The Bees in Our Back Garden – 2015

August 24, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The lavender is in full bloom in our backyard. Last year I counted five different types of bees that visited it during the late summer. So far, I have counted seven different types, but I think one might be a type of yellow jacket. I looked online, but it is inconclusive. I went full-nerd and ordered a couple of books: Bees of the World by Mitchner and Bees of N. America (Princeton Guide). I will take some more pictures and see how many types I can find every couple of weeks. As a side note: I often wonder given my nerdiness how I have both managed to procreate with the female of our species and how I have a wife that is so damn adorable…

Blanket Chest Rebuild

August 21, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Early last year, Stamps-With-Foot and I bought a few pieces of furniture from an English couple moving out of France. One of the pieces was a pine drawer-front blanket chest that someone in the UK had built in their garage out of decking material. It was constructed with dovetails, screws, and lots of glue, so it was a stout little piece and for $50, I couldn’t pass it up. The finish was originally 1980’s fabulous stain and it was semi-sloppily finished with a brushed on polyurethane topcoat, but all and all not so bad as to ruin the chest. Just right for a little refinishing.

It sat in the house for a year or so, covered with a runner, before I dragged it into the GROP and tore into it. I cut the funky curved feature off the base, added some corner reinforcement, re-worked the drawer slides, removed the fat awkward drawer knobs, turned and added bun feet to the front, and installed square feet on the rear (going for the 17th century Furniture of Necessity look). I sanded the whole thing down to remove some of the gloppy poly and painted it with an undercoat of red and an overcoat of flat black – also period appropriate. When the top coat gets a ding, the red shows through. I have a number of chairs and other chests done in the same manner. I added brushed antiqued solid brass handles and called it done.

The chest now sits behind the couch, near the door for the back garden and holds a couple blankets for TV watching comfort and two cotton hammocks for lounging the yard.

What I want Thursday – Birthday Addition 2015

August 20, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

In about 4 weeks I will celebrate the 13th anniversary of my 29th birthday and the current plan is to spend the weekend in Rome and Venice or Florence. While there, I want cake (moist yellow cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting), snuggling, a nice glass or 6 of fine wine and lots of tiny cups of Coffee, laughter, and a few well thought out gifts. I will NOT work that day – just not going to happen – and I plan to pamper myself with a haircut and a strait-razor shave if it can be found.

Below is my birthday wish list – mostly for my wife, family and children, but feel free to peruse and suggest.

I already have a bunch of crap, so my first request is that people give to a worthy cause.

Heifer International:
- ~~Bees (really like to give the gift of bees)~~
- Goats, Chickens, Llama, or the whole Ark…
Doctors Without Borders/MSF
Diabetes Research

If you DO happen to maybe want to get me a little tangible token of your love and appreciation:

Updated after the occasion with strike-throughs for the stuff I got 🙂

Books:
A signed hardbound copy of Campaign Furniture
Theodore Roosevelt: a Strenous Life
I would like a signed copy of Chris Schwartz’s The Anarchist’s Tool Chest
Founding Foodies
Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America by Jennifer L. Anderson
~~Benjamin Franklin by Edmund S. Morgan~~
A volume on handplanes or a tome on traditional woodworking
Twilight at Monticello
Bees of the World by Mitchner
~~Bees of N. America~~ Santa got this book and two others for me early
A Lost Art Press volume of The Essential Woodworker
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
James Krenov’s Cabinet Maker’s Notebook
Two Classic books on Shaker Furniture: here and here.

Stuff:
~~A yearly subscription to Monocle Magazine~~ My wife is Awesome!! I have wanted this for YEARS!
Permission to buy a sweet fountain pen
Amber 2ga. Plugs
2ga. Dark Jade plugs
A handsome tweed vest
~~a large Isle of Lewis Chess Set~~ I got this set after-the-fact and my wife is now playing chess with me weekly! Win-Win
Brown Redwing Engineer’s boots
~~A banjo mute~~ Found for cheap in a local Toulouse shop
These new bad-ass cufflinks or ~~these~~ My wife had these made for me with a sweet message on the reverse. Love her.
~~New House Shoes~~ My mom is cooler the yours! She sent me these house-shoes and I have worn them almost every day since!
A Global Chef’s knife, bread knife, and ~~ceramic sharpener~~ Another score from Mom.
Classic Cartoon DVDs (Bugs, Tom&Jerry, Loony Toons, Road Runner, etc…)

Tools:
A pair of 1/2 round molding planes
A Pair of Snipe Bill molding planes
A Grizzly G0602 Benchtop Lathe

Sorry for Being MIA…

July 30, 2015 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I have been swamped for the last month and have not been posting. We have had friends and Family in, there have been trips for work and vacation, my J-O-B has me running in 6 directions – you name it. I will get my poop in group and post pictures from:

A couple climbing trips
My Son’s summer visit
London
Bespoke Shoe travails
Hiking in France and Spain
Barcelona
Recent projects
Stuff I am building
Etc…

Thanks,

Matt

Film Friday – Shoe Repair Shops: Part 2

June 12, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The second edition of my shoe/boot edition of Film Friday.

