Proud Father

July 10, 2018 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

My son sent me this text message about something he heard during a sermon at his church:

“As illegal aliens, these children are criminals and deserve to be punished!” – my preacher, a white man… the descendent of immigrants… lmao… OK…

He threw a fit and argued – loudly. I could not have been more proud of him!

I think we Christians sometimes forget that when Jesus said “love thy neighbor,” He meant:

thy LGBTQ neighbor
thy old neighbor
thy black neighbor
thy asian neighbor
thy addicted neighbor
thy homeless neighbor
thy rich neighbor
thy poor neighbor
thy jewish neighbor
thy weird neighbor
thy muslim neighbor
thy atheist neighbor
thy white neighbor
thy immigrant neighbor
thy sinful neighbor

Jesus taught love, inclusion, and acceptance. We should never forget or ignore that.

Catching up and writing more

June 25, 2018 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have not been writing as much in the last few months as I should. I have lots of excuses:

House Remodel
Hectic Work Schedule
Jeep Rebuild
A focus on film making and growing my YouTube presence
Lawn and Garden care – seriously, this takes up a lot of my time.
Too much TV and interwebs…
Blah, Blah, Blah…

When you get to the base of it all though, the answer is that I have made time for all the other things that keep me sane/make me crazy except for writing. I am renewing my focus and will be posting more words to go along with all of the pictures and video.

Let’s start with an update of current stuff:

The Attic

We are so close to being done with the attic conversion. I have to put a couple of coats on the closet door and one on the stair railing and paint the 4 walls with a couple coats of the almond eggshell that my wife picked out. The new hardwood flooring is being delivered today and it will be installed on Friday. I will spend the weekend installing the stair treads and kickers/risers. The receptacles, switches and lights are the last serious items that will go in before I touch-up a little paint here & there and I will be done and can focus on the basement.

Basement

We are 75% there. All tiled laid, grout done and a functioning toilet!! I need to finish the trim install, hang two doors and then paint EVERYTHING! I am having a custom shower rod TIG welded together and will be building the double sink vanity. I have to tack together & paint the medicine cabinet door and mirror frames as well. After all is in, we will have a plumber come out for the sink install and shower hook up. I don’t plumb. I am afraid of flooding my house with water or sewage. I leave that job to the professionals.

Main Level Bath

The tube tile surround is being replaced in two weeks with 6” subway and small hex tile. The new bathroom mirror will be going in this week, and I have to have the exhaust fan switch rewired.

Jeep

I had a solid weekend working on the Jeep. The taillights are installed, the winch is re-wired, mirrors installed, windshield back on with new gasket and PLENTY on extra silicone. The upper KC spotlights are re-installed, and an issue with the front speakers if fixed. I still need to paint and install the spare tire rack, as well as the CB, megaphone speaker, 2^nd battery, air compressor, lower KC spot lights, passenger headlight, rub rails, whip antenna, headlight trim rings, and polish the rear tube bumper.

The current plan is to leave the top COMPLETELY off until fall when I re-install the soft top. I need to finish the Hi-Lift Jack rebuild project, have the speedometer serviced, and replace my tube pads as well before the cold winter wind blows.

Garage

The shop of me dreams is packed full of everyone else’s crap right now. It is all leaving by the last weekend in July if I have to put it all out on the road. I need to finish wiring in my 40K lumens of LED lighting, a 50AMP plug, a couple of 220/30amp plugs and have an electrician connect all into my service panel.

House Exterior

Downspout in back needs attention
A section of soffit need looking at and possibly repaired
I need to weld together the Juliet Balcony outside the dining room
Weld railing for rear steps
The new front windows need a little trim and paint
Dining room window needs trim and paint
The rear steps need to be painted
The chimney needs to be repointed before fall/winter
Basement railing needs to be installed
Both front railings need to be sanded and repainted.
External security alarm siren need to be installed
A tiny bit of concrete need to be pouted
Two security cameras need to be swapped out for the lower profile ones

The yard

Man, the front yard is good, a little weeding and bush trimming maybe. The back yard though… It is still a disaster, or at least ½ a disaster. I want to fill 3-4 gabion baskets with all the rocks left over from a previous owner’s attempt at pond-scaping and make benches around out fire pit. We will be adding a steel arbor from the garage to the patio this fall that I am welding up on-site. The patio table and chairs will get a proper sanding and oiling this weekend and we need/want an umbrella of it this year. I want to add a tool shed and additional firewood racks to the side yard. And finally, the small yard next to the garage is my makeshift apiary and I would like to make that both permanent and presentable with some additional hives, gravel and flower plants in narrow garden boxes.

Health

Stamps-With-Foot, my mom, and the kids are good. I am feeling all of my 40+ years lately though. My hip is still painful a full year after reconstruction. I may have torn the meniscus in my left knee, AND I have Fucking Tennis elbow from chopping firewood!! Not being able to run and bike, coupled with my love of cookies, has left me with a classic “Dad-bod” and even my fat pants are tight right now. Eating better now. Trying to get between 7 and 10K steps in a day, having the knee looked at, and working on the elbow. We are going to Hawaii in February and I need at least a 2-pac as there will be MANY shirtless days in and under the water, for my arm to feel better, and my knee and hip to be like 70%.

Other

Work is work, but I have really traveled at all this year and that is awesome! Still wish I was building cabinets for a living, covered in man-glitter, smiling but that will have to wait. I will be traveling to Arkansas this fall to see my daughter and her family. My son will be here in Seattle for a couple of weeks this summer. I hope to tour a couple of colleges with him. My wife and I have a couple of road trips planned and I want to get out on my bike, kayak, and skate board a little (don’t tell my wife or knee Dr. about the board…) I have started recording for a monthly Podcast. A friend conned me into it after a few years of asking. I am going to just sit and tell stories without naming names or implicating myself in any illegal activities that are not past the statute of limitations. As a reward for losing weight I will go ahead and finish out both of my tattooed arm sleeves and my wife and I are planning matching bee tattoos for our anniversary. I still have not bought a boat or a motorcycle, so she will keep me for a while longer

New Summer Vacation Plans

May 15, 2017 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

My summer plans have been changed for me. I had planned out another summer vacation spent with The Ruminator, but he is 16 now and has decided that he wants to stay home in Arkansas and be a lifeguard for the summer. I get it, I am his boring dad and it is hard for me to compete with ladies in swimsuits for the summer. I had pigeon-holed some time off and funds for sailing lessons/trip, diver certification for him, some diving, and ending the summer with a rock climbing road trip all the way down the west coast. While all that sounds cool to me, I am not a handsome young man facing all the unsaid possibilities of tanned ladies in my close proximity, hanging on my every word for 2.5 months.

