Project 52: Week of June 18

I've been a naughty blogger.  I haven't written anything in over a week and the daily grind of the A-Z Challenge and the subsequent writing hangover prevented me from keeping up with my Project 52 obligations.  But, here I am and here we go.

Host a party when we get news that Kate's cancer is in remission: Alas, remission, we are told by Kate's oncologist, is not a realistic goal.  Rather, the aim is to reach an uneasy truce with the disease - where it no longer impinges on the functioning of her critical organs.  Kate continues to make progress, thankfully, and the doctor is optimistic that the cancer can be brought to heel for decades.

Buy and learn how to play guitar with my daughter, the Bean - learn to play, wait for it, Stairway to Heaven (remember the scene in Wayne's World?)  We, and especially the Bean, continue to make progress.  The Bean practices most day.  I don't, but I get enough in that my skills haven't slipped considerably, but progress is as a result slow.

Lose 35 lbs  With the nicer weather, I have been getting out and exercising more, and watching what I eat.  My annual physical revealed that my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure are all high (can anyone say ticking time bomb), so this objective has taken on more meaning.  So far, so good, though.  Last time I weighed myself I had lost 8 lbs. in about the last two months.

Get into shape to run 10K:  I have started running again.  I hope I can build up to a shade over 5 kms by the time September rolls around.

Resolve my depression:  This has been an ongoing struggle.  My psychiatrist has been diligently trying to find a combination of medications that will work.  Most recently, she has me on an older generation of medications, called tricyclics, which shows up in the bloodstream and allows them to determine how well my body absorbs the medication.  We found that I am among the 3-8% of the population who metabolize the drugs so fast that they don't have a chance to work.  Knowing this helps here raise my dosage to within therapeutic range.

Research my grandfather's WW II service record with the Veterans Guards of Canada:  I have requested my grandfather's records from the Library and Archives Canada.  I should get them in the winter sometime.  See my post about my grandfather, Alfred Burrows.

Blog the A-Z Challenge:  Done! And what a ride it was.  See my A-Z Challenge post-mortem.

That's it for this week.  I'll try to be more disciplined about this.

Annoying Language Foibles

I'm sure I'm not the only person who gets irritated by what I perceive to be improper use of language, mostly English, but also in one case Italian.  And this is beyond the kiddie speak in the hood:  "Yo, yo, 'sup?"  No, I'm talking mainstream grown-up talk that is like a mosquito buzzing in my ear.  The following is but a small sample of irritating language usage.

I got my first nigglings as a Canadian public servant.  The bureaucracy is a great producer of inane jargon and annoying word usage.  Public servants are often concerned about getting the "messaging" right for an initiative, instead of just plain old "message", and there seems to a lot of "disconnects" between stakeholders.  I remember finding other word usage bizarre, like for example when a senior public servant takes on leadership of an issue, he is sometimes referred to as a Sherpa, which is a Tibetan and Nepalese ethnic group noted for its general mountaineering expertise.  Examples abound, but suffice to say any government institution is an incubator for linguistic silliness.

I have also been noticing a trend on DIY television show.  I like to call it the tyranny of the preposition.  My wife's renovation shows have contractors forever "painting out" objects and structures or "switching out" one lighting fixture for another, when simple "painting" or "switching" will do.  Cooking shows are also guilty and are always "baking off" cookies and "reducing down" sauces.  I have actually had to stop watching one of my favourite television chef's, Michael Smith, because of his liberal use of the preposition.

My final pet peeve relates to the new found food fashion for grilled sandwiches known as panini.  Panini is the Italian word for sandwiches.  Note that I use the plural.  Panini is the plural and panino is the singular.  Therefore, I am driven crazy by signs advertizing paninis.  This is pluralizing the plural.  Like saying bananases.  Aaargh.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I will spare you.  I'm interested in hearing about your linguistic pet peeves.

Spiffing Up My Blog Page

The A-Z Challenge and Project 52 have given me the opportunity to visit a lot of different blogs that I may not otherwise have visited.  What has amazed me is how visually appealing they all are.  I feel like a laggard, using only the most basic and boring template offered by Blogger.  To be fair to myself, I am by profession a federal public servant and thus thoroughly trained to be staid, boring and unappealing.  The institutional culture is anxious to stamp out any attempts at creativity or individuality - think the Borg Collective from the Star Trek:  Next Generation, only nowhere near as cool or dangerous.

I am also a bit of a technophobe and not really comfortable with technology.  I don't know if I am inherently inept, or if I just don't have the interest or patience in all things technological, or if I harbour a sometimes not-so-subconscious animus towards new technologies.  Whatever the reason, I just don't get a lot of it.

All this to say I am shamed when compared to others in the blogosphere and am committing here to spruce up my blog page over the next few weeks - add some content, and make it more visually appealing and less public-servicey.

So stay tuned, faithful reader(s).

Dovetails

Of all the skills a woodworker needs to learn, none is more coveted and elusive than hand cutting dovetails.  As the name suggests, these joints look like a row of bird tails joining two boards at right angles to each other.  They are often used to make drawers and boxes, but also to join the sides and tops on casework.  They are usually a hallmark of quality construction and a sign that a cabinet maker has achieved a reasonable degree of proficiency in her or his craft.  Dovetails are mechanically a very strong joint.  Add a kiss of glue and the joint becomes indestructible.

