Even in Kyoto

Today I decided to go back to the boathouse after rowing and coffee, to continue work on various boathouse projects for a couple hours.

First, I rehung the boat light charging station on L-hooks, and while I was at it, hung up a second shoe holder to serve as a walkie talkie charging station. I was able to get everything powered up thanks to having obtained some 8-foot extension cords at the hardware store yesterday.

I also moved all of the supplies for keeping megaphones and coxboxes charged up, onto a temporary portable step unit.



This now gets all of the rowing electronics into one place inside the boathouse, instead of having everything scattered in different locations. It also gets all the electronics to a spot where they can be recharged regularly.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to our first aid cart. During this transition, it, along with some of our electronics, has been living inside a shipping container.

Something about the first aid cart has been bothering me for years. The original person who assembled it, assembled the wheels incorrectly. See if you can tell what I mean from the photo below. Up until now I really haven't been in a position to do anything about the problem. Vexing. Especially when you consider that people periodically want to wheel the cart to new locations during our special events.



I kind of feel like there isn't a WORSE way to assemble the wheels!

At one point, the wheels were so poorly fastened that one of the wheels came off entirely. So when I took things apart to swap the wheels to the correct positions, I encountered multiple sizes of nuts and bolts. But at least now the cart will actually roll properly, and with any luck no one will have to tilt this beast on its back to fix the wheels again anytime soon!

Along with the wheel problem, there has been some sort of long-term lingering issue with one of the bottom drawers, where it refused to stay completely closed. Super annoying. When trying to work on the wheels, I ascertained that I would need to remove the bottom drawers to access the wheel nuts from inside the cart. That eventually led me to watch an internet video about how to remove this type of drawer from this type of cart (and it turns out there are two different overall types of cart/drawer; initial hits were for the other type. Complicated!).

The internet video I eventually found helped me to understand that one of the plastic drawer removal latches had snapped off, making it extra difficult to remove the drawer.

A couple extra minutes with a small screwdriver and a bunch of swearing did the trick.

Intact latch:


Snapped-off latch:


In the end, I did not reinstall this "trouble drawer," as that seemed unwise.

Once the wheels were fixed, I relocated the cart to a new, more prominent spot inside the boathouse:



It just seems to me that having a first aid cart in a prominent, accessible location is a good idea.

I was so pleased to find that the cart fit exceptionally well into the space where I wanted to put it. The only issue was that the ground was far from level in that location. So I used a chunk of an old wooden platform that used to be underneath our oars, to provide a stable surface for the cart to rest on.

Totally satisfying projects!

Now I can turn my attention to the next boathouse project, constructing a long-term charging station for the coxboxes and megaphones.

Getting ready for my research students, I am thinking that we'll need to go through the Steps for Doing Anything. I tried to look for a copy of the Steps on my computer, but came up empty-handed. However, when I searched Ye Olde Blog, lo and behold, I found a post where my father typed out the steps for me! He did teach them to me, after all. Thanks, Dad.

And it's a gem of a post, because it's one where I posted photos of the process of building the first Worm Bin Bench. Here it is, in its entirety, from the LJ days:

https://rebeccmeister.livejournal.com/508937.html

Drilling the mounting holes for the rowing units yesterday afternoon was stressful, and did not go entirely according to plan. I had to adjust one of the holes in the wood brace to get the bolts to align properly. The whole process also took enough time that I decided against drilling the second set of holes for re-rigging the boat as a single. I'll just have to get to that later.

But! That was enough progress to get the boat prepped for transport down to the boat ramp.



The straps do have signs of wear after the cross-country haul in December.



Some rowing friends met me at the boat ramp this morning to help finish the rigging and then get the boat launched.

Aside from the chilly temperature, the water was beautiful!


We just did a couple of very short laps to test out the boat.




It was a pleasure to row! It rows much faster than it paddled, heh.

