Tag: Thursdays

What I Want Thursday – 11/6/14

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children and my mom.

2. I want to stick to my diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly/back-hurting abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me – I would really like those shorts, pants, and shirts back…

4. a Fine large set (only 2) of Easy Wood carbide insert lathe chisels for all the fall and winter bowl work I have planned

5. For my proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up to be finished – it is about 1/2 the way done and sitting in the GROP.

6. A leisurely trip to Rome and Venice with my wife – no puppies, no family, no friends – just us for a week or so.

7. For my Joiners workbench to be done and set up and in use.  I am only about 1/3 of the way done and only have 8 of the 17 sections of the top laminated up.

8. A few books: Franklin Bio by Wood,  Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), A signed hardbound copy of Campaign Furniture 
Theodore Roosevelt: a Strenuous Life,  The Anarchist’s Tool Chest etc…

9. A whole Metric crap-ton (my favorite unit of measure) of wooden wine crates for a couple of open projects at home.

10. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals for Christmas – That is my charity goal for the year.  We give monthly, but I would like to be able to do more this year.

11.  For our 2015 French Visas to be finished so we can get on with plans for next year.

What I want Thursday – Birthday Addition 2014

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

In about 3 weeks I will celebrate the 13th anniversary of my 29th birthday and the current plan is to spend the weekend in Porto, Portugal.  While there, I want cake (moist yellow cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting), snuggling, a nice glass or 6 of Port, 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. I might buy some new wingtips, just ’cause they make me happy. Cookies will be eaten and beef will be consumed in quantity.   

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

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

Heifer International: Bees, Goats, Chickens, Llama, the whole Ark… 🙂
Doctors Without Borders/MSF
Diabetes Research

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

Books:

Anything from my Amazon wish list
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
A volume on handplanes or a tome on traditional woodworking
Twilight at Monticello
A Lost Art Press volume of The Essential Woodworker
James Krenov’s Cabinet Maker’s Notebook
Two Classic books on Shaker Furniture: here and here.

Stuff:
Don Julio Anejo Tequila
F3 Architect’s Wallet
Porsche Design TecFlex Fountain Pen (F Nib)
New bad-ass cufflinks or these or these…
A Global Chef’s knife, bread knife, and ceramic sharpener
Classic Cartoon DVDs (Bugs, Tom&Jerry, Loony Toons, Road Runner, etc…)
Stainless Omega Seamaster 007 or Planet Ocean with inscription
A fantastic sport coat

Tools:
A pair of 1/2 round molding planes
A Pair of Snipe Bill molding planes
A set of Mortise Chisels

Update:

In addition to a fine long weekend in Porto, my wife gave me a cute desert cookbook, awesome mustache cuff-links, and a watch that I have been asking for. My Father-in-law sent me the funds to buy a nice bottle of port. My Mom hooked me up with an apron for BBQing and the thoughtful gift of Heifer bees. Bottles of good wine and great beer from friends here in France and I got cards and online wishes galore. It all made me very happy. Thank you everyone very, very much!

What I want Thursday – A Someday Custom Bike build

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Someday, I will have a bespoke bike built – custom fit to my goofy measurements and with all the bells a whistles that I want/need/lust after. A bike that is equally suited for using as a city single-speed, a gravel road shredder, light single track, and a 9-speed road rider and tourer.

I want:
A lugged steel frame
S&S couplers so I can fly with it
Disc breaks
Single front 32T or 44T chain ring
18T freewheel (I have an Ultegra 9-speed group and Deraulier in a box…)
Clearance for 33X700 tires
Bull horn bars
Paul 2-finger levers
Flipping Rear dropouts (44 Bike)
Duel bottle cage
Rack and fender mounts (I have a set of wood FastBoy fenders that need a good home)
Brazed on bottle opener (A’la Rodriguez Cycles)
Brooks Swallow Tail saddle.

I really dig what Kristofer Henry in New Hampshire has going with 44 Bikes. If I could talk him into a lugged Huntsman, then we could do some serious business.

What I Want Thursday – 40th Birthday Edition

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I am a big ol’ baby about my birthday. I want cake (moist yellow cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting) and laughter and a few presents. I do NOT work or go to school, I pamper myself with a haircut and a strait-razor shave. I might buy some new shoes. Cookies will be eaten. Steak or BBQ will be consumed with a proper German wheat beer and there will be cuddling later. As this year will be the 40th anniversary of my birth – I plan on it being a good one and I am going to pack some great stuff into the 24 hours a year that is officially mine.   Below is my birthday wish list – mostly for my wife, but feel free to paruse and suggest.

