Catching Up - Palm Springs

As I mentioned we were lucky enough to be able to meet up and spend the weekend in Palm Springs.   Our goal was to get some desert hiking in and we did.  I have to say that Palm Springs is one of the prettiest towns I have seen.   Everything was very well maintained and looked new.  We stayed at the Hyatt and our room over looked the golf course.  At work we have a travel agent we work with and she hooked me up with free breakfast and $100.00 voucher towards any charges.

I drove up from San Diego and Candy flew into Palm Springs.   I got into town around 2 PM and checked in and then headed to the airport to pick her up.

We looked online and found that they have an open market every Thursday night in downtown.   After picking up Candy we headed that way.  Found parking and walked up and down checking out the vendors.

Had a great time and had some dinner and cocktails.  Then we headed to the store to get a few items to stock the fridge.

Coachella Valley - Palm Springs

The next morning we had breakfast and then headed out to the Tahquitz Canyon.  We hiked in the steps of the Agua Caliente Indians.   This is not a long hike but it follows a stream that dead ends at a waterfall.   Hard to believe you would find this in the middle of the desert.  We did this hike on Friday and we waded out in the water but didn't have our suits.  It was cold but we definitely wanted to come back and do some swimming.

We kept and eye out for rattle snakes but only found some lizards, birds and dragon flies.  I did grab a few good pictures and it was so nice to be hiking in some new terrain.   The weather was great, in the high seventies low eighties.  After we finished up the hike we headed back to the hotel where I had scheduled spa time for both of us.  We each got a message and then took advantage of the suana and shower before heading to the pool for cocktails and a snack.  The sun felt great!

On the Road

Living the life of a rock star for the last 10 days.  what I mean by that is the fact that I have been traveling for the last 10 days.  Staying in Hotels, eating out and spending to much time in airports.

All of my trip was in California so I can think of worse places to be.  I started out for a few days in San Diego, then drove up to Palm Springs where I met up with Candy.  Then traveled to San Francisco for a couple of days.

It was rough, but having a break in the middle and having Candy with me made up for it.

We spent the weekend in Palm Springs.  I have to say I had a blast and was able to really relax.  We hiked ever day and then spent the afternoons by the pool.  One day we got messages and that made the relaxing that much easier.

I took a bunch of pictures from our time in Palm Springs and will post a few story's later.

When Doves Cry

It was sad to hear that Prince had pasted away last week.  I am sure we will hear more on what happened in the weeks to come.  We used to dance out ass off, to his music in the 80's.  Seems that 2016 has already claimed several artists.

I started keeping my Fitbit in my front pocket, when I remember.  The band broke and I am to cheap or lazy to order another one.  I had a decent month, but I need to really do more and be consistent.

According to the tracking log I managed to get 134/miles logged.  In May let's hope to seem more days over six miles than below.

I was on the news two weeks ago.  Actually I wasn't on the news, but a photo that I had taken was on the 10:00 PM news.   I was able to capture the two baby owls, sitting beside each other.  I sent it in and thy showed it and had my name listed.

Last week I was in Washington, DC. for a conference.  The weather was nice and warm.  I stayed downtown so that was fun to be in the middle of all the action.  When I landed in Denver it was cold and raining.  This soon turning into snow.  As a matter of fact it is snowing now and has been most of the weekend.

Friday and Saturday I wen't to town cleaning and downsizing.   Went through all my closets, drawers and got a couple of piles ready for the garage sale.  Yes we are planning to have a garage sell in a couple of weeks.   We are painting the upstairs bedrooms.  We have finished one and are now getting ready to paint the office.   So we are cleaning off the shelves and will move the furniture tomorrow.

I had to get a break from cleaning today so I headed over to the shop.  I cleaned.  Then I set my attention to an old pencil sharpener.  Candy picked this up for her sewing room.   I cleaned it all up inside and out and then taped it off and painted what was black, pink.   It looks pretty good and am sure it will get lots of use.  Once we are done filling holes and painting I can make some new holes and hang this on the wall.

I have been collecting cuff links, specifically wrapped cuff links.  I usually by them in lots on eBay.  I can get them for about $7.00 a pair and estimate that they will re-sell in individual sets for about $20.00.

I have been wearing cuff links most days at work lately.  Last week when traveling I wore them each day.  I had been keeping them in a drawer with my watches.   I wanted to find another way to display them and this is what I came up with.