English Shoe-Maker:

Fabulously British Collaborations – NPS Shoes Ltd from Jack Wills on Vimeo.

Climbing shoe resole in Bishop, California:

Inside The Rubber Room: A Climbing Shoe Resoler from Just Go Climb on Vimeo.

Work Boots:

Dayton Boots from Mike Nairne on Vimeo.

Musée du bois et de la Marqueterie in Revel, France

June 9, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Last summer My Father-in-law, my son, and I made a road trip to the Musée du bois et de la Marqueterie (Museum of Wood and Marquetry) in Revel, France (about an hour from our house if you don’t get lost or almost run out of gas…). The town is one of the noted centers of high quality furniture production and has historically specialized in wood marquetry. It goes back to 1888, when Alexandre Monoury – a master cabinetmaker – left the workshops of Versailles and settled in Revel. Under his influence, several workshops were set up there and many of those origional shops are still going strong today.

The museum highlights the work of the area, new and old, and we spent a couple of hours marveling at the tools, example pieces and shear artistry of furniture, sculptures and marquetry examples on the second floor of the facility.

As a note – this part of France is stunning with sunflower and wheat fields(the Tour du France rides through or by every year) and the town has an stunning 13th century market square and a beautiful central market hall with a quadrangle of historic buildings around it that are home to restaurants, a fabulous bakery/pastry shop and antique shops.

Road Trip through Provence – June 2015

June 1, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Our time in France is not forever and we are more than halfway through our stay here and have begun the logistics discussion for our return to the US: What goes and what stays, where we will live, timing, etc…

Since we are on the downhill slope, my wife and I have decided to get busy seeing the parts of France that we have put off visiting thus far. So, this past weekend we went on a “must see” tour of Provence: Arles, Avignon, wineries, food, ruins, castles, sights, sounds, sunshine, oh my…

Below is a short list of accomplishments and pictures from the weekend:

Toured the coliseum in Arles (20th largest in all of the Roman Empire)
Visit to the Arles amphitheater
Walked in the footsteps of Van Gogh
5 museums
4 churches
A fantastic Air B&B in Avignon
Tour of the Pope’s Palace in Avignon
Pictures galore
Drive to the wine region and village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Winery tours
Wine consumed and purchased
I may have taken some rocks from the fields…
Visit to the Point du Gard (tallest aqueduct in the Roman world)
4-hour mad dash home and restful sleep.

Film Friday – Shoe Repair Shops: Part 1

May 29, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am a sucker for a fine pair of shoes or boots. I love to go into a shoe shop to watch the cobblers work and smell the leather & dye. I have a pair of Justin Roppers ™ that have been with me since I was 17. I have had them half soled more than 5 times and full soled twice. I have had cuts stiched up and new heels nailed on. They fit my feet like a pair of bespoke calf-skin gloves. I wish all my shoes fit and felt like they do. I have Al’s Attire in San Francisco building my dress shoes and boots now and I hope to have that sort of relationship with their products as well someday.

First Rate Shoe and boot repair in the Great State of Texas:

Austin Shoe Hospital:Craftsmanship from Mosaic Media Films on Vimeo.

A part-time cobbler making shoes in his garage:

The Shoemaker from Pete Stone on Vimeo.

Western boot builder:

Lisa Sorrell from Tiana Jade on Vimeo.

What I want Thursday

May 28, 2015 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Current ‘shit that I want/need list’:

For my mom to feel 100% better
To stop traveling SO MUCH for work
To stop eating so many carbs and so much sugar
For my wife to feel all better
A three day walk in the mountains
6 Days in Rome without my cell phone
To rock climb with my friends in the French countryside
About 15 hard cover books about beekeeping and cabinet making
Some serious cash to give to Heifer and MSF
To be 100% certain of what can and should be done with our house in Seattle: rebuild or sell
For my wife to finish some alterations and repairs for me
A slender dark grey Yorkshire cap
To stop worrying about our house in Seattle
A sweet tweed vest
A few pair of cordovan and black monk-strap wing-tips from Al’s Attire
A Filson medium travel bag.
A couple of belts
To start working out again in earnest and stick to it

Apartment Therapy didn’t want what we got…

May 27, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We sort of have a Wood-Craft/Bohemian/Bookworm thing going for our living room, den, and dining room decor at our place in France. Stamps-With-Foot just sort of let me go and only said no to the anvil for a sofa table idea. She hasn’t just sat on the chaise lounge and popping bon-bons in her mouth – all the curtains in the whole house are here doing and the flowers that seem to be magically refreshed every few days is all her as well. Everyone that we have had over loves it and one guest said: “It is so lovely that your company provides you with a professionally decorated home…” I was a little taken aback; embarrassed and proud at the same time.

