Labor Day Summary-of-the-Week

A week or two ago, Adam obtained his Level 1 Driver's License, which enables him to drive in the company of a parent or guardian (meaning Mom or Dad), so he can practice interacting with real traffic while one of his parents sits in the passenger seat, unable to do anything but yell instructions, jam his/her foot on the imaginary brake, and cover his/her eyes with his/her hands.

Actually, Adam is quite a cautious driver, so it's not much of a big deal. Now if we could just convince all those other people on the road to Calm Down a Little, everything would be just hunky-dory. But everyone else insists on disregarding the rules. And if there is one thing that Adam knows all about, it's The Rules.

[Go ahead. Just ask him anything ... about Heroscape. He knows it all. (That's why Dad keeps losing the games we play.)]

We're both looking forward to the day when Adam can run all of our errands for us.

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Cheryl took the kids over to a friend's house to get some pears from the orchard. They came home with several boxes full of 'em.

Yep, looks like a good time for some cannin'.

[I'm always hopeful that some of the jars don't seal during the cool-down process, 'cause that means I get to eat 'em right away! Yay!]

There were lots of pears. And the pears drew in a lot of fruit flies. We tried to minimize the amount of window- and door-opening activity, but there's only so much that can be restricted. The syrup got all over the table, and the flies absolutely loved that! Well, so long as they get on the table and not in the cans...

So while the canning is going on, we've switched our eating into the formal dining room, which is a great idea anyway. That room doesn't get used nearly enough. Sorta makes mealtime a little more special.

It'll be nice to have those pears come wintertime.

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I've been working on these shelves now for weeks, and the only thing that's been holding me up, time-wise, is the amount of plotting and planning that goes on in my head as I'm trying to figure out how to do it correctly.

See, I'm not a carpenter by nature, and all the woodwork I do is strictly prototype. I couldn't finish a wood project to save my life (although if I don't hurry up and finish the basement, we might just see how close I can come). Each one comes with its own set of technical issues that must be solved; and it seems like each project has a few prerequisites before it can commence, and these shelves are no exception.

First of all, I don't have any drywall up on the garage walls, so I'm working with bare studs for my main support. Since the studs are set on sixteen-inch centers, so they don't line up with my forty-eight inch shelves in such a way as to fully support the brackets at either end, I have to put in a cross piece to mount the brackets on -- and since the brackets have an upper and a lower mounting point, two cross pieces are required.

That worked for the top shelf OK, but I got tired of it after a while and decided to try something else for the second and third shelves.

Having mounted the auxiliary work table on hinges, I decided to make the third shelf - the one at the same level as the work table - hinged as well; then it was just as easy to do the same thing for the second shelf. This allows me to fold these shelves away should I need the extra space someday.

To support the shelves, I used lightweight chain at the corners, anchored to the back wall. It won't take much weight, but the shelves are not intended for heavy things, anyway.

As a final safeguard, I installed half-sized angle brackets underneath, just in case.


The folding worktable is very handy. It was a happy surprise that the Toyota actually fit inside the garage with the table down; my initial experiment, which was performed before ridding the garage of a lot of extra clutter, did not indicate this result. Now that the clutter is gone, it is possible to have the shelves and the table all down at the same time.


And what a difference it makes! There is enough room on the auxiliary worktable to allow Adam's resin projects to cure while I use the main worktable for my own projects, and nothing is so crowded or piled upon that it is impossible to find things! Beforehand, the tools were buried under a pile of assorted project debris.

Now, on to the basement!