What the UPS Guy Brought

Got the first galleys of The Portable Dad today.

Kinda cool. Kinda a lot of damn work.

I'll focus on the cool side tonight...

The Idgie Containment System

Well it is after today.

It was a beautiful day today - mid to upper-70s, leaves changing, etc. etc. I was outside fussing with the wiring on the '02, and let the dogs come out with me. AD was in a class at the gym, (so it's not all my fault...)

Anyway, the horn is on the bad circuit I was working on and I got it to work and tested it a few times and AD gets home and the dogs are gone. Gus visits his dog friends sometimes when he's out, but always comes home. Idgie doesn't wander. When I let her out like that she snuffles in the creekbed and suns herself on the steps.

But she doesn't like high-pitched noises and apparently the horn chased her away.

It's 11 a.m. when we start looking for her. (Found Gus in like two minutes.) Can't find Idgie, and she's so deaf that she's not going to hear us call and whistle even if she's two feet away. (I think the only noises she can hear are the ones she doesn't like.)

We look all day, walking and driving, and no Idgie. I hoped that I'd have luck after dark with a flashlight - she can see. It worked. She was two blocks away, belly was wet (how, we don't know) but not in any apparent duress after her 6-hour outing.

So quite a stressful day, all in all.

Let's Hear it for Australian Doctors!

For it was a doctor in Queensland who claimed the honor of buying the first item from the Some Say... superstore.

The latest design is this - the autobahn sign signifying no speed limit. Saw it in a catalog and replicated it on a nice selection of items. Check them out!

More Stuff. No Sales.

But who wouldn't like this to keep car-related notes?

Having Far Too Much Fun

My shop isn't setting any first-day sales records or anything, but I'm having far too much fun designing stuff.

It'd be easier, of course, if I had any actual design ability...

Just in Time for Holiday Shopping

Check out my growing selection of quality Top Gear at my new Cafe Press store, Some Say...

(And notice how deftly I sidestep copyright laws...)

We Like a Project...

This planting bed that dresses up the parking area fence is the latest. The ground was hardpan clay and came out slow. (Picks are evil tools. Effective, but evil.) Dug out about 18-20 inches, added rock and a 4" perforated drain pipe. Diane dug up nice soil from the creek area to refill the planter bed, and bulbs are going in it soon. The cedar border I made from the cut-off ends of split rail fence posts I'd saved from that project.

Notice anything different on the '02? Check out Everything's Shiny for the answer...

Like Water off a Duck's Back

Yep, we did go to the Cal-Oregon game yesterday, and yep, we got wet. VERY wet. Pruney-finger wet. Wore water repellent coats and pants and it didn't make a damn bit of difference wet. The saving factor was that it wasn't freezing. (That would have been really bad and somewhat dangerous.) Frankie did catch the baton - two hands - but a catch is a catch, especially given the weather. Cal won, which was a nice bonus for us.

Today I built this compost bin. All wood I had in the scrap pile. It's 3 x 3 x 2 feet tall - plenty to get us started. None of the fence-board pieces I had left over were 3 feet long, so all the slats are made from two 18-inch pieces. The 2x4s sticking up at the corners were on purpose. Diane thought she might want it one board higher, so I left the corner posts sticking up to make that easy should we choose to do it. I think this will work out, though, and if so I'll cut them off flush.

I also made some improvements to the '02, but you'll have to visit Everything's Shiny for the details...