Vacation

I was admonished by several people over the fact that I started blogging and then stopped again. No real excuses, but the end of the year was a bit crazy here at squint central but we did get to go on vacation to Israel. It was wonderful. There were so many memorable moments. The first falafel in a lafa from the 24hr falafel place on Allenby around midnight after we arrived in TA. The Hotel Ness and Zack. The kid's apartment, Kashka and Kitten. The shuk. The food (a falafel as day). The traffic. Mario and Yana. The reunion with SGI/Graphtech/Intel folks at Jems. The family. My wonderful children. The lumpy bed. A good shower. The horrible drive in the rain to SFO that took 4 hours. The constant noise of Israel. Kenny's shiva at the Greenblos. The two weeks of perfect weather.

It was wonderful. Israel will always have a special place in my heart. The people and the food, the smells and the stark light are all part of me. It was the first time in forever that I was in Israel on vacation. No houses to move, or stuff to pack up to send. No archaeology, no work. Only waking up late and spending long days with no real goal or pressure. A real holiday.

 

 First falafel from Bon Taam. Not at all bad for a 24/7falafel place.

Friday humus from Shlomo and Doron. What can I say.

Drilling

The very expensive drill press arrived Wednesday this week. I tried to move the boxes from the driveway into the garage, but man, the thing is heavy. So I covered it with a giant tarp till the weekend. On Friday I decided to unbox it in place and shelp the pieces in one at a time to save my back. I built up the base and got Reid, one of the strapping young neighbors, to help lift the 150 pound head onto the stand. I some point it dawned on me that there were in fact two huge boxes and my whole drill press fit in one. On further inspection it appears I  was shipped two. I checked my account and indeed I was only charged for one. Hmmm. I checked the manifest and shipping docs and they seem to feel that I was only shipped one. I have to admit that the thought of doing nothing and waiting to see what would happen did pass my mind for an instant, but my dad, sitting on my shoulder whispered in my ear that that simply would not do. So I called the company.

They had no clue. The young lady I spoke with wanted to send me a return sticker and to drop it off at UPS. I politely informed her that it weighed 300 pounds. She then said OK, I'll get FedEx to pick it up. I politely reminded her that FedEx will not pick up anything more than 70 pounds. It needs to be freighted, that's how it came. Of course, her supervisor had left for the day and would get hold on me on Monday to arrange pick up. So I have a huge boxed drill press sitting in my driveway awaiting pickup.

I used the monster this weekend. It is a sweet tool. A gentle whir is all the sound it makes. It does beep a bit too often for my liking, but at least it only flashes safety messages on the screen and there is no voice over reminding one to wear safety goggles at all times.

Theo and Audrey

It was Saturday a week ago exactly. I dropped bwo at the airport on her way to San Diego. After puttering around the shop for a while I took the girly out for a walk. I met Steve, one of the neighbors, on the road leading two strange dogs. Seems these two came along and stopped over at his patio, driving his three dogs nuts. We kind of know all the dogs in the hood, but these two were strangers. So Steve took them round the area looking to see if anyone knew of them. I went home and posted on the local FB lost pets board and Steve posted on Nextdoor. We got some comments but no bites.

Around 6pm Steve's partner Christy called and asked if I could help them out as no one had claimed the two and Steve's dogs were freaking out. Roxy gets on with nearly everyone (except annoying pushy puppies) so I agreed to take them on, hoping someone would claim them soon. The two, black and tan doodles, were well groomed and had shock collars but no other details at all. So I took the two in. Roxy was a little suspicious, but they were really chill besides being starving. After gobbling down their dinner, they just lay around watching my every move.

Eventually it was clear no one was coming for them that night so I settled down to go to sleep. The tan girl tried to climb on the bed with me, but I ordered her off immediately. They bedded down on the floor beside the bed, while Roxy took her usual spot under the window. At some point I woke up in the dead of night with two very warm lumps lying close on bwo's side of the bed. I just sighed and let it be.

Early Sunday morning I had arrangements to go to a "antique fair" in downtown Sac leaving at 6. So a sleepy Christy came to pick up the two after I had walked and fed all three. I got back around 9 only to find two cars stopped between our houses. The lady had recently moved into the area and was not yet on Nextdoor so a neighbor of hers had heard from one of our neighbors that her dogs were with us. The two were of course overjoyed to see their mom.

So Theo and Audrey went home happy. I too was happy to not have to worry any more. Sweet dogs.

