Hello blog

Hi there.

I had a slow period at the office and decided to look at the blogs. I hadn't looked at blogs in several weeks and saw several new posts. Well done everyone. But what about me?

Well, I will just put a few random things here to update on what has been going on and what is upcoming.

1. I received my third degree black belt in December. Since then I haven't been attending classes. The school would like for me to sign up for the program to become 4th degree, but that is a pretty big (4 year) commitment. Since I lost my former job in April and it took 7 months to get a new job, and that at a significant pay cut, I thought it would be a good idea to take a break and see how finances go for awhile. I'm making ends meet fine, but am not sure yet about 4th degree.

2. The job is going well. I had 2 weeks of training a few weeks ago and came out not knowing much more. I passed the exam and have the opportunity to retake it some time in the future. I think it will be interesting to see what is much easier on the exam after about a year of on the job experience. Right now I have 2 projects near completion (they are being tested by users) and just resolved my first problem, unassisted, this morning. So, even though it will take a long time to feel competent, I am feeling like I'm starting to "get" it.

3. The weather has been down and up. Two weekends ago it was freezing cold and we had some snow. Then we had a day this week in the 80s. Now for the next few days it will be cold and rainy. Where is spring?

4. When I can, I get out to the workshop. I have made a good start on the things I'm making for Christmas. Without giving it away, I'm making 15-16 "things" which consist of 2 lathe-turned parts, glued together. If you did the math that is about 32 pieces of wood that need to be milled up and glued into blocks, drilled and mounted on the lathe, turned, sanded with many grits, polished and waxed. Big job...so you better like what they are! Right now I have 6 bottoms and 4 tops completed. The gluing of the 2 parts is simple enough and will come later. I want to put a 2009 penny inside and haven't come across any yet. Once glued, I will hang the completed ones on the wine bottle tree shown in the previous post, until Christmas time.

5. This year I have a number of projects on the list. Some of you may know about the piano restoration, which is something I want to have complete in 2010, when the piano is 100 years old. There is a wine cabinet, that I promised Aunt Lori, that needs to be done. I want to build a bamboo bed for JP's room. I want to build a bed, dresser, and 2 end tables for my room. What else can I heap on? I would like to make a new cabinet and control panel for my arcade machine, then refurbish the original control panel for the old cabinet, set it up as another arcade system, and perhaps sell it.

6. Just before Thanksgiving I helped a female friend redo her own arcade cabinet. She loved mine and wanted one for her daughters. She's a Space Invaders nut. It was fun to work on a project with someone else. Since then I think we've exchanged emails maybe twice. Both pretty busy. But I'll bet my Space Invaders high score still tops hers.

7. My Dining Group has become "drama central." There is a woman who is the ultimate drama queen that brings all her troubles to the dinners and get togethers. It has become pretty annoying. I have joked to others that we have become the "Winston-Salem Make Sure Not To Piss Off 'R' Group", R being her initial. R and I were pretty good friends once, but she has gone nutso and I think she needs some professional help. Until I hear she has started in therapy I plan on boycotting the group.

8. I hardly ever watch TV anymore. But I do have shows I like to see. I never set my VCR and do not have a DVR. But what I will do is either go to a site like NBC.Com and watch episodes of the things I like in a streaming format, OR another thing I discovered a while back are "torrents". Too difficult to explain how it all works, but think of a torrent and a "torrent client program" as a way to download video to your PC. Now you may think "piracy" and you may just be right. However, in my defense, I download shows, watch them at my convenience, and then delete them. In essence, I am using my PC like a VCR when it comes to Torrents. A long time ago the TV and movie industries were against VCRs.

Guess I'll stop for now. Sometime soon I will give some more details and post some pictures. Take care all, and thanks for stopping by. Will do my best to get back into blogging.