Summer project: work table

There's always a bright side. But if there's a bright side then there is usually a dark side as well. In this particular case the dark side of my wife's new job is that she now must work on Saturdays. The bright side is I now have my Saturdays free to work on projects. Instead of sleeping until 10 and watching television and movies all day, I now get up at 7 with her and head to my parents' house to work on whatever project I'm in the middle of. I know what you're thinking...isn't it kind of lame to have to go to your parents' house to do things like that. No...it isn't...for many reasons. The main reason is there is no place to build things in our 1-bedroom apartment. We have an outdoor patio but it is taken up by my wedding present, which is a large grill. It's awesome but it's huge and there isn't even any room to walk out there. Also my dad has a whole lot more tools than I do. Anyways...In my parents' house there used to be this useless french door between the dining room and what we lovingly call the play room. It was only closed abut 4 times during my adolescent life so when my parents remodeled the play room the door was removed to the backyard where it sat under the over hang of a shed my dad and I built to keep the majority of the elements off it. My dad is kind of a pack rat and keeps everything, which in this case and another upcoming case has greatly helped me out. So anyways this is kind of what the door looked like when I go it out and ripped the creeping vines off it.

As you can clearly see it's french. Many of the glass panes are broken but I managed to salvage around 8 and some of the framing, because I may need it one day. I then ran a circular saw all around the edge of the table to get all of those nasty french guts out. I think it would have been cool if I was able to use the original frame on the inside but I'm not that good and don't have that kind of time. So I did it this way. I basically measured about an inch and a half from where I wanted to cut and clamped a long, straight board to use as a guide for the saw.

One thing that is really awesome about the french craftsmen that made this door is their joinery. Here is a picture that I hope you can see well enough to admire.

Those frenchmen did I few things correct, the Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, probably some other stuff and this door.

Then, using my dad's huge new chop saw I chop sawed some lumber he had laying around and made some legs and screwed them into the door. (I later realized the way I did it originally was stupid when the thing threatened to fall apart while I was moving it so I changed my design to include screwing through the table into the legs...this was a much better idea) Next I had to figure a way out to brace the desktop I was going to make so I screwed some cheap wood I bought from Home Depot to the sides to make a hopefully-structurally sound desk top. Then I placed the desk top and tacked it down with finishing nails and a nail gun, I don't know why anyone would hammer an actual nail anymore. The shorter side is going to be used to house our scroll saw and the longer side is for drawing and holding papers and the like.

Then it rained for about a week and my wife had to take me to work because I'm a wimp and don't like riding my motorcycle in the rain. Needless to say I didn't work on it for a while and then moved it to my parents' carport and it didn't rain anymore. This is also when the stupid thing tried to fall apart because my stupid libido wouldn't let me not move the stupid thing by my stupid self. I also killed an ant hive that some hasty ants built under the plywood I put on it to keep it dryish. I just poured rubbing alcohol on them and smushed the runners that weren't too big with my fingers. Then I installed a support in the back because it wasn't very stable and it made a world of difference.

Next I made some framing to cover the ugly a little bit with the same plywood I used to cover it. For my finishing touches I painted the top with some chalkboard paint we bought to use at our wedding and ended up not using and the frame and everything else with some very white paint I found in the shed.

Then I was done but I didn't have a truck to move it so it's still in my parents' carport blocking my dad's motorcycle. Here it is in all its french glory.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out. All in all I'd say the project cost me around $50, but that's only because I had to buy 2 new packs of Deck Mate screws, which are $10 a box! I know right! Anyways here's a little teaser on what's going to be involved in my next project, which also happens to be another leftover from my pack rat of a father. If anyone out there needs help building a desk out of an old door I am officially an expert now, so send them my way. -DAve