Sunday Morning Musings

This last week it became much clearer just how much of a boring life I live. It's one of the main reasons I don't blog as much any more. I simply have nothing much to say. I avoid network news at all times and only read some very selective feeds. I listen to audiobooks to and from work, and while these take me to the far corners of the world, it's their words not mine. I come home from work tired and often quite stressed, and spend much of the workday evenings watching Youtube or reading. The weekends start with early morning walks with Roxy, David and Eliot at the lake followed by as many hours as I can physically stand in the shop in what seems like a constant battle to improve my woodworking/lutherie skills. Don't get me wrong I am quite happy in my lot. I have a little disposable income to waste on tools that I will probably never gain the skills to use perfectly. Talking about tools, I recently really overdid it.

I have been eyeing the Nova 58000 drill press for more than a year now. It's got all sorts of bells and whistles, including a LCD display and a direct drive motor (no belts to change for differing speeds). But it's not cheap. I finally concluded that I needed some joy and ordered one this week. It will take a week or two to be shipped, and of course now I have a touch of buyers remorse. It's not normal for me, as I don't usually second guess my decisions and just deal. Still this thing is way, way more than I could possibly need. Hopefully it will bring me as much joy as I get each time I use the way overkill Laguna bandsaw, which was the last extravagant tool purchase.

So here we are. We should be in Israel enjoying a daily falafel from Gabai. One of the reasons I was OK to drop all that cash on a drill press is that the amount of money it's costing to keep rebooking these tickets ($300 a time) is coming close to the tool cost and worse there is nothing to show for it.

If anyone is in need of an nice old Grizzly G1200 floor standing drill press in reasonable condition (I recently changed out the bearings), I have one  looking for a good home. The time changed last night and it's nearly 7am and quite light out. Roxy is getting restless, it's time to go to the lake.

Roxy giving me the eye cause she knows it's time for the Lake

Smoke

Once again we smell the fires

It's been an interesting few weeks. Living in interesting times and all that. We lost our friend Barry. That sucked. He fought the cancer like the true competitor he always was, but eventually it won. We cancelled our upcoming trip back to Israel cause bwo's aunt in San Diego is not doing all that well. Life at squint central has been quite stressful. Bso is visiting and that has been nice. Now once again there are fires in N California. Our generator arrived and while many other communities around us have been without power for a day or two, so far we have been spared. May it continue so. 

Denatured Alcohol and Mini Veggies

This is now ridiculous. I popped over to the local Lowes on the weekend to buy some denatured alcohol. I like the "green" kind because it was 95% ethyl alcohol. It works well for diluting shellac which I use for French polishing guitars. At Lowes the usual shelves were empty, so I drove over to Home Depot, there too, I was out of luck. So I asked at the paint counter. "Sorry, denatured alcohol is now banned in California. You can thank your governor". I was floored. Why denatured alcohol, it is pretty innocuous? I used to use Everclear (grain alcohol) when we lived in Israel, but that too is banned here in California. 

So what am I to do? I immediately went home and ordered a gallon off Amazon. It has not arrived yet, hopefully it's not stopped at the border and send back home. Which seems to be the fashion these days

The lovely people at Squint Central wanted to send "flowers of condolences" after the mother passed on. While we were in Houston I explained that Jewish people usually do not send flowers, but rather food for the Shiva. Well, we had no Shiva cause of the Jewish New Year, so I expected nothing. Last week a wooden box (from Harry and David) arrived filled with perfect mini vegetables. Perfect except for the artichokes. Did you know that even the deer will not eat artichokes. Evil things.

Bwo grilled them up with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Served with some brown rice and a balsamic mustard reduction (I think that's what she said). It was perfectly delicious. And the wooden box will find a new life in my shop. 

Let there be light

It's been an interesting few days. We got power back last night after PG+E shut us down for two days due to the "fire risk caused by high winds". Well, wind-mageddon turned out to be quite underwhelming in our part of the world. The power shutdown not so much. We got to experience life with no lighting or oven for our post-Yom Kippur breaking of the fast meal. The stove top grilled cheese was delicious as was the matzo ball soup. We had gas and hot water, so it was not all that bad. Besides having to throw out a fridge full of food, we did OK.

I have to take credit for ending the power shutdown. I knew that as soon as I bought a generator, all power will return. So I took one for the neighborhood and dropped the cash on Amazon. When that did not work immediately, yesterday morning David and I drove over to his house and dragged his (very heavy) UPS over to attempt to save the fridge contents. The UPS only managed about 30 mins of juice before it gave up. But of course that hassle tipped the scales and power was restored soon after.

It's interesting how the lack of electricity effects life. Bwo and I were asleep by 7:30pm (as soon as it got dark). We actually read books and spoke with one another. I got to go off to work each day while bwo had to stay home with no internet. The horror!