Books:

I would like a signed copy of Chris Schwartz’s The Anarchist’s Tool Chest
A volume on handplanes and a tome on traditional woodworking
A Lost Art Press volume of The Essential Woodworker
James Krenov’s Cabinet Maker’s Notebook
Two Classic books on Shaker Furnature: here and here.

Stuff:

I NEED a proper shaving mug
A pair of 30X700 CycloCross tires
Classic Trident Mariners 3/4 sleeve jersey – Only sold at the Marniers team store (Stadium or SouthCenter)
Large classic Adirondack pack basket – 18-22″ tall – lea ther straps preferred, but I will take cotton
I would like a heavy-weight safety razor
A badger hair brush
New bad-ass cufflinks
A Global Chef’s knife, bread kinfe, and ceramic sharpener
Classic Cartoon DVDs (Bugs, Tom&Jerry, Loony Toons, Road Runner, etc…)

Tools:

Hardwick’s Hardware gift certificate.
A set of Mortise Chisels
Woodcraft gift certificate.

What I Want Thursday – 8/2/2012

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children.

2. I want to stick to my new diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me.

4. More book shelf space at home. We read more and more on our kindles and have sold many, if not most, of the paperbacks that have filled our lives for years and we are still completely out of space for our books. There are stacks on the floor in both of our home offices, to-read piles on each night-stand, fiction and history filing the living room book case, literature lined up on the basement hutch, cookbooks on the bottom shelf of the china hutch, and single volumes littered across the normally unoccupied spaces of our small home. We more shelves, not less books!

5. A finished kitchen

6. Painted lawn furniture

7. Filson Medium Travel bag. My son and I went to the Filson factory store and I fell into love/lust over this piece of luggage. I know that sounds weird, but I fly a LOT – I am a Platinum SkyTeam frequent flier member and a Gold OneWorld member. Quality, attractive, roomy, useful luggage is a necessity.

8. A cigarbox electric Ukulele for playing blues with a slide.

9. A proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up.

10. A few books: Passions:The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson; The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook; Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), etc…

11. A Truck bed full of wooden wine/port crates/boxes for a couple of open projects at home.

12. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals. That is my charity goal for the year. I want to save, gather, raise, find as much cash as possible to give to Heifer International by the end of 2012 for the purchase of bees, goats, cows, water buffalo, chickens, trees, training and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good. I will add a link or a tab on my front page to a fund status page/counter and update it as the gift grows.

What I Want Thursday – 6/7/12

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

1. Summer! Somebody tell the weather-fairy that it in June and the thermometer on my porch notes the temperature outside is 56 degrees. JUNE!!
2. A flight booked for my son to fly out and spend some quality time this summer in Seattle.
3. An extra week of vacation this year. I want to go to Yellowstone and Hawaii and spend a month with my kids, but I am stuck with the normal “only two weeks off” vacation hole.
4. A quiet place to work at both home and at my J-O-B. It is getting harder and harder to concentrate on so many tasks with all the noise and interruptions that constantly swirl around me. I am contemplating a cardboard cubical door and a Bio-Peligrosos sign saying I have highly contagious airborne HerpieGonnaSyfalClymdiAIDs on my cube opening.
5. To take a long train trip in a private sleeper-car from Canada to Mexico.
6. A place out in the country where I can punch holes in targets. I HATE public ranges!
7. To have a shower at my J-O-B so I can bike to work.
8. A couple pairs of new dress shoes and a drawer full Smart Wool socks.
9. Affordable, quality universal health care for all – please refer to the German system.

What I want Thursday – 4/12/12

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

A list of stuff and things that I want currently – not that I necessarily need, but that i wuold like to have or see done/happen:

1. More time to read, write, build, snuggle, climb, bike, run, laugh…
2. A twin Murphy-bed in my office disguised as a mid-century modern wardrobe so that we have more guest space.
3. For my year-long kitchen project to be finished
4. To remember the password for my old laptop so I can have access to 10+ years of pictures…
5. My very own spending money that I can do with what I wish without submitting to a vote/need analysis
6. To have my FVCKIN’ tools back that some asshat stole…
7. A few new t-shirts for summer and a flat belly to reside under them.
8. For my Mother and Sister to find the perfect place in life
9. For all the dandelions in my yard to cease to exist
10. I would very much like for the really sad, really pregnant girl I say in Seattle yesterday to find someone/something/someplace that makes her warm, happy, and safe.