I now I find myself, for the first time in 14+ years, in a place where my yearly vacation time is my own and I can spend some time/money taking my wife and myself someplace where it will be just be just the two of us – cue the romantic accommodations, bubbling hot tub, chilled champagne, soft candle light, and put Barry White on the turntable. As an aside, my wife felt super sorry for me over the canceled summer plans and after a glass of wine, she has agreed that I can buy a sailboat to soothe my wounded heart. I almost fell over stone cold dead from the shock of her statement and recorded her saying it a second time for legal reasons 🙂

I flew down to San Diego last week and took a look at a 33’ sloop-rigged blue water boat for sale in the marina. It has way too many issue that need to be addressed to make any serious passages and I am not willing to spend the time covered in fiberglass bits, retrofitting a 15 year old toilet, huffing hull paint, and wading in stagnate bilge water. While a steal of a deal for what the boat is/could be, I will keep looking.

Right now though, I am thinking of starting the summer with a little road trip to see her family in Oregon, wine tasting in the Willamette Valley, and a couple of days taking advantage of my friend Dr. G’s house and hospitality in Northern California. There will be a long weekend in the Bay Area and Napa with friends and family. We are also going to make a good part of the local Washington/Oregon festival circuit this summer.

Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 2

May 12, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Below is Part 2 of a 3-Part series documenting our garage/shop build. Like Part 1, this film is made from pictures taken during the build with a voice over commentary. Part-3 will be a mix of videos, stills, and some drone shots.

There is a “hidden track” at the end…

Film Friday – The Garage Build Film Part 1

May 5, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I’ve had a number of people on various web forums, 6 sets of neighbors, a few friends, and a ton of folks in our area ask me some detailed questions about our garage build: size, foundation, demo, siding, wiring, roof, the car lift, etc… As I have been making some videos while rehabbing the hip, I thought that I would turn my garage build into a three part YouTube series to answer most of the questions and have all of the information documented in one spot. The first one is done and up now and the second should be done in a few weeks.

This one and the next are from pictures taken during the build, with a voice over. The third will be a mix of videos, stills and some drone shots. I learn something every single time I put a video or slide show together, so my hope is they get more and more watchable.

I didn’t have the time or facilities to do it in this video, but I would like to use my own guitar, banjo, ukulele, fiddle, and mandolin picking for the soundtrack on future videos. My son, brother-in-law, and any friends I can con into it will also be future soundtrack contributors.

Film Friday – Baidarka (Skin on frame Aleut kayak) build movie

March 31, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

With the hip related bed rest, I have had some time to catch up on some film-making and finally finished this little slideshow film documenting the entire process of a 9-day father/son traditional kayak build that I blogged about this past summer. The next build will be either a small motorboat or a wood-strip cedar canoe.

Let me know if you have any questions about the video.

Boat Lust

March 19, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So, you may or may not know this about me, but even though I currently own a couple of small boats, I have MAD Boat Lust. I am a member of the Center for Wooden Boats, I get Wooden Boat Magazine & Small Craft Adviser Magazine every month, go to the Lake Union, Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend boat shows every year… I follow four sets of Blue Water sailors on YouTube, am trying to con my wife into taking a sailing vacation (I am getting a hard NO! on that one currently), and almost bought a used 22′ lead keel sailboat last summer for “my son.” I tried to sell it as his “learner Boat” and play up the father/son bonding time angle with it and my wife saw right through it. To date, however, I have not come home to tell my with that “We” just purchased an Amel 55 blue water sailboat, a 47′ diesel powered Cabin Cruiser, a Chris-Craft in need of some “light repair”, or a Hans Christian 33 kept in Bristol Fashion that “I” am planning to live on since said purchase would leave me homeless, devoid of my puppies, and divorced.

If my son, The Ruminator, lived in Seattle I wouldn’t mind a swing keel Columbia 22 or a Catalina 22 to gunk hole around the Sound in with him. A Catalina 270 LE would make my heart go pitter-patter as well, but I am a realist (-ish) and very aware of my current budget and available storage space. A sailboat that I would only use a few times a year and have to pay moorage on, would make me very unpopular at home. But, if someone has a 19′ WW Potter taking up space in their life that needs a new home, I would be game…

While what I WANT is a sweet little sailboat, what I NEED is a small outboard that that sits on a trailer in or beside the garage, that I can pop over to Blake or Vashion Island on, run up the Duwamish River a little piece, do a little salmon fishing on with my son or friends, haul a crab pot or three in season, find a secluded weekend beach for summer camping, etc… It needs to have a cuddy cabin to get out of the shifty weather here in Puget Sound, some storage space to keep gear dry, needs to be light enough to be pulled behind the jeep when fully loaded, and fast enough to handle the tidal flow in the PNW.

Buying a finished boat, even used, like a Ranger Tug 21, a C-Dory 19, or a Boston Whaler 21′ Cuddy are WAY out of my price range, I have been perusing Craigslist for a 16′ -21′ hardtops, but the ones I have found are either gold plated & upholstered in unicorn foreskin or needs to be sunk. So, in due course, I have been thinking about building the boat of need mentioned above. I know, I know… I have a shit ton of projects already with the shop and house, but I won’t start the boat until Stamps-With-Foot agrees that the house is good and all the little projects at home are squared away. Happy wife, happy life.

To digress a bit, my current home-built boat want is a Devlin Boats Dunlin 22 Cruiser with all the bells and whistles, but that too would be spendy, require me to quit my J-O-B to obsess over the details properly, I would have to rent out boathouse space for the duration of the build, have the time to build it, and would probably cause my sweet bride to up my life insurance just before “accidentally” pushing me into a wood chipper.

