Author: Gerry

Categories
Football Notweet

Florio Finally Figures it Out

In what is likely to be a final bid by PFT to tip the scales for the officials, Mike Florio informs us that some of the officials don’t have other jobs. This circumstance is certainly unfortunate for them and may well lead to some officials crossing the picket lines before this is over.

Further on, Florio can’t help himself with one final swipe at the replacement refs:

That number may be small, but they could become vocal as it becomes more and more clear that the NFL will continue to circle the wagons against any and all actual or perceived complaints regarding the performance of the replacement officials.

The fact is, week 1 wasn’t a debacle. Then, in the Thursday night game, they were barely mentioned. The simple fact is the officials aren’t affecting the outcome of games and they are not putting players at risk. That was FUD to begin with and now it’s been born out. Now that the season is in full swing, all of the stories are turning to the players and the games. Like it always has. The players and coaches win and lose the games.

Florio notes:

Right or wrong, we’re convinced the NFL isn’t going to blink.

Exactly. The fact is, the replacement officials have been entirely adequate. At this point, every game they work is that much more competent they will be for the next week.

Florio ends with a laugher:

That’s not picking sides.

HAH! Florio and the crew at PFT picked sides a long time ago. That he’s now trying to play the neutral observer role is as good a sign as any that it’s time for the regular officials to get their deal done, for their own good.

Categories
Family

Master Sgro

The boy’s MA school had a special guest this morning. His name is Master David Sgro. From his linked bio, he’s an accomplished martial artist with high ranking dans in Tang Soo Do and Japanese Jujitsu. He was a contemporary and competitor of the head of our school Master Bogdanski.

He was there for 2 purpose this morning. One was to teach what he calls “Combative Techniques.” Simply put, these are jujitsu techniques that are real world techniques for quickly defeating and incapacitating an opponent. The techniques he taught this morning are all ones he has taught to soldiers at Fort Bragg as a fighting expert. The techniques consist of short, violent blows to soft tissue areas combined with joint locks. It was a fascinating class in it’s own right.

The more fascinating thing is that this man had given up (he sold it) his MA school in North Carolina to go and serve a mission in Guatemala. He lives there now with the majority of his family helping to improve the community he lives in down there. He lives alongside the people he helps as they do, which means none of the creature comforts we have here. He lives with 6 hours of running water per day, builds chicken coups, installs stoves, builds gardens and teaches karate as part of his mission.

Augmenting the community wide stuff above, he also procures gifts for the community. The gifts typically consist of things like toothbrushes or toothpaste and other things we take for granted. Once, he passed out several thousand of those plastic balls we have in the bins at Walmart. Those were a huge hit.

The karate lesson was free, all he asked was that people consider giving donations to his mission so that he can provide some improvements for the lives of the people he now lives with. The stove I mentioned before is not a stove like we would think it. It’s a firebox with a metal top and a pipe that extends up through the roof (typically straw thatched) of the house they put the stove in. The “big” improvement is the pipe- families there typically cook over an open fire inside their home, made of some kind of stalk.

On the way home, the boy asked a question about the slide show and video Master Sgro had presented after the class. He wanted to know why “everything was dirty” and why there was dirt in their homes. I had to try and explain to him: that’s their life down there. That there was no grocery store to go to; no restaurants to go to for dinner or lunch; no Game Stops from which to get video games; they don’t know what DS’s are. I’m not sure he gets it. I’m not sure I get it. Living on $2 a day, with 6 hours of running water and cooking over an open fire is barely camping in this country. I don’t know if I could do it.

But Master Sgro does and he makes a difference to these people. He has a web site for his mission here.

Categories
Family

Put a Pin In It

There was a particular moment of genius in the movie Bolt that I didn’t recognize for its worth until recently. I can’t recall the exact details, but it involves the slimey agent for Penny. Bolt has long since disappeared and the agent is trying to convince her that it’s not a big deal, but it obviously is to Penny. Finally, when Penny has more or less outthought the agent he hold up his hands, and says “Whoa, whoa whoa. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’re going to take that thought and…” At this point, he makes a motion like he has a Post-It between his fingers, raises his hands in the air and then makes like he’s sticking it to a cork board with a pin. He finishes with the flourish “…put a pin in it right there. And we’ll come back to it later.”

