So much travel, so little time – and I am SO glad I was jotting notes and whatnot as I went along.

Monday, January 14, 2008:
The Flight from Phoenix to Denver was my favorite kind – uneventful. There was turbulence on the climb, and again on the descent. I think I know why they call a paperless voucher and “e-ticket.”

Unfortunately, my cousin in Denver was unable to come out to visit with me at the airport. Prayers and well-wishes for Bev would be welcome and appreciated.

Denver International is a very nice airport – at least concourse A is. I didn’t wander about too much. Without needing to leave to meet my cousin, I wanted to avoid a second security check if possible.

Osama Bin Laden is probably chuckling up a storm over what he has managed to incur on the traveling public. Very clever.

I know that I jotted lots of notes for this trip. I just can’t remember where they are. Really, I had some insightful comments to make, and droll observations.

Huh. I wonder what happened to them.

Anyway – left Tampa Tuesday afternoon, about 1500 hours, and drove for a while. I’m not as young as I used to be, so I ended up roosting in Tallahassee in a Motel 6 at about 1830 hours. Next morning (Wednesday), I was on the road at 0730, in a rain that lasted until I was well into Texas on I-20. Yes, that was over 800 miles of driving in the rain. I honestly can’t think of anything more frustrating, nerve-wracking, and stressful than driving in the rain. With snow and ice, the idiots slide off the road and you don’t have to deal with them. With rain, everyone thinks they can drive in the rain. Never mind that they haven’t changed their wipers in ages, and can’t see more than twenty feet in front of them – they will tell you they are the safest drivers out there.

I arrived at GG’s house Wednesday evening about 1930 hours – a bit later than planned, but still early enough to have a nice dinner with her. After a restful night’s sleep, and a delicious home-cooked breakfast, I was again on the road by 0730. I took a break about the Midland-Odessa area, filled up and ate a quick bite while talking to TMBWitW on the phone. Then I was back and cracking – I hit Phoenix about 2200 hours, and put my head on my own pillow by 2230.

In Tampa, I had rented a mid-size car. They offered me a Toyota Prius for an additional $10.99 a day, and I jumped at the offer. The savings in fuel alone would more than offset the daily charge, I figured – and I was right. Over the 2,340 miles I drove from Monday evening to Thursday night, I averaged 42.8 miles per gallon. Oddly enough, I would get better mileage in the cities, where traffic was stop-and-go, than on the open road, but I figured that was because on the open road I was using the little gas engine more than the electric motor. Once I set the cruise control on the Prius, it would stick that speed up hill and down dale. I took advantage of drafting traffic – the bigger the draft, the further back I would be able to reap the benefit – and posted some odd numbers at times. One time, for about 15 minutes, drafting a big rig that I was v e r r r r y slowly catching up to, I was getting about 75-80 mpg at 80 miles per hour. This was in west Texas, on I-10, where the speed limit is 80.

During the drive back, I chatted here and there with some blogfriends, and promised Jenn that I would call in on Thursday evening and talk with her during her Jenn’s Jungle BlogTalkRadio show. Naturally, come time to call in, I was on the one stretch of Interstate Highway that has no cell service whatsoever – I-10, between El Paso and Tucson. Well, except for a blip near Savoy, that I used to call and leave a message for TMBWitW so she wouldn’t worry about me. I did, however, manage to call in to Political Pistachio Thursday evening, and participated in that chat for a while.

When I find my other notes, I will post more about this trip. I’ll also put up more pictures, although most of the pictures are shot through the windshield at speed and are of random points on the freeways, along with the obligatory stateline crossings.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

I’ve been awake for the last two hours – for whatever reason, I woke up at 0339 and I could not, for the life of me, go back to sleep.

So, I came in to the computer room/office, and started messing around here.

Then, MEG woke up about an hour ago, and she couldn’t go back to sleep. So we sat here together, my little girl and I, and poked around the ‘net a little bit. Read the comics over at Comics.com, stuck our nose into a few of the new entries on the blogroll (Hey, Loon, you OK? I missed you for the time you were gone. Good to see you back, and I hope every thing’s OK!) and then we went outside and got the Sunday paper.

Then, I found out why MEG wasn’t sleeping. Her dinner landed on my socks. Turns out that if she doesn’t thoroughly chew her green beans, they don’t agree with her. At this stage, they don’t agree with me either.

Just to let you know – I will be out of touch while I am on the road. I don’t own a laptop, and the stops are going to be few and far between. Turns out not a lot of you (OK, none of you to the east of me) want to have a visitor. That’s fine by me. I’ll just make better time overall.

Yesterday (Saturday) was spent finishing the entertainment center. Somebody forgot to take pictures as he went along, and right now the project is sitting in the trailer, ready to be delivered and installed. Of course, that’s not going to happen until I get back from my trip, but when it does happen, I will post the final result here.

