Monkey

I was fortunate this evening to surprise an operative from the Mouse Army in the open deep within my territory. He scrambled for cover, and in doing so made a fatal error that I believe has given me a great advantage in this war. He took cover via a path that I had not yet seen evidence of their forces utilizing, and in doing so revealed a previously hidden passage across The Frontier into enemy territory.

I retaliated immediately, mounting a counter offensive deep into the bowels of enemy controlled land. These operations are always difficult… the enemy’s land is deep below mine, cramped, dark, and dusty. Although not their allies, The Spider Coalition makes travel here slow and difficult. I was able to observe the newly discovered passage from their perspective, and confirmed it was an easy means of access across The Frontier. I also discovered a recently formed outpost much further from The Frontier than I expected. I destroyed the outpost, and applied Great Stuff liberally to the newly discovered passage, and to another suspected passage along the Western Border.I believe that History will show this to be a turning point in this war.

This morning a routine patrol of The Frontier revealed yet another operative from the Mouse Army had been snared in one of my carefully laid traps. His attempts to sway me with his little black mouse eyes was a fruitless attempt at deception as I have come to understand that underneath their façade they are, in a word, ruthless. I attempted once again to use this operative against his brethren by releasing him very close to the Eastern Border and observing his movement, but his actions were not as revealing as the last time.Before releasing the captive I attempted to mark him, so I could begin to understand the size and command structure of the Mouse Army. My attempts to recover the operative from my trap and hold him for marking was a failure, though, as he quickly escaped my grasp and evaded further immediate capture. I have a new plan that I will use with the next captive…

Helen was accepted as a member of the Parklane Gallery in Kirkland recently. She hung her first two photographs this week, and they have her bio page up on their site now: http://www.parklanegallery.com/artists/todd/. She’ll have her photography there year round, so go by and see it some time. She’ll have new work there each month. You can also check out her web site here: http://www.artgeekstudios.com/

I got something else at the Woodcraft sale yesterday, too: a tenoning jig. I got Woodcraft’s model, which is the same a lot of name-brand ones out there. I turned out to be a nice jig, once I cleaned it up. It came packed with so much oil and grease it was amazing. I had to completely disassemble it to get all the goop off of it. Then I cleaned it up with some kerosene and waxed the machined faces really well then put it all back together. It cut my first tenon on it after squaring it up to the saw and it worked really nicely.

I’ve wanted a decent drill press for a long, long time and today I finally got one. I took advantage of the summer sale at Woodcraft and got a Powermatic 18″ drill press (PM2800). The table is much bigger than normal, and it has wings that extend to support longer work. It also has a continuously variable speed control from 400 to 3000 RPM and a digital speed readout. I’m super happy with it so far :)

We made a few things out of some nice cedar for the yard recently: a couple of compost bins, a raised planting bed, and a potting bench for Helen. I got all of the wood from Issaquah Cedar and Lumber and I’m really happy with it. They were very helpful. I ended up getting some 13′ rough cut 5″x5″ yellow cedar beams to make the planting bed. For the rest, I got 4″ or 6″ wide rough fence boards, all 4′ long.The compost bins are 4 feet square and 3 feet high, with the slats separated a bit to let air in. The front slats are removable to get material in and out more easily, and allow it to be turned. We put them out of the way near the fork in the road at the end of the driveway. We’ll see how they work out!

The planting bed is 9′ x 4′ x 15″ deep. The beams are on a thin bed of gravel, and we put about 3″ or so of gravel in the bottom for better drainage, then filled the rest with some nice topsoil. This took longer to build than I thought… leveling the site took some work, then drilling the beams and driving rebar through them and into the ground was entertaining when I ran into some rocks. It all worked out okay in the end, though.

For the potting bench we dried the fence boards then ran them through the planer and picked the nicest ones. The wood was for the most part fantastic: fairly clear, with a wide variety of grain patterns and color. We machined the boards we liked square and built the bench out of them plus a few cedar 2×4’s. We tested one so-called “clear” finish on a scrap board and didn’t like it, so I ended up using two coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane clear satin. It looks and feels gorgeous, and although finishing took way longer than actually building it, it was well worth it in the end.

I filled the truck up today and although the cheapest diesel I could find near us was $4.899, I consider it a bargain. Diesel has been more expensive that regular by about 20% for quite some time now, but now it’s only 15% more with regular being around $4.25 these days. Most places that sell diesel seem to have stopped raising the price at just shy of $5.00, while continuing to raise the price of regular. I think they are afraid to price anything at $5.00 because they don’t want the psychological impact when people see that, even if it’s not the kind of fuel they’re buying. I figure at some point they will let diesel go above $5.00, but until then I’ll be happy with “cheaper” fuel

Oh, and the total bill? $147.37. It took ~30 gal of fuel… apparently I have almost 5 gal left when the needle says empty.

I went to Alpental today with Simon. Yes, today… May 17th. We’ve had an especially cool Spring and all the extra snow we had this winter has remained up there. Coverage at the area was amazing for this time of year. There were some bare patches starting to form, but really only where snow has trouble accumulating during the season, or in places where it seems it had been groomed a little thin. The snow banks in the parking lots are still above the cars.

It was amazingly warm up there today. It hit 70 at the top, with an inversion making it cooler at the base. It felt much, much warmer than that standing in the sun. We slathered ourselves in sunscreen and wore a little as possible. The snow was melting fast, but it didn’t matter since there was so much of it up there. There were a lot of places where the snow lower on the slope is pulling away from the snow higher up, forming fissures that in some cases were quite deep (over 10ft). Sometimes you could see them from above… other times, well, you had to hop quickly.

Overall, a fantastic day of Spring riding.

Alright, I’ve enjoyed this too much not to share it: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/Pork

Helen and I started planning our trip for next winter. We’re thinking of snowboarding in Utah, probably around Park City since we’ve already done Snowbird and surrounding areas. Then we’ll head to CO for some more riding, then take the 50 all the way to Squaw Valley, stopping along the way for ample picture taking opportunities for Helen. After that, we’ll head for Mt. Bachelor, OR, and then home. Here’s a picture of a potential route. We’ll flesh out the details over the summer, and see if we end up with a trailer for this trip or not!

For info on our last big winter trip in 2006, see this post.