FUNNY STUFF

I DON'T MAKE EM, I ONLY PHOTOGRAPH EM

I really hope that is chocolate on that bus seat. - Calgary to Vancouver

Maybe the guy in the bus seat should have read this comic book, on the trip.

Ahhh the Breakfast of Champions

 

 Should we tell him the buses turning in the driveway won't show any major damage - Vancouver

The cat is reading books on survival?   Won't be sleeping soundly from here on. - Home

I only take the pics.

 Nothing like taking these corners HARDin FAST. - Abbotsford

 You would think people would get the hint. - Chilliwack

 I won't park in the no parking zone, but I will block everything else. - Mission

 Well, the sign did say trucks are good to turn left.  Maybe not the BIG trucks - New Westminster

 Whew, almost missed that pole.  Lines?  What Lines?

 JUST STEAKS..... ok ok ....  and other things. - Brampton

 I would hate to miss a payment here.   Would be sleeping with the fishes - Brampton

 ERROR?   The display?  or the whole Smart Meter Program?

 Fire zone is for the other guy.

SURE, He can get out of the passenger side!

MY HOW TIME FLIES

HIGHLIGHTS 2013

After, over a year, of battles with Explorer and its settings refusing to let me on my blog to post things, I will give it a try with Chrome.  Since an error message keeps popping up ever 4 - 5 minutes, I have little faith.

Here are the highlights of 2013 (although not in chronological order)

1) JOHNNY "CHAOS" TOUR

I've known John and his wife Deb for 30 years.  If you have ever heard the joke about the guy who knows EVERYONE, its about John, ...... and its no joke.  John knows EVERYONE.  Just ask the Pope.  Anyway, through divorces, raising kids and going our separate ways, we lost touch.

One night after work I was flipping though Facebook and got so discussed with all the lame crap people put on their Facebook pages, 'bored, going to bed', 'lousy day at work', ' nothing new, lottery winnings down to 9.9 mill' etc., I thought I would spice it up, so I posted the following in jest:

"WORLD TOUR UPDATE: Today, we made our final push to the summit of Everest. -68C. My defiant act of peeing from the top of the world, resulted in frostbite rendering my schlong into a schlort. ..... The wounds from last week's mauling are healing nicely. I am a hero in the eyes of the Toobootoo tribe. However, after updating my Toobootoo to English translator app for the Iphone5, I have since learned I was to be the Guest of Honour for the Annual Sibubbu Tree Planting Festival, NOT, the focus of the Siberian Tiger Chase and Ball Grab ..... [NOTE TO SELF - give that app a rating of one star only.] ..... I am excited about next week's search for the Blue Hairless Pigmy Yeti, of the Andes Mountains, with my trusted Weinerdawg, Frank. "

If you don't know me personally, I did that for MY benefit, and amusement.  Nothing more.  Afterall, if you DO know me, you know there is no such thing as a TRUSTED weinderdawg, since my near death mauling.  

Still laughing at my own creativity, I get a call on the phone.  Normally, if it is an Unknown caller, I just don't answer (HINT TO TELEMARKETERS THERE).  For some odd reason, the number looked vaguely familar, so I answered.  In a distant voice I heard "are you REALLY making your final push to the summit of Everest?".  In Bruster fashion, I started on a tirade about boring Facebook posts, and how I did it for my own amusement, and, oh by the way, who is this?   It was John.  

We chatted for a while, catching up on what was new in our lives, and made tentative arrangements to hook up one way or another, on my upcoming vacation to Ontario.  We did just that.  We hung out for a couple days, visited wineries in the Niagara region, (FACT:  Okanagan wines are superior, except for FOREIGN AFFAIR wines).  We have rekindled our friendship.  I must say it feels like I have found my long lost brother and sister.  

  

 Deb, Me, Denise, and John on the Niagara Wine Tour

Johnny 'CHAOS'

2.  ONTARIO TOUR

Vacations to Ontario are anything but relaxing.  Visited with my Inlaws, my sister Carole and her husband, Joe, although only briefly, and my buddy Richard and his wife Debra in Windsor.   

Took a drive up the St. Clair River where I spent 25 years diving.  

Ate Panzarottis at Tony's in London.  While there, I tried to get Tony to give me the recipe for his dough.  To no avail.  His son did suggest a West Coast Opportunity for a franchise might be worth investigating.  

Dinner in Mexican Town, in Detroit, er .... what's left of Detroit.  

