Tag: snail mail

Weekend Update – the gods of lawn maintenance are displeased

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

We had a national holiday in France on Friday and I made the most of my 3-day weekend.

Instead of the stuff I needed to do I did this:

1. Got up at 7:30 on a holiday
2. Went up into the mountains with a group of Expats for a hike and a picnic – got some great pictures and had fine food
3. Worked on a design for wooden wine box/kitchen cabinets
4. Completely filled my Leuctterm1917 design sketch notebook – took 2 years
5. Watched a girlie movie with my sweet wife
6. Started a new notebook – a Rhodia Webbie this time (I like the paper better)
7. Spent too much time on the interwebs
8. Started formal permit process for garage shop and apartment above at our place in Seattle
9. Sanded, sealed and painted the “T” supports for the workbench/buffet table
10. Rough turned 4 oak bowls from a piece of tree blown down in a storm
11. Sent some e-mails out that I had let sit too long
12. Coated the bowls in wax and will let them cure for a year.
13. Cleaned and organized GROP – oak shavings were EVERY where
14. Composted the shavings with some grass and kitchen scraps
15. Sharpened all my lathe chisels
16. Brained myself on a low hanging bike – said f-word more than once
17. Went to a run along the river
18. Called my Mom and talked for a bit
19. Checked on the kids
20. Cut first 5” top sections for Cornebarrieu Workbench
21. Need a proper circle saw… the 18v battery saw is out of it league on 1.5” beech
22. Worked on the small cabinet rosettes for our neighbor – he also asked me to install a shelf while I was at it…
23. Played with the puppies – while Stamps-With-Foot had a girls night
24. Got sucked into Pinterest
25. Updated website a little (here and Tumblr)
26. Watched a little too much TV/YouTube
27. Took puppies for a walk around neighborhood a couple of times
28. Rode my bike about 10 miles – muddy
29. Cleaned and tuned single-speed bike
30. Played with puppies
31. Did some grilling with beer in hand 
32. Got up Sunday morning and worked for a few hours, – because I thought it was Monday. Damn it!
33. Closed office door and did not return for 24 hours
34. Told wife her hair was very pretty
35. Went for a walk with wife and puppies
36. Made a small parts organizer out of a broken wood bowl
37. Got glue on my favorite shorts
38. Wrote some snail-mail
39. Surfed the interwebs until I fell asleep with the iPad on my chest…
40. I did not mow the yard again. The gods of lawn maintenance are displeased with me.

Hiking august 2014 (3)

Hiking august 2014 (1)

Hiking august 2014 (5)

Hiking august 2014 (2)

Hiking august 2014 (4)

Rosettes for neighbor

Oak Bowls Aug 2014 (5)

Oak Bowls Aug 2014 (7)

Lathe clean aug 2014

Oak Bowls Aug 2014 (1)

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Last page of notebook Aug 2014

yard not mowed this weekend 2014

T-beams for bench-buffet table aug 2014

found trivet 2014

making shavings aug 2014

Very Productive Weekend – except in the yard.

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I did not mow the yard this weekend. It just didn’t happen. I meant to and I wanted to… I even took the mower and cord out, but it just didn’t happen. Instead I did this:

1. Redesigned the top of the workbench that I am building.
2. Threatened for 148th time to quit Facebook.
3. Didn’t quite
4. Updated status
5. Cleaned and organized GROP a little while grumbling about my lack of willpower
6. Worked on a J-O-B related spreadsheet
7. Finished bookends for wife – made from Victorian andirons.
8. Cut the base (legs and stretchers) for my workbench.
9. Turned two sets of TINY rosettes for our neighbor to replace a couple that are missing from a piece of furniture – help the neighbors when you can.
10. Put together a set of I-beams to reinforce a table top that is warping – they do that after 250-300 years…
11. Gave my wife a foot rub.
12. Glued up some maple blanks to turn later on
13. Played with the puppies – there are two now.
14. Got sucked into Pinterest
15. Watched a little TV/YouTube
16. Took puppies for a walk around neighborhood
17. Turned a small jar lid for wife out of some scrap cherry
18. Drank some Spanish rosé with wife and had a nice home cooked Thai meal
19. Fixed front door lock at 1:00am
20. Had weird dreams Saturday night
21. Slept in – new puppy had first good night’s sleep 🙂
22. Puppy sat while wife got her hair cut.
23. Told wife her hair was very pretty
24. We took puppies into Toulouse to meet some friends for coffee
25. Walked in park with wife and puppies.
26. Cut and chiseled joints in to ½ of the workbench legs
27. Sucked into Pinterest vortex again
28. Sent some J-O-B e-mail
29. Talked to my mom
30. Text messaged with my daughter
31. Tried to call my son – he was out with friends. Teenagers… 🙂
32. Played with puppies
33. Sent some more work-related e-mail
34. Told wife hair was pretty again
35. Made a tiny adjustment to kitchen island at wife’s request
36. Wrote a snail-mail letter to my aunt and son
37. Filled out a couple of post cards
38. Updated website a little
39. Looked at work calendar for tomorrow – very full.
40. Said dirty words…
41. Went downstairs to snuggle wife, puppies and to stay up too late on Pinterest or stupid Facebook.

