Yearly archives: 2006

Well, it looks like it’s been a while since I wrote anything in the ole blog-sphere, so I figured I’d dash off a few paragraphs of random neuron firing. With the weather finally starting to come around, I’ve been as busy as ever, with lots of training focus, spending time outside running, and working away in the basement at getting the bar done, just in time for summer. What’s that? This was supposed to be a winter project? So that people could enjoy cold nights with cocktails and entertainment? Bah! I make no excuses, I’ve done my best. On that front, things are really finally ‘coming together’, pun intended. Last night marked the official first building steps of the bar. I was burning the candle at both ends last week, getting up early to stain and varnish, and staying up late to do the same. Persistence paid off, and the final two panels were finished Sunday morning. As such, I started putting the framing together last night, and will hopefully have some pictures up soon.

But I digress, the bar is not the focus this time around. Obesity is one of my topics du jour. They say that obesity is almost a national epidemic. If not obesity, then certainly at least being over-weight. How can this possibly be, asks me? Well, I think I got an inkling of an idea why. On my Saturday run, of a relatively short 13km, I passed directly in front of 3 McDonalds! A 4th McDonalds was just 200m off my route as well! Not to mention the countless pizza joints, and various other speedy, junky food options. Now I’m certainly not condemning the Golden Arches. Quite the contrary, those who know me are well aware that I had no problem watching “Super Size Me”, then heading to Ronnie’s house the next day for a delicious Quarter Pounder meal (check out the nutrition calculator)! Quite the opposite, I personally would have stopped in for a bite had I not been in the middle of a run and not had any money on me!

Thought I’d pop in another post on the progress being made on the bar front. Things have been going so slowly that I ended up actually taking a day off work to get some work done on this project! Actually, I had a ‘personal day’ that was going to expire if I didn’t use it by the end of the month so I figured it would give me a chance to get a little extra work done on the bar, not to mention get laundry and my taxes done! Pictured to the left here is my attempt at capturing what the oak pieces look like after two coats of stain and three coats of varnish. Shiny, isn’t it? What you see is the product of almost 2 weeks of effort. Every step takes me an evening, because you have to let the stain / varnish dry thoroughly before either sanding it or re-coating it. Plus, most of these pieces had to have both sides done, doubling the time! The good news is that I have about 2 other ‘groups’ of pieces that I have to work on, and most of these are simpler pieces with a lot of 1-sided finish coming up. After those are all done, it’ll be the true building time. Can’t wait for that stage! I have to question the people who submitted testimonials on the website where I got the design saying it took them 3 weeks to build the bar! Okay, maybe they truly meant ‘build’ and not prepare. In my opinion, there’s no way on God’s green earth someone could possibly do all the cutting, routing, sanding, staining, varnishing, dry fitting, and putting together this whole bar! NO WAY!! Maybe if they worked full time on it. Naw. Granted, I had to learn a lot of things along the way (namely how to properly use a table saw and router), but just these last few steps of finishing take so long…