The wooden extension ladder bookshelf was my first project after we moved here and I have sort of built around that, adding a few pieces: a workbench turned into a buffet/TV table, the lathe book shelf, an assortment of Moroccan and Turkish rugs, an antique or two, a few unique bits & bobbles, some paintings, a chest or two, a small bench, etc…

The rest of the place isn’t too shabby either with a dedicated sewing room for my wife, a 1000+ lending library that we house and run, a great shop space, my office that is plywood-modern, a guest room out of the 1930’s with all sorts of girly pretty things (also my wife’s touch). Our bedroom is all dark wood, yellow curtains with sage green accents, and my son’s room/other guest room is bright and happy. The quiet and secluded backyard has an outdoor dining area and grill, fluffy green grass, lots of flowers, and a shady spot for my hammock – the puppies are in heaven out there!

My ego got the best of me and I snapped off a couple of shots and sent them into Apartment Therapy, knowing that the site admin would go nuts for our place… nope, no response. Fine, I get it. I don’t NEED their validation, but I wouldn’t have kicked it out of bed either… Instead, I will post my non-professional, non-posed (except the one of us and the puppies), snapshots of our house near Toulouse here as a tincture for my ego. In the end, my wife loves it, which matters the most and one needs a happy wife if one wants a happy life.

Historic Furnishings from the Bavarian National Museum in Munich

May 25, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Stamps-With-Foot and I had a long weekend in Munich last month and we spent the better part of a day in the Bavarian National Museum (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum) looking at cool old stuff. Their furnishings collection is impressive, with rebuilds of entire rooms from castles, hunting lodges and ale houses from 1400-1800. My wife gave me free reign to snap pictures to my little heart’s content so what follows is a collection of chests, cabinets, beds, and other furniture from their collection. I also love wood carvings and bronze, so expect a sampling of those as well. There were a lot of images to load and I put up smallish images for the sake of speed, so if you see one that you REALLY like and want more detail, let me know and I will send you a full sized image and all of the notes that were attached to the piece.

A visit to the Museum du Augustine’s in Toulouse

May 23, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

La Museum du Augustine’s in Toulouse, France is a former convent that is France’s second oldest museum and full of art and sculpture. The cloister garden in both beautiful and peaceful in the spring and summer. Below are a few pictures taken from a recent visit.

SUPER DEAL on the interwebs!

May 22, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

in December of 2013 Stamps-With-Foot and I were in San Francisco and visited an awesome shop called Windtip, which is in the shadow of the Trans-America Building. They are in a former Art Nouveau bank building (Originally the Bank of Italy) that the store has preserved – including the vault. As you might imagine, they have lots of fancy men’s shoes that made me tingle, But are more than a shoe store: “… a “one-stop shop” for the modern gentleman… the store features a custom clothing department, professional & casual clothing, cufflinks, pens, leather goods, barware, cigar accessories, a barbershop, and shoe shine stand. And that’s just the store. A private club for our best customers houses a bar & lounge, private parlor rooms, a boardroom, golf simulator, and a wine cave.” In short, a VERY cool place that any gent or his loving wife SHOULD check out if in the city.

Anyway, while there I fell for a black leather Moore & Giles document portfolio that I considered, if only for a flash of an instant, plopping down some hard earned cash for. Although perfect for my work life as a European-dwelling engi-nerd that prefers to more fast and light through airports, I came to my senses and walked away. I have longed for it ever since and have asked for one as a gift for every anniversary, Christmas, birthday, and a few random Tuesdays and Thursdays since that first meeting.

I checked the other day on it, more to torture myself than anything else, and the manufacturer has discontinued the product. Wingtip had bumped the price up and had it marked at $450! Crap… I started sketching it up so that I could get my cobbler (that sounds SO much more pretentious than it is…) to see about making it. I needed a detail and did a image web search this afternoon 15 minutes before I had a super important call for my J-O-B and BAM! There it was at Sierra Trading Post for CRAZY CHEAP! I have bought hiking clothes from them for years at deep discounts, but had no idea that they would have something like this. I double checked the item, looked if they had the black one in-stock, and called their customer service right then.

Yes they have it in black, yes they accepted my 4 year old 30% off coupon and just like that I got a $450 portfolio for $110.40 delivered free to my house in Seattle. Done and done. I was so excited that it made the work call after a pleasure and I have been dreading it for two days.

AM SO STOKED!!

Lectern rebuild and re-thinking the plan

May 22, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Early last year, I picked up an antique copyist’s lectern (the top part only) that originated in a French Abby. The lectern was riddled with worm holes, a couple pieces were missing, and there was some damage to repair, but the first thing was to make it bug free so not to infect all our other furniture with wood worm. The thing spent a couple of months in a plastic bag full of insecticide and chemicals that makes for square babies. According to the interwebs two months bathing in said concoction would make the piece safe to bring out see the light of day again, so after fumigation, it sat in our living-room as decoration for 12 months before I started the rebuild in earnest.

