Category: Blog

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

The weather is wrecking havoc with my flagpole. Usually it’s really dry in Denver, and I hadn’t been worried about setting up outside and building a flagpole. However rain is in the forecast far too many days, and we’ve had light showers or heavy thunderstorms too often. The jig I built is trash, so scrap $30 and a few hours of work there. Add in the volunteering on Tue/Thur and my plans are slightly wrecked.

I need to rethink things and also plan better moving forward.

First, I think that to taper the flagpole with the jig, I need to get that done in fairly short order. I’m thinking 2 days max to set things up, measure and align the jig, and then cut the posts. If I can do that, then I can always store the pieces inside for a few days until the next step.

Second, that means I need to plan for a couple days of work around the volunteering. I’m scheduled for Tue/Thur, this week and next, which messes things up a bit. I’m thinking I need to move or cancel next Tue’s shift and try to get this moving. Then I can pick up more volunteer shifts after that.

Last, I need to re-examine exactly what I need to do for the tapering and get prepared. Today’s plans, being tired, and having a speaking engagement tonight, mean that I’m going to re-watch the video, plan out the work, write it down, and also order a few other supplies. I’m also thinking to start moving some rocks where the base will go and get that prepped while I have a few half days.

I’m also going to buy a new miter saw. This project, Father’s Day, and a little drooling are giving me a good excuse.

Those are the plans early in the morning.

The Results

How did the day go?

Bad. As soon as I got back from PT, I was doing some planning on paper when the thunder started. I thought I might do a touch of stuff outside, but no go. I iced the knee a bit and watched the DVD for the flagpole again, making some notes so that I understood exactly what I needed to do. I have a better idea of how to get the jig set up and cut things quickly.

It was sprinkling outside as I measured some space in the garage to see if I could store wood. I could, so I went shopping. First I ordered the glue from Amazon. I’m not sure how quickly I’ll need it, but I will need it and I don’t want more delays.

Next I packed up and went to Lowes. I’ve been eyeing miter saws, trying to decide between a 12” saw, a 10” slider, or splurge on a 12” slider. On one hand I’d like to invest in some nice tools. On the other hand, I don’t know if I need to. I’m still an amatuer, and not sure how mich “fine” work I’ll do. I was really thinking the Hitachi C12FCH 12” saw, after seeing some good reviews. However it doesn’t have indent adjustments and that worries me if it’s not square. I can adjust things, but I’d like to have it easy.

The DeWalt 12” is pricey (the slider is crazy), but then I was wondering if I needed 12”, and if I spent $250 on the DeWalt, should I just go $400 for the Hitachi slider. Part of my concern was that most of these are large, needing 24”x24” in some cases. Most space than I want to give up.

Then I saw a few nice reviews on 10” sliders, including the Kobalt Lowes brand. At $200, that’s hard to pass up, and width often matters more to me than height. So I decided to hit Lowes and grab one, along with the flagpole wood. I spent a few minutes looking thought the 16’ and 12’ boards to get some that were quartersawn, hoping to prevent some movement.

I got back, and in sprinkling rain, I unloaded wood. That was about it for the sabbatical. I had an engagement at the Denver Women in Technology group, and that was my evening.

Tomorrow is up early for my first Habitat Build.

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

Yesterday was a very long day. I left the house at 8am and didn’t get home until after 10:30pm. I was beat, and I realize how easy life is for my most days.

The day started with a shift at the ReStore. I arrived, walked right in, signed in and grabbed gloves and was immediately given a project.

There are lots of faucets for sale, and more coming in all the time. They are displayed on wooden pieces that have 3 holes cut in them for the faucet to fit inside. The display area was about half full and the manager showed me the large pile of faucets in the back and asked if I’d mount and them them ready.

One thing I’ve noticed is that quite a few people volunteering seem to be doing it for some Community Service hours. I think a lot are either seniors in high school that need hours to graduate, or court ordered volunteers. Most of the people need hours tracked and forms signed. I’ve also seen a lot of them not be familiar with tools.

