when we went into lockdown (the first time) I thought: “I’ll just spend a lot of time working on upstairs and get it all finished.” Hahahha
Well, in spite of (or possibly because of?) the debacle of 2020, a few good things happened. Most notably, the majority of Americans were able to spot incompetence after four years of having it rubbed in our faces. And I got to vote for the first time in my life.
I ordered the mechanism for an adjustable height standing desk about.. three years ago.. and it’s been sitting in boxes in the garage since. I finally got enough prodding to stop delaying, and built the top for it. Of course, because it’s me, it was a little complicated.
I wanted it to fit into a corner in our office that’s next to the bay windows, so it has a 45 degree back. But the complicated part is the front: it curves. I used a piece of wood and some clamps to draw the curve, and cut a template out of a scrap piece of wood.
I found that putting a piece of masking tape on the top of the plywood makes the veneer on the top of the plywood splinter less.
The tricky part: I’m using oak veneer plywood, so I need to finish the edges with a piece of solid wood… and it needs to curve.
I’ve never steamed wood before, so after a bit of youtube research, I found a video with some guy making a steamer out of plastic piping. Looked quite simple: I had some old ABS pipe lying around, I figured I could make a simple wood top for the large kettle I use to brew beer, and channel the steam through another piece of flexible plastic hose from my shop vac. I put the piece of wood I wanted to steam inside the ABS pipe, and started up the steam. Just like the video.
Don’t believe what you see on youtube: The steam melted the pipes!
First the flexible plastic pipe became very flexible (similar to warm bubble gum). I quickly disconnected that – didn’t want to ruin it. I then connected to the ABS pipe with some pieces of metal pipe. Then the ABS pipe started melting!
I couldn’t get enough steam to properly bend the wood, so it split when I bent it. I don’t know how that youtuber made it work… I ended up with a bunch of Salvador Dali inspired pipes, but the wood didn’t bend.
Second try: This time all in metal. I bought a piece of metal heating duct to steam the wood in. Once the water started boiling in the kettle, steam was hissing out of all the cracks. I left the wood in there for almost an hour: My neighbors were very curious! It worked.
Here I’m gluing the curved wood edge onto the plywood. You can never have too many clamps…
The curved edge came out quite well.
My star trek command center.
It will never look this neat again, so I’d better post a photo:
… not that getting a fully adjustable desk is guaranteed to make my ergonomics any better, though…
Meanwhile…. We’ve never had anywhere decent to put our bike helmets. They were always balanced precariously on boxes and bags of building materials. So mole decided to make some shelves from a couple of old boxes that we found in the attic of the house.
Shell aviation fuel(?)
So neat!
I was wondering when this would happen: Hot water tanks must be one of the most wasteful inventions that are still part of houses. They are planned obsolescence incarnate. This large heavy contraption is in every house in the country, wastes energy all day long every day, and in the best cases may last fifteen years: you can even buy water heaters that are only expected to last five years!
The previous owners bought a good quality one that lasted about fifteen years, but it finally started leaking. 2020.
Luckily we can get anything delivered, including water heaters! I transferred the insulation blanket from the old one – I figure any extra insulation on a tank of hot water is a good thing.
Oh, and if 2020 didn’t have enough going on, it was also my fiftieth. Friends of mine threw big parties on theirs. For years I’d been thinking about the party I wanted to throw. I guess 51 is the new fifty?
Not all was lost, though: mole made me this incredible vegan chocolate torte. You all missed out.
I did get to see some people for my birthday, though. Friends put together a great bike ride up mount tam. It was incredibly foggy, cold and wet, but I was a very happy fifty-year-old. And I also went to visit my dad.
As a fiftieth birthday present to myself I decided to get a(nother) bike: This time, a gravel bike.
Actually buying a bike in 2020 turned out to be rather difficult. So I bought a frame, and all the parts, and put it together myself. And even that wasn’t without many hiccups. The first frame I received was the wrong color. Then it was missing many of the parts I needed to put it together, the most annoyingly difficult of which was one tiny bolt that holds the derailleur on the frame. Oh, and this is the first time I’ve done this. And none of the parts come with instructions.
After a few months of false starts, I finally got it together. Here’s a pic from my first ride: I really have nothing to complain about. Riding on a dirt trail looking out to the Pacific Ocean, with San Francisco in the background on a sunny day in winter, all I could think was “How truly lucky I am.”