I already had the piece of ceder, it was in the scrap pile.  The pipe I had bought for another project.   I sanded down the wood, then cut a piece of pegboard the same size as the wood.  clamped it on and then used the pegboard holes as my template for drilling the holes for the cuff link studs.  The template worked great and made easy work of ensuring everything lined up.

I stained and sealed it.  Added felt to the bottom and then added the pipe to hold my watches.   The really came out nice and now I have some idea's on what I would do differently next time.

Candy is cooking up bacon and eggs for dinner.  Mmm smells good.  I am ready to eat.

Hooters

Hey everybody, welcome back.  I guess I should say welcome back to me really.   It has been several weeks since I put anything down.  I can't really tell you what I have been up to other than working.  Just a lot going on.

I decided I should put this down as I got some great pictures today of four owls.   I actually came across them last night while walking home.   I took some pictures with my phone, but I couldn't zoom in enough.

So this morning when I left to walk to work I took my good camera with me and the telephoto lens.   I have rarely come across owls in the wild, let alone four of them.

My Last Day

Well today did not go exactly as planned.  It is my last day of PTO and I was expecting a shipment today.  Unfortunately the weather did not help my cause.   I have purchased a 20ft. steel shipping container and it was supposed to be delivered today.  We had a blizzard and it closed several of the highways.  It wasn't bad at our house but Denver and the east side of town got hit pretty hard.  Now we are looking at tomorrow as it is supposed to be nice again.

With having the day off, I needed to find something to do so I spent the day finishing up my bathroom medicine cabinet.   I couldn't use the same light fixtures so had to go to plan B.  All in all it came out pretty nice.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.  I am actually thinking about selling this piece.

Stripping

I made my way over to the shop early Saturday morning.  I was thinking about making up another tiller wheel flower but didn't have all the parts I needed.  I cleaned up a little and once I had things looking pretty good, I started another project.

A year ago I had picked up an old medicine cabinet.  I can't really tell you much about it.  I think it is probably about forty or fifty years old.   I thought the lighting and the hardware on the front for holding soap and shaving cream were pretty cool.  My plan was to restore it at some point.   It was originally white, but someone had painted it red. It has been sitting under my work bench since I bought it, just taking up space.  

So this weekend I pulled it out and starting taking it all apart.  It came apart fairly easy, I couple of the screws took some work to get out.  Once I had it all apart, I started stripping the paint off.  I covered the cabinet in paint stripper and let is set.  The other hardware pieces I used a wire wheel to strip off the paint.  It took me all day just to get the cabinet stripped.  It required a couple of applications of stripper, along with the wire wheel and lot's of sanding.  I took the cabinet and all the hardware back to bare metal.

I returned Sunday morning and did some final sanding on the cabinet.  Blew all the dust out of it and then wiped it down with a rag and alcohol. 

Took the cabinet outside and sat in between two saw horses.   Sprayed a couple coats of primer to cover the bare metal.  In between coats and waiting for it to dry I worked on cleaning up all the other hardware.  

I made pretty decent progress today and even started to put it back together to see how things fit.  Still have work to do on the shaving cream holders, lighting and pull handle, etc. before I can take it apart again and start final painting.

Crazy Week

The week is over and I am ready for a break, been super busy.   Work has been busy and then I have been trying to work on a few projects in the evening if I am not out dumpster diving.   Dumpster diving you say, yes Candy and I did a little dumpster diving Tuesday after work.

So to fill you in, we have a bowling alley a couple of miles away from the house.   I had noticed last weekend that there was a big dumpster placed in front of the building and they were throwing out stuff and filling it up.   Tuesday evening we went out and on our way back we stopped by the bowling alley.

I pulled up along side the dumpster and we got up on the back of the truck so that we could see over the top.  Unfortunately it was mainly full of old boxes of paper, a few broken chairs.   We didn't really see anything that we could use.  I was hoping to find a few bowling balls or lane wood.   Something I could re-purpose.

I did manage to get my last rotary hoe tiller wheel completed for my yard art project.   I just need to spray it with sealer and all my tiller wheel flowers will be completed.   I need to start drawing up the plans for my base so I can estimate what I need.

I didn't get much walking in this week.  I think I managed about six miles for the week.  Shame on me.  At least it is the weekend and I do need to get out.