It was a quiet day, and I enjoyed the first 3 hours. My task was to grab some scrap wood, mark out the places for holes, and then drill them out. Once they were done, I mounted the faucet inside, got a price on it and put it out on the display. Easy, necessary work. I ran through the wood I had, found a few more pieces, got permission to cut them, and continued on, eventually emptying the pile of faucets from the bins. There were plenty more that needed to be checked, but there are certain volunteers that do that.

I unloaded a delivery truck and helped a few people load their purchases as well, all good breaks from the constant drilling and cutting work I was doing. I took a short break to grab some food and then came back to ask what else I could do. I almost wish I’d found something because the guy asked me to look at the tile aisle and clean it up. Apparently people are stacking partial boxes of tiles on top of others when there are slots to display the tiles like records. Small on a long shelf, big on a lower set of pallets with rails.

Moving tile is hard work, and most of the work was with big tiles on the lower shelves. I arranged things, cleaned up areas, and managed to make the aisle look good before I left at 2. I had to take a few breaks and sit down a few times and my knee was aching a bit during the day. A hard day.

And only half over. I also had class. I’d arranged my shift on the same day as class to limit driving, which was good. However it made for a long day. I had 3 hours between work and class, so I grabbed lunch (a protein bar wasn’t enough), read some homework I had, sat in the student lounge for an hour and tried to relax, and then went early to do some sharpening.

I managed to get my chisels sharp, removing the machine marks from the back, and also getting the back flat. I finished just after class started, and was happy. That put me behind on sharpening a plane iron, but since my board was flat, and others hadn’t done that, I wasn’t worried. In fact, since my board looked good, I then flattened the other side. Either I’m getting good, got an easy board, or others aren’t doing well, because I showed the instructor both sides. He then challenged me to make the sides parallel.

Hmmm. I knew a planer would do this, but how to do it by hand? He actually showed me that using a marking tool and then a pencil, you can find a parallel thickness. We marked my board and one corner was the low spot, with the other three, and most of the board, high. I’d actually build some sort of trapezoid. I went to work getting it close, but didn’t finish before we moved on to learning to square a board. We learned how to flatten a side and then get the next edge parallel.

That was a challenge and much harder. I got one side flat fairly easily, but the second side was almost angled away. I marked it, planed, checked, and struggled. At one point I either went too far, or I had the board backwards, but by the end of class, 3 hours later, I almost had it square. Just a little off.

However I was tired, so I called it a day.

My company, Red Gate software, has given me a 6 week sabbatical. I’m documenting the time with all the posts under a tag if you want to follow along.

After a semi-relaxing weekend, I was ready to get going this morning. However things weren’t going my way.

Catch Up

I spent part of Saturday catching up with a few things. Since I got cut short last week, I spent a few hours getting my plywood cut out and ready for the jig. I worked with a straightedge and cut 3 8” strips out.

I then used biscuits to join them together and I had a long, 24’ base that I set on my workbench. I used some clamps to hold things down and let it dry.

However the weather didn’t cooperate. A light rain and wind Saturday, and then a big storm with hail on Sunday. As a result, all of the work I did on Saturday morning was a bust. The plywood warped a bit and the biscuits came out on one of the joints.

Monday

When I got out there this morning, one of the joints had pulled loose and the other one was badly warped. As I look at it, I think the jig is toast for this project. Not a hue big deal as I can re-use the plywood for scrap work, some other jigs, some shop stuff.

However it meant that my plan to add the cleats for the jig were ruined this morning. Not a big deal, and I decided to make a few small buckets to hold spare parts, which will be handy as I do other work.

I started cutting some pieces, and I was ready to assemble a few little drawers, but nailing brads didn’t work well. I left to go to Pilates, and when I came back, I realized that I couldn’t get these assembled today without other brads. I added them to the list, along with marine wood glue and more plywood.

I then decided to work on some horse jumps, which I’ve needed to do. These are good projects, and items I’ve never built. I set up some 4x4s outside on the bench and drew lines across.