Cornebarrieu Bench update (2)

Cornebarrieu Bench update (1)

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andirons 2014 (1)

Truffle 8 -2014 (3)

TRuffle and Brodie 7-2014

Hey dad, I was thinking that I NEED a dirt bike…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

My son, The Ruminator, sent me a text message this morning that said, “What is your address. Will you pay for half of a dirt bike if I save the other half?” What that means is that I am about to get a letter tugging at my heart strings asking for a two-wheeled, 2-stroke emergency room express transporter. My response was no, I will not pay for half. IF I get a hand written document listing 612 individual reasons (an agreement made between us previously), in completes sentences, why he needs a dirt bike, then I will pay for 1/3.

More than most things in this world, I want my kids to write real letters; documents that contain complete thoughts, written with an ink pen, that you have to put a stamp on and leave in a mailbox for the postman to carry away. My 11 year-old son is keenly aware of this desire as we made a deal last summer that I would get a letter a month for two years… I got three letters. He is eleven, I sort of/kind of understand, but I really did/do want him to write. More to the point: if I were to say get more mail from my offspring that included more information than a scribbled wish list and if he delivered on his 612 reasons, then I might be more open to negotiation for this and other objects of his pre-pubescent desire. I am not going to make this easy or hand it to him. If he has some sweat/brain-power equity in this transaction, then he will learn something and while I want to be liked, I want to be the ‘cool dad’, I think it is important to throw life lessons in his path as much as possible. I read another blog recently where the writer set a priority of “raising citizens.” That resonates with me.

A deal down at the crossroads…

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

My boy, like much of his generation, is not a letter writer. While talking to The Ruminator about why he hadn’t sent out a couple ‘Thank You‘ notes, he gave me the – ‘I don’t have any cards and I have bad handwriting’ – story.  I made a deal with him:  I would make him some stationary and cards with zombies on them if he both promised to use them for the aforementioned note of ‘thanks’ and if he would write me one letter a month for two years.  I told him that penmanship, content, punctuation, and spelling didn’t matter.  I just wanted one honest letter a month.   He loves “killing” zombies and so he was in!  I made him shake on it.  To drive the point home, I drew up the little contract below for him to sign, putting Christmas and birthday presents on the line for failure to live up to the deal, and made sure Santa witnessed it as well.

Quality stationary means quality paper.  Like with my own and Stamps-With-Foot’s Stationary – instead of the white recycled paper that we use for most printing, I used 30gram 100% cotton ivory/ecru paper and matching 100% cotton envelops.   I went into Adobe Illustrator and made a green zombie head Victorian silhouette from an image that I pulled of the inter-webs.

I worked on it for 3-4 hours and stayed up late putting it all together.  I had a surprise trip to the UAE come up, so I asked Stamps-With-Foot to send The Ruminator his stationary.  I even included an organizer and special pen for him to compose his prose with.  I called his house the day it all arrived and got an butt-chewing from his mother about how crappy it was to make a 10 year old sign a contract and expect him to write me once a month.  She was not amused and missed the whole spirit and reason it was all done in the first place.  I doubt that I will be getting a letter and no notes will be sent out.  My son will learn that he doesn’t have to keep his word and that not all manners are important…  Exactly the opposite lesson that I was trying to teach him.  We shall see how it all turns out…