Initially, I sketched up a few column profiles in my ubiquitous little black notebook and settled on a somewhat simple design that matched the overall style and period of the piece. Next, I spent a little time one Sunday turning a new pedestal out of beech scraps from my workbench build. I glued them all up into a single 5″ X 5″ x 32″ hunk of wood. I then measured and turned matching intermediate supports from a scrap oak rolling pin with curves to match the column. A couple of weeks later, I used the last of the beech scrap and turned the pedestal base, which ended up 16″ in diameter and 3″ tall.

After gluing it all together, applying matching stain, and putting 4 coats of polyurethane on the base, it was time to start on the lectern top. All was going to plan right up to the moment that I removed a damaged shelf and saw what looked to be fresh wood damage… In one of the joints there was a small white bug larvae… Son of a bitch… I immediately put plastic on my bench top and took apart another joint. I found more LIVING wood worm. I started picking at the capped holes here and there and more worm… Shit!!! I wrapped it up in a trash bag and out to the street it went. It would seem that my lethal chemical treatment wasn’t that lethal. Just REALLY, REALLY happy that the hatch hadn’t started and that my house was no full of bugs that would lay word worm eggs all over our other furniture. I took pictures and measurements and I am now planning on building a copy of the top over the next month or so and I will post the finished product here when I am done and it is installed in the living room.

Old iron is the best

May 21, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am too stupid to own a motorcycle. Really. I have been on one bike or another since I was 5 , when i first sat on a 50cc Honda dirt bike and my last one was a beautiful 900cc rocket. I have all sorts of stories about crashes and near misses, a few scars, a broken wrist and foot from my early riding years. I decided that most of my injuries and near-death experiences on a bike were completely my fault and that unless I wanted to be an early organ donor I had to give them up, so after the birth of my daughter, I sold my last bike and other than a dalliance with rebuilding a duel-sport on my balcony in 2004, I have been able to resist the pull of two wheels. Then, minding my own business, I walk into something like the pair shown below:

Went to local pizza shop for dinner last week and what is sitting outside? Two vintage bikes, both old single cylinder French Motobecanes – the single-seater with the white helmet is a 1950 and the double-seater with the gas can on front is a 1952. Talked to the two guys riding them and the bikes are barn finds bike that they pulled out and got running this morning. Super jealous!!!! There were cobwebs and barn dust still on them. Take gander at the old plates! These babies make me want an old bike to tinker with, ride, rebuild, ride, cuss, work on, ride, love, ect… Now, I need another project/hobby like I need a hole in my head, but the pull of the Dark Side is SO strong!

Kitchen Island – Update

May 20, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

It has been almost a year since I built (with help from The Ruminator) Stamps-With-Foot a kitchen island and she has loved it (so I am told) and used the bejesus out of it. I made a couple of additions and there are a a few observations:

The wood I used as the base platform shelf was REALLY wet and I put 1/16″ spacing between the boards. WAY too much. I should have wedged them in as tight as possible because they have shrunk and now I have 1/8 gaps in a couple of places. No big deal since it is tongue and groove, but I don’t like spacing that large.
I installed an Arkansas Razorbacks bottle opener on one of the legs. It was required.
I had used a hunk of cherry tree trunk/firewood and turned it down as a lid/plug for the scrap hole. I turned it too large since it was really wet and was bound to shrink/warp/crack. My best guess is that it is done moving, so I put it back on the lathe and turned it down to size and changed the profile a little.
The rolling pin is a great towel holder, but I should have/need to stop it from rolling – the towel slips off and onto the floor occasionally.
I also originally finished the plug with walnut oil, but it gets handled a lot by wet hands and I had to oil it every couple of weeks. This time I finished it with 3 coats outdoor polyurethane and then added a coat of wax.

Some small projects around the house

May 18, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have been swamped with work and travel for the last couple of months, so my shop time has been very limited. I have mostly been puttering around with my workbench, getting the last bits and bobbles done before calling it done and I have spent the off hour here and there on the lathe and doing stuff around the house:

I had to fix a dishwasher leak and do some painting in the kitchen – still hate plumbing
We did some re-arranging, so I had to fill some nail holes and then make new ones.
Glued a cutting board back together after it split – craptastic glue didn’t hold, so it is back in the to-fix pile and will get some dowels this time
Made a pot lid handle out of some scrap cherry.
Tackled the jungle that was once my yard – twice
Sharpened the lawnmower blade
Turned the compost
I bought a sheet of plywood and built a DVD shelf and a 8′ bookshelf for the lending library we run.
There was been an oak log in my shop for months so I cut it in half and made a couple of stools for my office.
Our puppies play a game called “run away from Mommy” when she takes them out, so I built two small fences to keep them in the back yard and away from the front gate.

I have do a few things in the shop just for organization and am working on a couple of little projects:

We got a huge free wardrobe that I put in the GROP to organize non-tool/shop related items like climbing gear and life jackets
My battery operated tools need a home, so I put together an organization center for them that mounts on the French cleat board
I hung up my 6 heavy panel clamps to get them out of the way
Made a Lathe chuck and tail-stock tool organizer for the French cleat organizer
With a bonus from my J-O-B, I bought a few more molding planes, but they arrived in sad shape. I spent 6+ hours one Saturday cleaning, sharpening and fixing them.
Started work on a blanket chest rebuild: cut here, snip there, new runners and new feet. Will get new milk paint finish when complete.
Working on a copyist lectern rebuild. I made the base, pillar and other bits from some scrap beech left over from the bench build.
Built a wooded top for the puppy Kennel so it blends better with the furniture in the Living Room.
Putting together a 6-board chest for molding plane storage. Will get re-purposed forged hardware and a Barn Red milk paint finish.