Back in reality, I am looking hard at building a couple of boats, including a Devlin Noddy 18. It is something realistic to build over the fall and winter, in the space I have available in the F-Bomb Garage, and within my current budget. Powered by a 4 stroke 50HP Honda or Yamaha, with homey little extras like: a sardine wood stove in the cabin, a crab pot winch arm on the stern, and lots of LED lights. Devlin Boat Works in just south of us in Olympia and in addition to being a design house, they are a boat works and build all manner of craft there at any given time. I sent a couple of e-mails and made some calls about the possibility of going down this summer if they have a Noddy or similar hull under construction. We will see if it can be arranged.

I will have to wait just lust a little while longer to satiate my boat lust…

Update: May 2017

Nope. Devlin is off the list. I can’t find anyone on the boat forums that has built the Noddy AND I have not had a single phone call or e-mail replied to. I don’t need to do business with someone who I have to beg to take my money.

Film Friday – Closing Out 2016 with a Snowboard Trip with My Son

January 13, 2017 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

For Christmas break this year my son, The Ruminator, wanted to do a little Snowboarding. I figured it would be a nice positive cap to a so-so year personally, physically, politically, etc…

Note: This is the fist film edited and made since my switch from GoPro Studio to iMovie and since my conversion from a Windows 10 computer to my Mini Mac for video and Audio editing. It was so much better to use and just worked! See this post for more detail.

A open letter to GoPro:

January 8, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Dear GoPro,

I am afraid that our relationship isn’t working out. It is not me, it is you – most definitely you. I have been a loyal fan-boy for years, but 2016 has undone us. Let me explain:

I have 4 GoPro cameras, 2 originals, one Hero Session and one Hero 4 Black. There must be $400 worth of mounts and accessories in my video equipment cabinet and mounted to almost everything I own. I was the first in line for the KARMA Drone, and I own a few shares of your stock. Hell, I was at your booth/jam box at NAMM 2 years ago and gushed to the staff there like teeny-bobber. I was at the 2016 NAB show when you guys won the “Best Of” award. Trust me, that I was all in and committed to making it work between us.

I can’t say enough great things about the cameras I own. I love them and use them while biking, boarding, cart racing, 4-wheeling, diving, running, working in the shop, etc… I am happy that the engineers, programmers, and employees in the SF Bay Area can go to work and do cool stuff, get paid a living wage, and work on tech that millions of people use every day. So why are we breaking up???

I mentioned that I own stock. Have you seen those numbers lately?! Hmmm… Screwing up the Amazon relationship before Christmas and not having production capacity did not help after the KARMA fiasco. Did your Contracts Team not even flip through “The Wal-Mart Effect” before negotiations started? Yes, I am somewhat irritated at losing money because a great product line is managed like a PTA bake sale. Additionally, I have had a DJI Phantom 3 Pro for a year or more and it has never once fallen out of the sky. I had the KARMA for 3 days before I had to climb 30 into a pine tree to retrieve it after it fell out of the sky. Camera was OK after the fall, but I sent the drone back for a full refund. One of the smarter things I did in 2016.

The final straw though is GoPro Studio. Holy sweet baby Jesus, I wish I had all the HOURS of my life that have been lost due to crashes, auto-overwrites, searching web forums for patches, and completely re-processing almost half videos I have made in the last 10 months. A recent attempt to make a film out of a Christmas snowboard trip made me want to beat my computer with a hammer for even associating with GoPro Studio. I know, I know it is “free” software… Bundled software with a $500 camera and an $800 drone is not free. As of the writing of this post, the last update to Studio was in October of 2015 – that was 15 months ago, eons of time for software. I finally had to drink the Kool-Aid and use my wife’s Mac Book to edit the film in iMovie. I made a killer little film in like 50 minutes. The software didn’t glitch, hang, or overwrite my project. It was easy to use even the first time and it just worked. As a note, iMovie is “free” as well…

To be clear, I do not see any of this as a production, software, or engineering failure. It is an issue with program & senior management. Hire professionals that understand product launch logistics, QA/QC, beta test management, vendor & supplier relationships, and the impact all of this has on your business and investors.

In closing, I am sorry that you made me do this on such a public forum. I am sorry that I can no longer support the hard work of your engineering team and production staff by purchasing your products. Spend some time on you, work on who you are and who you want to be, and get some professional help. Maybe someday we can sit down at the table again, but I am going to need my space for now.

Christmas Vacation 2016

January 5, 2017 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Christmas vacation this year was pretty good. I got great stuff Christmas morning, my mom stayed over Christmas Eve, and Stamps-With-Foot made a yummy Honey-baked ham for dinner on Christmas Day. I took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off from my J-O-B. The time was spent just hanging out with The Ruminator, finding a little adventure in the mountains, and getting some stuff done around the house and garage. My vacation this year looked like this:

Up at 6:00 Christmas morning and made coffee.
I got an XBox One and Battlefield 1 for I could play with my 40-year old adolescent friends online.
Got lots of other great stuff!
Worked a little in the basement on Boxing Day (the 26th).
My son, The Ruminator, flew in the day after Christmas.
Second Christmas morning with son on the 27th.
I put him to work that afternoon moving stuff in the garage and basement.
Pulled 4 circuits worth of wire in the garage.
Hung 3/4 of crown molding in the dining room.
Hired a carpenter to help with the finish of the crown molding and window install in dining room.
Hung pocket door and built last wall for bathroom downstairs with carpenter.
Installed structure in attic for chandelier installation.
Went to see Rogue One.
Loved it.
Snowboarding trip to Crystal Mountain in the Jeep.
The Ruminator rode really well
I am a fat old guy, but can still ride.
Owners rented the cabin we had reserved to someone else – insert grumpy face
Drove home.
Snuggled with wife.
Up early and drove to Snoqualmie for 2nd day of riding.
Glorious day in the mountains!
Watch a movie all together for New Year’s Eve.
Had family over on the 1st for long lunch.
Tried to edit snowboarding trip film.
Failed.
GoPro Studio sucks balls!
Serious online gaming session.
Brunch at Easy Street.
Got The Ruminator’s cracked iPhone glass fixed.
Picked up new kitchen floor tiles at Lowe’s special order desk.
Dinner with Nana.
Dropped off Ruminator at Airport.
Teared up in Jeep on the way to work.
Worked late first full day back to work in 2017 – an inauspicious start.