"And there was light .... and the light was good"

Queen

I saw this on FB and had to smile (Not sure who created it could have been a Mr. Knote)

Nextdoor

When we lived in Raanana there was the "raananalist". A mail-list run by English speakers for English speakers. For a while online you could get recommendations and find interesting tidbits (preferred American spelling, the rest of the world uses titbits) of Anglo life in the suburbs North of Tel Aviv. Over time it degenerated into a whole lot of moaning, some political, some religious and I lost interest. For a while though it felt like you did not have to live in Raanana, all you needed to do was read the raananalist and it was as if you were there. The whole 80% of life in the Holy Land in mailing list digest form.

Since we moved to the US, nextdoor is quickly becoming the new raananalist. Same thing but US based and therefore so much more noise. I love it. I enjoy that every day there are a surprising number of people who have lost dogs and cats (usually related to the spotting of coyotes in the area) and pretty much the same number have surprisingly found dogs and cats. But every now and then we get some wonderful posts. You can only guess what "Mouth breathing chicken" covers (he was posting for his wife, their chicken was making a wheezing sound, the post quickly degenerated into a treatise on the quality of locally raised eggs). Then there was the classic "Stolen Tortoise" post. Turns out it had escaped and was later found, but this was only after a long reply on how there is a lucrative trade in Desert Tortoise eggs and one should have 24hr surveillance as it is likely their property was being watched for a convenient tortoise robbery. The post signed by someone with the following qualifications: "Missing Persons & Sensitive Crime Investigations". I love California. There is a staggering number of people that do not stop at stop signs. As opposed to the raananalist, there is no problem with "lashon ha-ra" (the religious moderators frowned upon bad mouthing others), on our Nextdoor there are some very incriminating photos. 

The "For Sale & Free" section is useful and I must admit I have scored some interesting tools: A mini mill and a lovely original US made Porter Cable 690 for a fraction of their value (to me). Happily bwo shows no interest, which is great, because we would end up with another house full if she watched these deals. She posted once, but needless to say no one wanted the couch she got from the neighbors when they moved. No one would take it, not even for free.

She's hard at work crocheting mandalas on the patio.

The End. Lots of Words.

We are still in Houston. We buried my mom yesterday, Sunday, and because she died on Friday night ("only the righteous die on the Sabbath" - we have heard this many times) and last night was first night of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), there is no Shiva. My mom was always considerate and never wanted to make a fuss, right to the end. So bwo and I will head home to EDH tomorrow (Tues).

It has been an intense few days. I am so happy we came when we did. We got to see her in the hospital and got to witness some of the "terminal restlessness" although it was nothing like the horror my brother and sister had to go through over the previous week. After she was moved to the hospice they kept her well drugged and much more peaceful. On Friday late afternoon the Rabbi came by and did this sort of Jewish last rites thing. And Hope from the Jewish chaplaincy service stopped by and left us the makings for shabbat. So we lit the little battery candles, said the shabbat blessing over the wine (grape juice) and challah (some rolls from Beldens) - my mother would have liked that. Then we went home for Friday night supper with all the noisy family (Chinese takeouts - what all good families choose after a day at the hospital). The call from the hospice came after all the kids left and only bwo, my brother, s-i-l, sister and Jay were sitting around talking. So we rushed off the the medical center, by the time we got there she had passed on. The hospice was amazing. Not afraid to answer all our questions, clearly and directly.

The last few days have been a blur, but still, there were many, many unforgettable moments: Hope blowing the Shofar in the "dead" silence of the hospice; my mom laid out so peacefully with her crocheted blanket tucked tightly around her; her hands, first blue and then clear; the strange little lady from the hospice with her hundreds of forms; me struggling to concentrate on a work call while listening to the doctor with one ear; the "death rattle"; Norah from the hospice and her quiet competence; my wonderful brother pacing up and down practicing the eulogy (5mins 17 sec); watching little Noe shovel sand into the grave; Jose and the boys slowly ratcheting the coffin into the hole they dug that morning; the ugly cement "crib" that the simple pine box is entombed in here in often-flooded Houston; but mostly that over arching feeling of security and caring and love that my family generate no matter what the occasion.

We laughed a lot and cried a little. I mostly get faclempt when I see how others are affected by our loss. Her passing was not tragic. After the funeral and bagels, when the family had left the house, we went to Shul for the first night Rosh Hashanah service. The pomp and ceremony at their huge shul here in Houston is not my style at all, but it certainly was interesting and blessedly short. Then off to my sister's crowded apartment for the traditional first night dinner. The food was great, they always look out for the vegetarian. And yes, there was brandy and sponge cake. My dad would have been proud.

This turned out to be much longer than I expected, and still it covers barely a fraction of the events and emotions of the last few days. The number of calls, FB messages, texts etc has been overwhelming. One of my brother's friends wrote something I hope is true. She said after losing her mother with dementia, that as time passed she found she forgot those years lost to the dementia and remembers her as the lively, bright person, full of life she once was. It's a comforting thought.