Walked along the river front in downtown Windsor.  

Had a party for my Mother In Law's Birthday, got to see my new niece, Kennedy, and my Brother in Law, Bill.

Two weeks and it still wasn't enough time.  Never is.

My Inlaws, Jim, Isabel, and my lovely wife, Denise

3.  ARCHERY

Got a gift cert for my B-day, for some archery lessons / weaponry.  After about an hour of expert training, I was the proud owner of a new compound bow, ready for hunting big game.  But there was a catch.  The tips of the carbon arrows were glued in and needed to be stationary for 24 hours.  New Toy? No Play?  Dang.  Since it was winter, and in the afternoon when I got it, that meant I couldn't play until the next day, and it gets dark early. The following day it was pouring rain, still no sign of playing with my new toy in the great outdoors where the deer and the targets roam.  I decided to practice in the garage.  Now, The one thing I actually remembered my instructor saying was, "When you release the arrow, it should surprise you".  WELL, releasing didn't surprise me, but punching a hole through the garage door (4 inches thick), sure did.  

I have since discovered I am to be nominated for the Guiness Book of World Records, for the largest garage door taken by bow and arrow.  I'll post pics of it when it comes back from the taxidermist.  

I finally took it to the 'official' range and tried my luck. This was the first time with a compound bow.  

Was motivated enough that I actually made my own takedown longbow.

Yup those DO look like skis, Cross Country skis to be exact.

Denise liked it so much I made her one too.  Hers is right-handed.

More skis have been sacrificed for hers.

No animals have been harmed in the making of these bows, however, an Urban Compost Bin has been bagged, and my retaining wall suffered from testing.  I was so proud of my creations, I thought I would try my luck at making a fletching jig.  That's the thingie you put the feathers on the arrows with.  Now since I had never done any fletching, seen a fletching jig, or had any concept of how to design it, I guessed.  I knew you could put 2, 3 and even 4 feathers on the arrows, and I wanted my jig to be as versatile as possible, I created the UBER-jig.

 

Surprisingly, it works.  Now on to more projects.  I think a Crossbow is in order. 

4.  AQUAPONICS

Yup, that's right, aquaponics.   In brief, you have fish, fish poop, the poopy water is pumped into the growbeds, the plants eat the poop buffet, then poop themselves, the plant poop is pumped back into the fish tank and the fish eat the plant poop.  

This can be a shock to family members.  And it was.  In fact, I was teased relentlessly by my Uncle and Sister.  Some History.  My Dad had 52 fish tanks.  Is hobby not ours.  He would make my sister and I help him clean the stinky tanks.  Carole and I swore we would never have fish.  Hell, I couldn't even eat fish for about 30 years.  Now, I tell them I am going to get some fish?   HA.  More history,  my first wife wanted a garden in Clay Ground Central.  I had to get a rototiller to scrape the top surface of the clay to even plant anything.  Needless to say, I don't like getting dirt under my nails.  Enter my new, improved, favourite wife, Denise.  She showed me an aquaponics set up you could have in your home.  I liked it.  She was an avid gardener who produced lots of veggies for consumption, so I made her a deal,  I do the aquaponics, and help her with the garden, in return?  Hell I can't remember what the return was, but I ended up getting a little dirt under my nails helping.  We ended up with 11 4'x4' growbeds in the back yard, a greenhouse in the front driveway, and 3 (so far) cold frames that are still producing kale even in January.  I also am about to harvest a few habanero peppers that showed up in the little greenhouse.  All in all, it was quite the harvest.  Lots of peppers, beans, peas, squash, tomatoes (60 plants).  

Now to get everything ready for 2014.  Going to make a bigger greenhouse, more coldframes, and back off the number of peppers, since only I eat them.  

Oh and the fishes?   I started with 30 in January 2013, I still have 5, and they are fat assed fish, I'll tell ya.  A plan is in the works for a bigger system outside in the new greenhouse, since aquaponics makes the plants grow about 5x faster than out in the dirt.  

5.  STAY TUNED FOR MORE:   GRAHAM COMES TO VISIT, KITTY KAT KANBANS, TRAILER CONVERSION - BUNKER ON WHEELS, DENISE TAKES UP ARMS (SHOTGUN AND .308 RIFLE, MORE RETAINING WALLS, and BUGGING OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS

  

STUPID CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PUBLIC

Some people talk for the sake of hearing their own voice, and choose to ignore what is being said by the other person, the following exchange is case and point.  The following happened about a month or so, ago.  The names weren't changed to protect anyone.