Like many novice woodworkers, I have struggled to cut an acceptable row of dovetails.  The results, at their best, have been ill-fitting travesties.  As I've said, hand-cut dovetails are the holy grail of woodworking skills and the pursuit of perfection is a cash cow for producers of how-to books and videos.  I remember watching a DIY video, Dovetail a Drawer, by Frank Klausz - a German craftsman who learned his trade in the strict apprenticeship tradition of Europe.  One of the tricks of cutting dovetails is laying them out properly, but Klausz blithely eschews this approach, encouraging the would-be woodworker to lay them out by eye.  Easy for a guy who has probably cuts tens of thousands of dovetails, but probably disastrous for a neophyte.  Like many other joints, dovetails can be machined using a router and a specialized jig, which is relatively low-skill.  But Klausz, a seasoned pro, can hand cut a drawer in minutes, probably way faster than it would take me to set up a jig and router.

Every year my adopted hometown of Ottawa, Ontario, hosts a woodworking trade show where manufacturers of woodworking products showcase their wares and where experts give workshops to the unwashed masses.  I remember one year noted cabinet maker and popular producer of videos and books, Rob Cosman, gave a workshop on cutting dovetails.  The talk was somewhat useful, but again, the attitude of the expert who has cut many years worth of the joint, is somewhat blithe.  He proclaimed, "Dovetails only fit properly once, " meaning that you have to achieve perfection on your first shot.  Woodworkers, especially novices, need to "dry fit" their projects to make sure everything fits together snugly and squarely before adding glue, which is generally the point of no return.  This gives them the opportunity to fine-tune the fit and get everything right.  But, according to Cosman, you ultimately ruin the fit of dovetails by dry fitting.  Cutting dovetails is hard enough.  Adding the pressure of achieving a perfect fit right out of the gate is enough to give novices heart palpitations and commit them to a lifetime of butt joints.

Anyway, this is a bit of a meandering post on dovetails, which actually seems appropriate since many woodworker follow a meandering path in learning how to cut them.  The body of DIY products all advocate different approaches to making dovetails:  careful layout with ruler and t-bevel or by eye; cut the dovetails first or the mating pins first; cut the waste out with a coping saw, or with a chisel, or band saw, or scroll saw, or table saw;  dry fit or don't dry fit; and on-and-on.  I guess the student is best to commit to an approach that makes the most sense to her and practice, practice, practice.

And so, down to the shop I go to find some scrap and try, again, to cut something that resembles a competently produced set of dovetails.  Happy cutting!

Iffy-ness

A short list of some iffy things:

• drinking milk five days after its best before date;
• the Canadian Government's decision to procure the F-35 Strike Fighter;
• Sidney Crosby;
• "Watch me put this hankie in my left nostril and pull it out my right one!"
• Gas prices;
• Being convinced to switch gas companies by some guy that showed up at your door with a clipboard;
• Frying eggs on a George Foreman Grill;
• Car salesmen;
• Insurance companies;
• Your doctor telling you this procedure will just feel like a mosquitoe bite;
• "Do these pants make my butt look big?"
• Texting while driving;
• "My wife/husband and I are seperated."
• "This will hurt me more than it will hurt you."

Ear Infections

At 43 I'm a bit old to be getting ear infections, but that's exactly what I ended up with last week.  Again.  I don't remember ever having one as a child, but then in my 20s, I was suddenly getting several every year.  Eventually I got referred to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist who placed some tubes in my ears to ensure pressure between my ears was equalized and to provide drainage for fluids that would have otherwise accumulated behind my ear drum.  This helped, though I still suffer from the occasional ear infection, or just simple fluid build-up.

So, last Wednesday I awoke with the familiar pressure in my left ear, and it hurt.  My wife, Kate, had a couple of appointments at the hospital that day, so I couldn't go to a clinic until later that afternoon.  I was prescribed some anti-biotic pills and drops, but alas, they came too late.  Later that evening I felt the pain of my eardrum bursting along with the tell-tale bleeding from the ear.  Good thing I'm married, because I doubt the look would be very attractive to the opposite sex.  My left eardrum has "perforated" several time, with a concomitant decline in my hearing each time.  I'll probably be deaf in that ear by the time I'm 60.

So, for several days afterwards I was oozing some gelatinous goop.  I told my nine year-old that it looked like custard but that it sure didn't taste like custard.  That's one uptight little kid we have.  She found it no funnier later in the day when she asked if she could have a snack and I suggested a spot of ear custard.

Well, post-A-Z Challenge has left me scurrying about for topics.  I've read that when faced with writer's block, the best approach is to just write about any old thing at all.  Hopefully this will knock some more substantive topics loose for my next post.

A-Z Challenge Wrap-Up

This was indeed a challenge in many ways.  I planned and wrote many of my posts well in advance of April and I would recommend this approach to anyone thinking of signing up next year.  The last week and a bit was the hardest for me.  I began the week not having written any of the posts, largely because I struggled to come up with topics for "w", "x", "y" amd "z", and on the whole, I would say they were my weakest posts.  I'm also finding that the challenge has used up my store of ideas for posts and now I am scrambling around for something to write.  So, what can I do now?

Overall, though, the experience was positive.  Aside from some statistical benefits like getting more followers and a ton of page hits from A-Zers, I got to meet a lot of interesting people who left comments and I similarly visited many other interesting blogs of those who participated.

I cannot say enough about the people who co-hosted the challengs this year.  I appreciate all the hard work they did, with a special shout-out to Jenny of the Pearson Report, who visited several times and left encouraging words.

Will I do it again next year?  I'll have to see where I'm at when the time comes, but I think I would.  The challenge was, on the whole, fun.