Lost Lure

The day went as planned.... got some tiling done, got some rowing in.... the only glitch was that when I brought the Tender out to the mouth of the Harbor, about 100 yds. off of the Marblehead Lighthouse, I lost my only lure on the first cast.
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Didn't really bother me, because I was only out to row anyway. But in the future, I'm going to bring a little extra tackle.
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I rowed about a quarter of the way into the Marblehead Channel and picked up some decent wakes and swells. The Tender really is a stable and seaworthy design. I pulled the oars up and floated aimlessly out there for about a half hour or so. Nothing metaphysical or anything, just enjoying the movement of the water in the Channel under the Tender.
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Anybody passing by thought I was fishing anyway, so it probably didn't look so weird.
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But I was just sitting and breathing. It was kind of like when I go fly fishing in the Saco River with my rubber pants on. Just standing there feeling the water pass by.
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On the way back, I stroked the oars fairly vigorously... a decent workout. It will be interesting to do this around mid-November when all but the working lobster boats will have been hauled out of the Harbor.

Basement Projection

Tiling floors always gets me into rigor mortis if I overdo it. So today I quit after three hours, before I got to the staring blankly at the floor stage. Since it's only the basement, there is no crucial time requirement like happens with most tile jobs. So I'll come back later this week and get a little more done.
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I'd love to have this project done by Thanksgiving when Mike gets home again from DC. There are a lot of miscellaneous details since I will be ripping out the existing cabinets and constructing a built in for the HD TV the we foolishly bought before the new flat screen technology was available.
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Can't let the Dory project get stale either.
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Thanksgiving is probably an attainable goal but I'm not promising anything.

Tile Restart

Today I'm going to set the Dory aside and restart the basement tile project. I told Joanne and Katelyn that I was going to work both simultaneously, and it is time to disprove their skeptical reactions.
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There will be a hard stop at 3:00 PM to row the Tender in Marblehead Harbor during high tide.

Lazy Day

This was the extent of the work completed today. A completely wasted, rainy day, trying to shake off the effects of last night's Dark and Stormies and the loss by the Red Sox to the Yankees in the longest 9 inning game on record.
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Most of the day was spent working the kinks out of Outlook 2007 that I have on my new laptop. It has a nice business information system that I'm interested in using for Nanepashemet Telecom.
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The bottom of the Dory has been cut using a jigsaw, with at least 1/4" margin from the final dimension so that it can be hand planed to the line.
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The epoxy glue has to be scraped off both sides and the whole thing sanded smooth, then I'll start to contruct the oak frames, and fit them on the strongback.
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Add an hour to the total for this work. Cumulative 5 hours.

Dory Bottom

I was hustling to glue up the Dory Bottom in order to get over to the Peabody's house and watch the Red Sox - Yankees game. Linda O'Shea had an interesting week, and I had promised to conjure up some Dark and Stormy's to add a finishing touch. The Dark and Stormy's fit the bill, but the Sox came up short in a disappointing loss.
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The Dory bottom was constructed from four 1x6 select pine, 12 foot boards and a 2 inch 14 foot mahogany board that was glued in the middle to give the appearance of a keel. Dories don't have keels, but the mahogany piece will serve to accent the front and back stems which will be constructed from laminated oak and mahogany strips.
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The template that I made yesterday worked out well, and I biscuit jointed all of the sides of the boards together. In the end, I am happy with the choice of the 1x6's because I was able to alternate the grain and relieve the warping strain, which wouldn't be the case if a single 1x12 was used on each side of the mahogany.
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When the epoxy glue is cured tomorrow morning, I will cut out the bottom, scrape off the excess glue, and start the internal oak frames. I also have to devote some time on the basement tile project, and would love to follow up on Maxfield's tip to find Blues around Thatchers/Milk Island.

Time expensed today on the Dory included 1 hour at Home Depot picking out the pine, 1 hour laying everything out and mapping the template and biscuit joints, and one hour epoxy gluing and clamping. A total of three hours today. Cumulative time is 4 hours for this project. so far.

POTW Week 37

Mid-September.

There is a theory that time passes quicker, the older you get. Not sure how this would be validated, but it sure seems on the mark.

Lots of great stuff happened this week. Weddings, Births, Purchase Orders, the Debut of Dory Construction. Some things still irk the hell out of me, but you have to love the good stuff.

Announcing....
Nanepashemet Peeps of the Week for the 37th week of 2007

• Bob Wojcik
• Mike Rockett
• Lauren Crawford
• Doug Maxfield
• Jaime Andrews
• Tina Rhodes

Now if I could run into a Bluefish blitz this weekend - it would be total satisfaction.

Broke the Ice

Today, I officially started the Dory by cutting out a template for 1/4 of the boat floor out of luan plywood. Since the Dory is a double ender, the 1/4 template can be traced on the two sides of the front 12 foot floor, and the two sides of the back for perfect symmetry.
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Tomorrow I'll be in Portsmouth, NH for a bid walk, and I can stop at the Moynihan lumber yard on the way home for two 14' 1x12's which I will join in the middle with a strip of mahogany using biscuit joints. These will be glued with epoxy resin, then I will lay out the pattern from the template.
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The template layout and cutting with the bandsaw only took 1.5 hrs. But at least we quit talking and started this thing.

Feeder Frenzy

On the birdfeeder this morning was this female Downy Woodpecker.
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Are you as breathless as I am?
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I've seen the male previously, but was unable to capture on film.
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BTW, please disregard the rampant bird turds surrounding this beautiful specimen. I keep asking Joanne to clean the deck railing.

Nice Outcome

For all of you Peeps who were wondering how my big telecom meeting went today, I have to say that it was far better than expected. Today fully qualifies as a power day in the grand scheme of things. Now I have to harness the power.

Quality, Comfort, and Embarrassment

I buy my furniture at Bernie and Phyl's in Saugus, MA.
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They have a good selection, competitive prices, and are convenient to our house in Marblehead.
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But , Man! They have the worse TV ads ever. They have their two sons sitting on a couch like fifth graders telling you what their Mom and Dad says. It is so degrading to those two thirty somethings that you have to think that they are either half wits, or hopelessly dependent upon the family money.
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It's painful to watch. You feel like just telling them to cut it out, because they seem like nice people.

Osama Bin Stupid

Six years after 9/11.... we still haven't found that mongrel Bin Ladin. I hope he is enjoying the hole he is living in. With our system of justice, death would be too good for him and prison would be a big step up in his standard of living. So maybe he can stay in his dirt hole.
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What did Al Queda accomplish by their suicide mission??? Unless your actions can capture hearts and minds, it is merely self destruction. A lot of people carry deep prejudice toward Islamic people now, who really shouldn't.
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In the immortal words of New York Firefighter, Michael Moran, more than five years ago, Osama bin Laden can "kiss my royal Irish ass."
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Nice job Osama. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. You've engendered deep anger towards your people for decades to come.
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I had a good chance to be on the United flight to LA that crashed into one of the Towers. There was a trade show in LA that I was scheduled to attend that day, and my normal procedure traveling to the West Coast was to take that 7:30 flight from Logan landing in LA at 11:00 AM Pacific time. But then we had a major screw up in Pittsburgh, so I canceled the trade show plans. Screw ups can be beneficial.
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It wasn't my time.
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I plan to use these bonus years teaching my grandkids to blog and build boats among other things.

Little Will

I was just about ready to shut the Blog down for the night and watch the last innings of the Red Sox - Tampa game, when Aunt Sarah Crawford sent me these great photos of little Will Crawford in his first week of life on Earth.
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He's a keeper and will merit the family discount at Sundance Pre-School in a few short years.