I did not buy a boat or tools at the 2016 Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

September 12, 2016 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I went to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival this past weekend (the 40th anniversary) and succeeded in staying married to my lovely wife by not buying a sailboat, not buying any crazy expensive (yet stunning!) tools at the Lee Valley Tools booth (the plane hammer and plane irons don’t count), and by not getting shanghaied into debauchery aboard a three-masted sailing ship headed out into the Pacific for points unknown. Instead, I drove up, saw the sights, talked to a few folks, lusted after a few tools, fell in love with one particular little wooden single-mast pocket yacht, then drove home in time for date night.

There were so many amazing boats there and I went up specifically to see a couple of the CLCPocketShips, a Scamp build, and to see if I could get on a 19’ West Wight Potter (while not a wooden boat, the Puget Sound Potters Group were in the vicinity…).

The Ruminator will be spending a good bit of his time next summer learning to sail and I may be in the market (grade and behavior dependent) for a little trailer sailor/pocket yacht for us to rebuild together. The idea of building or rebuilding a boat with one another interests me a great deal (sweat equity), but the Scamp is too small for us both (he is a big boy and I am tubby) and it is a 1000+ hour build. The Pocket Ship would work and we could overnight in it like a 2-man tent, but it is a 2,000+ hour build. The latter translates into 2 years of weekends and all my days off from work. It would also tie up all of my new shop space for the duration of the build. That is no está bien… The “smart” thing is to pick up a Catalina or Columbia 22 and just sail, but the ones I have seen, been aboard, and sailed on have no soul.

I did get a very close look at Opus, a lovely little boat (named after my second favorite Bloom County character) that I have seen battened up at the Center for Wooden Boats a few times. Her owners were there this weekend with her brass polished, decks scrubbed, and companion way open. I am in love! Opus has plenty of soul and personality just sitting dockside. I got to talk to the owners a good bit about how she sails, her history, and explored her little cabin to my heart’s content. I want her. If I were to build a boat someday it would be just like Opus. She is a Wee Seal MKII, designed by the noted Australian/Scotsman designer Iain Oughtred.

I also got to take a look at the Pygmy boats and kayaks (love their traditional kayak paddles) as well as the offerings from CLC. Some of the wood, inlay, and detail work on these kayaks is amazing. I don’t think I could put one in the water after I finished building it. I would be way too guarded about where it went and where I put it. CLC also has a little teardrop trailer that seemed to be one of the hits of the show/Festival.

I finished my tour of the show back at the Lee Valley booth and then walked out onto a long pier to watch all the sail boats playing in the 10 knot winds for a long while, before heading back to Seattle in the Forester by way of Port Gamble.

Building a Skin-On-Frame Kayak

July 5, 2016 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

On my very first trip to Seattle in 2003, I had a day off from work and happened to wonder into The Center for Wooden Boats in the South Lake Union area of the city. I loved it immediately and lingered around the boats and workshop for hours with a smile and a happy heart. At some point, a volunteer let me take out a kayak and paddle the lake. It was not like the plastic and fiberglass beasts that I had paddled or owned previously. It was light and flexible in the right spots, sleek, and fast. It was a skin-on-frame boat, called a Baidarka, that was based on a 4,000+ year old Aleut design. No nails, no glue, no screws. Just wood, nylon (modern replacement for walrus or seal skin…), and LOTS of knots.

I was smitten and just as happenstance, there was a baidarka building class going on that was finishing up under a pavilion on site. I talked to the instructor, Corey Friedman, asking all sorts of questions, until I think he wanted to drown me. Six years later as we were planning our move to the Emerald City, I vowed to take the kayak building class. Finances, life, and vacation available conspired against me until this year, thirteen years after seeing them for the first time (though I did read the Dyson book in college), the stars aligned and I was able to sign up for the class and take the time off. It also happened to coincide with my son’s summer visit, so I got to build an item on my bucket list AND spend serious quality time with my son.

We started on a cold Saturday morning with three ladies also building boats and 8.5 days later, I brought my hand built and custom sized boat home. The interim was spend learning a GREAT deal, tying 2000+ knots, bending frame ribs, listening to way too much zydeco music (instructor’s favorite), sewing, saying dirty words, removing stitches, resewing, loving the time spent with The Ruminator, and enjoying the ambiance of the Center for Wooden boats.

I have included a full photo documentation of my build as a pictures on my notes. I figure that the more people who document the process, the better chance this boat has of living on for future generations. Here is an additional documentation from another former student that was better at it than me.

F-Bomb Garage Build Status – Late June

June 24, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Well, we are a month+ behind schedule, but the our garage is coming along:

The roof trusses are up and on: Flat trusses on one side and scissors on the other side to accommodate the 2-post car lift. My contractor is not adding the fire block (insert grumpy face). These both limit the upward spread of a possible fire and add structural rigidity to the wall. Building code in our area is 10′ of wall height before block is “required” and my walls are 10’… I don’t care to build to the minimum of code, I want it done the right way and fire blocks, regardless of wall height, are the right way, so I cut them all to size myself and have employed child labor (The Ruminator) to install the blocks with a driver and some 3” framing screws. I then snapped a line at 5′ on the outside wall and gave him a hammer and a big box of 8d coated nails so he could attach the sheets to the blocks. Not too many shiners – he did a fine job.