Lisa made this video, and it seems this blog is one place things don't get lost, so here it is. My mother and her family.

Terminal Restlessness

We are in Houston. My mother, 96, took a fall last week and things turned bad. She had severe dementia for the last few years, but till the fall was walking on her own, no walker or chair. So the hospital did the minimum to keep her comfortable, which included some bolts and pins in her hip and not enough meds. We got the call Tues and flew down yesterday (Wed). It has been quite an experience. Let me say I am so lucky to have the brother and sister I have. They have taken care of my mother for years and just dealt with this situation with their usual efficiency, humor and love.

We Ubered directly to the hospital from the airport and went up to see her. It's hard to describe, I would not have recognized her if I did not know. She was pretty much out of it, but would grab at the air every now and then and let out a sort of moaning wail. Apparently, things were much improved by the time we got to Houston. The previous day and night, after the operation, she had continually pulled out all the infusions and even ripped those unbreakable hospital id bands off her wrists. She also ripped off any clothing, and sheets anything covering her. Not fun. She was always a strong woman and it was a full-time job for a nurse to watch her (Shemarion was yesterday's). They had upped the doses of pain meds and morphine so she was kind of sleeping and only occasionally reacted, but that was bad enough.

And so we learned of "terminal restlessness". It's something that is not spoken of too often, but is common in the dying. Man, was my mother terminally restless. At some point yesterday the hospital decided she needed to leave and fortunately (believe it or not) she was bad enough to be accepted into a inpatient hospice. They don't take just anyone. When we arrived at the hospice this morning, she was once again very restless, wanting to pull herself up and shouting at the world, but not really conscious. She also kept ripping off her clothing and blankets and that is a sight it's hard to unsee. The hospice people knew exactly what to do and upped her meds to where she is resting as peacefully as can be expected. We are sitting around waiting. 

We are lucky to have many people who are concerned about how we are taking all this. I can only talk for myself. The mother I knew and loved, who was the special person in my life left a few years ago. I really was lucky in that I did not have to watch her going week by week. I got to see her every few months and so the decline into dementia was a relatively sudden thing for me. So I have had years to say goodbye. The body lying here just breathing is not I my mind the mother I knew. We will do the right thing for it, of course, whatever means less pain and suffering and hope she goes peacefully. In the meanwhile we wait.

Cokie

Cokie Roberts died today. She was 75 and was someone I really admired. I loved listening to her on NPR and always found her interesting and intelligent. I recommend her book "We Are Our Mothers' Daughters" (which she reads on Audible) and I liked her "Our Haggadah: Uniting Traditions for Interfaith Families" which she wrote with her husband Steven. She was someone I would have liked to invite for dinner. 

We get a lot of humming birds around the house. Bwo has strung up multiple feeders and usually remembers to fill them. I can sit in my office here at home and look out the window and watch the territorial battles that they wage. This one, he is red breasted (yeah the photo is shite, sorry) is the boss. He chases off visitors to his feeder and pursues them into the trees with great aggression. I have noticed that the rabble has figured it out, they send a decoy and as soon as he chases the decoy, two others will swoop in and feed til he gets back. 

Perfection

There are days were it is hard to get motivated. Days where the weight of the world presses heavily on my shoulders. On days like these I need some excellence.

The cafe at squint central has a temporary tonic for this malaise. Take a sesame bagel. Slice in two with the bagel slicer thing (no sharp knives, they can lead to litigation). Put it through the industrial type toaster twice (one of those conveyor belt numbers) controlling the speed until the middle is perfectly brown and darkly toasted on the outside. Divide in two (Kacey has the top half). Shmeer thickly with jalapeno cream cheese and top the half with one of those hash browns. The cafe really knows how to fry shit and those flat toaster hash browns are perfectly perfect. It's all in the crunch.

Each bite of this perfection increases my joy. The only sadness is that it is all too soon over. Excellence in any form, that the secret.

Perfection

The end.

Walks

It was a wonderful three day weekend. I got to spent a lot of time in the shop. Roxy and I spent time at the lake. We now have a routine on the weekends. We pick up David and Eliot at 6am and get to the lake as the gates to Browns Ravine open. The dogs leap out the car and run around peeing and sniffing until we head off on our walk. Those walks help me get through the rest of the week. 

Yesterday at the lake. Ducks in a row.

Ancestry

Bwo bought me an Ancestry.com DNA kit for our anniversary in June. I wasn't so sure that I wanted my DNA out there in the world, so I put off sending in my sample for a few months. The kit was sitting under my monitor at home reminding me that I should take care of it all. So a few weeks back I sent off my sample. Ancestry keep sending you text messages to keep you involved. It starts with a "Good news, bpo, we recieved your DNA" through your "sample is in processing" to your "DNA is being extracted in the lab" then your "sample is being analysed". Finally Wednesday night at 10pm I get the message that "Your AncestryDNA results are in". So I logged into the site and guess what!