The argument ends at that point, with stupefied looks on both Penny and her Mother’s face.

In a moment of inspiration, under similar circumstances, I used his on the lass and it completely stopped her in her tracks. She knew exactly where I’d gotten it from, and she didn’t like it, but the argument ended. Plus, it turned the dynamics of the argument on its head because now she was trying not to laugh. I’ve since used it with the boy as well, with similar results.

No word yet on how it works with wives. But I’ll post as soon as I know…

Categories
Computers Notweet Programming

WP Mystique Twitter Widget

The standard Twitter widget that comes with the Mystique theme has a couple of shortcomings, in my opinion. One, any shortened URL’s are displayed using Twitters t.co link instead of whatever shortener the user may actually be using. I’ve installed a YOURLS site for just this purpose, so I’d like to see my site displayed. Second, hashtags are not linked back to a Twitter search.

Below the fold are a few lines of PHP that will address these problems. A brief word to the wise, these mods only work with Twitter’s API V1. API V1.1 will require OAuth to perform this task.

Continue reading “WP Mystique Twitter Widget”
Categories
Family

Sunny Cat

I snuck out for awhile tonight to get in some sparring practice at the dojang. At the time, the Wife was helping the boy finish his homework set for the week (things went much better this time around) and, naturally, wanted some focus time with the boy. This meant the lass needed to be kept busy.

She’s been playing on the computer making pictures using the Paint program on Windows. So I told her if she made me a picture, I’d post it on a website somewhere.

She made me a picture, called Sunny Cat. So here’s me, keeping up my half of the deal:

Categories
Admin Notweet

Blog Theme Updated

The theme we’ve been running here, Mystique by digitalnature has undergone a number of improvements since I originally installed it. Once I started playing around with some of the other site settings and the like, it was inevitable that I’d take a look at the theme.

To make a long story short, I’d modified the original theme code when I started running it and, foolish me, didn’t do so with the services of a VCS. Therefore, I knew upgrades would be a bear. So, I avoided it. The site didn’t seem to be suffering.

But the new twitter widget had some issues and the updated version of the theme seemed like it would be worth spending the time bringing it up. I still liked the look, so I’ve gone through the process once again. The nice thing this time around is the theme provides an area for my own CSS modifications, so I didn’t have to touch the original code base.

Well, almost. But that’s fodder for another post.

Suffice it to say, the updates aren’t an exact duplicate of what the site was, but it’s pretty close along with some minor improvements I made (using VCS this time). There’s still the search and Twitter feed and tabbed widgets for looking at a tag cloud or archives or what have you. One thing I have removed the links I had earlier- they cluttered things up and weren’t really necessary.

Leave a comment if you notice anything hinky that I missed during the upgrade. Otherwise, back to normal blogging.

UPDATE:
Alright, couldn’t help myself. I’ve now modified the nav button on the right to remove the text as well as adding the Twitter button. I tried it on my test blog in the house and asked the boy which he preferred. This is it, so blame him.

Categories
Family

Adjustments for The Boy

We now know the pattern for the boy’s homework: he receives a packet on Monday which he then has to turn in on Friday. Each packet consists of math, spelling, reading and writing- all to varying degrees of intensity, or required effort.

Or whining.

The boy at least understands that the work has to be done. When he brought his first packet home, he sat down and got to work on it quickly, figuring he would knock it out in plenty of time for Friday. He ran into some headwinds related to the reading and writing portion of the assignment and got frustrated. I was able to work him through it though, and his math and spelling he didn’t have any issues with.

This week has been different, and it’s only Tuesday. Once again, he sat down and did the math portion of the homework. But the reading and writing section is giving him fits.