The Tyvek vapor barrier wrap is just installed over the front wall so that the garage doors could be hung. Both are 8’X9′ R12 insulated fiberglass doors with no windows and follow the two different ceiling lines on the inside. I put jack-screw openers to the side of the doors so that the space over the doors would be clear. In the pictures below you can see the tiny attic as well – a pull down ladder goes in next week. Overkill, but I put ¾” T&G up there as floor decking and glued/screwed it in place – just ‘cause…

There is Carlisle WIP300 self-sealing roofing underlayment/membrane installed. #30 roof felt is $25 a roll and WIP is $90, but I only needed 5 rolls (4.2 actually). That $325 difference is serious insurance as the WIP can sit out without shingles on it, in case of wind damage an such, and not leak for 6 months. The roof (as well as wall) decking is all CDX (I HATE OSB) and for the small quantity bought for my garage, it is $4 a sheet in difference. $200ish total for sheathing and decking – well worth the price for peace of mind. Roofing is 30 year algae-resistant (important in Seattle) 3 tab architectural shingles that are color matched to our house.

The rest of the wrap, windows, the man-door, and 6″ reveal Hardi lap siding goes on next week.

Serious Road Trippin’

January 6, 2016 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Ruminator and I just finished a 2900+ mile road trip in my 1986 CJ7 jeep – The Black Pearl. We drove from Little Rock, Arkansas to Seattle between Christmas and New Year. I thought it would be a nice father/son bonding trip or at least I would have him caged for a week to give his mother a respite.

After a two-day prep and checkout, we hit the road and drove right into monsoon rains then freezing temperatures. We crossed the Great Plains, filmed the whole trip on a GoPro, scaled the Rockies, drove over the Continental Divide, crossed the Cascades, suffered -17° bone chilling cold in Wyoming, had a frozen starter, black ice, 4 stitches in my forehead (whole other story…) snow, high wind, and a broken brake line coming down a mountain pass in Oregon. Nothing like bleeding a new brake line in a parking lot in 3° weather…

It was an adventure and we had a great time, even when everything didn’t go as planned. My 15 year old son was the DJ and I was the driver/chief mechanic. I will treasure the trip and the time with The Ruminator for all my days!

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.

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.

Making stuff with My Son

August 25, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

It is one of my duties in this life to make sure that my children can do for themselves. Having to call a plumber for a clogged drain or an electrician to replace a switch just is not the Talley way. We are fixers, tinkers, builders, and warranty voiders by practice and nature. I cannot have it on my conscience that such a path would end with me, so part of the summertime ritual is to fix and build stuff.

This year was no different. The Ruminator work on the lathe a bit, helped me build a kitchen island, and helped design and construct a hanging shelf system for my wife’s sewing room. We hung a storage rack in the garage, built a snowboard rack for his room, hung stuff up in the living room, applied a little spray paint and finish, learned about milk paint, refurbished a miter-box saw, cut up some andirons, went over tool identification, sunk a bunch of screws, put some all-thread to use, made sparks with the grinder, and that sort of thing.

Just little bits at a time… Next year we will do a little metal work and wood carving. The year after, we might build a deck and do a little welding. At some point he will learn to sew and mend a little – not to be a seamstress, but enough to make simple stuff and put a button back on a coat. If he wants to be a carpenter or a cobbler or a tailor or a machinist or a welder fine, then I am equipping him with early skills to build from. But if he wants to be an architect, teacher, engineer, lawyer, doctor, or whatever – I still want him to have the knowledge base of how things work, how they are put together, and how they should be fixed.

UPDATE: Shortly after my son left to go back home, I was cleaning up the GROP and I found this message below written in saw dust. It made me both humble and very proud.

Castles, Fireworks, and the City of Light with my son.

August 10, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

The Ruminator and I had a big time this summer! It was full of firsts for him. A truncated list of firsts for him are:

Transatlantic Flight, time to France, real Castle, walled city, a basilica, cathedral, trip to Paris, taxi ride, subway ride, renting a bike, trip to a vineyard, picnic of goat cheese, bread and saucisson, seeing fields of sunflowers, Mass, walk in a vineyard, jousting tournament…. The list goes on.

The pictures below are snippets from out time together on various roadtrips this summer.

Up-cycled present for my wife

August 4, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

On our way to Carcassonne a few weeks ago for the Bastille Day festivities, we stopped by one of our favorite used furniture/junk shops and I found a few pieces of treasure (Cast iron miter saw, a forged hold-fast, etc…) and Stamps-With-Foot found a set of badly weathered Victorian andirons (the things that hold logs in a fireplace) with a female costumed figurehead bust. She took one look and immediately thought “book-ends!” We paid 5 Euros ($7.50) and put them in the car trunk. I researched them a little later on and found that they were cast in France between 1870 and 1880. Even in the condition we found them in, they go for 90-120 Euros ($121-162) on eBay, so I was pretty pleased with her find.

After coming home from the vacation weekend, my son and I cut the rusted rear beam off one of them, cleaned the sharp edges of the cut with a file, and used a bronze wire brush to mostly clear the surface rust off the bust. My saw blade was dull and we couldn’t cut the second one, so we put all the pieces up a shelf for me to take care of later. Fast-forward 3 weeks and after buying a new blade, I made the second cut, filed the edges, took all the rust off both, primed, painted them with 3 coats of matte black paint, and 2 coats of clear matte finish.

Stamps_with_Foot had a big smile and skipped a little when I gave her the finished pieces.

Outdoors this summer with my son

July 31, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A summertime fixture for my son’s summer visits has always been some time outside. We have canoed, hiked, ridden bikes across international borders, camped, road-tripped, National/State Park hopped, etc… This year was no different except we did those things in France.

We canoed along the Canal du Garone in my 2014 Father’s Day present – a Big green 3-person canoe. The Ruminator learned about the magic of portaging and that stinging nettles should not exist on this earth. We hiked into the Ariège Pyrenees, climbing 5900+ feet in 4.5 hours. That night we slept in an high alpine Refuge (his first), ate great food, and saw the most amazing mountain waterfalls, wildflowers, streams, and lakes. There were high green fields dotted with cows, sheep and goats before we walked above the tree-line and blue ice floating in the deep alpine lake at the base of the Refuge. It is a memory that I will carry with me for the rest of my days!