Background.  While driving back from Kamloops I picked up, what I suspected to be a recent guest at the local government facility (jail).  He sat in the front seat and idle chat commenced.  Every time I said something it was responded to with ' Yes, Sir', or 'No, Sir'.  Which is a good indicator he had a newly required respect for any type of uniformed figure presented to him.  The conversation went as follows:

Me:  'Don't call me Sir, that's what you would call my Dad'.  (Even though he has passed away over 10 years ago.)

Dumfk: 'Oh, ok.  What does your Dad do for a living?'  (Odd question since I'm in my 50s and dear ol dad hasn't been working since bout 1985)

Me: ' He is a decomposer'.  (Ok, if you are running an IQ of 40 or more you just saw what I had said, HE IS DEAD)

Dumfk: "Oh?  Classical?' (I figured he meant dear ol Dad worked in an orchestra HAHA)

Me: 'Nope,  Subterranian'

Dumfk: "Cool"

The conversation abruptly stopped, except for the laughing from the other passengers within ear-shot of the conversation.  I had one lady get off the bus and thank me for the laugh of the week.  A man got off and said "They live among us, and breed".  Personally, I thought THAT was funny.

MY GARAGE FURNITURE

WELCOME TO MY MAN CAVE

I get teased by my friends, neighbors and wife about the furniture I made in the garage, FOR the garage.  Tends to bite me in the butt whenever Denise wants me to make her something for the house.  I really don't know why.

THE ROUTER TABLE

 

This was my first overall project for the garage.  It was a replacement to the MDF router table I had years ago, and brought with me from Ontario.  That is birch plywood from RONA.  No, it isn't expensive, this is some Chinese made stuff where the outer layers are about .010" of an inch thick.  You get it right the first time, or, you end up with red (YES RED) glue showing through. NOTE: This stuff is 'buyer beware'.  I have purchased some of this plywood where Mao's buddies forgot to (or cheapened out on the amount of) glue between the layers, but its 20.00 dollars cheaper than 'real' birch plywood'.  

The dimensions for the table were not overly critical except for one, the height, EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) in the garage had to  be 36" tall, while on wheels.  This allowed me to push a sheet of plywood through my table saw while using everything in my shop as a rest table for it, on its way.  Room is limited and I didn't want to have to take my table saw outside to cut a piece of plywood without it snagging on all the other 'furniture'.  As I mentioned, everything is also on casters so I can move it around while working on the bigger projects. Personally, I think its pure genius on my part.  HAHA

The drawer slides sure make up for the plywood.  These are Blum self closing drawer slides.  Get them close and they close by themselves.  Expensive?  Nope,  I bought 25 sets of these from Habitat for Humanity's RESTORE. NOTE:  For the record, I don't own HFHR, but I sure believe in what they do, I am a member, and, they have some fantastic deals if you are making things or building a house.  So I promote them whenever I can.  Want to guess where I got the solid brass drawer knobs?  

 One given, in the design was the use of a dust collecting guide.  I made this from .....  yeah... plywood. 

The lift table for the router is from Woodpecker.  I bought this at at wood show, and had it in storage until I actually had a garage to use it in.  This project was built around that and my DeWalt Router.

To keep the bits from rolling around, I made inserts for each diameter of the shaft.  I have tried a lot of bits, my favorites are FREUD.  Period.

THE STORAGE CABINET

This is the sister cabinet for the Router Table.

  This is the two cabinets together.  NOTE:  The finished Router Guide with Cherry inserts.  MAN, DO I LOVE WOOD.

 THE TABLE SAW

This is, without a doubt, my favorite machine. "This is my table saw, there are many like it but this one is mine".   It started life as a Delta with the cast table.  I personally loved it as is. However, I felt it needed a face lift to match the router table (which is a close second in the favorites category).

This was a bit tricky to make as it was to have a built in sawdust drawer, and side cabinet.  (Unfortunately, none of the pictures show the doors on it.  I ran out of wood (built from scraps from the other cabinets) and didn't want to buy a full sheet to finish the doors.  So I patiently waited until I acquired some from a future project.

The top drawer is actually fake.  I need that so I could get into the lower part of the saw for fine adjustments.  Want to guess what the height of the top of the table is?

THE TABLE SAW OUT TABLE

Even with all the furniture being the same height, I required some sort of out table for the saw.