And, to be clear, that’s OK. He hasn’t done any writing to this point, and until he’s had some practice with it I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to be a bit bewildered about how to approach a writing assignment.

But what’s not OK is the miserable attitude that his frustration brings out. When the Wife suggested he try writing a rough draft, he balked at the idea of doing twice the work, snapping at her and stomping off. When he finally did follow her advice and asked me to proofread it, I tried to offer some suggestions (totally meaning to disrail him and make him miserable- that’s what we parents live for after all) he got mad again, declaring he couldn’t do the work.

So it went for the evening. He would start to work on it, then we’d offer some suggestions and he’d go off the deep end, becoming nasty and irritable.

The Wife took a final shot from him and decided she’d had enough, refusing to help him anymore. That, of course, got him madder and more upset. Now, everyone hated him and no one would help him. The long sob story had begun. We ended up putting him to bed early as a result because there’s only so much verbal abuse that can be tolerated before enough-is-enough. Blowing off steam is one thing, he had pushed it into different territory.

After a quick discussion with the Wife, I decided to summon him back downstairs for a Talk. Not, The Talk, just a Talk. I’m sure it’s the last one I’ll ever have to give…

I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow, but suffice it to say that I explained that the Wife and I were going to be damned if we had to deal with him like this every week with each new homework set. I told him we were there to help him, that we didn’t expect him to be able to do it on his own, yet, but he had to stop with the attitude and that he had to start owning up to his behavior. Now. If he didn’t, then his martial arts belt-advancement was going to be extended because we will give him poor marks for attitude on the parental evaluation his school give parents when the kids are ready to advance to a new level- he’s attained a level where any poor marks will hold him back a month.

To his credit, he listened without getting defensive or displaying more attitude. He went back to bed and the Wife and I sat down and breathed for a few minutes.

Afterward, she asked me “Do you think it will work?”

“No,” I told her. But this is one time where I hope I’m wrong.

Categories
Family

I Question His Judgment

This parent inhales:

I swear I am a more loving, attentive and patient father when I take my medication as prescribed. Perhaps this isn’t surprising. As anyone who inhaled during college can attest, cannabis enhances the ability to perceive beauty, complexity and novelty in otherwise mundane things (grout patterns in your bathroom floor, the Grateful Dead, Doritos), while simultaneously locking you into a prolonged state of rapt attention.

He’s got a medical marijuana card to help with his stress. The stress is a result of living in a 2-income family in an expensive city.

I won’t say I’m speechless, though I don’t really know what to say. On the one hand, why not move somewhere less expensive and give up the job? On the other hand, who the hell am I to tell this guy what to do. Let’s leave it at, I won’t be using this method any time soon.

I do wonder, what’s this guy gonna do when his oldest puts 2-and-2 together?

hattip: Patterico

Categories
Family

Hands On with the Lass

The Wife wanted the kids to vacuum this morning. The lass immediately volunteered to do the hardwood portion, leaving the area carpets for the boy.

So the lass did her ‘vacuuming’ while the Wife ran an errand with the boy. I was poking around on the intertubes at the time, so I wasn’t exactly paying attention to quality-of-performance on the lass’ part.

When the Wife arrived home, I was quickly updated on that point when the Wife asked me “Did she vacuum? It doesn’t look like it…” Sure enough, dust bunnies rolled like tumbleweeds across the hardwoods. Somewhere in the distance, that whistle from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” quietly sounded. A mouse in a serape and a hat appeared riding a cockroach. Across the floor, another mouse stood precariously on a wood chip with his head in a noose fashioned out of dog fur hanging from a corner of a baseboard heater…

Back in reality, rather than get upset and start yelling, I opted for a more direct approach. Inconvenient to me, but more likely to get a point across. I went upstairs and retrieved the lass from her room where she was listening to one of her audiobooks that she’s heard approximately 100 times. By the hand and without a word, I led her down the stairs.

