Macgyvered, other opinions, Lights

So on my lunch hour yesterday I bought some thinner material to use for bracing the poplar boards that we made the top out of.  I found some 1/4″ thick plywood fencing material that looked promising.  I also grabbed a box of shorter 1-1/4″ wood screws so I wouldn’t have the clearance issues I had with my first bracing material.

When I got home I wasted little time after taking care of the dogs and chickens.  Despite a shoulder that was killing me all day I managed to get the counter top into the garage by keeping my left arm pinned to my side as I lifted. I sat the top on top of the styrofoam packing the table saw came in.

One at a time I removed the thick bracing pieces and replaced them with the plywood I bought.  I added a couple additional pieces and used some additional screws to make sure the boards were locked in place.  When we picked it up after I was done it felt very solid, like it was one big section of wood instead of four smaller ones.

I was happy that when we placed it on top of the cabinet it fit cleanly instead of rocking like a see saw. It looked good.  Luckily I had a box of 2″ black wood screws.  I countersunk a couple of them around the outside edge to secure the top.  I then had Cindy act like a human clamp to allow me to secure the back splash pieces we cut.  I used a minimum of screws as I wanted to make it easy to take apart if need be.

Cindy and I then carefully positioned the cabinet into the corner, it looked pretty damn cool.  Cindy of course was very excited.  I was more relieved that once again, despite no formal planning, another spur of the moment project turned out pretty well.

There are a few things to be done yet.  Cindy is going to do some more tweaking on the top including sanding and applying a thick glaze coat.  I will probably be drilling a small hole in the back corner to allow for small appliances to be plugged into the outlet behind the cabinets. I also need to buy a small piece of kick plate to be glued to the front sections of the cabinets. Other than that, my part of it is done.  All together, if I don’t count the purchase of the table saw I spent less than $500 for the materials, not bad.

Yesterday I sort of glassed over the Christmas decorating Cindy and I did on Saturday.  We decorated the front six cabbage palms as I have done pretty much every year.  However for the first time in quite awhile I also strung lights along the front roof line of the house.  When paired with the Christmas tree in the window, the led, color changing snowmen, and the lighted Rudolph complete with a blinking red nose, I am pleased with this years decoration efforts.

My timer buddy John invited me to a FB forum that is nothing but race timers.  I posted in there about the issues I had with timing on Thanksgiving and immediately got a ton of useful feedback that will help me going forward.

My official diagnosis of the missed reads is they were the result of some sloppy placement of equipment at the finish line that put potential sources of electrical interference too close to the timing mats/cables.  In some ways the missed reads were a good thing as I have a better plan going forward when timing large events.