So tomorrow (July 3rd) some lumberjacks are going to be in my dad’s back yard felling two very large Ash trees and a good sized Black Cherry. We’re having the logs hauled off to <a href=”http://www.ogonekhardwoods.com/”>Ogonek Custom Hardwoods</a> to be sawn and kiln-dried (at a reasonable price). I’m way too excited about this.

I have a confession to make: For the last couple years every time I’ve been to my dad’s house, I don’t see a couple big trees that “have to go”… I see bunkable beds, toy boxes, a kitchen island, tables and chairs, bookshelf & cabinet storage, a sofa table….

We’ll see what kind of shape the wood is in tomorrow, and go from there. Hopefully it’s all in decent condition.

Either way, as long as there’s 300 board feet of Ash (the Cherry is a bonus!) we’ll break even on the price of sawing, drying, and renting a one-way Penske truck to get it back to Indy. From my rough calculations, I’d expect to get 300 board feet out of -one- of the two ash trees. So based on the economy of scale, this should work out nicely. I’m -way- too excited about this.

Ever since I moved into this house, I’ve not had a trash can in the front bathroom. Why? Well…

I can’t put one in the sink cabinet is plumbed weird and doesn’t have space for a trash can.

I can’t find one to buy that’s narrow enough to fit between the toilet and the sink. There’s less than eight inches…

I can’t find one to buy that’s narrow enough to fit between the toilet and the tub. There’s only SIX inches on that side…

So we just didn’t have a trash can in that bathroom. Not anymore. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but tonight I finally sat down and worked it out. I spent a few minutes drawing what I wanted to make in SketchUp, then headed out to the shop to get busy on it. Less than four hours after I started, I had the whole thing done. It took quite a while to get everything cut, since I recycled wood for this one. This trash can is made from red oak salvaged from the frames of our original kitchen cabinet doors!

For more than the last year, I’ve been working with FreeHost3270 for 3270 terminal emulation / interoperability at work. It’s worked, but it hasn’t been pleasant. The threading model sucks. The implementation of 3270 is tightly coupled with their telnet implementation. The Swing component they provided before I came along was horrible. The rewrite I did isn’t very good, as it copied a -lot- of what they had done before, and I’m sick of being ham-strung by crippled code that I cannot maintain effectively. Especially when it’s got a wonky threading model and doesn’t fully support tn3270e. Yikes.

Frankly, I needed to learn the full stack, and I needed to be able to implement it. I needed a clean(er) start than FreeHost3270. Yes, writing a proper Telnet NVT and Terminal Emulator isn’t a -small- task, but… if it’s done properly I’m convinced it’s not too big, and it’s not too imposing.

So I cut the cord holding me to FreeHost3270, and in preparation for a new, major release of the project at work where we need a rock-solid TN3270 API and emulator (without race conditions!) I’ve started work on something new. I decided it was time to strike out on my own and start building a new, more robust solution.

The early AWT terminal, which will be scrapped for a Swing terminal.

I was told I looked Radiant today. I haven’t had that kind of complement since my hair looked like this.

Now I’m sore, all over. Probably because I spent three hours today spraying white paint in the side yard with the HVLP sprayer, then spent a few hours in the garage finishing up and assembling the shelves. I used my adjustable shelf pin jig, and drilled somewhere around 200 holes for shelf pins. Also drilled and screwed the organizer shelves together…

The shelves are in the closet, and I’ve been (slowly — I hurt!) going through and putting things back into the closet. I’m trying to categorize as we go — a lot of this we’d like to get rid of. Anyone want some Coca-Cola bears that have never been out in our house?

I did manage to go for a quick 1 mile ride between light rain-drops. I was starting to get really run-down and tired on my feet, so I went for a ride. That got the juices going and did the trick.

Mom - you should have a place to sleep when you get here on Tuesday. The guest bed is almost cleared off. :-)