She didn’t like that one bit. She wasn’t sure what was up, but she knew she wasn’t going to like it. She fought me a bit even on the steps, but I didn’t yell and attained a bit more cooperation when I calmly told her that she could get hurt acting that way on stairs. Her brow furrowed, she trudged downstairs behind me. While she’d stopped physically resisting, her verbal resistance, “I don’t need you to hold my hand!”, served to inform me she was still not liking this one bit.

I walked her over to the still setup vacuum, placed her hand on the handle, placed my hand over hers and assumed a position behind her. We then turned on the vacuum cleaner and I slowly and methodically demonstrated how to vacuum the whole floor, with her present the entire time.

She fought me the whole way. Complaining I was holding her hand to tight; telling me she already knew how to vacuum (I merely replied “All evidence to the contrary.”); saying she’d already done that part. At one point, she spied a dustbunny across the room and wanted to go right over to hit it with the vacuum. I gently redirected her and explained we would get there in a bit. Finally, she said she got it so I let her try a small area.

Clearly, she didn’t get it, so I resumed my training.

I’m not under any delusions that she can now properly vacuum the floor. But if I continue to make the job so pleasant for her, I figure the message will sink in sooner than later. At least, that’s the plan. If one of us has to vacuum anyway to get the job done properly, we might as well make the most of it.

Categories
Misc

Pistorius Had It Coming

I never made any comment about Oscar Pistorius during the Olympics because, well, I just didn’t feel it mattered that much. But I’ll do so now because of this. In short, Pistorius was beaten in competition by someone with better prosthetics, and he didn’t like it. (hattip: Althouse)

Pistorius should not have been allowed to compete in the Olympics, because it should be obvious to everyone that he doesn’t belong in competition with non-disabled athletes because there is no clarifying purpose to his competition. The whole point of competition is to clarify who is the best. When a variable like prosthetics are thrown into the equation, that distinction has been clouded because everyone will suspect the prosthetics of having given an unfair advantage.

It’s unfortunate that he doesn’t have lower legs, and it’s fantastic he’s been able to push the envelope as far as he has. But if he’d actually been able to medal, how could anyone escape the conclusion that he was there only because of his prosthetics? We already know he has a different set of prosthetics for competition versus his normal life- that right there should be all we need to know that his track performance isn’t entirely tied to his training.

That’s what the article demonstrates about competitors with prosthetics- they can be gamed by equipment selection.

What will the Olympics do when the next Pistorius comes along at 6′ 5″ with prosthetics that give him (or her) a shot at a medal? Because believe you me, the only reason for the lovefest with Pistorius at the Olympics was because he was a complete non-threat for a medal. As soon as that changes, you can bet your bottom dollar that the other athletes will complain, loudly and often. That’s the nature of the athletic competition at that level.

The Olympics, and other current world-level events, should craft a simple rule that prohibits competition with assistance of any sort. Life may not have been “fair” to Pistorius (whatever that means), but spreading that “fairness” to those without disabilities doesn’t improve competition. It complicates it to the point of making it meaningless.

Categories
Misc Notweet

This Shouldn’t be Tweeted

Somethings don’t need to be tweeted, like this post. I’ve added a “Notweet” category and configured the plugin to not tweet posts in that category. The question is, will it post it because it’s also in another category that can be tweeted?

UPDATE:
And the verdict is, it works!

Categories
Family

A Wonderful Morning

Anyone out there thinking about kids are welcome to come spend a morning here, chez SAHD. That ought to fix ya.

The boy and the lass were at each other’s throats almost from the get go this morning. First, it was the boy lobbing snide comments as they were getting their breakfasts together. Those had the lass screaming at him to stop.

Then, while helping with lunches, things started getting physical. The lass started lightly kicking at the boy, who then started pushing her around. When the Wife told them to knock it off, the boy started mouthing off to her.

“It’s not my fault!”

“She started it!”

“Why do I always get in trouble?!?”

“Why can my sister do things to me and I can’t do them to her?!?”

“Why do you hate me?!?”

Frankly, it’s way too much drama on three-quarters of a cup of coffee. Even a large cup.

So, both of them were given early bed times- and it wasn’t even 7:30 yet.

