A man's got to know his limitations.

Thank you Backwoods Savage . I appreciate the good words. I've had that cookie in my basement for about three years. I figured sooner or later it would fulfill its destiny. ( I didn't know what that was until a few weeks ago! ) I don't have any projects planned in the near future. I go back to school in less than two weeks ( This will be my 31st year teaching math ). Once the school year starts things get really busy. I'm hoping to retire in another five years or so. I'm looking forward to those cool fall days when I can be outside concentrating on CSS instead of teaching Algebra to the youth of America. I do like my job, and I get better vacations than just about anybody except professional athletes and politicians, but I still am very much looking forward to retirement! By the way, I enjoy your posts very much and have learned a lot from you.

 

Great job! Custom made for your application, sized to your specs, and personalized by you. No one else has one like it and can not buy one anywhere. Imperfections happen in most projects but the only one to notice is the one that built it. I commend you for using your hands to build something you needed instead of your wallet. Not everyone can do that.

 

Thank you imwiley1 . There is a certain satisfaction gotten from conceiving a mental image of what you want to build and actually making it happen. I think you are correct about imperfections happening in most projects. I remember when I was a kid and we were all at my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving sitting around the dining room table. During dinner my grandfather got sort of quiet and was staring at the new wallpaper he had put up in the dining room a month or so before the holidays. He commented that he hadn't done a very good job matching the pattern. None of us could see anything wrong, but he wasn't satisfied. I guess it's hereditary. Anyway, I appreciate the good words!

 

I like it!

 

Thanks TurboDiesel ! Since we're almost neighbors I thought I'd mention to you what I saw in our local paper today: The National Weather Service out of State College said that as of August 6th this has been the wettest year-to-date on record. 40.94 inches have fallen as measured at the Harrisburg International Airport, beating the previous year-to-date record set in 1972 which showed 40.80 inches. This was in The Daily News but it may have been in the Altoona Mirror also.

 

Hey Two Socks.....is that little drive in/ice cream place still in business beside Route 22 on the right headin toward Water Street???
Biggest mix cone I ever got....I used to stop there when I was goin upstate.....

 

Paesano's. It's still there.

 

Yep.....that's it....I think before summers over....we r gonna ride the bike up for a cone...

 

Hey bear 1998 . I see TurboDiesel beat me to the punch. Yes, they give generous portions and the attached restaurant ( Paesano's ) has great food at very reasonable prices. If you do come up this way, you could stop and introduce yourselves and even drink a cold one if you want. Just let me know.

 

Ill do that...

 

I'll do my best. That's a great story about how you were basically forced into algebra and then you ended up really enjoying it and excelling in a big way, even in advanced algebra. Life can take some strange turns for sure. My certification is grades 7-12, but I have mainly taught middle school in my career, especially 8th grade, which is when most kids are taking algebra 1 nowadays. Even 8th grade students who are not taking algebra 1 are still getting a lot of algebra 1 topics with the Common Core curriculum. This year I will be teaching three subjects: Algebra I, Algebra II, and Common Core 8th grade. I had a particularly strong group of 7th graders in Algebra I last year that I will have this year in Algebra II as 8th graders. My first 15 years of teaching were in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I would have liked to have stayed in the Pittsburgh area where I was born and raised, but when I graduated from college many of the steel mills had shut down and teaching jobs were hard to come by. So, I moved to where there was a demand. Shortly after my son was born I moved my family back to my home state of Pennsylvania. I was hired in a small rural school district here in Huntingdon County. The kids are great. ( Mostly farm kids who are respectful and hard-working.) I know a lot of people knock the youth of today, but if my students are any indication, I don't think we older folks need to fret too much about this country's future. Anyway, I've really fallen in love with central Pennsylvania and its rural/small-town environment. This is my home now and where I plan to stay. I read in one of your posts that you have a son living in Pennsylvania. I hope he's enjoying this great state!