Film Friday – Piano Class

May 15, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Artistry of Repair:

Cool Hunting Video: Cantabile Piano Arts from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

The Artistry of Tuning:

Tuner – The third artist from Mattias Burling on Vimeo.

My workbench is DONE!!

May 6, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am about a month late in posting this – life and my J-O-B got in the way – but the Cornebarrieu Bench is done. Completely done! All bells and whistles added. It seems like it took me forever, but it fits perfectly in the shop and I started using the bench even before it was finished. I am very happy with the outcome and am currently working on projects that have been piling up all winter. Just in case you haven’t been following along for the past year and a half or so:

My GROP (garage and shop combo) in Seattle was too small for a proper joiner’s bench. I made due with a slim, high, wall-mounted work counter, a bolted on machinist-vise, Quick Clamps, and the top of my table saw. It worked – mostly/sort of – but was a pain in the ass a good bit of the time: I never once planed a board on a stable, solid surface. My GROP here in France is roughly the same size as the one in Seattle, but is absent the huge cast iron machines and saws. I have some room to move and finally have the space for a big, heavy, proper work bench as well as some time to build one – or so I thought.

It is an amalgamation of benches by M. Roubo, Roy Underhill, Chris Schwartz, and Bill Schenher. I am calling it the “Cornebarrieu Bench” after the small village in southern France where we live, where the lumber has been sourced, and where the bench was made and first used.

For anyone interested, here is a documented build process, build notes, and step by step guide – 115 steps – to build this beast.

Stuff My Wife Says:

May 4, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

My wife, Stamps-With-Foot, has a normally dry sense of humor and sometimes she is unintentionally hilarious. Other times I am shocked at some of the stuff that her brain comes up with that her sweet innocent little mouth then utters. I have been recording a few of them lately and the choicest pearls are below.

We bought a chocolate tart from a local patisserie on our way into town one afternoon. It was dairy free, gluten free, and egg free. After tasting it, my sweet tiny wife said, “What the fuck is this thing made of, unicorn tears?!”
She mixed the old and new high-priced boogie dog food together – three different flavors. The dogs refuse to touch it, so my wife has spent a fine portion of her evening sitting on the kitchen floor in her PJs sorting the kibble cussing and snarling about the “fucking spoiled-ass monsters” …and yet she went on doing it…
While at the Musee du Picasso, we walk by a surrealist blue woman reclining. My wife stopped and said, “I don’t really like it, but something draws you to the center of the painting.” I said half-joking, “Probably the huge anus in the middle.” and she shook her head knowingly and said nonchalantly, “Yes, that is probably it…”
At dinner the other night, my wife looked down at a not cheap glass of red wine and said softly, “Why can’t I quit you?!” she then took a sip. I think she was mentally calculating how much each taste cost.
My bride is a visual person: she has to see something real time to make a decision. This means that I often have to move a piece of furniture 5ish times before she decides to put it back in the original place. While doing this dance recently over a new piece of furniture, I sketched up the room and all the associated furnishings in MSVisio and she tried every possible combination. There was a plan. She had made a decision. When the day came to start moving that plan melted away like it never existed. Before we even started I mentioned my thoughts on correct placement, but she needed to “See” it. After moving it around and around in real-life a few times, she decided to put it the piece in the EXACT spot that I had pointed out initially. I uttered an under-toned ‘told you so…’ and she got all wide-eyed, stamped her foot, raised her voice and said, “You know I am a bad listener!”
Anytime that my sweet wife cannot remember the name of a town or a village, she calls it Hogsmeade. It doesn’t matter what country we are in or what historical significance that the place may have, if she can’t remember then it is her shorthand name, but I thought it was just kind of our own private nerdy joke. Nope. We had lunch in a small hamlet at the bottom of a glorious castle in Bavaria and in the accounting software we use she labeled it as “Lunch in Hogsmeade.” I almost want to be audited just so that I can show them that particular entry…
We were in discussion to add a dining room addition in our place in Seattle. Stamp-With-Foot has wanted a chandelier for years and said her only request was that we install one over the table. I jokingly said that “I didn’t get the memo for that” and it “…wouldn’t be possible unless the change notice request was submitted in writing.” She walked over to the whiteboard in my office and wrote in cute bubbly script: MEMO: Motherfukin’ Chandelier and then said, “Now you have it in writing.”

Film Friday – Building an Oud

May 1, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I wish I could play like this…

Oud from Eric Bloombaum on Vimeo.

Film Friday – Guinness Shamrock Pour

April 17, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

St. Patrick’s Day Guinness Shamrock pour from Chiuki Com on Vimeo.

