claim that the three comma version was the one sent out to states to be considered (Although there is also evidence that suggests some of the handwritten copies sent out had two, or even just one comma.) and the ensuing legal fight over whether the Second Amendment protects Militia or people has cost all of us untold millions of  our tax dollars.

Apparently I can't even quit properly

A while back I wrote this post explaining why I was considering switching from the Good Sam Club to KOA.

Because of membership overlaps, for a while there I carried both cards. But when I started getting smail-mails a few months ago from Good Sam telling me that the CC on file was invalid (Expiration date had changed.) and I needed to log in and give them a new card to ensure my membership remained unbroken, I took that as a sign and just let my Good Sam membership expire.

It wasn't surprising that lurking in the mail today was yet another missive from Good Sam (Like AARP, Good Sam is a marketing machine that generates a recycling tub load of fliers and 'offers' every year.) but as I stripped it open to shred the personal information bits and recycle the rest, the bold type caught my eye.




Complimentary membership??

What hellish trickery is this?

What conniving tomfoolery are they up to now?

I read the paperwork with a great deal of skepticism and still couldn't suss out the catch. So I read it over several more times, which didn't take all that long since it was only one side of one page, a third of which was taken up by a $10 coupon from Camping World, but still can't find the lurking gotch!



So I tried logging into my long untouched Good Sam account and found that not only was it still active, but without having to make any promises, without having to click on any 'special restriction' statements, without having to update my out-of-date card info, ransom my first-born or even one of my wife's cats, my membership is good through 2018.

Now I believe in standing on your own two feet in this life, but I also admit that when things are thrown at me, like healthcare subsidies and free memberships to something that just might be useful somewhere down the road, I'm not above reaching out and catching them.



So it is without apology that my un-earned membership card went right into my pocket. . .

By the way, don't let that Deluxe Member crap fool you. Despite how grandiose it might sound, of the four membership levels Deluxe is second from the bottom.

Tales from the Road: International Breadcrumbs

I was in the safe the other day and way in the back, down at the bottom, I came across bags of money!!!

Yeah, if only. . .




You see - I used to do a fair amount of international travel for my job and one thing I learned early on is that you need cash, as in local currency, when traveling most places.









Surprising?  Maybe not to most, but here in the US I live off my two cards, one debit, one credit, (One Visa one MasterCard. I use the credit card like a debit, paying off the full balance every month.) and can keep the same $20 bill in my money-clip for months, Usually right up until The Wife snags it off me to pay for a fountain-drink or something else small. (When that happens I always insist on getting the change back which I tuck away in The Van to be used at self-pay stations.)

Another thing I learned early on was that exchanging money is a pain in the ass, not to mention expensive. So I didn't unless I had to. Instead I tucked any leftover currency away to use the next time I was in that country.

Now that my international travels are much less frequent - OK, lately pretty much non-existent, though I do keep my passport current just in case - I suppose I should take it all down to the exchange and convert it back to US dollars, and someday I might. But for now I'll just tuck my little stash of international breadcrumbs back into the safe as reminders of where I've been,




There's the 'usual' places like Canada.

When I was a kid growing up in Michigan with relatives on the other side of the border we used to cross back and forth with little more than a "Where were you born? Have a nice day." Even when I was in the military with a Top Secret security clearance stationed near Boston no one ever said boo when I took the shortcut home across southern Ontario.

Nowadays - well let's just say things have changed.  US bound passengers actually go through US Immigration and Customs inside the Calgary Alberta airport and I've missed more than one flight out of there because those frightened little bureaucrats are jacking around with people just because they can.

It got so bad that airlines were asking for passenger's contact numbers so they could be informed of customs wait times and plan accordingly, but that didn't do me much good since the Calgary - Houston flight was an early one and customs didn't open their doors until an hour before it's departure.





One of the other 'usual' places was Mexico.