There was bike riding, lawn mowing (had to throw that in!!), soccer, long walks and one attempted swim session. He got turned away because he showed up with swim trunks to the pool and here in France you have to wear Speedos – no really, I swear. We also visited one of the prehistoric parks in the area (there are three?!) and got to throw spears at targets as part of one of the interactive displays. There were deer and bison 3D archery targets out in the field along with paper animal targets and we only learned that the 3D ones were just to look at and not to aim at. This information only came after one of my spears sailed over the bison’s neck, clearing it by 2 inches from 50 yards away. I got a stern warning…

Being outside with my kids is one of my true pleasures in this life (My daughter HATES backpacking and sleeping on the ground and is more of an RV girl). I look forward to many more years of it and the inclusion of more children and grand children.

Chopping Block Kitchen Island – IKEA Hack

July 10, 2014 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

Stamps-With_Foot has wanted a chopping block island for years. Our kitchen in Seattle just didn’t have the room for one, but the kitchen in France was PLENTY big enough. I looked into taking some 5/4 maple and gluing it up for her, but without a table saw and a power planer it would have been REALLY difficult. We found a couple that were already built, but they were between 400 and 900 Euros. No.Thank.You. After some deliberation, I decided on an IKEA island – the Groland. Stop Laughing and put down the stones…

While my son (The Ruminator) was here in France on his summer vacation, we bought one in a box, strapped it to the top of the car, drug it home, and started putting it together. I couldn’t leave it stock though, that is just not how I operate 🙂 We added a few flourishes to make it “better.”

1. Turned the legs on the lathe to give it bun feet
2. Glued it all together and added some extra dowels for reinforcement
3. Removed the steel rods on the original and plugged the holes with Dowels
4. Painted the base with a Sea Green Milk Paint
5. Added an additional block section to the bottom of the top panel – to make it super-solid
6. Cut a 6″ hole in the top for sweeping scraps off the work surface
7. Put a large plastic bin – removable from both sides – under scrap hole
8. Bolted rolling pin to one side to towels and placed 2 brass hooks on the other side
9. Scrapped the wood lattice bottom panel and used 7/8″ tongue and groove clear pine decking boards instead.
10. Polyurethaned the top – 5 coats – and bottom shelf so they match and make the painted base “pop”
11. Took a hunk of cherry tree trunk and turned it down as a lid for the scrap hole.

My Son and I had it installed just in time for my chef Father-in-Law, The Chatty Buddha, to visit and whip up a few fine meals using it as a work platform

Off to the Antique Market we go!!

March 13, 2014 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A couple of months ago while talking to my son on the phone, I mentioned that Stamps-With-Foot and I had been at the monthly Antique Market here in Toulouse. My boy, The Ruminator, started roaring with laughter and said something about how “…going antiquing was for old ladies!..” I let him laugh a while and then explained how awesome it was to find bobbles and treasures and cool stuff at the different stalls. He wasn’t having it and continued with the giggles. Fast forward to this past weekend (1st full weekend in March). My lovely wife and I planned the day out around going to peruse the market: Coffee and lunch and wine and crapes while touring strolling the lanes and bargaining for small bits, talking to the locals, and looking a treasures that we won’t ever be able to afford – the 7’X12′ landscape paining from 1930 or the french-polished table form the reign of Napoleon.

There was a little of everything to be found: a jar of brains, a VERY cool turtle, black powder shotguns, Persian rugs, linens, paintings, desks, tables, tapestries, rusted iron tools, old dolls, military medals, an anvil, low chairs, cutting blocks, glass ware, sculptures, books, etc… We ended up with an 18th century book stand from an Abby, a haberdasher’s display rack (our new entryway coat rack), a SWEET industrial Cast-Iron-legged table that has a 28″X72″ oak slab top that is over 100 years old! I also happened upon a rusty axe head in a stall full of miscellaneous crap that resembles a large 17th Century broad axe in the Armor and Weapons section of the Louvre. Not saying that this one is the same thing, but it looks REAL close. I immediately sent my son the following text:

“…Made fun of me for going to the Antiques markets… This weekend I got what looks like a 300 year old Battle Axe made for storming castles. It was $40. Too bad antiques are for old ladies and you won’t be going to any any markets while you are here. Are you laughing at me now? Mwahahaha!!…”

As a note, The Ruminator is enamored with Vikings, swords, castles, armor, and all things Medieval. I did my black heart some needed good to wave his antique-arrogance under his nose a little. It make the evil-inside almost giddy thinking about the “AWE MAN!” face he made when he read my note.

Below are some shots of both the market and our haul.

The Ruminator’s Summer Visit – 2013

August 15, 2013 / Matt Talley / 2 Comments

My son will turn 13 this winter – I feel so old. He came out to Seattle this summer for a visit and I was able to take the whole time off from work due to our pending move and the prep involved. We had the best time together and I can only hope and pray that as he ascends/descends into adolescence that our summers and time together are at least half as good as this summer was.

He is at the age where he is starting to take direction well and can stay on-task for a bit, so I put his little butt to work. We had a mountain of stuff to get done before we leave for France and his extra set of hands was incredibly helpful. We shopped for steel fence and stair rail, installed a speak-easy in the front door, cut and primed two stair rails, I taught him how to used an HVLP spray-gun to paint furniture, we stained table legs, used the router, he learned the first steps in using a wood lathe (he helped make his own carving mallet and made his mother a honey dipper turned from European beech), and he helped me measure, mark and chisel hinge pockets in the kitchen cabinet doors. My toe-headed son helped dig the two 18″ holes for the front entry stair rail, dug a hole up front, outside the fence, and helped replant a root-bound rosemary there. Since he was in mole-mode, we went into the back yard and he helped dig the hole for a new receptacle and motion light power pole near the back fence. We then squared and leveled the pole, braced it, ran conduit for the wire, and mixed & poured concrete. It was a long day and he was a tired little puppy after the digging and concrete work. I guarantee that he slept like a rock that night – I did.

The Ruminator also learned about how to properly use hand planes this summer – he loved them. Left to his own devises, he would sit in the shop for hours banging away on scrap with the chisels and making piles and piles of long, curly, paper thin wood shavings. He was channeling Roy Underhill and I was so proud!

It wasn’t all work though – I am not a slave-driver. There were bike rides, visits to the park and the beach, movies at the theatre and on the iPad, Austin Powers and South-park voice impressions (much to Stamps-With-Foot’s dismay), ukulele playing around the fire pit, and he is probably the first kid in his hometown to have ever been indoor skydiving.