Let down by an online tool seller with GIANT balls.

April 9, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So, I am a little tweaked… I got a small bonus at work and sent a little money to my mom and daughter, got something for my wife, paid to have a tree taken out, sent Heifer and MSF some funds, paid off my last student loan (FREEDOM!!), put a little money back for a rainy day, and with the last bit decided to do a little something small just for me: I bought a few beech molding planes and 3 mortise chisels from a guy with a web store in the Scotland. I will call him UK Tool Guy. I have bought twice from him before and it all went really smooth and my purchases were exactly as expected. I bought a toothing plane from him at a good price that was in perfect working order and arrived exactly as pictured on his site.

My experience this time around was different. The order part was normal, but when I received my stuff it was all kinds of wrong. Painted parts, broken pieces, condition received was NOT as advertised, etc… I spent 4 hours cleaning and fixing and will have to spend another 4-5 repairing 2 chisels and 2 of the planes. 8-9 hours is a lot of time to unexpectedly fix stuff that I just bought. I am not super-important in the grand scheme of things, but my time is worth something to me.

Anyway, I took a few pictures and wrote the guy to let him know about the issues, asking about the possibility of some remuneration. He sends me back a mail offering me a little credit instead of a refund. I take him up on it, not knowing what the shipping will be I choose a couple of items from his web store that equals to less than £50 (~$78) that he offered up. I think my time and frustration was worth more, but I didn’t press the point.

He sent me a response that informed me that I had gone over budget and that he would “…let me off for now…” Seriously‽‽ Was this guy born with an extra set of balls? This is the third time I have done business with him. I check his site regularly for stuff I am looking for – I am even on his MF mailing list. The bottom line is that I got an unexpected crappy deal, I was gracious and completely undemanding and he will “…let me off for now…”. It took over three weeks for him to send the stuff two new items out. So much for the “Shortly” time frame he referenced in his last mail. I believe that this is the last time I will be doing business with the UK Tool Guy

For the sake of Transparency, I have included the whole chain I sent below – only deleting names and contact info.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hi Matt

Thanks for your response.
Those two items actually come to £63.50 with postage which is a bit over
£50 but I’ll let you off for now, we can maybe adjust slightly with any
future order. I will get these off to you shortly.

THANKS

> On 17 March 2015 at 11:20, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as someone that can’t be pleased. It is
not that at all and my two previous purchases were really spot on.

Thank you for your immediate response and offer for credit. I would love
to have the boxwood rule and the upholstery hammer if you are OK with that.

Thank you and regards,
Matt

> On March 16, 2015 at 4:18 AM UK Tool Guy wrote:

Hi Matt

Thanks for your e-mail and I am sorry you had so much to complain about.
Not that it is an excuse on my part but I have a funny feeling I didn’t
pack your order up as otherwise I would have picked up on some if not all
of these points as I check everything properly when I am packing it. I
understand your frustrations when you get something that is not quite what
you were expecting and once again I am sorry for this. Rather than
refunding you some monies why don’t you instead have a look at the site and
see if there is something there around the £50 mark including postage that
you might like FREE. If there is just drop me an e-mail with the product
number so I can remove it off the site and send it over to you.

THANKS

> On 15 March 2015 at 20:36, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

I received the molding planes and chisels a couple of weeks ago, but as I
travel a good bit for work, I just this weekend had the time to open the
packaging up and take a look. What I found was a little surprising as I
have ordered a couple of planes from you before and condition was spot on
as advertised. I did not expect like-new condition as some of this
material is over 200 years old, but some of it was not as stated.

Two of the collars on the sash chisels are cracked, one completely. I am
going to have to tear them apart and replace the collars. I guess I will
either see if I can source from Marples or turn down some brass stock on
the lathe.

I spent most of yesterday flattening, polishing, sharpening, and oiling
the plane blades. There is a good deal of pitting on some of them and I
will need to replace two. Most of the plane bodies were fine, but the #12
was painted red and the #16 had a screw holding a crack in the body
together. I drilled it, filled with hide glue and inserted a beech dowel.
The #1 round’s wedge is cracked in half and has been glued back together
by a previous owner. I am going to have to make a copy of it and replace.
When I unwrapped the #9 there was wood worm in the packaging. Not just old
holes, but a live worm in the plastic. There was damage to the plane and
the wedge. I took the whole lot to our local vet and had her x-ray the box
4 times. It is a Luthier’s trick and it kills any worm/moth larva.

Take a look at the attached pictures and let me know what you think and if
you think it is fair to refund me a little of the purchase price and
shipping.

Thanks,

Matt

On 23 February 2015 at 15:51, drivenoutside wrote:

Hi _____,

The ship to address is: __________
My phone number is: ___________

Please send me the tracking number so that if there is a problem with the
shipper or customs, I can call right away

Thank you again,
Matt

——– Original message ——–
From: UK Tool Guy
Date:02/22/2015 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
To: Driven Outside
Cc:
Subject: Re: Tool Order

Hi Matt

Just written out your invoice for the tools ordered. The grand total
including postage comes to £metric shit-ton. An invoice / receipt will be included with the tools. I’m in the shop today until 4:30pm if you want to ring with card details for payment.