Why buy when you can build

I'm going through a quarter-life crisis. Yup I'll be 25 in a few months and that is kind of crazy to think about. I've started examining my face for wrinkles and have had "everything is going to be downhill from here" type thoughts. So what am I going to do about it you ask? Well I've decided I'm going to spend more time pursuing my passions and less time napping and watching television. My beautiful wife now works on Saturdays and has to wake up around 7 in the morning so I've been getting up with her and beginning my day then. It kind of sucks but when you've been productive for 3 hours doing what you want to do and it's only 10, it sort of makes up for the suckiness. So what am I doing with all of this time I've been spending on being productive you ask? I'll include a few pictures to show you. First I built this. I've been wanting to work with slices of wood for a while and I noticed what I think was an elm tree cut down and stacked neatly in someone's front yard. Long story short I commandeered it and threw as big of one as I could carry in the back of our car and then grabbed a slightly smaller one. Then I chainsawed it with my dad's old electric chainsaw and put three legs on it. It definitely isn't perfect but I think it turned out looking really cool. I'm going to do some more and use four legs instead of three but this was a great prototype. I saw something similar to this on wonderful Pinterest and decided I would try my hand at a chevron. I bought some 4x4x8 cedar posts and 5 cedar fence faces and chopped them up. I build the frame from the posts and used the fence facing to cover the box. It's a trellis for a grape vine I bought while in Austin, TX. Then I painted it and sanded it down to make it look weathered because bright and new doesn't work with a garden in my opinion. Then I added the vine and am storing it in a friend's backyard until our rent house is ready to move into. I am really happy with how it turned out and the thing is solid. I'm pretty sure it could go to Oz and back and be just fine, but we'll see. Then I used some extra wood and some old bicycle wheels I had and built this trellis. This was inspired by a woodworker/backyard Gardner that I located on the internet. His name is Christopher Gleason and he lives in Salt Lake City and I basically want to be him now. He raises chickens and edibles in his backyard and builds things out of wood for a living. I can see myself getting really into our garden and backyard area and I've already gotten the go-ahead from the wife to build an outdoor table and chairs for it and I can't tell you how excited I am. My father made me build stuff with him when I was a kid and I've been doing it ever since, more so out of my own free will as I get older. It's so much fun to make something that you imagine in your head and see the end result after the sweat and labor of it all. I'm not sure if it's something I want to do for a living but definitely something that I could do on the side. I plan on making some more tables and improving on the one I have made as well as maybe some herb and planter boxes. I'm going to hopefully blog about my processes through setting up our garden and growing vegetables and the things I build. Maybe it'll turn into something maybe it wont, but I've got to give it a shot. I'm at least a quarter of the way dead after all. There's not time like the present to make a life change and I don't want to waste my youth while I'm young.

Mom and pop store

Before I jump into the shameless sales pitch that's about to follow I just want to address a few things. Like why "mom" gets to come first in the name of a small, locally-owned store. I think pop should come first because everyone knows men bring home the proverbial bacon and women just shop. I'll take a little time to make up for my little bit of gendicism there, which is another word for sexism that I just made up.

Really just now...

Anyways...speaking of mom and pop businesses my lovely new bride and I have started being crafty and making things, which also happen to be for sale. Since we both work and don't have a ton of time on our hands to pursue what we like, we just have to find time to do it in the evenings and on weekends.

What you're about to see is the by-product of that. My wife, we'll call her Meghan, enjoys making jewelry and has for a while now, but she's too self conscious to ever brag or really tell anyone about it. So I'm doing it.

She used to make things with beads and pearls and wire, but has since decided to start designing pieces using wood. That's where my manly, beard-growing, grunting prowesses come in. Also I really love working with wood and building things so this goes right along with that.

Our process is: she draws her designs on pieces of wood we buy from lowes or home depot, and I cut them out. Then she paints them and/or stains them and puts chains and rings on them and they look awesome.

We would both love for this to take off and become something that we can share together, but we want to see what people think of them first.

If you like them then tell us, if you don't then I'd rather not know. It will probably just hurt my feelings.

With that being said if you want to buy one let me know. I have no idea how much they are but I doubt they're too much more than pretty inexpensive.