I am 100% European Jewish. What a waste of $60. Tell me something I don't know. All I wanted was to have a few percent of Inuit blood or maybe some hunter-gatherer blood from Southern Africa, even a drop of Russian Cossack blood would have been welcomed. No, 100% European Jewish. It did not even zero down to Lithuania where both my parents were born. It's so damn boring.

I really dislike the Ancestry site. So busy with so little relevant info. One interesting fact: I gave them no info besides my DNA and they managed to connect me to one of my first cousins in Houston. I did not know he had sent in a sample. So perhaps there is something to this DNA stuff after all.

The sunrises here in Northern California are quite spectacular. When driving into work early this morning the orange light reminded me of the wonderful sunrises over Mount Tabor when digging at Megiddo. I miss that early morning light, the people and the smell of dirt. I miss archaeology.

The YouTube

I spend a huge amount of time on YouTube. Seriously, it's changed my life. A few years back, it was Itai who got me hooked with watching SV Seeker, where Doug in Tulsa builds this huge steel ship in his backyard. That was the start, now I have many, many favorites. Currently I wait patiently for episodes from Leo at Sampson Boat Co - he is restoring Tally Ho a 100 year old wooden boat (unbelievable quality of work). And there is Acorn to Arabella, where these two young blokes started with cutting down trees to build their boat. It's not all boat building, I currently have 62 different channels I monitor. From archaeology (Primitive Technology is incredible. This chap in N Queensland Australia basically builds everything from scratch, stone tools, clay etc) to the dozens of people doing restoration of old tools and equipment (Hand Tool Rescue, My Mechanics, LADB Restoration) and of course lutherie (OBrienGuitars, Eric Schaefer Guitars, StewMac) the list is endless.

Anyway, yesterday after picking up bwo from the airport, she was in San Diego visiting a sick aunt. I stumbled on Baumgartner Restoration. I started watching him restore a George Inness painting.Then spent many hours watching video after video (the ones with the narration are best). What precision and dedication. 

That's the thing. On YouTube I get the level of detail that I am always searching for. I find TV documentaries very disappointing these days.  All bells and whistles and flashy noise, with little content and depth. My $10 a month for a YouTube subscription (no ads) is the best money I have spent for ages.

It's been sweltering hot the last few days. I miss England every day. This picture is of the path from our house in Petersham to Richmond along the river. It's winter and not yet dark (probably 3pm). The air is cold and frosty and it feels like it was a million miles and hundreds of years away from where we are now.  Sigh.

A Whirlwind

My mother-in-law left today. She visited for 10 days from the Holy Land. She is a wonder that woman. Such energy. She did it all. Ms. Lanz's room is cleaned up and tidy, the linen closet is immaculate and most importantly this is the garage (bwo's side). Let's hope it can stay that way for a while.

The swish of a LN62

So every now and then a tool comes along that is a game changer. I have been treating myself to a bit of the quarterly bonus from Squint Central. I have been eyeing Lie Nielsen planes for many years now. Got a nifty skew-angle block plane and a nice smaller scraper plane as a farewell gift when we left the valley in 2000. When I polled my tooling gurus, Dave suggested I try a LN62 and recommended adding the toothed blade. So I splurged, The box with this heirloom quality thing of beauty arrived a few days back. This morning I tried the toothed blade on some squirly, curly maple that needed to be thinned out for the back of one of the two next builds. Wow. The shavings are these hair thin wavy light threads. It's a joy to use.

As much as I complain about work, and complain I do. There are definitely advantages to that twice monthly pay check and the quarterly bonus certainly does not hurt. My shop contents is definitely improving, now if only my skills would.

The LN62 doing its thing. Each pass with the plane makes a perfect swish. The guitar building is a major part of my life, and the shop is my happy place, but I am trying not to flood this blog with shop talk. You can always visit powguitars.com if you want to see more.

Ownership

It's been one of those tough weeks where the work seemed never ending and the weather outside is blinding hot and I am not sleeping worth a damn. I noticed that when these things start to get me down, like bwo, I like to go shopping. All I want to buy is wood. You see, wood is a dwindling resource, especially beautifully figured guitar wood. All the wood I ever will buy is from renewable resources, but the renewal will take more than 50 years for many of the species. 