Now Villahermosa, despite it's name, is not the most picturesque part of Mexico but it is the administrative heart of Mexican off-shore oil exploration and production.

The airport is small, with a single luggage kiosk for incoming international flights. You picked up your bag, dropped it on an xray machine (Presumably checking for firearms) then pushed a big yellow button on a post near the output end of the machine. If the light above turned green you were done and walked on through to find your ride, if it turned red, and in all my trips there it never did for me, you put your bag on a nearby table and opened it up for inspection.

Like Calgary, the return flight was early, the first one of the day, and the immigration office where you got your exit stamp didn't open until shortly before the flight was scheduled to leave. Unlike Calgary, if there was a delay the flight would be held.

The flight isn't long, just a couple hours on what amounts to a commuter plane, but the down-side is, when you disembark in Houston you are as far away as you can get from Customs and Immigration so not only is it a very long walk, you will be at the end of the line of all the other incoming flights and in a country reputed to have one of the worst entry processes in the world, Houston's Customs and Immigration is probably near to being the worst of the worst. (When did we become frightened little wimps who think our only resort is bullying??)






Though the UK did join the EU, it did not buy into the Euro, so I needed the Queen's pounds there.

Normally I barely carry any cash at all and I certainly don't willingly carry coins, but you don't really have a choice in the UK since any denomination less than 5 pounds is in coin and not available in notes.

Getting into the UK is simple, after presenting the visa that you filled out on the plane to immigration (You are either going there on vacation or for a conference/training. Never check 'going there to work' because that's a whole lot of complication!) you are faced with three lines through customs. EU citizens, something to declare, and nothing to declare. The EU and nothing to declare lines are nothing more than short passageways that bypass the customs check stations and there may or may not be a customs official standing near the end watching you go through while holding your passport up for the cameras.

I found the best way for getting around the UK is to use the train system for longer distances, (There's a train station right inside both major airports.) other public transport for medium trips and to be prepared for a lot of walking which is the only way to handle those shorter excursions.

Just outside pretty much all the London train stations you can buy a day ticket (Unlimited off and on again) on any number of 'tourist' open-air double-deckers. They have a set route and by making a full circuit you can get the lay of the city, as well as a lot of information from the 'barker's' running patter, then the next time around start jumping off at points of interest and either getting back on at the same spot or take a stroll and jump on at one of the other stops, all well marked both on the street and on the map you get with your ticket.

Brighton is another train-ride destination with more than enough museums and beach-side stuff to keep you busy for a day or two, and if you are near London over a weekend you won't go wrong spending a day in the Sussex countryside on the Bluebell Railway.

Oh yeah, and be forewarned, the shops close at 5 so don't expect to go to the mall after work!




As long as we're in Europe, my least favorite trips were having to go to France.

I know, I know, that's not what you heard, but in my experience France, and the French, suck.

The food you ask?? Frankly I'd rather eat English fare than the swill I encountered in France. At one conference I attended there the food was so bad we collectively demanded the set menu be scrapped and we be allowed to order from the normal menu. 'That's fine,' we were told, 'but you will have to wait until day after tomorrow because tomorrow's chicken cordon-bleu is already being defrosted.'   !!!Defrosted!!!!

Like the UK, to go any distance in France use the train system. There are automatic ticket kiosks outside the stations, just be prepared to be a bit thick skinned (Good advice for being in France in general!) as you will have to take a moment during your turn to decipher the maps and buy the right ticket.

Need to get from Paris to London or the other way around? Forget flying. Take the Eurostar train through the Chunnel  instead. Much more relaxed and once all is said and done, it takes about the same amount of time, door to door, as flying. Like Calgary, UK customs is located in the Paris train station. Unlike Calgary, this is not US customs so the process is much more friendly, respectful and efficient.



Nigeria in the 80's was - well, let's just say it was a challenging place to go.

Back then Shell Oil, mostly staffed with expats, owned an island near Lagos that they turned into a resort and was heavily patrolled. On weekends they would ferry employees to the island for some R&R.