With all that out of the way here's what's cool now:

First the jewelry my wife and I are creating. We both hope our little mom and pop business takes off in the future.

Second catchphrases. For instance mine is "somebody needs to." come up with your own and be prepared to reap the rewards.

Third me, for blogging after like 7 months.

Fourth storage wars, Barry is the best and Dave is a huge douche. Brandi is way too cute for jarrod and Darryl looks like he's 13 months pregnant and has been yelling constantly for the past 7 years.

Heat comes before the Fall

Summer is over...thank God! It may not feel quite like summer is completely over because it's still pretty effing hot some days but hey, it was around 60 degrees last night and I got cold so let's count it. Ah Fall...let me go ahead and count the ways that I love thee. First the whole cooling off thing is just awesome...keep it up. Next I like it when the leaves fall...boom...word play...Fall as in the season and fall as in the act of traveling in a downward trajectory under the influence of gravity...right? Side note I think there's something poetic about driving or walking or riding or whatever method of travel you chose when the leaves are all falling off the trees and showering you with colorful crisps of vegetation. And next you get Halloween and Thanksgiving, which are both sweet holidays...well Halloween more-so than Thanksgiving...What?!? Another one?!? So close to the last one?!?(sweet as in candy because that's what you get at Halloween, in reality I like Thanksgiving better but I do like Halloween a lot) So what word is synonymous with Halloween, besides candy and costumes and trick-or-treat? Goodwill, but not in a peace and Goodwill towards men because that goes along with my favorite holiday, which is Christmas. No...I mean Goodwill in a thrift store, great way to find a Halloween costume kind of way. Ever since I started working at Goodwill I have spent much more time in the stores mainly because I used to have to walk through it to get to the bathroom. While it is a perfectly valid place to find real and vintage clothing that you could wear every day...it is also a perfectly valid place to find ridiculous clothing that would help create a fantastic Halloween costume. This year my fiance and I are going to attempt to be gnomes of the garden variety so that means it's time to hit up the Goodwill stores in my area. My idea was Peter Pan and Tinkerbell but I like gnomes too. I think I honestly just wanted to wear green tights because I like green and I wore tights in elementary school a few times for plays and stuff and they were pretty comfortable. Of course that was before I had leg hair so it may be a completely different experience now but oh well...maybe next year I can figure that out. So here's David's awesome plan for finding a Halloween costume at Goodwill: 1. Get a plan...look on the internet for pictures or examples or tutorials of what you're going to be and decide what you need to make that dream a disguised reality. Goodwill's tend to be a bit organized in a different way so it would be easy to get overwhelmed. 2. Go shopping...if you have any friends then ask them to go. If you don't have any friends then maybe try to make some or just go alone, whatever you're most comfortable with. The chance for fun and laughter is fairly high so it's best to share that with someone if you can. 3. Don't be rash...if something doesn't fit you or you find something that isn't in your costume but gives you another great costume idea then I'd say resist and try to stick to the plan. Changing plans would lead to the chance to get overwhelmed, but if you prefer a spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of lifestyle then this may be the option for you. If not then use your new idea as a plan B in case you can't find all the necessary pieces needed to complete your original idea. 4. Pay for your stuff...don't be a douche and steal. Just because it's less expensive than normal places and they sell second-hand clothes, doesn't give you the right to steal. If this isn't even a worry for you then I'm sorry if that sounded accusatory, but I have to watch out for the company that gives me a paycheck. 5. Go home...and put it all together. This is the time where all the pieces of your plan can come together, and you can prance around in front of mirrors if you have them and pretend that you actually are the character you're dressing up as, it might be a healthy use of your imagination and a chance to play pretend. And that's it...that's all I've got. I know it's a pretty bichin plan...let me explain real quick about my newest trend I'm starting. Bichin (by-chin) - a variety of the profane word that means female dog but it's acceptable in all societal situations and it means awesome or really rad and isn't profane in the least. Feel free to use it freely! Today is October second and it smells like nostalgia outside, which means it smells like fire and dead leaves. It's enjoyable to be outside and the holidays are fast approaching. Goodbye summer...you won't be missed.

