Sadly, a great deal of water has passed under the bridge since my last entry. I guess I haven't had a lot of thoughts worth posting since then.
That's not completely true. In October I met Janice at a church meeting. I've spent a lot of time since then traveling with her, and generally enjoying her company. While that has taken a lot of time, it isn't the only thing I've done.
I hate to admit that the beautiful plane cabinet I built last summer is still sitting in my garage with the packing blankets covering it. I've made no progress on it directly. I still have to attach the back, attach a French cleat, and then get some help to move it to my shop and lift it up on the wall. I have a spot all ready for it on the wall in the upstairs part of the shop.
The box has had a lot of "oohs and ahhhs", but I haven't yet made another one.
However, I took a week-long course in Marquetry in April, and I really enjoyed it. So, what I'd like to do now is continue making boxes, but adding Marquetry to them. I'm currently working on making a veneer press, although lack of that shouldn't be a hindrance to doing small veneering projects.
Another thing which took an inordinate amount of time, beginning in October. One of my Naval Academy classmates lamented the fact that a lot of our classmates are not involved in communicating with each other. We have a couple of Yahoo Groups, and some classmates use them (a lot); others "lurk". Jack wanted a new program which would enroll all living members of the class, and that would be a place where they would enjoy sharing things.
So, I took the challenge, and set up a trial version of an online forum website. I evidently did a good sales job, because it was accepted by the class Executive Committee. I started building it. I faced lots of challenges, including fulfilling some of the requirements Jack had set. For example, forum sites usually depend on people subscribing because they are interested in a subject discussed on the forums. The software doesn't provide for mass-subscriptions. Jack wanted all classmates to be subscribed and then notified that they had been subscribed. That took me a significant amount of time to figure out, although I did gain some interesting experience accessing Excel spreadsheets with the Python programming language.
We made the site go live and announced it to the class in January to definitely mixed responses. Some really liked it. Some hated it and couldn't see why we should do it, and didn't hold back in telling me how much they disliked the whole concept. Many seem to have stayed away in droves.
As I age, I definitely am losing stamina. I used to walk a lot, but as time has gone on, I have been unable to walk much at all. First my feel started to hurt, and then they felt swollen all the time. Then my left knee began hurting, and then my left hip. Janice and I went to New Orleans in late January, just before Mardi Gra. We did several walking tours, and I really had a hard time with it.
I've since consulted a Rheumatologist. The diagnosis for some of the pain is osteoarthritis. The doctor has put me on some meds which seem to help with the pain (no, not an opioid. I've already dealt with that problem) and also prescribed physical therapy. That has also seemed to help. I still get stiff when I have been sitting for a long time, such as in a car on a trip. But it's much better. I've started doing Yoga again, and plan to get back to the exercise regimen I was doing before the pain got to be too much.