The punishment only elicited more howls of favoritism and indignation. So the Wife through in no morning TV, just for good measure. She was taking no prisoners this morning.

Then, after a brief period of detente just prior to heading out to school, the boy found out the lass had looked at his library book. Apparently, he’d forbidden her form doing that. Under what authority, I don’t know- but he felt he had the ability to do that. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that he might as well have drizzled chocolate syrup all over the book.

That launched the “Copying Game,” which the boy always goes to when he really wants to get his sister’s goat. Predictably, the lass obliged and was screaming at him to knock it off, receiving his soft mimics in reply every time.

They are both at school now. And the house is quiet, easily the best thing that’s happened so far.

Categories
Misc

The Future of Cable

There are a bunch of interesting articles over at Wired about the cable industry. The first one is about how the industry is slowly changing, the second could be my own blog entry lamenting the declining value of cable service, the third is about how carriage fees (and ESPN) make cable subscriptions so expensive, and the fourth is about different media streamers for those out there interested in cutting the cord.

I think the ideal situation is one where cable companies become bit haulers, providing access to a data pipeline that can be used by the customer to access what they like, be it phone, TV or Internet. And really, with services like Hulu and Netflix, TV and Internet are becoming one and the same anyway. Heck, even live programming is available from sources like ESPN3.

This reduces the headaches for cable companies because now, all they need to worry about is providing their pipeline to as many eyeballs as possible for the best value. They no longer have to worry about striking deals with content providers (like HBO and Disney) because all the providers need is a website to offer their content. In essence, the cable company is relieved of it’s middle-man role.

Another interesting consequence is that potentially anyone is a content provider, since it’s not just the Disney’s of the world that have websites. It only costs about $10 a year to own a domain and another $50 or so per year for a webhosting service (or the cost of maintaining server equipment if self-hosting a site). Thus, the barriers to entertainment entry are lowered a notch because the upfront costs for getting involved are reduced to maintaining a domain and it’s content be it video, photos or text.

Under this arrangement some pretty large revenue streams for content providers disappear, so don’t expect it to happen any time soon. Most likely, cable viewership would have to really start to crater (ie, the market disappears) before something like this could become a reality. Another possibility is that some upstart network becomes a hit streaming their content for a minimal fee (ie, a disruption from below), circumventing cable providers in the process by adopting a streaming-only approach. If that happens, then I could see the whole thing, as it currently stands, coming apart pretty quickly.

Categories
Admin

Twitter Enabled- I Think

So I spent the day tinkering some more with the site. What can I say? ‘Tis the season, or something like that. Actually, it was roughly 3 years ago around this same time I went live with this thing, so why not?

Anyway, there is now a Twitter widget over there on the sidebar (which seems like it’s getting crowded) which should display any Tweets by yours truly. That, of course, necessitated setting up a Twitter account. In the end, neither of those posed much of an issue.

But figuring out a way to connect the blog and my Twitter account was something more of a challenge, mostly because of the rather dizzying array of options. In the end, I went for what looked like the simplest, most complicated setup I could find.

First, I installed WP to Twitter so that posts here should automagically become Tweets over there. That process was pretty straight forward, though I’ll likely continue to tinker with some of the settings as I learn what the heck it’s doing. The documentation for the plugin is excellent and up-to-date.

The bigger challenge came about because of URL shortening. The WP-to-Twitter plugin will shorten URL’s for the tweets if configured to do so. With only 140 characters to work with, that seemed like a good idea. After a bit of research, I finally opted for the YOURLS approach, which means I’m hosting my own URL shortener (sorry, it’s just for me). Getting that set up took some time, but I was able to manage it- including setting up a database, users, passwords and all that fun stuff. The documentation provided for YOURLS is excellent as well, which was a tremendous help.