There there is this ~20 board foot soft limit that UPS will deliver and many of the good dealers will ship to your house. So I find myself sitting at night with my tablet, when not doing jigsaws, or watching Youtube, scouring the interwebs for good wood deals. To be honest, all I have bought (so far) is some alder that was clearly wrongly priced and some very pretty Morado (Bolivian Rosewood). Still I keep dreaming of some curly maple from Mr. Taran, or some Granadillo from Woodworkers Source or some white ash from Steve Wall. I really don't need any more, but that does not get in the way of dreaming. It's sort of like buying a lottery ticket. You can dream of what could be.

First world problems.

The most determined thing in the universe. She dragged this with us for miles and all protrusions must be eliminated.

Tree Sweaters

I mentioned bwo's wool habit. She has been crocheting up a storm. A while back she decided the trees on the court needed some sprucing up, so she made some tree sweaters. This may be the beginning of a movement. Not sure. There is talk of more sweaters once the weather cools down a bit. Right now she is very busy crocheting "dream catchers" to hang alongside the tree sweaters. I will keep you updated.

I missed a week of blogging. It has been busy with a work trip to Oregon and cooler weather which means shop time for me. I must try harder.

Salad Days of Summer

So I went the El Dorado Hills Farmer's Market yesterday for the first time. While the veggies looked nice, I was rather underwhelmed. I am still the salad maker in the family and I take this job very seriously. I spend a some time most weekends cutting veggies into small squares so I can make my beloved "Israeli salad". Personally, I have yet to find any great difference in taste from the expensive farmer's market produce to the stuff we buy (at a lot less) from Costco. None of these come close to the veggies from the Shuk or the supermarket in Raanana. I was blown away this week when I went to Safeway to pick up a few things for my weekend salad - bell peppers were $1.99 each! Even at Waitrose in Richmond three peppers were 99p.

So I will not be buying anything at the farmers market in the near future. While trying to be a thoughtful husband, I bought bwo some chocolate chip cookies, $7.50 for three. She said they were "meh". 

My salad recipe (it's not hard): 3 tomatoes, 1 large cucumber (or 6 or the little "Persian" ones), 2 bell peppers (red, or orange or yellow), some snow peas (or sugar snap peas), half a red onion and if you have some parsley (must be fresh), spring onion or any other kind of veggie (we had some leftover roasted broccoli which was delicious). Cut these up into small squares  (with a sharp knife). Make a lot and keep it in the fridge in a Tupperware, do not add dressing till you are ready to eat. My current favorite dressing is raw tahina (needs to come from the Middle east - we get ours at 99 Ranch or from visitors from Israel) mixed with quite a lot of salsa (I like the pace medium or El Paso hot), no water, just tehina and salsa. Salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly, then enjoy the crunch. 

Expelled from Bark Avenue

I was sitting in the chair at the hairdresser when my cell rang twice in a row (I would prefer to call them barbers, but it seems that is not PC, or so the purple-haired heavily inked college student indignantly informed me and I was not going to disagree as she was holding the scissors). Bwo called twice in a row, which means mega emergency, and not only that she found her phone after losing it for a few hours. Our Roxy was traumatizing the groomer. Yes, our sweet and kind and loving border collie just hates being groomed so much we have only manage to try three times in her seven years. 

I cut my haircutting short (pun?) and rushed over to the groomers, which is conveniently located near my "barber" (please don't tell her) only to find Rox shaking and shivering and making those anxious sounds that just tears your heart in two. She is usually a very quiet and polite girl. She does not bark at the door. She loves everyone. But not the groomers. Before being expelled from Bark Avenue, they managed to wash her and comb out some of the knots and dreads, but no hair cutting was possible as she apparently was shouting so loud as to disturb the other dogs.

She came home a fluffy, squeaky clean girl with her poofed up hair making her look twice her normal size. She hurrumphed flat down on the floor with a look questioning our total betrayal. A few walks around the block and some tug of war with Mr. Moose and she forgave and forgot. Dogs just rule.

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

—Groucho Marx 
Read more at https://dogtime.com/dog-health/general/16344-25-famous-quotes-about-dogs#SFGVtIe2DZoMSoxQ.99

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

The Panels Are In

The solar panels are up on the roof. I have an app to monitor power consumption as what you cannot measure is not real. I am very glad to finally to stick it to PG&E. Our power bill in the summer is outrageous and so we finally bit the bullet and had solar panels installed. They look pretty good on the roof. So far the installation has gone well, they were even able to schedule us two weeks before the original set date. We decided to buy the solution outright as I never felt comfortable with the various rental and leasing schemes. It will take a while to pay for itself as our annual power consumption was on the edge of being profitable for solar, but it just feels right.

Here is a bad picture of the roof early this morning.