 

Looks great! In all honesty I'm seeing nothing wrong with it. That would be something I'd be proud to own. I suffer from being somewhat of a perfectionist being a former machinist and now working with computers. You being a math teacher you can understand that you have to discipline your mind for precision in the kind of work we do. Anyways sometimes I get bogged down in the details and lose perspective on the project as a whole. My wife, who is not a perfectionist in the least, helps me keep things in perspective. What's funny is people pay a premium for those "imperfections". You could weather that wood slap a vintage tag on it and get a few hundred bucks for it.
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When I get time I would like to give timber framing a go for a few projects we'd like to do for the house. I would also like to try traditional woodworking. I've checked out a few of Paul Sellers youtube videos out and the are fantastic. He has a full online training course that I'd like to check out but with work and kids there isn't much time. Anyways great work Two Socks!

 

Thank you SkidderDone . I was just about to go out to lunch with my wife who has the day off. We're going to get some wings at a local tavern where an acquaintance of mine is a cook. He assures me the wings are terrific! I'll write more later on today.

 

Skidder loves wingys!

 

Great job, Spirit of Two Socks, imperfections are a result of hand crafting! My great uncle was a cabinet maker. He built his daughter a raised ranch, the side by side stairwells have 256 hearts with 1 by 1 dowels for ballisters. They call it house love built. He was asked many times to replicate. He refused as it took him weeks!!

Great job teaching children math also. Drives me nuts when people can't perform simple math!!

 

Thanks a lot Canadian border VT . Wow, those side-by-side stairwells sound awesome! I really can't imagine the skill level and patience your great uncle must have had to do a job like that.
Basic math really is a necessity even in this age of calculators and computers. One time, in Virginia Beach, I went to the deli section of one of the grocery stores. It was a Friday afternoon and I wanted to cook out cheeseburgers on the small grill I had on my patio at the apartment I was renting. I already had the ground beef; I just needed the cheese. I asked for a fourth of a pound of sliced Swiss cheese. The young woman behind the counter threw several slices of cheese on the scale and made it weigh 0.4 lb. She started to bag it and I told her I only wanted a fourth of a pound. She rolled her eyes, put it back on the scale, and told me that is what she was giving me. I didn't want to embarrass or argue with her, so I asked her to please take it down to 0.25 or anything real close to that. She just shook her head like I was crazy or something and did as requested. The problem was that I only had a dollar in my wallet and would not have had enough cash to buy 0.4 pounds. And back then I did not have any credit cards! If she had known that one-fourth is equivalent to 0.25 it would not have been an issue. Or she may have been thinking that there are 16 ounces in a pound and that 0.4 was a fourth.

 

I went to get diesel for tractor wanted 10 gallons price was 2.99 a gallon. I handed her 40 dollars. She handed me 10 cents. My then 11 yo was arguing with me over importance of algebra and basic math. it was a learning lesson. I did try hard to not embarrass the young cashier. Who told me registers don't make mistakes. I calmly explained that 10 times 3 was 30. So I should get at least 10 dollars.. Pretty basic.. She went and got store owner, a friend of mine. He said to me privately, she graduated high school..

 

Next time I'm south I will take a pic of those rails..

 

Your wife and mine sound a lot alike. My wife definitely steers me straight when I lose my perspective. It is funny that people will pay big money for imperfections when it comes to furniture. What do they call it---the "distressed" look or something like that? And not just furniture. How about the jeans the younger women wear that are sold all ripped and so on. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fashion prude, and really don't care how people dress. When I was a kid my mom would have been sewing on the patches when my jeans got ripped like that, if I hadn't already outgrown them! So, I agree with you about people liking imperfections. Good luck with the timber framing and woodworking if you can find the time. I'll have to check out those Paul Sellers YouTube videos sometime. And hey, be careful out there in Pollock Pines, California. I saw a story on the news about the fires out there and there was a road sign that had Pollock Pines on it and you could see smoke in the background. Sure wish we could send some of our rain out your way.