Engagement Chicken

So in case you've been living in a fairly comfortable hole in the ground complete with modern technology like running water, electricity and some sort of temperature control device that all just so happens to be located under a rock, I'll tell you and the world that I'm engaged!

If I had the ability to climb a mountain and wasn't afraid that shouting while positioned at the top of a mountain would cause an avalanche or rock-slide that would completely obliterate anything in its path, then I would most definitely shout it from the mountain. Instead I do the next best thing which is ask everyone I see these days, even if they already know my fiance, if they've met my fiance. You might think that that sounds a little bit annoying, but you'd be wrong because I'm awesome and not annoying in the least.

Pushing all that aside being engaged is pretty cool, but to me it sort of epitomizes what life is for children and young adults, a lot of waiting.

It seems that all my life I've been waiting for the next step in life. When I was a baby I was waiting to go to school so I could do normal people things like read and write and make friends. Then during school it seems like I was always waiting for summer vacation. Then I was waiting to go to middle school, then high school, then being able to drive, then college and then finding a career. Even while Meghan and I were dating and lived far apart, I was always waiting for the next time we would get to see each other. Then when we finally lived in the same city, we were waiting to get engaged and now we're waiting to get married.

I think it would be ignorant of me to assume that once this stage of waiting is over, I'll be done with the waiting stage of my life. I'm sure there will be plenty of things to wait for in the next stages of my life and I'm sure those things will make themselves painfully apparent.

This waiting game used to really bother me. My justification for this was that it was taking away from my experiencing the present because if you're always looking forward to the future then there's no time to look elsewhere. But I've since changed my mind simply because this waiting is a form of anticipation for me. It's almost like I'm not willing to just be complacent with where I am, but rather that I always want something different.

To me this is exciting. And obviously there is an area between always waiting for the next step and enjoying the time we have in the moment, and I think I do have a happy medium between the two. This doesn't mean I'm not happy or not content with the life I have now because I am, and things seem to be getting better and brighter everyday and old friendships mature and new friendships are forming.

But I like to look forward to what's next, and I think most of the time is because I don't know what's next. I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life and I don't have to, but I'm pretty sure when I find it I'll know. Just the way it was when I found my fiance. It'll be a perfect fit and it will complement me like it is it's job...see what I did there?

But seriously all this waiting and anticipation is good for me. It means I'm always thinking and planning and that I'm excited about what the future has to bring. I do know one thing the future has to bring and that's me getting married.

The other day at our first counseling session with the one and only Chris Hanchey and his lovely wife Karen, he made each of us write down what we loved about the other person and what aspects of their character or personality or even our relationship made us want to marry the other. I won't bore you with the details of what it is about my future wife that makes me want to marry her, but I will tell you with all certainty and honesty and with absolutely no qualms...

That I can't wait.

Passion...fruit?

A wise man once told me that I should write about my passions, and I think he's right. That wise man was Stephen Lynch and he told me that earlier today. I am going to follow his advice and write this baby about my passions. But first I'm going to ask a question that has always bugged me...you may see this one coming...you may not...you should though.

What the hell is a passion fruit? Is it good? Does it look delicious? Is is super sweet? Is it even real?
I hope beyond hope that the answer is yes to all of these questions. I could look it up on google but since I'm in the freaking zone right now I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm going to wonder about it for a while, something we haven't had to do for a while thanks to Al Gore and his stupid invention called the internet.

That was a joke...the internet isn't stupid.

Passions...what in the world am I passionate about?
Well for starters I really like ships, like old ones with poop decks and planks that you can walk and the potential to fly if sprinkled with a little bit of pixie dust. I don't know where this passion came from but I love a good-old classic pirate ship. Maybe it was watching the Darling kids said home on one to go grow up, or maybe it was the old lego set that my parents never bought me. No idea but I love the freaking things. I'd say I'm pretty passionate about those. I don't even like the beach that much or salt water or being cold and hungry, but I didn't get sea-sick on the cruise I went on and I think that's step one to becoming a sailor. I should learn more about knots and rigging and sails and other ship lingo.