Update – got a photo of it, inside the trailer:
This doesn’t really do it justice – so don’t look at it. Wait for the install pics.

Two more jobs are lined up for when I get back, too. I’ll be hanging some doors at the ongoing project and a referral customer is looking for a corner china cabinet. That should be a good one. I’m looking forward to that.

It’s getting time to start stirring around, so I’m going to sign off now. I will be lurking some of the blogtalk shows while driving (nothing more American than talking on the phone while driving, right? don’t worry, I’ll be using a hands-free device) so you might here me in the background on Political Pistachio, My Point, and/or Jenn’s Jungle.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Be sure to stop by here and get your Red Shirt to show your support for the troops every Friday.

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Wandering around the web today – we find Guy K at the top of the list again – that’s the advantage of living way east. Find his insightful bon mots at Charming, Just Charming.

Just John is licking his chops in anticipation of molding the young and the restless over at Write on the Right.

Dave has some good news on the attempt to remove GOD from our everyday lives over on Third Wave Dave along with a way to campaign to put GOD back in your life, and everyone’s around you.

Lock and load, folks – Gunz is opening up on his “feelings” about the “candidates” in “New Hampshire” – put on your filters, ’cause remember he doesn’t hold back on Long Live the Republic.

Another John has an insightful piece on the spending habits of the Dems – even after their promises to cut down – on his site, Fire of Liberty.

Akinoluna puts out the word about a missing Marine from Camp Lejeune.

Jenn (of the Jungle) has opened another can on a prominent world leader – go to No PC BS to find out who her target is.

BZ joins the chorus chanting “Leave Israel Alone!” as he points out numerous glaring issues with Bush’s attempts to get the Middle East to play nice over on Bloviating Zeppelin.

Ed Dickson updates us on Sears’ legal problems (have you shopped there lately? You might want to check it out) on Fraud, Phishing, and Misdeeds.

Katrina victims want their cake, and your cake, and all the cake for the next three generations. Check out Texas Fred’s take on the issue at Ace in the Hole.

Doug over at Political Pistachio points you to his BlogTalk radio show. Last night’s show was regarding the separation of Church and State with some very special guests.

Bushwack weighs in on the incident in the Gulf with our warships on American and Proud.

Greybeard has some thoughts on Hillary’s use of body fluids in a campaign on Pitchpull.

Paul over on Prying 1 fulfilled his promise to me. I was, of course, touched, but most of you know already that I’m a bit touched.

Be sure to check out all the worthy entries by everyone on the blogrolls, and have a good day!

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

The daughters of our good friend came over today – (note to self: don’t let the guy who can’t keep track of days write entries) – I meant, yesterday, to watch MEG so I could take some concentrated time to assemble this latest project. Trying to start a business out of your home can be frustrating at times, if you don’t have the time to actually DO anything, so this was a blessing.

I mentioned over here about chopping the heck out of a bunch of birch – this is the end result:

I had already put the loose base together. It’s the ladder-looking thingy in the middle of the floor. (Sorry if the technical language gets in the way.)

Let’s start from the bottom – here’s the bottom piece, propped and ready to receive the dividers:

The center dividers in place:

…and the ends installed:

Technical note: I use staples and glue when going through ply into ply, and nails (headless brads, really) when attaching hardwood.

I would be remiss if I did not show you the second most important tool that I use: The first most important, of course, is the stuff that keeps my ears from sticking together.

Top rail in place, with glue and brads, and the fixed shelf (for the television) ready to be installed:

Now it’s starting to look like something:Wait, something is missing.With a back on the box, it becomes very stable – amazing what a sheet of 1/8″ ply can do.

Here’s a front view with the box sitting on the loose base:I used a loose base because the overall hight is 53 inches, and it would have needed twice the plywood to cut the ends and dividers in one piece with an integral base. This way, I can install the loose base and level it so that when the main box is installed I don’t have to try to wrestle it around – that sucker weighs in at about 150, without the adjustable shelves.

The front will be trimmed out with rosettes and ribbed moulding. I will be using the mouldings to actually scribe the unit into the niche. There is a wood top planned to finish this off.

Funny side story: I went to Lowe’s last night to pick up a few last-minute items. Since I had gotten there about ten minutes before closing, I had to hurry. So, I made a beeline to the moulding section, culled out the best piece to be the nosing for the woodtop, went straight to the paint department and picked up a quart of stain for the project, stopped off at the brushes to select a new one, and then grabbed a nailset off the shelf as I rushed to the checkout counter. When I got there, the cashier rang up my three purchases, and it was just short of the $25.00 needed to use a $10.00 off coupon. When I got home, I figured out why: I had set the stain down while selecting a brush, and failed to pick it back up before moving on. D’oh!

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!