MANY THANKS

To the Land of My People – Talley, Wales

April 7, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I was in Bristol, England for my J-O-B last month and I wanted to get out into the countryside after working 12+ hours and flying the day before. My meeting that day went really well and ended at 2:00, so I hopped in the rental car and headed across the “border” into Wales. There is a little village in the River Cothi valley called Talyllychau in Welsh or TALLEY in English. It is purportedly the origin of my surname. Talley is in Carmarthenshire, Wales which is six miles north of the small town of Llandeilo and an hour north west from Cardiff.

The day was beautiful with warm sunshine, blue skies, and fresh green spring grass growing in the valley. Thick woods cover the steep hills on each side of the valley and there are twin lakes at the bottom that had geese and swans paddling about. The setting was idyllic and surpassed any hope that I had in my brain about the beauty of the place before visiting. I walked the former naive and walls of the ruined Talley Abby (founded in 1185 and destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII), explored the grounds of St. Michael’s Church (built from the Abby stone) and the surrounding cemetery. It was a very pleasant afternoon and I spent the time in quiet thought about those who have come before me and those that will live after.

I would like to tell you about the amazing pint of stout and piping hot beef stew that I had in the local public house after my exploration, since that was my plan, but sadly the pub in the small village closed last year so it was not to be. I ended up eating that evening in Llandeilo in a nice little pub, listening to an elderly couple speak welsh to one-another and English to the barman.

In a different life, I could see buying a small home in the village and re-opening the pub. Living the rest of my days in that little valley, walking the hills, woods, and fields in tweed and Wellies, flat cap slightly askew. Evenings spent pulling pints, making furniture, loving my wife and family. In the end, being placed in the pretty graveyard beside the white church walls, under an ancient oak, or down my the lake shore. The thought/day dream is somehow comforting.

Puppies

April 5, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have gotten a few comments and questions about our puppies, so here is the lowdown:

Brodie is our 8 year old male that is 1/2 French Bulldog and 1/2 Boston Terrier. He is a rescue that was once deemed by a shelter as “unadoptable.” NW Bulldog Haven stepped in and made sure that he got medical help for an eye issue and he found his forever home with us 6.5 years ago. When we fist adopted Brodie, he had leash aggression issues and DID NOT play well with others. There were beat downs, bloody lips, flying fur, and all out brawls with much larger dogs. We have spent years socializing him so that he could have puppy-friends or siblings and he is so much better than he was when he first came home. He is an awesome dog. He is smart and obedient and loves Stamps-With-Foot like the Pope love Jesus. He likes me fine and we are super-buddies when my wife is out of town for a day or two, but prefers her company and ignores me the very second her car pulls up. I am sure that he now views me as his combination butler/chauffeur. We brought him to France with us and he loves it here – I think it is the duck breast, nibbles of cheese, and foie gras that he gets under the table.

After all the work socializing Brodie we decided that he was finally ready for a full time buddy. Right at exactly that same moment we found Truffle.

Truffle is a full-blooded and pedigreed French Bulldog with a brindle coat and a cute under-bite. While surfing the local chat group for a specific piece of furniture, I saw an add posted in French about a female French bulldog puppy that was being re-homed due to an allergy in her family (we decided later that was crap and someone got a “fashionable” dog and had no idea how to train or care for a Frenchie…). She and Brodie immediately got along, though she is a bit of the annoying little sister. She was a year old in July and is still very much a puppy. There have been a few issues: potty training, diet, her delicate digestive system, some minor health issues, etc…, but we have 99% of it worked out. We did, however, make the decision to take her out of the gene-pool and we had her spayed. Frenchies as a breed have a LOT of issues and if we breed her, then we would be perpetuating the problems.

She is SO sweet and lovable, but she is not a puppy-rocket scientist. She was gifted with beauty and personality instead. Truffle wants nothing in this world but to sit beside one of us all day or it is even better if she can touch both of us at the same time: Her self-assigned spot in the bed is between the two of us at shoulder level. She “helps” my wife put on makeup, is there to “assist” in making the bed or folding cloths. She NEEDS to come into the shop with me, but isn’t allowed because she eats wood shavings. Truffle looks so sad standing at the door looking at me in the shop and the second my head is turned, will sneak in.

Below is a photo dump of both puppies just being themselves.

Film Friday – Ugly Trees

April 3, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Ugly Trees from moments.org on Vimeo.