Once I had it working, the final trick was to enter the proper information into the WP-to-Twitter setup. I had some trouble getting path information correct for the shortener and then was tripped up by having the wrong shortening service selected. But once I got that straightened out, my second ever Tweet confirmed I’d finally managed it. Actually, it was more like my 10th tweet, as it took several attempts before I finally got all the configuration parameters correct. I did a little pruning on my Twitter stream to get rid of the extraneous ones.

Anyway, this here post should result in my 3rd ever Tweet, and after that blog tinkering should be stopped for awhile.

Categories
Misc

Red Obesum

Only because it’s done better than I’d expected, here are some pictures of my red desert rose. I recently re-potted it and figured it would go into shock. Much to my surprise, it’s thrived on the change and this is the best it’s looked.

Categories
Admin

We Are Mobile Enabled

None too late, I finally took the time to setup a mobile version of the site this morning. Thanks to the WPTouch WordPress plugin, it was a painless operation.

I’d been looking for awhile for a way to give the site a mobile version, WPTouch hit my main desires the best. I didn’t want a separate mobile site, it needed to be as simple as possible (but no simpler) for configuration, the site itself should be minimalistic for ease of loading and there should be a reasonable upgrade path if my desires grow going forward.

If you don’t like the mobile look or just prefer the desktop site’s look, there should be a switch at the bottom of the page to turn off the mobile site for your device.

Also, use the Menu button in the header to navigate to other pages or to check out site categories or site tags.

Feel free to comment on it with suggestions and impressions.

Categories
Admin

Rotated Pictures Should be Fixed for iPad

If you’ve been using an iPad or iPhone with Safari to view the site, then many of the images have likely been screwed. Turns out it was a metadata problem and I’ve finally fixed it.

In a nutshell, I pre-process most of the pictures to keep the filesizes reasonable. I also have to rotate certain pictures when the original is taken with the camera oriented vertically. In these cases, certain metadata is present that Safari processes and causes it to display the picture incorrectly. The fix is simple enough- strip the metadata from the jpg file.

The magical incantation is this:

mogrify -strip picture.jpg

If there are a bunch of pictures spanning multiple folders, try this:

find ./folder -name '*.jpg' | xargs mogrify -strip

The command strips all of the metadata that causes the problems.

Categories
Family

Off to the Fair

Off to take the kids to the fair for the rides.

And the food.

UPDATE:

Ugh. 11 hours later, I’m finally home. Right now, I’ll be happy to not see another fair ride until next year. I never thought the kids would last on the rides for 6 hours. But they did, and would have lasted longer as well.

Categories
Family

1 for 4

Until this morning, the lass had woken up in an abysmal mood. She was short tempered, uncooperative and generally not a child anyone in the house wanted to be around.

After I returned from bringing them to school yesterday, I told the Wife that I’d be damned if I was going to have to put up with that behavior all year. We sent her to bed early last night and told her we’d continue to do so until her morning behavior improved. Our rationale was that the long day meant she was too tired and therefore she needed more sleep.

She pushed back, worried that she’d never have a normal bedtime. I said she’d go to bed at a normal time as soon as her morning behavior improved. Next, she blamed her morning moods on not being used to getting up so early. I laughed at that and told her she’d been up all Summer long at the same time and hadn’t been unpleasant in the mornings. She considered this, then asked me “Why was I able to be in a good mood during the Summer, but not now?

I chuckled at this and as I left her room last night, told her she should ponder that question.

So this morning, she was good enough that she didn’t earn herself another early bedtime.

The boy, on the other hand…

Categories
Armoire Woodworking

The Armoire Ends

Here’s my first, ever, entry on the armoire, appropriately titled to boot. The most interesting thing is the date: September 27th, 2009. That means it took me 3 year to finish this project.

On the one hand, I’m glad because where projects are concerned, a former colleague of mine had a simple theory: The longer a project takes to complete, the more unlikely it is to be completed. He may have been speaking about engineering projects at a company, but I think he also meant it in a general sense. I’m glad this ended up being an exception.

So why did it take so long?

Looking back, I seem to have finished the dresser portion of the project by April 2010, including finish and hardware. So, roughly, 7 months of on and off work which entailed the carcass complete with mortise and tenon joinery and floating panel construction, 3 large dovetail drawers and the top with trim.

