“I’m a little busy here sweetheart…”

“Daddy, just come outside!”

She showed me a stick.  Except it wasn’t a stick. It was a bird-poop covered moving something that looked like a stick.

Talk about natural selection! Wow, this thing blends very thoroughly with its environment.
No really, doesn’t it look like your windshield after you parked under that oh-so-shady tree?  And no self respecting predator is going to want to pounce on Mr. Robin’s day-after.

“Daddy?”

“Yes baby?”

“Why doesn’t the computer turn on?”

“What!  It was working when I shut it down last night!”

After a few hours of jiggling wires and sitting and staring, I yanked the power supply out and brought it to CompUSA.  The dude plugged a few of the connectors into his device and concluded everything was in working order.  Bummer, so much for that simple solution.

Time for a trip to Fry’s.  (I know what you are thinking, and I’ll explain: CompUSA has a 15% return policy. No thanks.)

One CPU. One Motherboard. 2GB RAM.

That’ll be $178 please. I suppose that is much cheaper then a new system would have been, with NO loss of data. (Except maybe for those poor souls from My Tribe, may they rest in peace. [Thanks for nothing Big Fish.])

I notched the ends to fit in the slots. Not all that easy as you can’t stand ‘em up in the sliding saw.

Slot 3

Tab A

All four.

Here it sits, balanced on it’s legs. And it still wobbles.

My brother is an outdoor, active type, and met his match with my sister-in-law. Since that summer they have had four children together, all of whom have been exposed to the great outdoors.  They had made many plans for that very active week, not the least of which was a wedding in a meadow overlooking the valley of my youth. In deference to our Scottish heritage, my brothers all wore a skirt Scottish kilt.  Since I wasn’t looking for that kind of breeze, I chose to sit in the folding chair with my knees covered with cloth of the trouser variety.

The view from that hillside was beautiful, they chose the spot well.  This beauty was made all the more poignant because I had seldom appreciated it as I wandered the hillsides and found life-long scars among the blackberry thorns and other brambles that covered most of the interesting places. As we baked in the sun and listened to the drone of the insects (and the good reverend) I think it occurred to all of us that this was a wedding never to be forgotten.

But this wasn’t the point of this post at all, I suppose it’s easy to get caught up as memories rise to the surface to be examined this way and that, then slide back under ’till just the turbulence from its passing remains.

One of the activities planned was a hike to Kaaterskill Falls, near Hunter, NY.  I was immediately concerned because I had a small child, and didn’t think we would be able to keep up.  I was assured that this was covered; they had borrowed a carrier designed just for this purpose.  Several in fact, I wasn’t the only one with a small child. I think it looked a little like this, but I seemed to recall it was yellow or maybe a yellow-brown.

When I strapped the carrier on and my baby was lowered into it, I was immediately transported to a different me.  It was a feeling I will never forget; my baby strapped to my back, so close, as I navigated the trail through those scenic woods.  I felt her weight on my back and shoulders, but it was a good weight, a right weight. I was asked by others if I needed a breather, but I declined.  I wouldn’t have traded that weight for the world. I could feel her breath in my ear, hear her as she made those happy noises as only small children can.  I’ve never felt so close or at peace with her.

One of my biggest regrets in this life is that that was the only time I ever experienced that particular joy with either of my children.  My children are almost-9 and just-turned-12. Although I still pick up the almost-9 whenever I can, strapping on that carrier is forever beyond us.

I added a second set of brackets below the first, meant to wedge the branch against the side and first set of brackets.  It’s not perfect but it might work for now.

Here’s a shot of the wobbility assedness of it.  It does stand on it’s own, so it’s a start. 

A much more dramatic shot:

Laying on the top:

And screwed to the 2×4.

I closer look reveals the edges are not even. Perhaps I’ll deal with that tomorrow.

Here’s how it looks from the other side.

Here’s the backerboard I’m going to put on top of the plywood.  I might add leftover tile, or I might just leave it with this stuff as the surface.  Dunno yet, it’s an outdoor plant table and I don’t think plants can appreciate the work put into it.

This table was to be built from scrap, whatever I had in the garage. I knew the legs didn’t need to be all that strong, modern monitors are light and keyboards weigh next to nothing. I found some dowels, and cut one to the height of my would-be table.  Then my eye fell on a walking-stick, propped in the corner.  Natural!  Wood!  On-hand!  Sweet!

The previous day, my neighbor had lugged his borrowed thingy up and down the street, volunteering to cut back pesky branches.  This of course left me with a ready supply of my environmentally friendly table legs.   About the time I was trimming these erstwhile branches, my daughter came out and wanted to know if I was building a table for her plants.  She’s been on a big green-thumb kick lately, to my delight!

Well bazinga, now my table would serve outdoors, where it could be as wobbilty as it wanted.  Because these legs curve, they need to be cut at the correct angle, both at the bottom and top.  There’s got to be some technique to cutting these things, but it’s trial and error with me.

You can see in the pic above I cut a number of slices off the branches to use a shims.  I’m going to need them.  I thought about using the PVC as cross bracing as well, but couldn’t figure out how to attach them with what I have on hand.

I had originally planned on throwing some cement fiber board on top and calling it done, but that would never work.  The stuff I have is to thin, and breaks easily unless fully supported.  So now I needed a frame.  I uncovered a 12 foot length of pressure-treated lumber, slightly curved.  Well, that sort of fits with the theme, so I cut it into two 4 foot lengths, and two 2 foot lengths and screwed ‘em together.  I had to ride it like a pony to get ‘em more-or-less flush.

Here it is, screwed and braced.  If you look at the front left corner, and rear right corner you might notice neither is touching the floor.  Bummer.

I’ll screw the legs to the corner pieces.  I hope the corner braces are big enough for the twisting legs.  I’ll add the plywood in the next stage; I set it on top of the frame here to see if it’s big enough.  Of course, it’s not.

Since it was well over 100 degrees, I decided this was a good place to stop. I set the plywood on top and weighed it down with the miter saw.  Maybe it will straighten itself out.

So I neatly folded the crisp bills and stuffed them in my pocket. That night, when I got home and had a moment to myself, I pulled out an envelope, slipped the cash inside and hid it. I think it’s safe to tell you now that the appropriately named Stephen King book “Everything’s Eventual” served its purpose.

I continued this pattern, watching the dollars inside that envelope accumulate week after week. Desperately. Slowly. Eventually.

As the envelope grew thicker, it occurred to me I should take this opportunity to open a new checking account in a new bank; one that would be safe from the bill-paying that so depletes our monthly balance. A short-term investment would have been better, but I had neither enough cash nor the required acumen to handle that kind of transaction. Nor the time; exactly how short term is a short term investment anyway?

The time came when I had to make the call. It was either a buy a less expensive item, but not exactly what she wanted, or spend the extra and get her exactly what she wanted.

I saw on their website that they offered a year of no-interest financing. Perfect. I could pay the majority in the first payment, then have time and gentle payments to complete the purchase.

I have to tell you, it was worth it. We gave my daughter the package that night right after we had chocolate cake with whipped chocolate icing. Then she opened the package; her eyes lit up and she broke into a devastating smile and I knew it was all worth it. My daughter got exactly what she wanted; she was surprised and overjoyed. I think both of us grew a little misty over that cake.

I never subscribed to the old adage before, but I learned something that day: ’tis truly better to give then receive.

Boo.