Now Petrichor will stay down in the boat yard, where hopefully she will see lots and lots of water time this year.

Eventually I need to finish varnishing her, heh. Once it's slightly warmer and I have slightly more free time. Soon.

So, I guess there was a weekend that just happened? It doesn't entirely feel like it, just because of the sheer number of Things Needing Doing.

On Saturday morning after rowing practice, teammates and I worked on putting in our early-season "temporary" dock, which is colloquially referred to as "The Bubble Dock." (The manufacturer's name for it is JetFloat Dock, which is not as much fun to say).



Ordinarily this isn't a major undertaking, but this time around we had extra pieces to add on, and also did some work to swap out old pieces that were cracked and leaking. After a series of struggles, we eventually figured out that the tabs sticking out of the sides of each piece are all at one of 4 different heights, so there IS a way to align everything nicely to get the whole thing to behave itself.

That will largely be a problem for the fall. At that point a subset of us are motivated to take everything apart and use the different piece colors to spell out our team initials, ARC.

As a part of a project to overhaul the boathouse this spring, the City also provided us with a dumpster to get rid of bulky trash items. It's kind of amazing how quickly that kind of stuff accumulates in the boathouse and boatyard. In addition to tossing the handful of cracked JetFloats in there, we also disposed of not just one, but TWO flammables cabinets that have disintegrated into piles of rust after years of hanging out in the saltwater that flows down off the interstate in the winter.



My teammates figured out how to use a piece of pallet wood and old oar to carry the second flammables cabinet like they were pallbearers:


That's how I learned about Ghana's professional dancing pallbearers. Heartwarming! They did not attempt to dance while carrying this disintegrating flammables cabinet, just to be clear.

Anyway, I feel better about the boatyard now that even more stuff has been hauled out of it.

After a quick trip to the bank to deposit some checks, I finally came home and worked to finish re-wiring our navigation light charging station:





It can now accommodate 24 lights instead of just 20. Hopefully the new USB charging ports will be more robust than the old ones. And with the unit re-wired, most problems can be isolated to issues with the boards and batteries inside of the lights, which can be replaced individually (at some expense, mind you!).



I did a full charge, am working on a full discharge, and will do another full charge before I cart this thing and the coxboxes and megaphones back over to the boathouse. More than anything I'm just relieved to be done with this overhaul so I can turn my attention to a zillion other projects.

As far as personal projects go, I also finished building the two wire squirrel cages to go over the lettuce planter boxes:


I want to make some simple hinges and latches to hold these onto the planters. scrottie says he doesn't think these will hold very many squirrels. (that's a joke). While these are indoors they are doing a nice job of keeping the cats out, too.

In any case, hopefully it will keep the squirrels from trying to bury their acorns in these once they go back out on the back porch rail.

Sunday was mostly cooking, balancing my checkbook, other household chores, and prepping for this week's teaching.

My riggers for Petrichor still haven't shown up.

And today, S heads out, first to Minnesota, then to California, for a while. Back to just me and the cats holding down the home front.

One of the reasons I've been keen to get the plant rod set up is so I can get back to working on the chair refinishing project on the front porch.

There are four rowing projects to tackle in the near future, too:

-Finish overhauling the bow and stern light charging station. I just finally went ahead and ordered a fresh set of cables and new 10-USB charging stations. The original light sets came with USB charging stations, but one of them failed after several years of use. While I was away, someone tried to find and order a replacement, but it looks like only 9 and maybe fewer than 9 of the 10 ports on the replacement actually work, so unfortunately that's even more ewaste. I ordered the new stations from the people who make the boat lights, so at least if they don't work I can return them. It looks like they are now selling a different style of charging station compared to the ones we got in the past, which suggests to me that they're paying attention to the quality of the electronics they are selling. This project should at least be fairly straightforward.