What I Want Thursday – 3/15/12

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment
Time again to reflect on some crap that I have been obsessing over for the last couple of weeks:

1.  To be in Hawaii on vacation with my wife and OUT of cell phone range
2.  To organize and back up all my computer files and pictures from the mess of harddrives and CDs/DVDs
3.  For my shop to be back up to 100% after the break in
4.  A fantastic sport coat
5.  For it to be sunny and 70 degrees outside my house
6.  A Midi-Lathe to complete some house and garden turning projects
7.  A sliding tool box for my truck
8.  A set of 2010 leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica
9.  To get a real, hand written, paper letter from my son and daughter
10.  To never  worry about the IRS or April 15th EVER again.
11.  I want to ride my bike like I did when I was 12:  aimlessly and all day!!
12.  More time…

Thursday again

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

Spend an hour a day writing: I HAVE to finish my book on life in Germany. I have sat on it for WAY too long. I have set the office up so that I have a proper work space, free of distractions. I need to get up, have coffee, a bite to eat, and spend an hour typing. This means I will have to go to bed ~10:00 though…
For my dress shirts to be tailored: if I buy dress shirts off the rack I get 16/32 . Unless it is a new “slim fit” it fits fine across my back, shoulders, arms and neck, but around the waist I have a couple feet of material to crease, tuck, re-tuck, and hide. It looks sloppy if I take my suit jacket off. I would really like them taken in and button holes added to all so I can wear cufflinks. I know, petty uptown problems…
Get rid of some crap: I am on a binge to get rid of some of the crap we have accumulated in the last year. Do I really need a 4X8′ drafting table in the basement? How many backpacks does it take to be excessive? Do I need to keep all those fvcking back issues of Monocle and Outside?
Red tomatoes: Last year my tomato harvest sucked. I had 5 red tomatoes, 4 of them split on the vine, and all the rest remained green. I will not be having that shit this year! I planted early, have been lovingly tending to them all summer and if the warm weather is over, then I am putting a hoop-house over the beds until each and every one turns scarlet red.
Lumber: I could do with 50′ or so of 8″ wide popular planks. The final push on the kitchen will require some pull-outs installed and extra shelving put into existing cabinets.
Get off my ass: I have been traveling so much, missing runs and workouts in the gym, eating out, and scarfing down cookies like a junkie who has found a heroin tree. I have to get up, push away from my desk, and run/bike/lift/hike/climb and shed my cookie-handles.

Thursday has come again

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

What I want Thursday – August 11th, 2011:

  1. To get more sleep.  I find myself not going to bed before 1:00 most nights/mornings and I am up at 7ish.  It makes me grumpy.
  2. To find the drive and initiative to work out.  My cookie-handles have now connected with my pot belly and I am not amused, but I haven’t exactly done a great deal to address the situation.
  3. For my kids to have a great, productive, and interesting school year in 2011/2012. 
  4. I want my sister and Mother’s furniture to arrive from Texas so they can start feeling settled in Seattle.
  5. It would be great if my J-O-B cubical would stay spotless.  The 5S monster has come.
  6. I wish I could drink my coffee without sugar.  It would really help me shed the Santa-fat.
  7. Were in the HELL is my iPhone charging cord?!?!?!?!

What I Want Thursday

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

This is blatant plagiarism. I slipped into the Wikipedia hole for like three hours this weekend and came out on a girl’s blog that was really sad: hurt, suicide, illness… but I did find a bright spot, one might argue the only one: She had a number of “What I want Thursday” posts. They were funny and sweet and made me think a couple of times – so I am stealing the idea. Is it plagiarism if I admit the theft? Probally.

So, to follow is my inaugural go:

  1. Better Penmanship – My handwritting is terrible , like a seventy-five year old doctor with the shakes writing a prescription terrible.
  2. A fine prosperous garden – As much for my ego as for our table and pocket book
  3. Custom letter-press stationary – Everyone should have their own!
  4. A clean, tidy and simple home – La Maison du Talley is currently flooded with the clutter of half done projects, piles in the basemet destined for Goodwill, and like 20 banana boxes of crap we are storing for other people.
  5. To finally finish the book I am writing about living in Hamburg
  6. A clean shop – Projects, sawdust, bike parts, and garden tools strewn about in a rushed haphazard manner.
  7. For my neighbor’s pine tree to die – I have cleaned my gutters three times in 2011 and they are full AGAIN. I have serious hate for that tree.
  8. Peace in the Middle East – I am throwing that on in because I, like the rest of humanity, really DO want it and because I am feeling like the rest of the list is all about me and flirts with self-absorbed douchebaggery.