Coffee

Tuesdays are special. On Tuesday mornings I stop at Peet's on my way into work and treat myself to an Americano. The swill they serve here at Squint Central is undrinkable. The baristas all know me by now, I am usually their first customer at 5:30am when they open. My only complaint is that recently they stopped providing those little black stirrers that blocked the hole and stop spills. It's all part of that no more plastic straws moment sweeping California.

A bit of nostalgia. Sabich Tchernikovski, just off Allenby in Tel Aviv. It takes the dude ages to prepare, but it sure is worth the wait. There are no words.

It's Puzzling

Bdo claims her visit to El Dorado Hills was really a "puzzle bootcamp". Bwo discovered this iPad game called Jigsaw Puzzle Collection HD. It quickly became quite addictive. Unfortunately  Bwo is so much better at this than me and I'm convinced she has hidden mutant pattern matching talents. As soon as bdo was through the door we got her quickly trained and had her competing on the "puzzle of the day".

I am impressed with the game. It is very well put together and just challenging enough that it's not trivial to do even a 240 piece puzzle. It crashes frequently on my iPad, which is old, and I refuse to pay the $15 to get it ad free until they fix the frequent crashes, but it is still fun. Try it.

Rule no. 1 of iPad puzzling, No looking at the picture after you start the puzzle. Rule No. 2, you have to do the daily puzzle, no matter how much you hate the picture. There is no Rule 3.

Power is Key

I was all set for posting yesterday after dropping Bdo off in Oakland where she was visiting friends before heading back to the Holy Land. Well, PG&E our infamous power company had other ideas. At 7:05pm just as Bwo settled down to watch some of the third "Queer Eye" season, the power went out. 

Now let me remind you, yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far (today is going to be hotter apparently). When the house went dark it was a toasty 104°F outside and according to the PG&E website the power would only come on again around 10:15pm. We have been warned that due to the threat of fires (and based on the bad experience of the Paradise fire last year) PG&E may cut off our power whenever they please, but it seems this was some sort of unplanned event. Bwo, Rox and I hid in the relative cool of the bedroom downstairs for a while and eventually fell asleep. The power came back at 11:45pm with all the usual beeping, whirring and bright lights. It had cooled off considerably by then although it never seems to have the time to get really chilly when we have a string of one hundred plus days.

It always strikes me as amazing how close we live to catastrophe. Civilization balances precariously on the edge of societal breakdown and all it would take would be a few days without power. We take so much for granted. I wonder how long it would take without power for us to not get water in our pipes or food in the stores. When the zombie apocalypse comes at least we will have a lot of toothpaste (saving that for another day) and wool to keep us warm.

So it's summer here and my woodshop gets very, very warm and so I have been confined to working a few hours in the early mornings on the weekends. I have been making very slow progress on the current guitar (GS2). I did the owl inlay and progressed some on shaping the neck this weekend, but it's already too hot for me and it's only 9am.

GS2 is California walnut back and sides and a curly maple fretboard with a walnut and maple laminated neck. Spruce top, of course.

Wool

When Bwo gets into something, she really gets into it. Lately it's been crocheting (knitting with one needle). She has conjured up some excellent pieces, more art than clothing. Like any Bwo pursuit it starts small and then grows and grows. So it is with crocheting. I am happy she found something that brings her joy. So what, if we have crochet hooks hidden in sofas and chairs, at least they are not sharp. So what, if I've spent many an hour unraveling (hmm, can be spelled with one or two L's) knotted bits of wool, it's meditative. And so what if on a flight to San Diego Bwo trailed a line of wool from her seat at the front of the plane all the way back to the bathroom, the other passengers enjoyed helping roll the ball up as it was passed back up the aisle. It brings her joy and that's what counts.

I was not surprised when various shipments of wool started arriving at the front door. A few balls here and there, no problem. At least wool is not heavy. Then one day a huge box arrived. A few days later, the empty box reappeared in the recycling pile and I noticed the scene below on the dining room table.

I congratulated Bwo on a clever solution to wool storage, happy in the knowledge that I would not have to break down those terrible cardboard fruit trays from Costco for recycling. They are well glued together. We don't use the dining room table, or the dining room for that matter, so no worries.

I never noticed exactly when, but at some point the 144 balls of wool disappeared from the dining room table. Less crocheting was happening as summer kicked into full gear and the garden became a priority. Then last night, I went to refill my glass of water before bed in Bwo's bathroom (Yes, we have a two bathroom solution, similar to the two-state solution proposed by congress to fix the whole Israeli Palestinian issue). I noticed that her shower curtain was closed and had been for a while. For no real reason, I peeked behind the curtain and to my surprise, this is what I found:

Notice how the three fruit trays (144 balls) are not alone, they now live in the shower along with many more of their closest friends. 