What I want Thursday – 4/2/15

April 2, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Some stuff on my current want-list:

To stop traveling SO MUCH!
For real spring to arrive in Toulouse
To stop eating so many carbs and so much sugar
For my wife to feel all better
A couple of lathe tools.
A three day walk in the mountains
About 15 big, not cheap, hard cover books
A Moore & Giles Portfolio
For my new garage in Seattle to be done & dusted.
For my wife to finish some alterations and repairs for me
Porsche Design TecFlex Fountain Pen (F or EF Nib)
For my workbench to be 100% done
A slender dark grey Yorkshire cap
A sweet tweed vest
A few pairs of two-tone wing-tip Made-In-England Doc’s: White and Tan
A set of 10 cedar shoe-trees
Tickets for my son’s trip to France to be CHEAP.
For my Al’s Attire brogue boots not to squish my toes
Brooks Brothers grey or subtle pattern sport coat – slim cut.
A Filson Medium Travel bag.
One medium-small Rimowa Carry-on
To start working out again in earnest and stick to it
A fine set of Cuff-links
For my business plan to be finished
Tiffany blue silk tie and a matching pocket square.

5/5/2015 Update:

~~For real spring to arrive in Toulouse~~
~~A couple of lathe tools.~~
~~For my workbench to be 100% done~~
~~A slender dark grey Yorkshire cap~~ – I got a sweet green tweed one made in London
~~A few pairs of two-tone wing-tip Made-In-England Doc’s: White and Tan~~
~~A set of 10 cedar shoe-trees~~
~~For my Al’s Attire brogue boots not to squish my toes~~ – Had them stretched in the States last week. Perfect fit now!
~~Brooks Brothers grey or subtle pattern sport coat – slim cut.~~
~~Tiffany blue silk tie and a matching pocket square.~~

HACKED…

March 30, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Son of a… My site got hacked. I thought that I was safe: A host provider I trust, back-doors closed, a random generated password, all the stuff you are supposed to do. I was talking on the phone last night and I noticed a “payday Loan” link just under my site name on my home page. Son of a…

This is a BIG deal. Aside from some ass-hat having a BS ad on my site, it meant that my corner of the web was compromised and the second that Google gets a whiff of it, your site is no longer searchable and you get put into website purgatory. It happened to me in 2005 and it took me YEARS to get it all fixed and to be back in Google’s and all the web filters good standing

I immediately put my site to sleep, scoured my site code for the offending link, and then searched the inter-web forums. It looks like the link was added via a .php server backdoor and was somehow attached directly to my WordPress Theme, so I deleted the existing theme and rebuilt the my main page and widgets. That seems to have done it for now, but I contacted my Web Host to see what they were doing about any possible breach and got the “We are experiencing a large call volume… longer than usual wait times…” message. No luck with live chat or e-mail either. Super pissed. I have been with them since 2002 and have never had a server-based security breach.

Museum of the History of Paris – a MUST see

March 25, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Musee Carnavalet (The History of Paris Museum) is a hidden gem! It is off the normal well-beaten tourist path and within walking distance from St. Eustace Church and the Picasso Museam. It is full of treasures including an entire Alfonse Mucha designed jewelry store – see pictures below. It made me feel all funny inside when my wife drug me there. She tried to get me to go with her this summer , but I wanted to do something else that now escaes me. I should have listened to her. There are 100+ rooms of paintings and sculpture, models, furniture, and good stuff to gawk at.

Set in a series of old Parisian town homes and Orangeries that are all put together with walkways and joined gardens. One of the cooler aspects is that you wander through re-creations of rooms from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune, and enter into the private spaces of famous Parisians like Marcel Proust’s bedroom with his brass bed and his little table covered in pens, ink, and notebooks. As I said, I was drug here the first time, but it is on my list to visit now even if I am in the city alone for a few hours. It was not too crowded at all and the gardens are a really nice place to sit in and catch up on your travel journal entries. Did I mention that the admission is free?!

The Grand Bazaar – Istanbul 2015

March 22, 2015 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is purportedly the largest tourist attraction in all the world. Maybe. We were there in the winter – snow on the ground – and it was still packed. After an accidental trip to the Egyptian Bazaar (cabby issues are the bane of every traveler’s visit to the city), we decided on the full Grand Bazaar experience: walking all the lanes, seeing the sites, listening to all the languages and the sellers hawking their wares. My wife, who is an expert haggler, attempted to buy all the scarves in Turkey. We bought a few little souvenirs for people we love (my mother’s and my father-in-law’s birthdays were coming up). I ate a significant amount of pistachio Baklava and honeycomb. We also had lunch and coffee at a kebab place hidden in the bowels of the market that was serving the market sellers when we arrived – a sure sign of authentic yumminess.

Stamps-With-Foot had a “No Pestering” policy and when one of the sellers started harassing her to buy or to come in his shop, she would move on. It seemed to work and she was left alone to browse and shop and got a couple of bargains. I was the designated pack mule and carried all the bags. I also assisted in the negotiations for some of the goods – playing the tired husband who’s wife is on a spending spree – they had no idea that the bags were filled with $1-10 dollar items. It worked great and she got a gift for her dad at 1/3 the original asking price as well as a couple silk scarves for a ridiculously low price. The scarf seller looked at me with knowing eyes and brought me apple tea while she tore through his stacks looking for “the right one… or five…”

Words fail me in describing all that we saw and did, but the images below should give you an idea.