In those days the experienced traveler to Nigeria stocked up on 49 cent Bic pens, all except one of which you kept hidden deep in a pocket lest they all be taken at once. It seemed like no Nigerian official, and believe me there were a lot of officials to get through, was ever issued a writing implement and if you didn't have one on you for them to use the two of you would be stuck just looking at each other while the process came to a grinding halt. And not once was my pen ever returned to me!

If your company had a no-bribery policy there would be a clause in it somewhere excepting Nigeria because without something crossing palms, nothing ever got done there.

But Nigeria is a shining example of the people verses individual phenomenon. For Westerners the Nigerian people can be - shall we say, difficult - to deal with, but the individuals I had any prolonged contact with were hard-working, open and amiable. In fact the best intern I ever had was a young Nigerian woman. She was so good that I arraigned for the company to fund her last semester of school and sponsor her work-visa in exchange for staying with us for two years after she graduated.



On pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum is Singapore. This country (Actually there's some debate as to whether Singapore is a country or a city.) is clean, ordered and efficient.

It does have a weird mix of cutting edge and old colonialism. One popular lunch spot is the Polo Club where you can sit out on the covered veranda and watch players practicing just like the expats of the early 20th century, (Back then though entrance to the club was highly restricted.) and you can still stroll the 150 year old Botanical Garden. On the other hand there's a multi-storied 'mall' in the city with hundreds of shops devoted to nothing but electronics and technology. as well as all the new, high-tech playgrounds on top of impossibly tall buildings around the harbor.

Getting around Singapore by taxi is easy and safe since, like most everything else there, taxis are highly regulated and you can count on the fare being - well, fair.

On the other hand, daily life in Singapore is also highly regulated. Unless you are willing to pay a stiff fine, don't dare act like the ugly American and drop you cigarette butt or spit your gum onto the sidewalk (Bringing more than a pack or two of gum for your own consumption is not allowed because there are only a few 'approved' gums and they are only sold at pharmacies.) TV shows and movies are highly censored and if you find you need to buy a disposable razor it can be found in a locked cabinet behind the counter at the pharmacy.






OK, I have no idea how or why I ended up with a single Indian Rupee.  I was scheduled to stop in Mumbai for a few days on my way back from Singapore once, but the deal fell through and my expertise was no longer needed.










Ever heard of Bucaramanga Columbia??  Not many people have, despite being the 5th largest (economically) city in the country.

Bucaramanga sits in a mountain valley astride highway 45A which, northbound, eventually works its way through the mountains and jungles to the coast and southbound, through more mountains and jungles, to Bogota.

It's one of those places you can't get to from here. From the US you fly to Panama and pick up a flight the rest of the way from there. From much of the rest of Central and South America you fly to Bogota and catch a flight.

Like Caracas Venezuela, where I've actually spent a lot of time but for some reason have no currency in my safe, Bucaramanga's climate is near ideal. Basically you just need a shelter over your head, and many restaurants are just that, no walls around the dining area at all. Beyond that, non-sealing jalousie windows and open-walled living rooms adjacent to courtyards are abundant. If you are into eating fresh food either city will be a mecca of gastronomic delight.

Unlike Caracas where you could travel an hour or so north to the coast then east through coastal bannana plantations on primitive dirt roads, fording unbridged rivers to find pristine, untouched beaches, or spend a couple more hours heading west up the valley then north over the mountains on a narrow track spotted with crosses (Where people fell off the road) to a more developed set of beaches where you can spend the night in a hammock under a thatched shelter and eat the freshest of seafood from cart-vendors, Bucaramanga is far from the beach, but there are a number of beautiful if challenging mountain-jungle trails with trail-heads practically within the city limits.


I haven't checked exchange rates, or even counted the currencies I have, but I would imagine it's more than enough for a really fancy couple of dinners out. But I think for now I'm just going to put my breadcrumbs back into the safe and hang onto them for a while. . .