This was, to say the least, and experimental prototype.  I used 2x2 wood (NOTE:  My pet peeve: nothing is the size they advertise), some 1 1/2 inch wood dowel, and some PVC pipe.  I wanted this to be a simple roller table that was easy to push a sheet of plywood over, and it had to be portable, meaning, removable from the tablesaw.  If you look closely, you can see a piece of aluminum angle attached to the back of the saw.  This was attached using holes that were already in the table.  

This is a picture of the table, disassembled, and folded up for storage.  It can be hung on the wall, when not in use.  In the future, I plan on redoing this table to make it a bit smaller, and have it fold in several places to make it less bulky.  Other than that, it works great. 

THE TAPER JIG

Ever try to cut a piece of plywood on a tablesaw to 45 degrees?  Sucks.  So I made this fully adjustable Taper Jig that conveniently fits over the table saw guide bar.  You simply set up the angle to the blade, put in your piece of wood, and push the jig through, using the guide as a .....well....  a guide.

 

THE LATHE TABLE

Now what would a workshop be without a wood lathe?  Well, I guess it would be a 'Latheless Workshop'.  HAHA.  Not mine.  I got this lathe as a gift from my Inlaws (not the capital I).  They know how much I love working with my hands.

 
Since I didn't have a lot of attachments and accessories for the lathe, I opted to make the table into a screw and nail storage cabinet.  Again all my criteria were met, Chinese Birch Plywood (and No, the drawers were not Mao Tse Tung-in-groove) There, got that joke out of the way.  I used eight casters for the weight, 36" high, and brass knobs.  What is missing on this cabinet is the Blum drawer slides.  The RESTORE didn't have enough of them for this project.  Thats 21 drawers.

The first two levels of drawers have sections built into them to hold the various sizes of screws and nails.  In the end....  I think I need more drawers.

THE WOOD RACK

 What's a wood shop without a wood rack.  I didn't want it to take up the whole garage so I settled on this design.  The arms are removable, and are held in place with 1/2"  dowel pegs.  They can be removed to accommodate more or less wood as needed.  Each arm is about 12 inches long.  In the picture the top horizontal support board has holes every few inches, this allows me to move the vertical supports around as I see fit.  I hated the thought of having a permanent structure blocking my next machine purchase.

HOME PROJECT: AIR FILTER

MY HOMEMADE AIR CLEANER

I spend a lot of time working with wood in my small garage/workshop.  Even making a few cuts on the table saw will put a lot of dust in the air (No, I don't have a dust collector....yet).  I happened to be strolling through my absolute favorite store, Habitat for Humanity's RESTORE, and found a blower for sale, so I scooped it for $25.00.  This was the start of my air cleaner.  Now that the hard part was done, I bought a furnace filter to be used to catch all the dust in the air. 

 

I had no absolute dimensions for the size of the box, other than, it had to house the blower, and it had to fit a common sized furnace filter.  I had lots of scrap chipboard I 'acquired' at the local landfill site, when I was dumping branches, at the same time some carpenters were dumping almost full sheets of chipboard, so that was the foundation for the box.   NOTE:  The framing for the opening is inset.  This is to allow the filter to be flush with the outside of the box. Make sure you put some sort of framing in the center of the filter area, or the blower will suck the filter in.  

I then wired the blower to a pull cord to give me three different speeds.  The pull cord switch was purchased at Home Depot.

 

Next came the filter door.  I used a piano hinge that I had kicking around, and a simple latch to keep it closed.  Ok Ok, the hinge doesn't match the white, and steel motif of the filter, but I didn't have to buy one.  I then used a louvered vent cover to create the air return.

Eyebolts were then installed in the top of the cleaner box to mount it to the ceiling.  Make sure you put washers on them or the vibrations may eventually pull the nuts out of the box.  And no one wants their nuts pulled!!

The finished air cleaner mounted to the ceiling.  How does it work you ask?  The garage is 23ft by 13ft x 10ft high.  This will clear out the dust in the garage in about 2 minutes.  That is satisfactory for me, since I turn it on BEFORE cutting wood. Total cost, about 45 dollars.

DESPERATE TIMES IN MISSION BC

QUESTION: HOW DESPERATE DO YOU HAVE TO BE?

SOMEWHERE, IN MISSION, BC.  MAYBE HE NEEDED A QUARTER TO STEAL A SHOPPING CART AT THE SUPER STORE.