Next I started to hog out the space in between my lines, using a circular saw to cut things down. A lot of sawdust being made today.

I managed to complete the two dados (slots) and then I took the two pieces and stuck them together. A couple of deck screws held them and I had the side of one jump.

It went pretty quick, other than lots of sawdust, so I did 3 more, giving me two jumps. The cross pieces went on the list as well.

I did manage to get a few other things done outside as well. I sharpened a bench chisel and a couple of turning chisels outside, which I’ll compare to the ones I do in class with waterstones.

I also built a small shelf to hold my circular saw, so that it has a home rather than laying below a workbench. My plan is to get this into a drawer or mount it on the wall, but that’s for another day.

At that point I had to knock off and cook dinner for the kids. Not a lot done on the flagpole, but I did get a list of supplies to purchase tomorrow or Wed morning and I also realized that I need to get my jig setup and covered if there’s weather. Nothing in the forecast for now, but once I get more plywood and put this together, I’ll need to cut my flagpole pieces quickly.

I do need to also buy my long pieces, but I’ll do that when I get other supplies. I learned a few things the other day about wood grain and warping, and I’ll put those into play and pick out some good pieces. That might have to wait until Friday or Saturday, when I have time to go through a lot of wood at Home Depot.

I’m also still debating what to do about the miter saw. Mine is old and not great for cutting larger pieces of wood. It also won’t bevel pieces, which I need to do for this project. I’ll likely drool over a few saws Tues or Wed as I pick up other supplies.

Tomorrow is volunteer day for Habitat.

I made it a week. Actually over a week as I hadn’t checked any work email since my last Friday at work, May 30. I’ve seen the counts creeping up in Outlook and on my phone, but I’ve made it a point to not actually open mail.

I’m not sure what happened today, but when I got a notification that my wife had sent me a note about my daughter’s volleyball camp, I hit Mail on my phone and ended up in our corporate email system. The first thing was a note from Grant, about our talk in Boston on Sept 10. I read it, because I was wondering, and replied to him.

That’s it, or it was going to be it. I saw a few spam things I deleted.

However, that wasn’t the big interruption. I had committed to speak at the Denver WIT group this coming Wednesday and while I had gotten most of the deck done, I hadn’t gotten it all, so I decided this morning would be a good time to work on it. Most of the deck is done and I know what I’m talking about, but I need to add some images and organization to the deck and practice a bit. It’s a short 30 minute talk, so that’s pretty easy for my at this point.

If you are in the Denver Tech Center this Wednesday, and want to learn about starting to speak, come join is at the Microsoft Office in the Denver Tech Center. 7595 Technology Way, Denver, Suite 400. At the intersection of I-25 and I-225. Apparently I’m doing a talk and a workshop

June WIT Wednesday

• In-Person @ 7595 Technology Way, Suite 400 Denver , Colorado, United States (map)
• 17:30 – 20:30 Mountain Daylight Time
• Language: English

Featured Presentation:

Creating Your First Technical Speaking Opportunity

Steve Jones, Editor SQLServerCentral.com

This session will cover the basics of choosing a topic, writing an abstract, building a slide deck, and finding an opportunity to deliver your presentation.

About Steve:
Steve Jones has been working with SQL Server since 1991 and has been a DBA in a variety of large and small companies and industries. In 2001, Steve founded SQLServerCentral.com with two partners and has been publishing technical articles and facilitating discussions among SQL Server professionals ever since. He currently is the full-time editor of SQLServerCentral, owned by Red Gate Software.

Abstract Workshop

Steve Jones, Editor SQLServerCentral.com

We will brainstorm on potential presentation topics and write up draft abstracts.

About Steve:
Steve Jones has been working with SQL Server since 1991 and has been a DBA in a variety of large and small companies and industries. In 2001, Steve founded SQLServerCentral.com with two partners and has been publishing technical articles and facilitating discussions among SQL Server professionals ever since. He currently is the full-time editor of SQLServerCentral, owned by Red Gate Software.