Welcome to Summer
Wine Shelf Project
A bonus project I took on was to make our small useless set of shelves that were filler for an odd spacing between the new and old cabinets and make them more wine bottle friendly. The bottles fit perfectly in the space, but nothing holding them in place or centering them.
The key to this project was to constrain it to the tools I have which inform the sizing. Since my miter saw has a six-inch cutting length, that meant there would be six inches in length.
Experimentations in Less Phone
I have been trying to look into my own reliance on the phone. I don’t mean the actual phone (which is the worst application installed on my phone), but the time spent soaking up my hours when I’m bored. Leaving the phone in my junk drawer when I don’t need it and relying more on small notebooks has been a useful detox for myself and has kept me grounded in the present moment I find myself in.
Ideas are Cheap
Any idiot can have an idea, but getting that idea into execution is where the real skill is.
Like him or not, this entire interview with former President Obama on working is great. If you want to only spend one minute, forward to minute 12 for excellent career advice.
Metric - Formentera
Canada has brought me smoke filled air and Metric in the past month. I was already a Metric fan, but had not really listened to their latest album. I was fortunate to pick it up on vinyl when I was in Canada back in April. The right thing to do with an album is to give yourself time to warm up to it. The two songs I keep coming back to are:
Nice Canadian Fire Sunset
Overwhelming and Collective Murder
The incomparable Werner Herzog talking about the Amazon jungle:
Shape Up by Ryan Singer
I was prompted to read this book from a coworker. Some ideas that resonated with me:
Using a six week span to get work done. It’s not too short to require a lot of formality and not too long where people get lost. The notion of an appetite for something to get done. “Estimates start with a design and end with a number. Appetite start with a number and end with a design.
Switched Search Engines
I have historically been a big fan of Google. Their products are engaging, though not reliably durable in their lifespan. I was a big fan of Google’s Pixel phone in all its Android purity. What has slowly become distasteful for me with Google is that they are an advertising sales company who builds cool tech … to serve the advertising. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it would take to move away from them.
The Kitchen Cabinet Painting Project
Much of the kitchen refresh was hinged around adding some new cabinetry with the ultimate goal of painting them all to be a uniform color. We had been living with a mixed set of colors having had existing red maple, adding white painted cabinets, and constructing new custom cabinets. To finally get them painted was a major milestone.
The painting process itself is pretty straight forward. You must clean and sand the existing cabinets, then use a sprayer to get an even coat of paint on.