The next post is in June of 2011! Then, not again until August of 2011. That was just prior to my elbow injury and I then have a post for March of this year when I finally got back to it. (Amusingly, I see I was thinking of my colleague’s theory even then!) From there, I worked slowly and steadily until yesterday.

Leaving out the 6 months lost due to my injury and recovery, the biggest mistake was in underestimating what it would take to complete construction of the cabinet. I remember thinking it was simply a matter of building up the sides and doors, with a couple of shelves thrown in and some kind of molding to trim out the top. There were, in fact, a lot of details that I completely glossed over. My miscalculation was apparent in my own plans as well. I’d drawn up plans for the dresser portion in great detail, thinking out all of the little gotcha’s and pitfalls. For the cabinet, I barely drew up any plans at all.

So therein, I’d say, lies learning point 1 for a project- design the whole thing, even if it can be neatly divided into 2 separate stages. Also, I think it was a mistake to divide it into 2 stages. Had I possessed a completed design, I could have been finishing 8 legs, and 4 sides at one time and avoided unnecessary retooling for the same basic mortise and tenon construction and floating panel construction. Of course, room would have become an issue in the garage, but my time management would have been more efficient. But all that hinges on my having a completed design from which to work.

Another mistake, which ties into the previous one, is to not underestimate the scope of the project. I had a good idea with the dresser portion, reflected in my detailed planning and steady progress. But thinking of the cabinet as “just a box” put me in the mindset that it would be trivial to whip up, and as I realized such was not the case, I became discouraged and kept putting off design decisions.

A few other things I liked, and didn’t, about the finished result:

  1. The finish is Waterlox which I rubbed, rather than brushed on. I thought it came out just shy of spectacular. In between coats, I took the time to sand (600 grit wet/dry) and wipe down everything. It made a huge difference in the finished product. I also took the time to make sure all surfaces were properly prepped prior to finishing, because the finish stage is just that, a finish. It’s not a chance to hide mistakes or blemishes.

  2. In general, I was happy with the joinery results. The dovetailing I already documented thoroughly, but the mortise and tenon joinery was everywhere: the doors, the cabinets- sides (4) and back (2). That joinery is key to the whole thing because if it isn’t executed well, then the whole thing starts to fall apart. I can say that after nearly 3 years, the dresser is still solid as ever and when I placed the cabinet on top, there were no problems with rocking or wobbliness. Also, I was alway checking for square by measuring diagonals; my biggest out of square measurement was by 1/8″ over a 4 foot span.

  3. The eyebrow on the doors was a nice touch, so too the large cove molding. The design is almost all straight lines. The couple of curves gave it just enough variation to make it visually interesting.

  4. I though the use of the cherry was well executed. In general, I used lots of cathedral grain for all the panels. The only one I strayed from that was the rear panel on the cabinet- which won’t be seen much anyway. For the doors, the rails and stiles are straight grained pieces, suited to there construction needs. Along these lines, the quiet maple serves nobly as the weight-bearing wood, nicely contrasted with the flamboyant cherry.

  5. I don’t like how the top of the cabinet came out, entirely. Mostly, this is due to construction decisions that made it difficult to figure out how to mount the top. Also, the cove molding could have been made a little different to make it easier to mount up there. This one goes back to the “design the whole thing” mistake.

  6. The Blum drawer slides and the SOSS hidden hinges were kludges to make up for the fact that I hadn’t properly accounted for all my design decisions. I’ve talked about the Blum slides (bottom line: if using Blum slides, design with the selected slides from the start and follow their guidelines) in previous posts, but the hinges were a problem because the doors are inset and recessed. Having the recessed doors and using those hinges also means the door don’t swing 180 degrees, only the 90 or so from the close position.

  7. Going back to the cabinet top, I ended up using screws to anchor it into place. I don’t like that one bit, but it was a necessity at that point.

And with that, so ends the armoire project.