Category: Pet projects

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why do we need projects?

my latest project is a 4 x 5 redwood picnic table
my latest project is another 4 x 5 picnic table

Do you ever wonder why we need special projects to accomplish in our lives and why we are not satisfied with the more mundane raking of leaves or washing dishes?

Laura answered this years ago for me by saying that ‘ although all jobs are honorable’, the ‘routine’ jobs really never end and only in ‘projects’ can we see a final effort that lasts long after the work is done. This — of course — was her nice way of saying,” mow the lawn.” However, I confess to not being able to resit tinkering with some project, culinary or otherwise.

24 years ago, I was very dissatisfied with a particular kind of outdoor furniture. I didn’t like the flimsiness of red wood picnic tables you could buy or make. I wanted a table that I could stand on one corner and it wouldn’t move. Given my ponderous size at the time, this was really saying something. One of the local lumberyards had some returned redwood in unusual sized ( 2 by 12 in particular) and priced right. What I needed was a design and most of the tables I found  were rectangular and didn’t provide for social interaction of 4 couples or eight people. I knew I had to design one myself.

I called this table my ‘four seasons’ table after the Rotary Club I belonged to at the time in which 4 random couples would dine at one home socially each month. This worked great when there were only 8 people, but I have finally  decided to make another table. I love my ‘double trestle’ design because everyone can easy talk to anyone gathered there.

Besides, projects are fun after all.

UPDATE:

now ofr four benches!

Roger

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oops, too many Twinkies, America!

oops... too many twinkies!
oops... too many twinkies!

‘Lose weight or die more quickly and horribly’ would be a great slogan for a dieting commercial. For example, I love those shock commercials about smoking that show some older gent wheezing and , sympathetically, we listen to him warn us not to let this happen to us. Stop smoking, I get it. But if I were to take an educated guess, being overweight causes more physical harm and early death than almost anything we are doing to ourselves and it will only get worse.

I say get worse, because, it appears that the corpulent are moving into more sedentary years. I don’t think we have to worry about boomers taxing the social security program, a lot less of us may be around to collect anything. Now, the CDC had a quite beautiful color presentation of the trend in obesity rates in this country… but hard to understand… so I changed the colors and gray scaled it.  Now, you can better see what’s going on. Arteries are choking in the heartland of America.

First, I know that the diversity of our commercial food offerings is part of what drives people to eat more and I wouldn’t give that up. I know that ‘super tasters’ like me have an additional challenge, but one doesn’t have to feast every day, drink everyday and give up walking.

By the way, strenuous exercise stimulates the appetite and initiates a chain of events leading to failure, dieting and walking is the key. When I was a young boy I had a favorite customer on my paper route, he was 103. He impressed me with his stories and finally I asked him — in my youthfully honest way — why he lasted so long?  He told me that it was because he walked everyday to his coffee shop and such. Interestingly enough he did drive on occasion, but he impressed on me that walking was what kept his motor running. He noticed that the first things his friends stopped doing was to walk places, then came the chair , the bed  and then death. He said that at a certain age, once you stop walking the ability to start walking again becomes nearly impossible. He also enjoyed eating fabulously on Sunday, drank his ‘Old Fashions’ and brandies, but he was lean the rest of the week.

Just watch what you eat, walk every day ( pick a fun destination , say a coffee shop) and allow yourself to enjoy 1 fabulous meal a week and you’ll lose weight… which makes most people healthier… if not happier.

Roger

PS. I am working on my one extravagant meal of the week… for Saturday!

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ode to mouse pads

an ode to mouse pads!
an ode to mouse pads!

Oh, this might sound just a mite strange talking about the wonders and virtues of mouse pads… but even with the advent of optical mice years ago… I still find using one much much more comfortable and reliable.

Having become one of the worlds leading experts on mouse pads… it was my job to search the cosmos to find the perfect mouse pad manufacturer. Laura with the help of her daughters worked up a great design, and it became my job to find someone who would make it and sell it for very very little. hmmmmm

Here is Laura and her prototype… the rest arrive tomorrow!

Life can be full of little pleasures.

Roger Freberg

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famous bird thief of aberdeen

Seagull has a hankering for chips
Seagull has a hankering for chips

This is the famous alleged bird thief of Aberdeen, Scotland. I can’t blame the poor ol guy, the chips look mighty tempting. Here’s the story as it is circulated: “A seagull in Scotland has developed the habit of stealing chips from a neighborhood shop.

The seagull waits until the shopkeeper isn’t looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos.

Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds.

The seagull’s shoplifting started early this month when he first swooped into the store in Aberdeen , Scotland , and helped himself to a bag of chips. Since then, he’s become a regular. He always takes the same type of chips.

Customers have begun paying for the seagull’s stolen bags of chips because they think it’s so funny!”

Roger Freberg

( Good PR. ,  maybe Frito Lay hired the bird ?)

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the high price of eating healthy

onions and peppers oh my!Contrary to what experts will tell you, most people make fairly good decisions based on the restrictions and limitations they are confronted. If food is beyond their budget, they might bake their own or buy inexpensively delicious food.

So it is no surprise that fast food outlets can offer a hamburger for $1 are in such demand. The food may not be perfect… but it will allow you to survive and fight another day without breaking the bank.

However, what if you believe you need more fruits and vegetables into your life? Well, hold onto your wallet! Anyone who has at least visited the produce section in a local supermarket can measure how many ‘whoppers’ they can buy instead of a small carton of tomatoes or strawberries.

Fruits and vegetables are merely a garnish or overlooked in many meals today. In olden days, vegetables were ways to ‘extend’ or allow many more people to eat on a scarce amount of meat, today , it looks like it’s almost becoming the other way around.
Here’s what Science Daily has to say:

“That the cost of healthful foods is outpacing inflation is a major problem,” said Drewnowski. “The gap between what we say people should eat and what they can afford is becoming unacceptably wide. If grains, sugars and fats are the only affordable foods left, how are we to handle the obesity epidemic?”

Well… I would disagree slightly by saying that the ‘obesity epidemic’ has a lot more to do with how we live our lives rather than just what we eat. In the early 1900’s it was fashionable to say, ‘you are what you eat,’ but exercise and a healthy lifestyle are big contributing factors to increased longevity and should not be ignored. We cannot forget that many schools today have reduced or eliminated recess, reduced to two years the amount of physical education required in high school and in many overt and sometimes unconscious ways encouraged a sedentary lifestyle among our youth.

For my two cents… everyone needs to participate in a vigorous sport in high school, period.

Roger Freberg