Scoakat's Garden, Vacation, More

I'm not sure when it happened, but my link for the garden blog is no longer in the right column.  I've re-added the link under the blog list now, no more special treatment.  I've largely neglected the garden blog this year.  Similarly, the gardens have been largely neglected this year.  I'm not sure how that site will be used next year.  We'll see what happens in spring, I guess.

Hamish and Basil, brothers from the same litter, size comparison.

This came up because I posted what will probably be the last post of the year over there this morning.  Another tour of the yard like I had posted over there a few times this year.  Spring, summer and fall, all on one page of posts.   Here's the link, if you wish to take a look.

I am in the midst of nine days away from work, between vacation and the holiday.  I've so far been working on getting the yard and house ready for winter.  We've been lucky with a very mild fall so far, but we've had hard frosts the last few nights now and the daytime temperatures have turned much more seasonable.  Still, no snow yet, which is always good news to me.  My wife's car is in the shop, today and yesterday, which has put a small damper on my time off so far in that I have been getting up early, like a normal work day, and driving her to and from work.  Still worth it, though.  I'll still have a few days I can sleep in.  I think we're just going across town for a few hours for Thanksgiving on Thursday, otherwise not travelling.  I haven't even thought of the Christmas holiday yet, though it will be here quickly so I shall be forced to soon.  As for today, I want to get out, get some food and maybe shop a little.  I really have no agenda for the rest of today except picking up my wife and getting her car back.  Nice.

Depressing Comics

Blue Witch happened to post some comics today and that reminded me that I just so happened to save two comics last night in a draft to possibly post today.  I would have totally forgotten and just deleted the draft later due to timeliness if I had not seen her post this evening.  Thanks BW!  Both cartoons are from yesterday and I found each oddly amusing:

From Cyanide and Happiness and Garfield.  All links are also in the right column.

Trump Fire Pit

They say thing go in threes so, just to wrap up my little political posts of the past week, here is a picture from our fire pit Saturday night.  If you're from across the aisle you may move on, regular blogging will continue shortly.

When I grabbed some newspaper to start the fire it happened to be the front section of Wednesday's local paper declaring Trump the winner.  I used the whole section to help get the fire lit (and it went right up!) but I saved the front page for Terry to throw on the fire later, when she arrived.  Not planned out, I just thought it a bit of fun at the time.  What is odd, though, is how serious and spooky these girls look doing it.  (Children of the corn, anyone?)

None of us are political extremists and this is no veiled threat to anything or anyone.  Just a bit of fun, is all.  Thanks for the pics, Terry!

Well, America...

...We got what we deserve.  Now just watch the old, bigoted blowhard try to act presidential.

I didn't do it, but I feel the need to offer my personal apology to the rest of the world.

I Voted

Now we wait.

My wife enjoys this more than I.  Tonight will be her Superbowl, watching all the returns come in.  The winner can't really change a whole lot by themself, thankfully, but they can seriously alter the direction we're headed.

Halloween 2016

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We've not much going on, it being Monday and all.  Just waiting for some trick-or-treaters this evening.  I thought about getting some pictures but me photographing little kids may get me on some kind of bad person list, or questioned by the police.  Same kids, same costumes in every town across America, anyway.  The Hickory Head Hermit, aka Mike Firesmith, has his Halloween story again this year.  (See last year's here).  I hope to catch up on it later tonight.

Caturday! with Basil and Hamish

I promised a Caturday post earlier, so here it is!  Featuring our favorite cats that thankfully agree to live pretty much peacefully with us, Basil and Hamish!  I could have taken photos from old albums but I wanted to only post new, so here is what I came up with over the last week:

I came home early on Tuesday because I did not feel well.  All I needed to do is go to bed, but I waited a couple hours until I had to move them.  They take over the bed in the morning hours after we leave, it's where they sleep most of the day when we're at work, I believe.