Knotted “survival bracelets” are popular right now and the one we tied up last year is now too small or was unraveled and used on some woodland adventure, I’m sure. We stopped at Home Depot on the way home from some outing and he picked out the paracord color and stainless steel shackle. We sat in the back yard with Stamps-With-Foot, chatting with a family friend while I tied a new bracelet. It fit perfectly and he beamed with gratitude. This was the summer that the Ruminator went to his very first Major League Baseball game – Mariners vs. The Red Socks – and had the whole hot dog/roasted peanut experience. We had great seats 23rows up on the first base line and the Mariners won. I was so happy to be there with him and it made my heart happy to see his face shine when a bat made contact and sent a ball into the outfield.

Probably the highlight of his trip though (for him) was when we went to the Washington Gathering of the Clans and he got a sword. A shiny steel Viking sword. Thinking back to when I was 12, I would have given up anatomy for a sword! I would have slaughtered vegetation, hacked fruit and veggies gruesomely, sheared branches, cut myself at least twice, tried to wear it to school, and gotten into some semi-serious trouble of some sort before my blade would have been taken away and put in that unknown place in my parent’s house from which there was no return – propped up next to my first pellet gun, beside that awesome surgical tubing slingshot, and near that box full of fire crackers. Anyways, I made him promise, not to do what I would have surely done – we will see how that works out. I bet he spent his first week back twirling the thing around like a mini blond Conan – to the annoyance of his mother.

He has been promised that if he does well in school and minds to a considerable degree, doesn’t act up in class, and helps around the house, he will get to fly to France for the summer next year. It is an amazing opportunity and I am looking very forward to showing my son France and Europe! Hiking, cycling, road trips, climbing, food, culture, language, all of it!

Roller Derby, St. Paddy, Dresser Building and an Anniversary Weekend

March 18, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

This weekend was busy with friends, a dinner out, St. Paddy’s Day activities, an outing to the Roller Derby (?!), and the 9th anniversary of the day that my sweet wife and I met was on Sunday. Even with all that, we still got bunches done around the house: Our under-bed dresser finished, bathroom table drawer installed (a little work on that left), wine crate storage boxes made, basement lighting installed, and the basement work bench is moving along.

The drawers for the under-bed dresser and the one for the bathroom all came from a wooden donor-dresser that my father-in-law drug home from a garage sale last summer. He paid $4 for it and it was in pretty bad shape, but it was solid wood and had potential. It was mistakenly left in the weather (plastic cover leaked) for a month before I salvaged the drawers, cut out off the top and used the sides for kitchen cabinet door panels. I re-squared the drawers, added dividers in the fall, and over the Christmas break sealed the insides (The Ruminator helped). After lots of filling and sanding and more sanding, I stained the fronts to match our bedroom furniture, then built ¾” plywood beams to hang the drawers from bed frame and used some scrap oak flooring as drawer guides/runners. The final product really looks good and is super functional. While some husbands bug their wives by filling the house with brought-home junk – I give my wife more and more and more storage and organization space.

On Sunday, I put the final coat of finish on the basement workbench top, let it dry, and then installed the three runs of aluminum t-track. Stamps-With-Foot bucked up and helped me wrestle its 200 pound beech and maple mass onto the steel base. I secured it with screws and covered the top with carpet squares while I finish the upper shelf/cabinet. I installed a outlet power strip under the main body of the topper and removed the old drawer dividers. I will soon add a plywood back with a mirror, a light under, a dedicated air supply line, install the desk drawers under the bench and mount 4 reclaimed letterpress drawers directly under the top as well. Happy with the progress so far.

12th Night in Portland – 2013

March 6, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago we drove down to Portland so that I could to do some off-site work for my J-O-B and took an extra day (on or dime) to both visit friends and attend an evening of the SCA’s 12th Night celebration – Being married to a trained costume designer means that one goes to these sorts of evenings. Our friends have closets (yes, I meant to be plural – as in 4 closets) filled with period costumes and accessories. My wife dressed me in a couple of different outfits until she was certain that I looked the part and then I went and waited downstairs for a couple of hours while the ladies prepped and primped like a good little puppy.

I agreed to this foray for three reasons:

Happy wife, happy life…
There was booze promised to me.
There was to be a “huge” vendor area where all sorts of cool stuff like swords, and bows, and armor, and axes and like items would be sold and traded.

Now, the mention/rumor of armor and swords takes be back to being a 9-year old at my very first Renaissance Faire (the REAL Penn and Teller performed that year). I wanted a “real” sword and a chain mail hood so bad that I would have licked the bottom of a Port-a-John seat for them at the time. My son is now enamored with the same period of history, I live vicariously through him and thought that he would get a real kick out of the pictures of armor and swords

I was a little disappointed: no swords, one real armor dealer and sales area was lined with stalls that catered to the ladies fabric, buttons, capes, cloaks, furry hats, jewelry, etc…), but I did end up getting a few good pictures to send to The Ruminator and we ended up watching the fencing melee/tournament. Helmets, steel swords, shields, daggers, very cool. He would have been all in!

The rest of the event was good and the detail of some of the costumes was amazing. Some of those folks put months and months of work hand sewing outfits just for that one night. Our evening ended with a game of Cards Against Humanity – I won – and we stumbled home just after 1:00AM.

Weekend Update – 1/7/13

January 7, 2013 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

My son was here for a week+ for the holidays and we did cool stuff as he is the Igor to my Dr. Frankinstein. He left on Friday morning and to keep myself occupied so I wouldn’t mope around all weekend thinking about how much I missed him, I busied myself with a few on-going projects:

Underbed dresser – 95% done
Letterpress drawers made into occasional tables – 50%
The never ending kitchen remodel – 85%
Sofa table rebuild – 20%
Bathroom drawer for wife – 50%
Candle box – 100%
Glass cabinet handle installation – 45%
Hall mirror – 22%
Helping a friend move – 50%
Etc…

While fitting the final pieces of the under bed dresser (built from an 1980s $4.00 garage sale upright five drawer) for our room and I transposed two numbers and cut something a touch too long. Grumble… Grumble… I went out to the shop, measured for screw clearance and put it on the table saw to rip down just a touch. I missed one screw, but my $56 carbide tipped cabinet blade didn’t. Sparks and bits of carbide flew. I said dirty words and came into the house to drown my sorrows in a Mexican coke, Jack with honey and an old Clint Eastwood western while propped up in bed with my grumpy face on.