-Make and install new bunk boards for the two safety launch trailers we use the most. To get this done I need to go wood shopping again, because we originally bought pressure-treated lumber and then I saw some things suggesting that the chemicals in pressure-treated lumber *might* cause corrosion issues with the metal on the safety launches. That might not actually be the case, but the howto video I found for making bunk boards looks like it outlines a good series of steps for prepping and sealing non-pressure-treated wood before applying the carpet. There are some other trailer repair items to tackle, too, like winch strap and winch updates. I will feel a lot better about life once these trailers are in better shape, because we put them in and take them out of the water every day, multiple times a day, once we're back on the water.

-Install permanent lights on one of the safety launches. I have ordered the actual lights and the marine-grade sealant from Fisheries Supply, but now I need to figure out the right kind of battery to get, plus wires, connectors, and probably also a very basic switch plate. The lights are all LED lights, so the battery requirements shouldn't be insane, but it's still important to get the right thing for a marine environment. For those elements I want to wait until the lights show up so I can wave them at someone who most likely knows more than me about the best items for this project.

-Refinishing oar blades. I now finally have all the supplies I need for this. The things I'm missing are space and time. If I can get the chairs done, and also resist the temptation to start other home woodworking projects, I'll at least have some space for getting started on the practice blades. This project isn't as urgent as the three prior projects, but I'd like to get underway with it because it will be the most personally satisfying project out of this list.

There are even more rowing projects on the agenda for the near future that I'm not even going to list here yet. Some of that is because efforts are underway to repair and replace parts of our rowing boat shed that have corroded to the point of failure. Some of it is other work to get ready to go back out on the water for spring.

It's all a lot, and one of the hardest parts is that although there are people willing to help, for the most part they don't really know what to do or how to do it.

It all still beats having to be the president of the club, heh. All of the above PLUS the administrative nonsense of running a club is TOO MUCH, and hopefully no single person ever has to try and do it all by themselves, ever.

Here's what I wrote on a different social media site:

Longtime friends and family members may remember the time when I built a worm bin, in grad school. I gave away that worm bin when I graduated and moved to Texas, and have regretted that decision ever since. A couple years ago I got the hardware to build another one, and I finally completed it today. Here's a photo of one of the most important steps in building a worm bin, testing it out to see if it works. Bad news, folks - this one doesn't seem to work correctly! No matter how hard I try, some appendages stick out!



...But on this site, you should get the version with even more pictures, because, well, why not? Because we can.



I just couldn't wedge my legs in there.



I also thought that S had gone off to swim, so I had to document everything with selfies. It was only after I put the worms in that I discovered that he'd actually just passed out for a nap.







Full of worms!



Looking great in its new home:


The next project is now out on the front porch: the chairs, to finish for once and for all!



I do feel as though I know a whole lot more about sanding now, which gives me more confidence that I can actually see this next project through to the finish line. It may take me another month or two to land this one, but that's another thing I'm more familiar with by now.

Yesterday I gave the departmental seminar, in which I presented about some of the things I accomplished during my sabbatical. That was one of the more fun talks I've ever written and given, largely because I got to tell funny stories and show people photos of my cats, my childhood bedroom, one of my sister's cats (Izzy), and the lab I set up in the Motel 6 in Omaha. There was an extremely adorable moment when I noted that some of the work I'd carried out finally got published, and the mostly student-based audience applauded. And I may very well have a new ant research team forming up.

There was freezing rain in the forecast for last night, so I tried to book home relatively early to try and avoid harrowing conditions. But while I rode home, it wasn't raining and instead there were large, floppy, wet snowflakes falling from the sky, creating a layer of slop on the pavement. So after dinner S and I decided we should still go for it and make a grocery run.

The real trouble with bicycling in those conditions isn't so much the actual bicycling (although that can get dicey after a certain amount of accumulation on the roads), as it is dealing with the salt and slush and grit that get everywhere. When I checked this afternoon, Frodo's drivetrain is still frozen, so there's a good chance I'll need to go out with a bucket of warm water tomorrow to melt everything off so I can commute on Monday.