If they're not enjoying their main cat tree in the living room they are usually enjoying their first cat tree out on the back porch, while weather permits, anymore.  They are lucky kitties with fine, tall cat trees that are kitty corners of the house with full windows!  Their summer days home alone, well, if I could only do what they do for one day....










Hamish usually occupies the upper part of their cat trees but Basil gets up there sometimes.




They are brothers but so different in body types, I think it's just more comfortable for the bigger Basil to stretch out on the larger lower levels of the newer cat tree in the front of the house.  The older cat tree that's now on the porch was absolutely perfect for the first few years, (I highly recommend it for it's height and steps for kittens,)  Basil has just outgrown it now, I think.  Hamish still hangs in the crow's nest often, when the porch is open.  It is not a heated porch but the sun helps nicely this time of year.


There's more pictures from earlier this week through tonight after the break, and captioned for my pleasure!

Also, at the end is one of my favorite cat stories, as told by George Clooney on Dennis Miller Live years ago.   It's worth it, really.

October This-And-Thats Part II

I've had more thoughts recently, so I decided to list some ideas over the last couple days and now is where I start typing about them and see what happens.  Let's go!

• I've gone https!  Since the blog needed an overhaul recently, I just made the switch, though I had to lose a few things I liked in the sidebar.  You do not need to update your link, the http site now redirects.  I have some of my lists rebuilt in the sidebar, but they are still a work in progress.  There may be a few more changes in store, too, but nothing major.  I still like the overall look of the website and template.  Email readers - you should stop by the actual site more often, the link is at the bottom of your email!
• I'm off the nasal spray, and I did it without some 12 step program.  Allergies kicked my ass early this summer and I turned to a medicated nasal spray to breathe.  But I kept using it, and became dependent on it.  When it wore off I became more stuffed up than ever, even partially stuffed up was hard to deal with when the spray was so easy and made my sinuses so free and clear.  I had my last spray over a week ago on Friday morning before work.  I made it through a stuffy weekend and haven't used it since.  Kids, don't do nasal spray.  Snort some coke like we did in the old days.  jk!
• Remember my 'Sammi' story?  Well, she contacted my wife through farcebook a few weeks ago.  She said something like how the messages we sent got filtered and she never saw them.  My wife thinks it's possible, I'm much more skeptical.  I told my wife to simply not respond.  You can read the whole story about me and Sammi here, she was my best friend some time ago.  Like I said there, I left my contact information.  The message she responded to - after more than a year - has my contact information in it, my phone number and this blog address.  She can easily contact me if she's serious.  From what I've seen her post on her farcebook page though, I don't know if I should look forward for that or not.  What I miss is what we had, way back when.  I've grown a lot since then.
• Autumn, wow.  A couple weeks ago, literally, almost all the trees were fully green.  Now winter isn't that far off and most of the trees are colors other than green, and falling to the ground and blowing around.  This seemed to really sneak up on me this year.  It's like the whole month of September I enjoyed as summer and totally blocked out that October and cooler weather was just about to happen.  We had our first frost last week, albeit very light one at our home.  I've put away summer clothes and brought out the winter clothes, jackets, long underwear and long sleeve tee shirts.  Damn.  I spend all summer never wearing socks or long pants unless I'm at work.  Now I'm having to wear both - in the house!  Yes, we have turned the heat on occasionally, recently, though more off than on so far.

I wrote most of this over the weekend and although it's another short one I figured I best just post it before it gets outdated.  I also need to remind myself to post some pictures of the cats, Basil and Hamish.  They've not made an appearance on the site in quite some time.  I'll keep the camera handy this week for maybe a Caturday post!

October This-And-Thats

You know the drill.  Sit, type, see what comes out.  Here we go!