2012 Gift to Heifer

December 27, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

As a follow up to a previous post about our plan to give Heifer International a menagerie of animals as our charity goal for the year: we just got a confirmation e-mail that our $250 donation for one goat, one pig, and a share of rabbits was received. I have stashed change and $1 bills back since July to have for Heifer so that they can continue their mission of giving, training, and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good.

My mother gave a gift of bees in my name for my birthday and I have talked a couple of folks at work into donating a little something this year. Other than the families that this will help, the highlight of this process was my son’s involvement. We talked to him about Heifer, the work that they do, and into donating what he would have spent on our gifts to the cause. I am so very proud of him and we will send him a copy of the mailer we will get in the next few months explaining just where the money went and what our gift has done.

I wish we could have done a LOT more and we will do so next year. Please take a moment, do a little research into the charity, and give what you can.

Travel and Camping in the Land of shiny vampires…

November 21, 2012 / Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Every summer, my son and I go camping. Some years his sister has gone and my wife has started joining us, but there is a lot of quality father/son time. Discussions swirl around knights, swords, native American tribes/practices, foreign places/peoples, battles, gvns, more sword talk, camping skills, camp cooking, and the merits of boxing/judo/Krav Maga/etc… This year, The Ruminator and Stamps-With-Foot conspired against me and planned a trip to Forks, Washington to visit the Twilight tour stops.

The plan was to drive from Seattle to Forks, visiting La Push, and then completing the circumnavigation of the Olympic Peninsula – going from campground to campground. The trip coincided with both Quileute Days and the Squim Lavender Festival – I have a soft spot for lavender. I believe that the side trip to Squim was more of a bribe than anything else as our rainey destination and reason for going didn’t really speak to my heart. My sweet, sweet wife, all her friends, my daughter, and most of the women I know are enamored with the sparkling undead. I prefer my vampires to erupt into flames when exposed to sunlight, but I am old-school like that.

We packed the new truck, Tater, with tents, bags, rain tarps, food, cast iron, ukeleles, wood, sleeping pads, water, more tarps and headed west like 21st century hillbillies. Our first night was spent near a WWII concrete anti-ship fort – we had to explore the depths and gvn emplacements twice in 24 hours… Before heading to Squim, we stopped in downtown Port Townsend and explored the wooden boat center and some of the shops. Another bribe. Wooden boats and I have an unrequited love affair. I can’t have one because I already have a wife and a full-time job, but that doesn’t preclude me from lusting over teak decks, tight joinery, and the naughty brass bits…

The rain came our second night of camping and never really left. There were dry hours where we cooked and played dueling ukuleles, but for the most part the next 4 nights were an exercise in trying to keep from getting soggy. Brodie was along for his first Talley Family camp-a-thon and was not amused. All he wanted to do was sit with his mommy and crawl under the dry blankets in the tent. That whole thing in the books about Forks being the rainest place in the lower 48 rings true for me. We were there in the summer and never dried out, I can only imagine what it is like in the depth of a long grey winter.

Quileute Days was a side stop on our way to the Pacific coast and LaPush. The Ruminator just HAD to swim in the ocean and no amount of persuasion about it being cold, really cold, would change his adolescent, made up mind. After running into the surf and getting slapped in the chest by the first arctic-cold wave, his eyes got huge and he came up gasping for air. He stayed in until his lips turned almost blue and we had to drag him out. I have a sneaking suspicion that his next trip to the coast will involve a wetsuit.

Forks is a former logging town that is full of nice people who still seem a little bewildered by all the attention. Two shops really stand out in my memory (aside from the Twilight one): a tackle shop that had the same organizational system as my grandfather’s garage: “I know it is here somewhere….” mounted fish on the wall, a stuffed mountain lion, and a dog sleeping in her spot by the door. The other shop was an eclectic mix of junk shop, antique store, book store, coffee shop and sandwich counter where we had lunch. If you go to Forks – dragged by your significant other as well – you cant miss the latter; it is on the same side of the street of the now closed Twilight store and just to the north.

This summer taught us a few things:

Full-on luxury glamping is awesome when you arrive, unload and stay in place, but sucks when you move every night.
Zombie Gunship played on an iPad in the backseat makes the miles fly by and nary a “Are we there yet?” is uttered.
Brodie hates camping, the woods, rain, campfires, and the ukelele. Hates.
Stamps-With-Foot makes a mean gumbo!
The idea of spending time in the “Wettest place in the lower 48” sounds MUCH better than it is.
I am more awesomer at checkers than my son
Lavender ice cream is amazingly yummy
Flailing about with bullwhip kelp is a fine way to get into trouble
Bacon fried in a iron skillet over a campfire is another proof the God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Future summer outings will be less Cormac McCarthy’ The Road (soggy,cold,dirty) and more Endless Summer or Smokey and the Bandit.

Lawn Furniture done!

August 14, 2012 / Matt Talley / 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, there had been parts for Adirondack lawn chairs all over the house and shop for 9+ months waiting on me to gather the will to glue them up and drive some weatherproof screws home. The Ruminator and I put together when he was here this summer – he supervised while waxing poetic about dressing up like a viking – and I spent a combined 12 hours priming and painting them candy apple red.

Since I don’t want to repaint them every spring I used an oil-based exterior paint. Holy crap, it was hard to find! It seems that everyone has switched to latex based paint for homeowner use (ease of use, easy cleanup, better for the environment, etc…) and I had to resort to having gloss deck and concrete paint custom mixed. It went on like glass though and should be impervious to our rainy long winter weather for three or four years. My sweet wife super loves them and could barely wait until they were dry before giving them a proper, reading a book in the sun, test.

Below is a gallery of the whole build process:

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

June 14, 2012 / 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.

Driven Outside

Tag: The Ruminator