The weather is supposed to be great this weekend so it should make getting out a little easier.

No Title

 It’s been a busy weekend.  I spent a good portion of both Saturday and Sunday working at the shop.   I finished up my submarine.   That’s what I am calling it.   I have been working on this project for about six months.   Would add a piece every now and then when I got an idea.  I painted it so guess I am done.   Will most likely hang it from the ceiling at the Shop.

I cleaned up another rotary hoe tiller wheel and got it primed.   Will add some paint to it this week.  This will be my 5^th one so I will be just about ready to build the base.

I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend cleaning up around the shop.  I added a new wall shelf which looks pretty good and now I can get some stuff up high for display.  I will take a picture at some point.  I still have another section to go.

I wiped down on the work benches and swept and swept some more.  Now that I have it all cleaned up, I need to figure out another project.

I have been walking just about every day.   Crossed the 20/mile mark for the month.  Candy has been walking me halfway to work and we take Pebbles with us.   This is an image of the routes we have taken this week.

It's Always Funny

Don’t think badly of me, but one of my favorite television

shows is, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  What I have yet to figure out is how five people live off a bar that they never work in.   Danny DeVito cracks me up.  I can only imagine that he is having a blast.

Yesterday was an early start for me.  I had a video call at 6:00 AM this morning.  So up at 5:00 AM, showered and got dressed.  The call wrapped up about 6:30 AM.  I changed and put on my walking close.  I left the house at 7:00 AM and started walking to work.  It was a nice morning to be out on the trail.  I stopped and grabbed a breakfast burrito and milk on my way.

By the time I changed and got rolling it was 8:15 AM.  We are pretty lucky to have a shower/locker room at the office.  A quick rinse in the shower and a change of clothes, and I was ready to go.  I ate my burrito and drank my milk while I checked email.

I had planned on walking home that evening but it was gusting pretty decent.   I talked Candy into coming and pick me up.  We got home and she baked some chicken and asparagus.  It was a great dinner, very thankful.

This morning we all got out on the trail.  Candy, Pebbles and I left the house at 7:15 and made our way through the park.  On our way we came across some geese.  Pebbles stayed pretty cool about the situation and Candy snapped a couple of pics.

I left the office at 5:00 and started walking back home.  It was a great evening; the sun was still out so the days are getting longer.  Felt good to be out.

I have been jamming out to Elle King these last two days.  Love her voice and riffs.

Back to Work

Oh man, back to work tomorrow.   I managed to get a few things done around the house and shop this weekend.   On Saturday the temperature was in the mid 60’s.  This was the chance I needed to spray some sealer on a few projects.

Lemoyne Quilt Table by Dennis Robinson

I completed my Lemoyne quilt table this weekend.   I have been working on this since November.   The last thing that I needed to do was to spray the base with sealer.   It has just been too cold to do it. Well this weekend was the perfect weather.   Got it all sprayed and then once dried reassembled.

Now I need to get a glass top cut for it.  Still not sure what we are going to do with it.   It is a pretty awesome piece.   I just couldn’t get rid of it when we got a new table and had to give it a new life.

I finished painting another rotary hoe tiller wheel.   With the weather being so nice I was able to spray and seal them.  I now have four done and only need to do one more.    Three in the back and two in front should look pretty good.  The three in the back will be higher than the two in the front and they will offset each other.  With everything I have going on it will be a few weeks before I can start working on the base.

Rotary Hoe Tiller Wheel by Dennis Robinson

Rotary Hoe Tiller Wheel by Dennis Robinson

Rotary Hoe Tiller Wheel by Dennis Robinson

Rotary Hoe Tiller Wheel by Dennis Robinson

Our old dog Mable freaked out on us on Saturday.   We took off for our walk and headed up to BCP.   We let the dogs off the leash so they could run around.  Well old Mable decided she was going home.   When we would get close to her she would run.   Then just ran and headed back towards the way home.   She got away from us, but she found her way home.   She was there when we got back.  She is half blind and doesn’t hear well.  We have no idea what spooked her but she decided she was done and going home.

Today I spent about 4 hours at the shop.  It was a mess and I had stuff lying all over.   Took the air hose and blew the dust off the work benches and put all the tools away.  Cleaned up the trash and threw out some stuff I was holding onto and will never use, so I let it go.  Swept and swept some more. Looks pretty good and now I can figure out another project so I can mess it all up again.