Dragging things out a bit

Well, I thought it was high time to check in. Some readers, I can't help but think, may have been wondering where I had gone, as the posting rate has slowed here on the Carpentry Way quite a bit in a past few weeks. Have I been on vacation, working on my tan and learning to para-sail? I wish! Well, I'm not sure about that plan, fine as it may sound, but I have been keeping busy since the completion of the screen.

First off I took on a part time job as an SAT tutor. It's only a few hours of work a week, and it pays quite well. Even the training was paid, as are the meetings. So that has kept me busy. Being a Canadian, the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) was not something I had to deal with during my school years, but here it is a minor industry and no small point of torment for youth looking to get into the college of their choice. It's funny what we humans put ourselves through.

In other news, I've also been helping out some of my relatives with a little house renovation and clean up. Well, not so little actually as the 1912 house is more than 6000 square feet in size, and is in need of a lot of work. There has been some repeated water damage in the basement for instance. I've been dragging stuff out into the yard and piling it for removal. Here's a few photos of the accumulation so far:


I've come across a decent amount of metal as well, which I have piled separately and will be taking to a metal recycling facility shortly:


One of the 'gems' was an old and no longer in service 1937 hot water tank in the basement, which I had to hack apart piece by piece and then don the haz-mat gear to take care of the asbestos insulation. Not such a good time, but in the middle of that old boiler was a copper core weighing over 250 lbs, so I'll get some good money out of it given the high price of copper these days.

So while this grunting and dragging action marks a fairly abrupt departure from what I was last working on, I can assure you all that I'm charging my relatives the big bucks to work for them. Yes, you guessed it, just about free. Anyway it helps them out a lot and builds up my pecs, so I can't complain.

My truck's exhaust pipe broke today so I have something else to fix tomorrow. Nothing so juicy as rusted exhaust pipe fittings...

And carpentry-wise, there is a very intriguing project that has just come into view. I'm in the discussion phase at the moment and will commence drawing for the client really soon. It's a pretty awesome project, a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, a purely Japanese structure, and I look forward to sharing the details as this process comes along. For now though, my lips are keeping pretty much shut, and I half-expect I am really having a strange dream.

Thanks for coming by today.