Along with that, I think I've already worn all the way through the pair of brake pads I put on less than a month ago. So that was enough impetus to get us out the door and in the car over to the next-closest local bike shop (since the closest one closed). I can't remember if I bought 8 or 10 sets of brake pads, but I do know we'll go through them eventually. We're loose friends with the guy who owns and runs the next-closest bike shop, so it was fun to catch up with him in addition to buying a zillion brake pads, a bunch of shift cables, brake and cable housing, and a couple of spare chains.

Since our friend M said he is less experienced with building wheels, from there we went up to Bike Shop 3 (not its real name), which is also in a remarkably bike-unfriendly location, ogled their wares, and S was able to get them to say they'd work on his special wheelbuilding project with a 2-speed hub.

Since we were out and about, we also stopped by the hardware store for a few things, then came back home again.

In the midst of it all, we did a bit of garage rearranging, and in the midst of that I realized that it was silly to try and arrange the garage to try and make space to do varnish and other finish work in there. Instead, it made more sense to try and set up the front porch for finish work again. After all, that's where I finished my desk, back during the pandemic. So that's what I wound up doing. As part of that I was also able to give that half of the porch a good sweep-out, which it really needed. And I set up the wire shelf to accommodate plants again.



Not pictured, all of the slumps and runs and drips in the varnish. This is NOT Fine Woodworking! Also, it was really cold on the front porch, which was not ideal for varnish application. But the worms won't care.

Caturday tax:

George really likes watching Cat TV.


Snuggle kitties!

Today was very much a "house rampage" day, in anticipation of going cross-country skiing tomorrow, and also in general anticipation of the start of the semester on Tuesday. It's just that when I don't get home until 7 pm on weeknights, I really don't have any window to do much of anything before it's time to go to bed. So a lot of stuff gets punted to the weekend.

But I should backtrack slightly. I got a package in the mail yesterday, from mallorys_camera, which was extra fun because at first I didn't recognize who it was from, until after I started opening it up. It contained this magic potion:



which we opened up immediately and enjoyed on the enchiladas we were having for dinner. Seriously, this is an a-plus solid hot sauce contender! I am very pleased.

Anyway, one part of the rampage was a lot of the usual chores: litterboxes, bathroom, vacuuming, general tidying. I was also able to chip away at a couple of lingering tasks, like putting away the flat artwork box from when I was working on getting a couple pieces framed and hung up. Since the cats have a newer giant box to serve as their cat cave, I broke down the old one that they never really used much and put most of the toys I'd stashed in it back into a storage container. I also transferred my costume collection from a cardboard box into a clear plastic storage bin, and stowed it on a shelf up high in the bedroom closet. That's one set of awkward bedroom boxes finally dealt with. Then I got the last of the rowing club's good megaphones inventoried, and continued the project of servicing the collection of bow and stern lights. Here's where I first must digress, to include details of that project.

It looks like there are currently 2 main issues with the lights. One of the 2 10-port USB charging hubs is flaky. Thankfully someone already went ahead and ordered a new hub; I just have to coordinate with the person who has it to pick it up from her. The second issue is that I think most of the charging cables themselves are also wearing out. The lights, which are really great for rowing at night, are manufactured by a mom-n-pop operation, and in coming up with the design, they opted for a system to charge them that uses USB-B cables. Those are the cables that often get used for printer connections - kind of square in shape. I happen to have a brand-new USB-B cable that I was able to use to verify that it could plug in securely to charge every single one of the 20 lights. But almost none of the existing charging cables plugs in securely anymore.

After some searching around, the internet showed me some tips and tricks for tightening up loose USB-A connections - those are the older ones found on many flash drives and the like. But so far I'm coming up empty-handed for USB-B, and it's possible that because of how they're structured there is no trick and we just need to order 20 new charging cables at $5 each.

