Daily Card #4

A rooster for Loki.

Daily Card #3

A cartoonish approximation of our sailboat.

Halloween 2010

Here are a few of my favorite photos from our various Halloween celebrations this year.

The brothers after the Halloween Parade at Liam's school.

Our boys with their buddies Colin and Darby before we set out for trick-or-treating.

Little Red and a rather scruffy looking Mad Scientist.

Ghost chain!

Lochlan's Jack o'lantern

Daily Card #2

Horseshoe crab, from last school year.

Daily Cards #1

Before we had kids I used to draw all the time, and I still really enjoy it, but there just doesn't seem to be enough time to do it as often as I would like. About three years ago, I drew a card to put in Liam's lunch so he'd know we loved him and were thinking about him even though he was at preschool. He really seemed to like it, so for the past three years, I've continued to draw little cards to include in both boys' lunches. At this point there are hundreds, and Liam has started to arrange them in a photo album, which he looks at frequently. The cards have provided a nice opportunity to get some enjoyment out of drawing--they are necessarily drawn quickly in the crazy getting-ready-for-school pandemonium each morning, and the boys are good at coming up with unique challenges. Here is the first of many I'll post to the blog.

An Australian fairy wren.

Boat Restoration Part III: Back on the water!

The blog has been inactive for much of summer because--I finished the boat project! We sailed our little sloop as much as possible this summer, and managed to get on the water 14 times. Mostly we sailed with the boys, but we also organized a Pirate Sailing Adventure for the auction at Liam's school (more about that in a later post). I learned so much rebuilding the inside of the boat, and enjoyed being on the water so much more, knowing that it was structurally sound and safer. But enough words! Here's a little video compilation I made of some of our adventures on the water:



Amy and I also raced in the Take Your Time Fridays series out of Shilshole on our friend Jamie's 40' Centurion Lucidity, and man was that ever fun! I managed to crew for 5 races, and Jamie even put me on the foredeck for the last race. That was exciting, scary at times, and extremely educational.

Despite our crummy weather this sailing season, we managed to have a fantastic time on the water!

Boat Restoration Part II: During, AKA "It is Easier to Destroy than Create"

Once I fully understood the extent of the rot in the wood constituting my little boat's 'skeleton' there was no option other than to cut it all out, grind everything down to bare fiberglass, and start from scratch. Just the demolition required me to learn several things: 1) epoxy is the closest thing to an immovable object I have ever encountered; 2) fiberglass is *really* dusty when you grind it; 3) Sawzalls rule.

In retrospect, cutting/grinding/destroying/ all the rotten stuff was the easy part. Unfortunately, because the boat had no internal super-structure, it was sagging over the sides of the trailer, which is not the 'designed' shape of the hull. Before I could start replacing the stringers and bulkheads, I first had to return the hull to its true shape. My boat has what are called 'hard chines'--which means the sides go more or less straight down to the waterline, then the hull curves gently to the centerline, and curves gently at the same arc to the other side. In order to recreate this, I had to figure out some way of hoisting the entire boat off the trailer to return it to the true shape, then build a cradle to match that true shape. This would ensure that the hull would follow the proper arc, then I could cut out the stringers and bulkheads and epoxy them into place.

Of course, boats do not have any right angles, so in order to do this, I had to learn the subtle art of 'spiling' which is the term for tracing an arc from one object onto another using an offset. I had to build a separate rig for the cradle and each individual stringer and bulkhead, to keep the piece of plywood onto which I was tracing the arc from moving. There are three different directions in which the plywood can move (pitch, roll, and yaw, like an airplane) so the rig had to account for all three of these. Then to keep the marker itself at a constant offset height I cut an old broom handle to size, and to keep it from moving side to side, I drilled a Sharpie-sized hole at the top. This all seemed to work fairly well, but took a lot of trial and error.

Once I had all of the wood bits cut to the proper shape, it was time to epoxy them into place. Epoxy is an amazing adhesive. It comes in two parts, neither of which are super-sticky on their own, but when you mix them they combine in an exothermic reaction that results in a virtually bomb-proof material. When fillers are added, such as sawdust or colloidal silica, the epoxy becomes goopy and almost peanut-buttery, and when this version of the epoxy dries it is so strong it can actually be considered a structural part of the boat. Fortunately, I did not blow anything up as I made my way up the epoxy learning curve.

My standard outfit for grinding fiberglass and epoxy.

After many, many hours of work I had a bare hull to work with.