Am I Slowing Down??

The other day I was doing some miscellaneous stuff around the property, nothing too ambitious. Just cleaning things up, re-potting a few plants, creating a little nook-in-the-trees for one of our benches; that sort of thing.



At one point I caught myself walking around the long way and using the slope rather than taking a shortcut and making the two foot step up onto the RV pad. This was a little counter-intuitive since, for some reason I can no longer remember, I was in a rush, which left me wondering if the current me, the Geezer Card carrying, eligible for Social Security, only two years left until Medicare, me was moving slower than the more youthful me of the past. You know, like last week. . .

This is an important question because fathers must be ever vigilant that their sons do not surpass them, (OK look, I don't make the rules, that's just the way it is. On the last walk my Dad and I ever took together he had that walker really clicking and clattering as we went farther, and faster than I ever expected and I'm convinced it was that father - son rival thing kicking in for one last hurrah.) but then I remembered that I don't have a son to out walk, to out do, so what's the big deal??

I do have a daughter, but because of the wisdom and experience that comes only with age I was recently able to give her some financial advice that was received with enough enthusiasm and gratitude that I walked away strutting like a peacock.  - - -  Oh yeah, still got it!!

But to answer the original question; am I slowing down?  Hell yes!!! I mean what did you expect? I don't have a Basil Hallward portrait of myself  hanging on the wall in the parlor, (He's the character that painted the Dorian Gray portrait in Oscar Wilde's one and only novel.) nor am I some sort of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Benjamin Button aging backwards. So yeah, I'm slowing down.

I can still knock out back to back 10 mile hikes on successive days, but where I used to do such a hike in the morning and still put in an active afternoon, now I make a day of it and spend more time in the evening just kicking back and chilling. I can still pick up a teak bench and carry it across the field by myself, but where I used to just snatch-and-go, now I'm more aware of the frailties of the human back and pay attention to just how I lift. I can still get up off the ground without using my hands (I read once that that's an indicator of your overall physical conditioning.) but, while it used to be something I did automatically, now I find myself thinking about it first.

But I don't mind. That's just the natural order of things. This was always going to be a limited engagement and I'd rather go along with the natural order of things and enjoy the journey than waste time lamenting.

It just so happened that over dinner on that same day The Wife asked, "If we had a time machine that would let us go back to our youth what would you do different?" It only took me a moment to come up with my answer. "Get my degree in biology (Wildlife and environmental degrees didn't exist back then.) and work in habitat restoration and management for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Private Lands and Habitat program." I would still be doing the planning and problem solving that I'm good at and using it doing something I was made for (Those aptitude tests we took in Junior High said my top three career choices were Forest Ranger, Forest Ranger or Forest Ranger. . .) and all without the high stress of the high-tech route I did take. True I wouldn't make as much money, but then The Wife intends to use her 'inside knowledge' to make a killing in Houston real-estate, (Which would make her Houston's Donald Trump but I'm not dumb enough to point that out!!) so we'll be fine.

It takes wisdom to appreciate the art of enjoying life

But let's get real here. By definition wisdom and youth just don't go together. Wisdom is the carefully amalgamated result of an individual's experience and knowledge, two things of which can only be acquired through time, so even if we could go back to our younger selves, we wouldn't be taking that hard-won wisdom with us, and frankly I've reached the stage where I'd rather have the wisdom than the youth.

Now where the hell did I leave my reading glasses?? 

Yep, It's Spring in Central Texas

Antiques Week

(Which, in the pursuit of the almighty dollar, over the past ten years has morphed into Antiques Two and a Half Weeks, during which the area is to be avoided at all costs!!)

and Wildflowers

(Beware of otherwise intelligent parents pulling over along busy, 75 MPH highways, flipping the doors open without a care, and spilling out their little kids to run amok while the 'adults' pursue the obligatory child-in-the-wildflowers photo.)