Music

Today, I have a virtually unlimited selection of music. I use YouTube Music as my tool. Amazon has something similar.

While the ability to find new music blows my mind, I’ve also lost many artists that I used to listen to. The older I get, the more I miss the music of my youth.

That love of music was born of listening to my parents music. Dad made the speakers we used. Dad made the stereo cabinet that held the record player and the “vast” collection of reel-to-reel tapes. And the “vast” collection of records.

The best way to listen was with the Sony headphones, eyes closed, listening.

The reality was that we had about 50 hours of music on those tapes. I am still attempting to find one album where two black jazz/blues artists were competing. Something like Red from The Five Pennies.

We had around 40 hours of music on those LPs. So somewhere between 90 and 120 hours of music.

This means I listened to the same music over and over again. I had my favorites.

One tape contained a group of nuns singing. I could not find the album until one day, the name popped into my head: Joy Is Like the Rain. This allowed me to track down the album.

The name of the group, in my mind, in my parents’ words, was “The Singing Nuns.” That is not the group.

Here is a song from one of their albums. I hope you enjoy it.

Olivia Newton-John was one of the women of my teen years. I remember listening to “Physical” many times. Of course I was naive at the time. And I didn’t watch MTV, so this is the first time I’ve seen the music video for her song.

Brings new meaning to the words.

(How naive? I really liked the song “Dancing in the Streets” in the Footloose sound track and didn’t understand why she was so embarrassed that her dad caught her listening to it.)

It is in the low 80s as I write this. The sun has gone down, and it is starting to cool.

I have just finished my third or fourth “exercise” of the day. This was a crosscut, and then planing a 31×11 piece of pine flat. With a dull smoothing plane.

I feel like I spent an hour on the treadmill.

On the previous outing, I ripped a 5-foot length of 4 quarters pine. The fact that I did that by hand impressed me. The fact that it only took a few minutes even more so. I really don’t get it. A few weeks ago I was bitching that my saws were not cutting. Today my crosscut saw and my rip saw both were doing 3/4s of in inch or more with each stroke.

I’ve been building. I figured we had all heard Another One Bites the Dust more than a few times.

Today, I put the vise on the workbench. This is a game changer.

The jaws are 11+ inches wide. The vise can open around 15 inches. It is a parallel jaw vise, meaning that the jaw presses against the apron with the same force from top to bottom.

The shiny metal disk at the left front corner is an aluminum planing stop I turned on the South Bend. The handle for the vise is 1″ hardwood from the local hardware store, but the endcaps I turned myself. And then I found my 1″ bit was in such poor condition that I threw it away after it drilled two holes that drifted.

The board at the bottom of the image, on the ground, between the vise and the bench leg, is a wedge. It keeps the vise jaw parallel. It is the fulcrum point of the vise.

There is one of my homemade mallets on the table. Two crap saws, one good saw, and one OK saw. There is a 50″ straight edge and my clipboard with the plans attached.

The next modifications to the bench are to drill 3/4″ holes for side board support and some 3/4″ holes in the top for different hold-downs. Because this is a softwood top and it is thin, I need to add blocking under whatever boards I drill.

I also need to put the braces on the front and a stop on the chop (the moving part of the vise) to keep it from twisting.

I will soften the edges of the vise jaw at some point, but for today, it is fully functional. I’m happy.

On the other hand, I just messed up my tool tote build. Ally wants the broken one, but I’ll make it all work.

I just found that I live in a food desert.

Luck for me, we have just enough to prime the food pump.

It was a bit hectic yesterday. I spent time teaching English as a second language (ESL) remotely. I did a bit of shopping and made my second set of half-lap joints that were clean, straight from the saw.

At to that taking Ally to a presentation, and I ran out of go juice and time.

Which got me this tune, first broadcast in 1957, which seems like it was taken straight from woke culture.

And I found an early video of Gavin Newsom.

Tomorrow’s article will be titled “I’m Proud To Be An American.”

There have been so many nasty postings over this weekend that I need to vent.

Meanwhile, standup straight and be proud of our country.

Your FAFO song of the week.

This daddy has more than a shotgun. I believe in the ability to reach out and touch somebody at range, that’s why there are range cards. Of course, there is silent and close as well.

Story Time

I was at the LGS waiting for a 4473 to come through. Ally was standing near, looking over different offerings.

The owner and I were chatting as there was nobody else in the store.

Suddenly, we hear “STOP YOU MF!!!” and some more words I don’t remember.

The door opens to a loud woman screaming back over her shoulder.

I was already turning as the door sounded, I took a step to the left, bladed, my hand was back above the butt of my 1911.

According to Ally, the owner took a step to his left, making space between the two of us, clearing lines of fire.

Ally moved to her right, clearing lines of fire for the owner.

This idiot woman continues into the shop, still yelling over her shoulder. A man follows in, meekly answering her.

The owner greets the man by name and everything slowed back down to real time.

Keep strapped, keep your head on a swivel, stay away from stupid people, stupid places, stupid times.