It's Always You

Lola Albright who portrayed Edie Hart, the love interest of Peter Gunn. Did a search and found out she just died about a year ago at age 92. Not the greatest voice but a talented and beautiful woman just the same. I don't know who the backup band was on the show but the music is always good. I'm a big fan of 50's jazz and, it seems, television re-runs from that era as well.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I piddled around the shack while the weather was nice over the weekend. I have a light over the service door in the new barn that takes small halogen bulbs. They seem to be very sensitive to shock. Depending on the weather, the door closes easily or won't close all the way at all and will stick in the jamb. Slamming the door seems to shorten the life of the bulbs in the light, plus it's a pain in the ass wrestling with the door when it's stuck. Adding a touch more clearance to the jamb is pretty much an annual event, but Sunday I  decided to shave down the side of the door a bit from top to bottom to clear up the problem once and for all. I had to remove the lockset and mortise the part in the edge of the door a bit deeper which added to the fun. Since it was warm enough I put some primer on it when I was done and touched up the edges on the tool-board I made the other day while I had the paint out. The door opens and closes easily now - probably be able to throw a cat threw the gap this summer, however. Replaced the bulb in the light while I was working there so should be good for awhile. Nice to be working outside without having to bundle up. Looks like that will be short lived, however.

I got some peppers and tomatoes started for the garden. I need to see about tending to the grape vines. The knucklehead farmer behind me blasted them with weed killer often enough that I quit trying to grow them but he's been pretty decent the last couple of years, so I'd like to work on getting them back into production. My gooseberries haven't done much the last couple of years but that's on me. I should plant a couple more bushes and a couple more blueberries and see to it that they get a bit more TLC. I won't be working this summer, so I should be able to tend to the garden and fruit as I should.

The remaining three chickens are starting to lay again. I was thinking about getting a few little chicks but I would probably be better off just getting a couple more pullets from the sale barn rather than dealing with the chicks. Baby chicks limit my freedom to travel and the first race in Terre Haute is only about 7-8 weeks away and I'm still trying to put together something for Alaska.

I've got another quiz and a couple chapters to read this week in the machine shop class. We'll be making our next project also. The program runs quickly but it does give you an idea of what can be done when you add an auxiliary 4th and 5th axis to the 3 axis CNC mill. We started on that last week and made one part. The cool thing was the way the tool offsets were calculated. There's an actual tool setter on this machine. You bring the tool in close proximity to the setting gizmo and the machine then brings the tool down and records the value. Likewise, there's a probe that comes down and touches off the part to locate that height and then you know where everything is at in relationship to each other. Pretty spiffy.