So that's fun. I guess.

After that, it was time to do a bit of organizing in the basement and then FINALLY continue work on the worm bin bench.

Except, it seems I misunderstood something that scrottie had communicated to me about the new shop vac. He had said that it worked, but that he had left parts in the box. I thought that meant he had set it up with its filters, but just hadn't attached the accessory bits and bobs. So after attaching the accessories, I started to merrily vacuum away.

It wasn't until some time later that I realized, to my horror, that the shop vac was spewing basement dust all over the place. That wasn't right. Please realize that this basement dust is probably full of lead and asbestos. Upon further investigation, it seems that a sponge filter had been installed, which is fine for wet-vac use, but the fabric filter cover that is supposed to be used for dry vacuuming purposes had not. I quickly closed off the basement so the cats couldn't come down, opened up the basement windows, and grabbed my elastomeric respirator and one of the room air filters from upstairs.

Still, ugh.

Thankfully, after that disaster, most of the worm bin bench assembly went as well as it could. It was interesting to build a second one, years after building the first one, and after all the other recent woodworking and sanding experience. S and I occasionally joke about my "emo woodworking projects," but I have to say I felt far less stressed/frustrated/emo/whatever about this one than many other past simple woodworking projects. I used a hammer and nails to build the first one. I used drills and deck screws for this one. I also spent more time prepping the wood this time - trying to do some preliminary sanding and smoothing and straightening. I now understand that it's time well spent.

I wish I could say the construction was all sunshine and roses, but the gods of woodworking did still seem determined to throw more small mishaps at me. For one thing, the chuck on the replacement Black and Decker corded drill* decided it did not want to cooperate. Just because of how it's structured, it seems I can no longer get it tight enough to hold drill bits securely, and then when I wanted to loosen it, it was exceptionally stubborn. Thankfully S has a fantastic small Makita cordless drill, so I just had to revert to swapping back and forth between a drill bit for pilot holes and a driver bit for the screws in the Makita. Anyway, I think this means I'm DONE with this Black and Decker drill for once and for all. I'm not sure if it should go in a donate pile, a scrap-only pile, or a pile for tool exorcisms.

For another thing, it appears I have finally worn out the hook and loop pad on my orbital sander. That was an entertaining discovery - when I tried applying a new piece of sandpaper, it just flung off into the air as the orbital sander started to spin up. So, another thing to put on the shopping list.

Then, when it came time to work on the lap joints for the lid, I discovered that the bench vise has started to work loose from the workbench. Upon closer inspection, I realized that I hadn't put on any washers when I originally installed the vise on the workbench in the basement, so probably over time and after many uses, the wood on the underside of the workbench has weakened. Along with that, I'm not sure that I installed it with nuts with the correct thread pitch, because it was a PROJECT just to loosen and retighten the nut after adding some washers. Of course, there could also be corrosion on the bolt, given that it lives in the basement. So some blood was shed at that point. Just a little.

When I finally got the vise sorted out, I used it to help with sawing the lap joints, which went, shall we say, interestingly. I don't have a clear memory of what I did to create the lap joints the last time around, but I do remember finding that part challenging and not really knowing what to do. Plus, lots and lots of quality time with a chisel. This time, I at least have the experience of having watched roughly a jillion YouTube woodworking videos, so I had a slightly better idea of what to do.

The resulting joints are far from perfect, but I can also guarantee they're far better than that attempt from that earlier era of my life. I've at least learned how to test-fit and make some adjustments to the joints so they fit together better.



And really, at the end of the day, the worms don't care anyway. What I do know is that they tend to do better in a wooden worm bin, as compared to the plastic bins that S and I can never seem to agree on how to manage, even after I've spent hours modifying them according to new specifications.



Anyway, that's how far I got before it was time to go upstairs and ruin make dinner. The next tasks will be to sort through the household collection of leftover wood stains and finishes from other projects, and decide what to apply. I'm going to take comfort in the fact that the finishing stages of a woodworking project tend to require smaller chunks of time, as compared to what it took to get everything assembled.

