I’ve been in Washington, D.C. doing a little consulting work for the last week (Mostly consulting with people about what and where to eat for our next meal – everything else has been white noise.  Was there something else going on here?).  I spent the morning writing replies to people on Facebook and then deleting them before I posted them or sometimes when I was feeling edgy, actually posting them and then deleting them.

But I’ve decided maybe my blood pressure, my family and my career would all benefit if I took a break from anything political and instead focused on something more wholesome.  With that, I give you my latest update about the Barracks at Oyster Creek.

Let’s start with a nice, wholesome picture to remind us all that there are more important things in life than arguing with strangers on social media.  Here’s one of Grandpa doing an airplane imitation with Layla.

After the holidays were over, I turned my attention to getting the woodworking shop set up and ready to work wood.  Heh heh – working wood.

Step one was to put some heat in there because frankly, it was a little cold.  Like, being outside cold.  I had a stove insert laying around that was in my father’s house.  I thought maybe I would set it up myself, but my wife overrode that idea and flatly stated that under no circumstances was I to work on anything that might potentially burn down the house.  To strengthen her argument she likes to bring up the fact that I once cut through a live gas pipe in our old house.  Which happened like 13 years ago and I haven’t cut through any gas pipes that she knows of since then.  Way to hold a grudge.

Against my wishes, I shelled out a lot of money to get a proper system set up.

Note the fact that there are two table saws in the photo.  The one on the right is my older Craftsman.  The fence is not aligned and was kind of cheap anyway, so I found this awesome Delta 10″ on Facebook’s new marketplace app for $75.  Sweet.  The guy I bought it from was so stoned when I got to the house to pick it up that he didn’t know why I was there, despite the fact that we had texted back and forth a few minutes before.  The old table saw is going to a co-worker who just bought his first home – with a new fence he should be good to go and ripping wood with the best of them.  Ripping wood – I don’t even know what that means, but it’s funny.

Other items of note in the photograph.  New 12″ sliding miter saw from Harbor Freight.  At some point I’ll go ahead and do a mini review of some of the Harbor Freight items I’ve bought and we’ll see if they end up being good enough for my level or work.  Beside that on the bench is a Ryobi drill press.  Both the press and the saw have lasers that, as far as I can tell, are absolutely worthless.

If you direct your attention to the ceiling, you’ll notice a new LED light on the left.  I pulled the old single lightbulb seen on the right and wired it in to the new unit.  Don’t tell my wife I’m wiring things, because that’s a grey area in terms of what I am supposed to be touching.

The next step toward becoming Sam Maloof (not to be confused with Sam Malone one was a wood worker, one worked…see the earlier jokes about working wood – that was the last one, I promise) is a sturdy workbench.  After watching several YouTube videos, I’ve decided to go with a 2×4 table top.  It’s cheap and still strong enough to withstand years of abuse at the hands of this master craftsman.  All I have so far is three sections glued up, which I will peg and glue together when I return from my trip.

Before I can attach these pieces together, however, I want to purchase a power thickness planer and even them out.  Yes, I could do it with a hand planer, but that would take forever and be a little less accurate in terms of a level plane.  There’s a reason I decided to go with a power shop instead of an old timey wheelwright style shop – I don’t have the time or patience required for the latter.

Other projects in the pipeline include running new outlets into the shop and  joint project with my wife to build a pantry in the kitchen.  And before you know it, the weather will change and spring will be here and I’ll be planting and working outside again.  I can’t wait.