Firewood

 

I went to my meeting at the college Tuesday evening. On the way there I passed a garden tractor with a trailer hooked on to it that had a load of firewood on it. It also had a sign on the trailer saying the wood was free for the taking. There was a lot of traffic on the road at that time, so I drove on by. However, surprisingly enough, there was still quite a bit of wood still left on the trailer on my way home, so I loaded some up. The remaining pieces were pretty big in diameter, so I left them - didn't want to chance screwing up the chest. I unloaded the truck yesterday and moved some of the small diameter pieces from the Hawthorne trees that were recently cut down. Depending on the weather, I'm planning on renting a log splitter in the next few days, so I can clean up the yard, first of all, and second of all, get the wood split open so it'll be dried out enough to use this winter.

I got some good news at the meeting at the college. We'll be in a classroom the first week of the semester, but we'll be back in the shop after that. The construction isn't complete, but they worked out a way to do the new exhaust system half the shop at a time, which will be fine by me.

Tuesday was the Missus' birthday, but since I had the meeting to attend, we went out last evening to the little restaurant in Brook, Indiana. Cuzzin Ricky and I have gone to Our Place for breakfast and lunch, but we've never been there for dinner. The Missus and I both had the chicken and noodles special - just like grandma used to make! Good time with the "old girl". Looking forward to many more birthday celebrations for the two of us.

Surly left a comment on the last post with an idea for the positioner. He suggested bolting a sacrificial aluminum plate to the positioner and then bolting a cheap vise to that for holding small parts for welding. As soon as I read that I remembered making a welding vise when I taught the fab class at the college a few years back. Since I do nearly all of my welding in the shop with the TIG process, I don't know that I would need the aluminum plate to protect the positioner from sparks. I do have some anti-spatter I can spray on it if need be. I think I'll dig the vise out and do what needs to be done to bolt it to the positioner before I paint it up. That Surly's always thinking!