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