Feels a Little Like Wednesday's Child

First the good.

I got into the garden again today.  Put in maybe 2 hours of dirt shifting, rock shifting before I got tired and the weather turned nasty-ish.  It wasn't terribly bad (the weather) but the wind kicked up and it looked like it would start raining any second. And I got a bit tired of operating my shovel.  If I can get about the same amount of time in again tomorrow, I ought to have things rearranged well enough to restart the dirt prep.  OTOH, the young farmer we're hiring to help us called Angel and said she can't come this week -- she needs to get her garlic in.  I wish we were planting garlic.  Perhaps next year...

Which brings us to the less good.

My career consultant sent me some documents that were intended to be of help in my search for employment.  I'm talking gainful employment now.  While I mostly enjoy teaching my 5 yoga classes each week, the employment is more loss-full than gainful.  But I digress.  I read some of these documents.  They basically say that I'm hosed.  

See, most legitimate companies will only let existing, well-regarded employees telecommute. So if one loses his job for any reason, it's not likely a real company will hire him as a telecommuter right off.  First he must prove himself.

Since I can walk from one end of this town to the other in two hours, I wouldn't really need to telecommute if I could find a job here (which so far I haven't).  That pretty much means that if I want to obtain gainful employment, I will have to move back to a big city.  Hosed, see?

Now I haven't (quite) given up hope yet.  It is just possible that one of my contacts, someone who really knows me and my work ethic will be willing to get me hired at something like 25% of my previous income to do something.  Like technical writing.  Or editing.  Or web content development.  Or news stories.  

Basically, if I could make any decent salary & medical benefits doing something useful and good, I'd be more than satisfied.  We'll see.  One of my former colleagues in The Valley asked me to send him a copy of my DVD.  He has many contacts.  Perhaps... perhaps.

I really did land on the wrong rock, didn't I?

"Bring me a rock, please."

"Here.  This is a pretty rock."

"Sorry.  Wrong rock."

It was raining when I got to PTAC to teach my yoga class this evening.  Luckily I got a pretty good parking spot.  

When I came out it was no longer raining, but the wind was starting to blow.  Now, nearly 9:00PM, the wind is clutching at the edges of the house.  Our home is sturdy, solid and well-planted in the hillside, so the wind cannot get so much as a fingernail lodged in the cedar siding or the standing seam roof.  But the wind tries. And howls its frustration when it can do nothing but go around things.

The fire pops.  The wind alternately whispers and howls.  Angel says she's sleepy and goes to brush her teeth.  As she always does, Isabelle follows to see if Primary Human is doing anything interesting.

I ate an early dinner and would like a snack before bed.

Setting up the Workshop

My friend Ray M. was able to pick up the work bench that I wanted.  He & Rick S. dropped it off at the house on Friday AM.

This work bench is 8' (count 'em!) long w/a maple top.  It weighs 165 lbs.  I have exactly the right spot picked out for it in the garage.  Remember we have a somewhat oversized 2 car garage and Angel & I only own one car (un-American, I realize that...) so my shop space gets to be pretty big.

On the way back from yoga class this AM Lyn spotted a garage sale.  We picked up an inexpensive wheelbarrow.  We've been pricing them and this was a great deal even if it does need a tiny bit of work.  The garage sale people also had a full-on metal work bench (actually it looked like a teletype desk).  It had a smallish bench vise mounted on it.  $10 for the whole thing.  I was sorely tempted, but I am afraid of using up too much real estate in my shop, so I passed.  After all, I am seriously considering some kind of blacksmith shop and/or welding shop for my space, so I need to save some room.

I have a pile of high quality scrap wood.  It includes some nice pieces of cedar and quite a bit of purple heart.  I've got the purple heart organized and put on a shelf, but the rest of my wood is fairly disorganized.  Once I've got it straightened up I'll have still more room.  I am pretty sure that I'll "need" a bench grinder.  That is best set up on its own stand (that can be bolted to the floor) rather than on the work bench.  Why do they call it a bench grinder then?  Anyway, that means more floor space.  It is important to keep things organized.

Oh... back to *my* work bench: my goal for the day is to get this thing built and get my heavy bench vice mounted on it.  This will finally give me a good work surface.  That will make lots of little tasks that I've been struggling with go much more smoothly.

BTW, our garage stays pretty comfortable.  When we built it, the guys said that no one had seen a garage this well insulated.  That's primarily because of the guest quarters over the garage, but it makes for a much nicer workshop too.

Hey, I just figured out that I can add photos to this blog... you use the "Add Photo" button!!!  I'll try to do another post soon that includes a photo of the shop.

I'll try to do more later.  Right now I feel a strong urge to mess with wrenches.