• I've not been posting so much this summer, but I think I hit most all the highlights.  I may have missed a boat trip or a couple fire pits, for example, but not all has to be documented here.  I've also scaled back my commenting on other's sites.  It's just been summer, there have been other things to do, is all.  I also don't want to be the guy that comments all the time and for no particular reason.  I do need to wish Delcatto a happy birthday, however.  I'll jump over there now and return the greetings, be right back.  
• Besides not writing as much, I've just generally been neglecting my corner of the internet this summer.  I've had a broken counter widget for some time now, over 5 years of a running count, now gone.  And recently all my link lists in the right column have disappeared.  The blogs I read, my other favorite sites and my favorite bands.  Poof.  Gone.  I have all the links either in my favorites or they are easily searchable, but what a pain.  I've looked for where I can try to get some support from blogger but only find articles that do not help me at all.  I don't know why they disappeared but I'm sure my only recourse is to replace them.  Sigh.  I'll get around to website maintenance one of these days, but don't hold your breath.
• Early this summer I was having issues with my sinuses.  For several years now I seem to have been developing allergies and this was the worst year yet.  I tried a couple things to keep my nose open, eventually turning to a medicated nasal spray.  Now, a few months later, I find myself dependent on that spray to breathe through my nose.  The spray makes my sinuses so clear that I get used to that, then when I'm even partially clogged it bothers me.  Weening myself off the spray has been miserable and, so far, unsuccessful.
• Speaking of summer, it is now over.  The weather has taken a turn for the cooler and skies have been more gray than blue recently and for the foreseeable future.  We still have much to do in the yard before winter arrives, but there is time yet.  The leaves in the trees are still green, well, for the most part.

Well, a short This-And-Thats post this time but that's all I can think of at the moment.  I notice that I mentioned 'summer' in each of my points above.  That will probably be the last time that happens this year.  Happy Autumn, everybody!

Garage Workbench Redo

As I had mentioned earlier, my project for this vacation has been a redo of the workbench I have in the garage.  Not a huge project, but satisfying - and I only had to buy less than ten bucks of boards, I had everything else I would need.  I do spend a lot of time in the garage and at my workbench in the warmer times of the year and I felt it needed to be better organized.

New and improved!

I first got the workbench as a kit back in 2010.  At the time I modified it to be 10 inches higher to accommodate me and my aching back, and that's when I added most of the shelving in the garage as well.  Other than that it has evolved since by adding tools, shelves, power tools, and eventually the metal pegboard.

The height of everything is built for me, I can reach it all as needed.  The brackets I was using for the shelf above ran on the front of the stud keeping me from raising the pegboard so I just used a 2x4. I also added a lip at the back of the shelf so I can't push anything off the back.  Below the shelf, the pegboard holds some of my most commonly used tools, keeping them all very handy for me.  Raising the pegboard allowed me to build mini shelves between the studs for even more storage.  I had the dozen red bins since I got them for free a long time ago.  They've just been sitting in a box in the basement since.  Now I have tons of spots for all the little clutter.  As of now more than half are still empty - we'll see how long that lasts!  To the right of the little red bins I put all my nail and screw boxes.  Seemed reasonable at the time.  It does have height there that I may use for other things later.

The 'before' picture.

Sitting on the right of the workbench are two box shelves that I built in middle school.  A total of four this size - the other two are on my workbench in the basement - and two larger ones that I still have them all to this day.  A big one on the other side of the garage holds firewood, the other holds painting supplies and such in the basement.  I considered trying to mount these on the wall in the same area but they are not very light.  In the end I decided leaving them where they were, sitting directly on the right supports for the workbench, was still the best option.  Unfortunately, due to the new shelf I built, the gray bin on top for rags doesn't slide into the corner anymore, but I think I can work with it.

The modifications for the workbench included dropping the lower shelf and adding an identical shelf above that.  This gives me a handy area for my growing power tool collection.  The bottom is tall enough to comfortably fit the air compressor and anything I may need the space for in the future.  For now it also holds the fire pit and odds and ends.  The only other thing I added was a 1x4 screwed in along the top so there is no gap in front of the red bins where thing could have dropped.

That's it, that's my new and improved workbench.  I think it's pretty neat.
A few pictures of the process, start to finish, after the break: