This has been a busy, yet oddly satisfying weekend. Friday around 2:58pm E.S.T. I hit critical mass and could do no more work. I became aware that if I stayed at the office I would probably do more damage to my client systems then good, as I was getting dumber by the minute. It's been close to chaotic since my other Linux administrator left for greener pastures a few weeks ago and Friday I just couldn't do anymore. Leaving the office a little after 3:00pm, I stopped to Woodcraft on my home to pick up some wine bottle stopper kits, some pretty wood to make said stoppers, and to have the guys identify the wood you see in this picture. The consensus is either a Kingwood with s strip of sapwood running through it, or Bolivian Rosewood. I am going with the latter. I occasionally pick up a 5lb bag of wood scraps perfect for pen blanks from Woodcraft, but the problem is that they are almost never labeled regarding species. So I occasionally grab a piece of one that I can't identify and see how it turns. This one was especially nice, so I had to find out what it was. I also talked with one of the store owners for a while about putting some of my work on display in their cases. I will probably go back this week and put a few select pens on display. I was very flattered they asked me.

I was home by a little after 4:00pm and decided to unwind by playing a little Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick on the PS/2 for a bit before Pizza Friday kicked in. Later, with Pizza acquired, we kicked back for the night with Dr. Who and Battlestar Galactica (great mid-season ending, I could beat Ron Moore for not starting the season back up until 2009...fracking 2009!).

Saturday had me up a bit earlier then normal. We had purchased new screen/storm doors at Menard's a few weeks ago, and they were due to be delivered sometime between 7:00am and 12:00pm (thanks for narrowing that down). I made a quick dash to the grocery store for breakfast supplies while Jen snoozed and was back long before they called. The doors were finally delivered around 10:30am and the pretty much lined up my weekend plans. We watched the space shuttle Discovery land at 11:15am then i gathered up the recommended installation tools and proceeded to work on the front porch door. We had a new primary door professionally installed a few years back and they left a nice channel to put in a screen/storm door when we were ready. I should have just done this two years ago, but for no good reason, it just kept getting put off. We purchased a storm door with a self storing (roll-up) screen and it went in pretty quickly. The end result is that we can now have the front door open and get a very nice cross breeze through the house, keeping it quite pleasant. Afterwards, I spent a bit of time in the garage working on fathers day presents (the wine bottle stoppers). I picked up nice olive wood to use since I had such great luck with it on a pen and letter opener set I made earlier this week (pictured above). That set was made from Bethlehem Olive Wood (as in the geographic location) which turned like butter (although I have not actually tried turning butter, I can only speculate). This olive wood was not of the Bethlehem variety and had some issues like voids and checked quite a bit. The end result is that the stoppers did turn out with appealing shapes and finish, but none of them ended how intended them to look. I will say I was presented with lots of design opportunities.

I wrapped up Saturday with a little lawn maintenance, having to fix the pull string on the lawn mower once and getting bit by a bumble bee as well. I was about 75% done with the lawn when I went to restart the mower (I had to dislodge a stick from the blade) and when I pulled the start cable, the mower started and I also realized I was holding a handle and about four feet of rope. I spent about half an hour dismantling the starting system and was able to repair it enough to finish the job. The mower is eight years old, but I felt good being able to repair it on the fly. The bumble bee was just defending his/her turf, no harm, no foul...I'll just avoid that area behind the garage for the rest of the summer. Being thoroughly zombified from the days activities, we wrapped up the evening appropriately by watching 28 weeks later. Double appropriate is that it feels like we have had this movie out of Netflix for almost as long as the title. Probably not really that bad, but I cannot remember the last time we watched one of our Netflix movies (so much to do in the spring and summer). The movie was a bit of a stretch, and not just the idea of a zombie apocalypse, but how many stupid things the people did. It was just sort of 'blah', not unwatchable, just not interesting. Kind of the way I felt about Resident Evil: Apocalypse as well.

Sunday was a day without solid plans. Much depended on how the morning went (i.e., cook breakfast here or go into town for breakfast). We decided on pancakes at home, so the day was laid out before me. Install the new screen door for the back door, and a little lathe time in the afternoon. The back screen door was probably installed when the house was built as it had multiple layers of paint which were all peeling. I have fixed the screens in that door many times and it was getting to be an eyesore. We picked out a simple wood frame screen door which needed some field mods to fit. After reducing the length and transferring the hardware, our new screen door was in place in about an hour. It looks very different now, an improvement, but very different all the same. After eight years of coming home and seeing that door now gone, it is a bit odd. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the lathe, turning some blanks set up earlier this week. Most of the blanks were grab-bag pieces I found attractive. The first two are spalted pecan with an Oil finish hardware, both slim line and the one being a click pencil. These are two I I am keeping for myself in my laptop bag. The next is a Bocote with Chrome hardware, followed by a Kingwood with Copper fittings. The rest of the evening had us running the recycling into town, dinner at the El Matador, and weekly grocery shopping. I think bedtime will be pretty soon here...