Unfortunately, to repair the boat properly, I had to determine the proper hull shape. To maintain the proper hull shape, I had to build a cradle. To build a cradle, I had to trace the hull shape, which means I had to hoist the entire aft end of the boat off the trailer, by using a 3:1 block-and-tackle system attached to the rafters. This was a very educational process.

Here is the cradle I built, after spiling the transverse curve of the hull. The padding is composed of old cloth diapers.

Once the boat was safely lowered down onto the cradle, I could start spiling the stringers and bulkehads. This picture shows the rig I contrived for the port-side stringer.

Another view of the spiling rig. I moved a variation of this setup around the boat until I had traced all of the stringers and bulkheads.

The super-duper high-tech device I contrived to hold the marker steady as I traced the shape of the hull onto the plywood.

One of the bulkheads, before I cut out the opening for the deck.

All of the stingers and bulkheads, cut out, sanded and epoxied in place.

After the undercoater was applied.

Boat Restoration Part I: The Gut Wrenching Realization (aka "Before")

For the past two months I have spent every spare minute restoring our little sailboat. This all came about when I decided to reinforce the centerboard trunk and replace the floorboards in anticipation of a 'pirate sailing adventure' we are hosting as part of an auction at my older boy's school. I pulled up the floorboards and side panels to discover--compost. Every stringer and bulkhead was completely rotten, as well as the aft centerboard cap (at least about 1/3 of the way up). Suddenly, what was *supposed* to be a 4 hour afternoon project turned into a multi-week odyssey into the world of carpentry, chemistry, and engineering. I learned how to do things I had never even heard of prior to realizing my boat was in a very dangerous state of decay.

Fortunately, my friend and neighbor Chris is a long-time sailor and boat builder, and his current project was at a stage where he could easily move everything over to the side of his boat shop. He very generously offered the use of his shop to me for two months, including the use of all of his tools. He lives right across the street, and given the helaciously wet and cold spring we experienced, I was extremely grateful to have access to his shop.

Rotten stringers and bulkheads near the aft end of the centerboard trunk.

Apparently our boat was filled with compost in places (hard to believe this mess used to be wood!)

The base of the cap at the aft end of the centerboard trunk was so rotten I could jam a screwdriver about 1" deep.

More rotten stringers.

After using the sawzall on some of the structural members, I had a much better (and far more horrifying view) of just how rotten the wooden insides were of this fiberglass boat.

Toy Schooner Project

We saw some amazing model yachts at the Seattle Boat Show and Liam asked if we could make one. I asked him what kind of boat he would like, and he said "Schooner!" It sounded like a fun project, and I was (OK still am) jonesing to go sailing. So we made one, and I think it turned out pretty well (but there is still some work left to do--keel, rudder, etc).

Winter Part III

We signed Liam up for cross-country ski lessons this winter, and he absolutely loved it. Amy and I took turns accompanying him to the lessons then went skiing ourselves. Fortunately our friends and neighbors the Moores had both of their kids enrolled in ski school too, so we car pooled.

The final weekend we brought Lochlan, and rented some of the tiniest skis I have ever seen. He had fun for awhile, but (perhaps predictably) was far more entertained by building snow mice and little caves.

The winter snows weren't great here in Washington this year, but there was certainly enough to get some skiing in, and I think we'll be back next year.

The Schooner ZODIAC

Biking home from a meeting in Kirkland this afternoon, saw the unmistakable masts & rigging of a schooner in the Northlake boat yard. Hopped off the BG, talked to one of the crew, and they let me sneak in for a peak. She is the Zodiac, a beautiful ship, on the hard for some new bottom paint and a Coast Guard inspection.

Winter Part II

In Part II of Winter we rode the Santa Train. After four years this has become a family tradition and we wouldn't miss it. The trip begins in North Bend and ends in Snoqualmie, where Santa, home-made cookies and hot chocolate await. Carols are sung en route, and this year there was a bluegrass band performing at the museum. It was great fun, and such a delight to watch the boys telling Santa what they wanted for Christmas.

Winter Part I

Much to catch up on. This has been a fun but exceedingly busy winter, primarily because 1) both boys are now in school 2) Liam is taking a day-long X-Country skiing class every Saturday 3) work did not deign to provide me with the customary holiday lull (for which I am grateful, but sheesh, it would have been nice) and 4) we drove to Phoenix and spent nearly two weeks there.

In Part 1 of winter, we took a trip downtown with the boys, went ice skating, took the Monorail from Seattle Center downtown to ride the carousel, then toured the amazing ginger bread houses on display at the Sheraton.