Everything's Shiny

Since everybody has been prettying up their blogs, I thought I'd get in on the act.

Then I discovered/remembered that I'd tweaked this template pretty hard with a lot of html coding I stole from Koji's Kitchen, and that doing much too it would take a whole lot more time than I have to devote to it this week.

So I prettyied up my other blog - unused until now - Everything's Shiny. I'll use that one as a car and motorcycle blog, geared toward folks who also drive and ride early '70s BMWs. I suspect I'll double post most stuff, but who can tell?

The GCS (and Bridge!) is Finally Finished

Here's proof.


The last two shots are from the street. The sloping section plays tricks on your eyes. It angles back as well as down, but you really can't see that from the street.

Hyper or Ubber?

Having just watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (twice) and having immediately checked out the T-shirt prices, I'm just not sure if the proper phrase is hyper geek or ubber geek.

A Breath of Fresh Air

On Friday I was driving back from Sonora about 10:30 a.m., feeling crappy because of the smoke and deicided I'd had enough.

At 1 p.m. we were in the car, and 4:15 in Half Moon Bay. Here's proof.

Yes, that's Idgie making sand angels.

A Sweet '74

As promised...

Made the three-hour drive home no problem - despite the 110-degree heat!

Non-Fence News Coming

Stay tuned...

A Dog Run No More

Today I depressed myself.

I designed the new section of fence for the creek, and it's so pretty I have to build it. And the bridge that's part of the design. I went from being done with the GCS to really just getting started again - and having to dig 15 new post holes.

I am tired of post holes.

But instead, I dismantled the old dog run.

Here's some before and after. Obviously I still need to deal with the metal bits still sticking up out of the concrete, and clean up underneath.

This was enough for today, though.

Function 1, Form 0: The Tyranny of the Pretty

The GCS passed it's first test this morning. Gus went out, walked the perimeter, then sort of staked out the high ground in the middle of the yard from where he could keep an eye on the whole neighborhood.

Diane and I had our morning coffee at the picnic table out back, and both dogs just hung out. What I hoped would happen, and what I think I saw the beginnings of this morning, is that we've created and defined Gus's territory. I think instead of trying to escape from it, he'll protect it. And, per Dave's suggestion, we'll call it the Wildland Gus Reserve.

So while the GCS passed the first function test, it hadn't been complete for 20 minutes last night before I decided it failed the form test. The problem is this:

The cedar portion of the fence is too pretty to have function-only ugly wire stapled to it. The wire along the split rail border is fine - you mostly see the split rail and the wire blends. But the last bit where we just used wire to close the circle just doesn't look nice enough.

It's the tyranny of the pretty.

So the plan now will be to carry the cedar down the slope and across the creek to the western border of the property. (Or, more accurately, to the spot somewhat beyond the western border where we decide we want our fence.) It'll be set deeper on the property than the fence in the picture and scaled down a foot so it really might look nice. The west-edge split rail will extend forward at least to the new fence (for now - to the street eventually), so the enclosure will be all finished off and square and there will be no butt-ugly lengths of wire fence.

Who needs a project car when you have Gus!

G.C.S Status: Operational

The Gus Containment System is operational and will begin real-world testing tomorrow morning.

Top picture is the driveway side of the house, with the gate finished.

There's no elegant way to run the wire across the creekbed, but we did angle it away from the house. With stuff growing on it and around it, hopefully it doesn't look too bad. I may try to design a more elegant fence over there eventually, but since it's cutting across our lot and not bordering it, it's tricky.

The east side hasn't changed much since the last photo - the wire inserts are there but don't really show in the photo. The last photo is 70mm telephoto from the driveway fence to the back property line. The wire fence (four-foot high) really doesn't show much. Light reflects off of it, but when it's in shade it really isn't horribly ugly. And it's functional.

If the testing goes well and the GCS works as hoped, the next thing we'll do is remove the old dog run that was here when we moved in. It's tiny and heavy looking and having it gone should improve the back views of and from the house immensely.