I just really hope the gods of small mishaps show mercy at that point.


Messy workbench in the middle of it all


Oh - dinner was baked buffalo cauliflower, from a recipe I found online. Surprisingly easy, delicious, and more nutritious and far less fatty than I thought it would be. (Also, it wasn't really ruined, but the pieces repeatedly wanted to jump off the roasting tray and onto the floor.)

I did discover that two heads' worth was one head too many. Live and learn, I guess. It remains to be seen how well it reheats.





*S purchased an identical replacement for a drill of mine where he had stripped the chuck using it to build a bike trailer. By this point I'm thinking the chuck design is permanently flawed and should be permanently banned from my life.

I am trying to get a flurry of things done before the start of the semester descends.

Some of those things are even related to prepping for classes. Yesterday and today I worked on making updates to the lab manual I first compiled in full last year. Most of the clarifications weren't so much typos as they were clarifications to procedures, or adding in more data tables to the text. I'm relieved that's done for now, although I still have a list of updates I'd like to make. For next year.

Most of the rest of the day's paper pushing was on the behalf of the rowing club. Every year we have to apply for permits for the club's major special events. Getting events permits can be complicated. One complication for us is making sure our regatta doesn't conflict with the Irish Currach Club's regatta. I sent a message last week, then followed up yesterday and got confirmation to proceed. After the applications are in, our municipality (rightly!) requires they be named as additional insured for liability coverage. So then I have to chase that down, and it's a different process for our running event as compared to our rowing events. What's more, since both running and rowing are Olympic sports, it was time to complete my annual SafeSport refresher training to be compliant as an event organizer. The small mercy is that the people who designed that training are far better at developing online trainings compared to the people who developed the online cybersecurity training that my institution uses. (Thankfully, my institution's sexual harassment training is fine, because it uses a set of characters to create an Office Soap Opera).

So, it's nice that some things are done, even though I couldn't completely finalize processes for getting the certificates of insurance yet.

And in the meantime, at home I went through some of the club's major electronics items (coxboxes, coxbox microphones, megaphones, and the batteries for the coxboxes and megaphones) to check them against the inventory, figure out whether anything desperately needs to get sent in for service (so far, so good, fingers crossed...), and figure out what should get put into rotation at the boathouse for 2025 once we're back on the water. Another chore basically out of the way.

I also realized I should have brought the entire boat light charging system home with me, so I can more systematically test all of the boat lights, all at once. So I'll go get that from the boathouse tomorrow. I have an entertaining plan for that test, so I'll take photos of that soon.

Of course, the projects never end. And I haven't made any progress on the worm bin bench since Sunday night. Maybe tomorrow evening...

Sunday morning: The regular Sunday pancakes and coffee, a couple loose ends. Then I biked to campus for a looooong planning meeting for the rowing club. These are very necessary and it was run well, just long.

Then finally home again. I was pleased to manage to get all of the wood cut for making Worm Bin Bench II, but that's as far as I got for now. I want to do a bunch of sanding before assembly. At least there's now a shop vac to use with the orbital sander and to generally clean up the workbench area.

I also baked a loaf of bread, and, all things considered, it came out extremely well. We have these rye flakes from the farmer's market that I don't entirely know what to do with, but 1/2 C in a loaf of bread was good, along with rye flour and potato flour (with the remainder being whole wheat flour). My sourdough starter seems to have retained at least a little bit of life, thankfully.

And made a batch of muesli.

I'm aiming to finish making a small vegetarian shepherd's pie, with some filling that was in the depths of the chest freezer, but only made it as far as preparing a potato mash for the top.

And now, somehow, it's the end of Sunday and time to start another week, beginning with a dental appointment tomorrow morning. Whee.

I took some good fun photos but am not ready to write a full post yet.