Ok next passion...let's go with old keys. I think they are so cool. I want my future house to have a big skeleton key that opens the front door that I have to carry around on my key chain. People would say, "Bro why do you have that giant old key?" and I'd say "It's just my house key." Then I would whip it out real quick and pretend to unlock my front door while holding the other hand in a claw and making an awesome face. Then the inquirer would be jealous and tell his significant other how jealous he is of me.

Ok enough of that...I'm also passionate about memories. Good or bad it's these recollections of past events that give us what wisdom we have today. I love reminiscing with old friends and making new memories with new and old friends alike. I want to be that grandfather that has tons of stories from his life that can captivate an audience of children of all types...and by type I mean type of grand, great grand, or lack of either title. Life is one big journey and that means can be one big story. The quality of that story makes us who we are and who we've been, and that also makes everything worth it...everything.

Lastly and probably most importantly I'm passionate about my faith. It's a questioning and sometimes lacking faith but it's always there. I firmly believe in freedom and in love. I believe that Jesus has freed us from whatever bond is tying us to this world. Not to say I don't question what that looks like and what it takes to truly live your life around that faith, but I do believe those words I just wrote. Unfortunately there are a lot of politics and differing opinions on what the statement actually means, but I find it easier to make my own choices when it comes to interpretations and listen to advice from those who have earned my respect and my ear. I think it's easy to see how powerful love can be and to me that's the easiest way to see God in this world. And when my time is up I sincerely hope and believe that I will be ready and that I will have loved as much and as well as I humanly could. Peter Pan, I really like Peter Pan too b-t-dubbs, said that death is the next adventure and I'm kind of putting all of my eggs in the basket that says it will be the greatest adventure ever.

Not saying I want to die any time soon because then the world would suffer a loss of pure awesomeness and that would truly be a tragedy.

You thought I wouldn't take it there didn't you?

Yea you did...and yea I did.

But bottom line write about what your passionate about and if you can't find anything to write about then you need to find a passion. Even if it's something trivial like ships and old keys, that's a step in the right direction and will at least get the proverbial ball rolling.

Remember that one time I wrote a post about how I got a cubicle at work and I was excited about it?
You don't?
Well it's officially your lucky day because I just learned to link places in a cool way so that it's not some ugly line of letters and symbols that would completely ruin the aesthetics of my blog.
So I'll give you a moment to click that link...read what I wrote there...read it again...memorize it...send me a check for $100 because you want to support my dream of being a writer and you know this would be a great way to do that...read it again just for s's and g's...then return to this post.
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Alright I look forward to getting that check.
So basically what has transpired is that I have now once again been upgraded from cubicle to...wait for it...office.
That's right I have an office now. And it even has one tiny window in the door. I have all of my awards and stuff on the wall and my very own bookcase and a floor lamp I got from Walmart for $8 and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Oh and it smells like vanilla because that's my natural scent. Actually that was a lie because the vanilla aroma comes from those little reeds in the colored liquid apparatus. I know right? How feng shui of me.

Can you actually use feng shui in that way? Answer...I can! Boom!

That's been pretty exciting so far because now I can close my door and listen to music while I work and I can also have official meetings with people and do other things that you do in an office. I don't know yet what those things are because I've only had an office for like a week.

On a different note the other day I went to church and got really inspired to write a serious and heart opening post about where I've been and where I want to be and stuff like that but then I lost the inspiration but just wait for it to come back. When it does I'm going to make all of you guys cry.

Really the basis of this was to brag about my new office and procrastinate from doing real work. Oh and you guys will also be glad to know I found something I'm not awesome at. Mortal Combat for the PS3. I'm actually pretty bad at it so if you want to beat me at something you may want to try that. Just saying.