T'is Hot

It's been hot the last few days. And by hot I mean over 100°F. Last night at 8:15pm the thermometer on the NW side of the house read 103°F (39.4°C). Granted that side absorbs the late afternoon heat since Bwo decided the house needs to be painted dark brown. This morning at 5:15am the thermometer read 73°F (22.7°C). That's the 30°F difference which makes the whole house fan so effective. I turn it on as soon as I wake up and enjoy the breeze as it sucks in the cooler air from outside and blows it out the attic. In normal summer heat (when it's below 100°F) the house stays cool until the early afternoon.

When we came to check out Folsom in for a week in Aug of 2016, the afternoon temperature never dropped below 107°F (41.6°C). "It's dry heat" they would say. Tell you what, anything over 40°C should not be allowed. It's so hot that walking across the black tarmac parking lot outside squint central feels like the soles of your shoes are melting. Of course, the corner of the building where I work as freezing as only an American would think acceptable. The shock walking out at the end of the day is like stepping into a volcano. Still Bwo agreed to move here. She complains bitterly about the heat.

No matter how hard the air conditioners at home work they cannot keep the top floor at any reasonable temperature during the later afternoon. So we huddle in the dark downstairs till bedtime. It stays really hot here till after 10pm, then it cools down quickly. I am usually way asleep by then though.

I recently found these pictures of the Les Paul I built in 2008. one of the guys in Algranati's electric guitar course was a professional photographer and he sent me a dozen or so pictures he took when I was done building. It looks quite good in the photo, although the sunburst should have had more lighter yellow to better show off the awesome curly maple. Unfortunately, I don't think my skill has improved much over the years.

The Parking Lot

Every morning I wake up around 5am, shave and dress, take blackroxyo for a walk, give her breakfast and head off to squint central. I usually arrive before 6. The roads are quiet. In summer the morning is deliciously cool and softly lit, in winter coming over the Folsom ridge I see the twinkling lights of Sac in the distance. It's not horrible.

After fifteen to twenty minutes drive, while listening to whatever audiobook is currently in my queue, I arrive. It's that drive into the parking lot that makes me question my life choices each morning. No matter where, it's always the same each morning. Going back as far as working at TI and the huge parking lot in Stafford, TX, on to the open lot outside SGI bld. 7 in Mountain View, to the covered lot next to Bld. 40, then the sharp turns down the circular parking lot entry on HaMenofim in Herzliya to parking near the elevators in Yakum, then having to unlock the parking lot and front doors in Egham, to today and parking each morning in the shade of bld 5.

My heart longs for parking in a forest, or next to a beach or maybe driving down a twisty tree covered road, or up a steep path to a spot with a 360 degree view of the world. It's that damned pay cheque that comes twice a month that keeps me driving into the same old lot each morning. At least I get in early enough to always get the same spot.

Today's photo is of a sunset. They are nice this time of year. This is from outside the front door.

Perhaps I'm back

I started this blog on Wednesday Feb 27, 2008. The first post went into an explanation on the 80%ness of Israel as a country. That was more than 10 years back and things have changed. Israel has probably changed, and I have certainly changed. We moved to the UK and then to the US. In the UK I struggled to find things to write about as things seemed to run quite smoothly although i never could understand why so many orange cones line the highways (motorways). I assume that the Department for Transport ran out of storage and just keep them on the roads forever. Then in 2016 we moved to the US, El Dorado Hills, CA to be exact.

I am undecided as to what exact global scale the US works on. Some things are close to 100% (Taco Bell?) and some things are barley manage to register on any scale (just try going to the DMV for a "Real ID"). Still we now live here and there are some things to write about. Which brings be back to the origins of this blog.

Some time in 2008, while we at GraphTech were still bright-eyed and bushy tailed and thought ourselves quite smart, we brought in some chap who was a social-media guru to talk to us. All this internet self examination was still quite interesting at the time. This chap claimed that we needed to put ourselves out there and thus our creativity would grow. So I decided I would give this "new" medium a try and the 80% blog started. It taught me a great deal. Having to clear up and virtually write down my confused thoughts helped me become a better writer. This helped me get through writing papers for an archaeology degree and helps me with every email I send through the day, everyday.

Skip to last night. The little book "Steal Like an Artist" has been sitting on a table in our second bathroom where bwo must have left it months back. My iPad was left recharging in the bedroom nearly out of battery after an intense session of puzzle HD (more on this in the future) so I picked up the little black book and started reading while relaxing on the toilet. It got me thinking. The book is filled with sage advice on creativity, and gladly it did not take to long to go through. What really got me thinking was the "just keep at it" theme that runs chapter by snappy chapter through the book. That's exactly what I am going to try do. I don't care if no one ever reads these posts. They are really only for me anyway.

Bwo says I need to always add a photo. This is a photo of one of the best things in our lives.