Now that's funny

Riding my bike home last night, I realized that it's a longer ride now for me to leave my office and get to a gate to leave the grounds than it was for me to get to the zoo from our coach house apartment. Christ almighty.

It's fun though, and the view isn't bad at times.

I didn't realize how much I was going to miss flat, things are damn hilly out here. Although I see a lot more animals now too. I scared a deer off an access road the other day, and even last night I saw either a fox or a really healthy looking coyote close to the same spot. I snuck up on him, but by the time I got my phone back out he was long gone. Still cool to see though. I really hope it was a fox and not a healthy coyote.

Seriously, this has been so good for my mental health I honestly don't even miss my Fridays off at this point.

"I have no idea what I'm doing...

But I know I'm doing it really well."

It's good to be confident I guess.

The in-laws have been getting ready to move, and came across an old R2D2 lamp they had painted in a ceramics class. Super cool stuff, and it still worked! So I needed to find an appropriate lampshade, but for whatever reason could not find one. Either I didn't like what was local, and didn't feel like shelling out for an etsy design. Have I stumbled across something not Star Wars mass-produced? Seems like.

Back in the pre-internet days you had to do things from memory. 

If you can't find what you're looking for, go out and make it yourself. So mod podge in hand, I picked up a lampshade and printed out some old comic covers. Viola, one Star Wars lampshade.

I'm a huge nerd. I love Star Wars, I love comics. Yet strangely enough, only had one Star Wars comic as a kid. I knew I had to have that cover on the lamp, but didn't have it with me and didn't remember which issue it was. Thank god for the internet. A quick image search for "han solo" "stormtrooper" "space" and viola, issue 98.

With a bunch more images I was ready to roll. Cut some out, started haphazardly sticking them on. Maybe a better plan was called for, but I was actually pretty pleased with the first pass. Then I left for California, and did the rest when I got home.

It doesn't look great with the lamp on, and could use some more layering inside. But I'm much happier figuring that out myself vs buying someone else's, and now I feel like I can customize anything in the house. At least it will give me something to look at when I'm doing homework now that the next session has started again.

Quick pizza grill table

I'm in Anaheim for a conference this week, but I wanted to get some pics up from a quick build I got done before I left. It actually all came together Monday morning, when I should have been packing for this trip but this was way more fun.

The wife and kids got me an early Father's Day present this year  (they let me buy it when I saw it on sale): a cuisinart outdoor pizza oven! How awesome to be able to cook pizzas this summer w/o turning the whole house into an oven.

Gave it a quick test when it got here on a cool May Sunday and it was pretty great; got up to over 500 degrees in less than 10 minutes, toasted two pies up real nice. Unfortunately, that was about all it had in it using the extra 1 lbs tank I had around for the weber. So started looking at accessories; a stand, an adaptor for a larger tank. All together we're talking about another $100; not a deal breaker but a good chunk of change.

Yeah, I think this will work with the right set up.

While I saved up to get them so I wouldn't feel guilty just buying them right away, it dawned on me I could build a solid stand for cheaper that would probably be a better fit for the space, and look like it belonged on our deck. So that's just what I did.

I had a specific corner in mind for where this was going, so I measured up what I had in mind. I wanted to use the cedar toned 2x4's I built the table legs from, and a tile top to make it more heat resistant. Thankfully I found these wood grain ceramic tile on sale:

With a clear idea of what I was looking for, once I had the 2x4's I got going. Of course, my math was a bit off. I probably should have bought 3 2x4's instead of just two, but I managed to find some good scrap pieces to fit everything together. A few minutes cutting and drilling and viola, one frame.

This was may more important than packing. 

I topped it off with some MDF to set the tile on, and got everything together. I thought about grouting, and then I thought "fuck that." So I took it out to the deck to put a poly coat on and we were done. God I can't wait to get home and cook some pizzas on it!

Behold the power of good planning; this idea was much more formed in my head than I usually start with, and due to that it seemed like it came together very quickly. I still had time to pack, and now I'm just patiently waiting to come home and pick up my accessories. Good times.

Patio table 2.0

Here it is in all its glory. Just in time for Memorial Day!

Just imagine it later in the day with plates and garbage all over it.

Honestly, we probably could have gotten another summer out of the old table. It was hard enough to tear down and get rid of that it absolutely had enough left in the tank to survive a little longer. But the more I thought about living with the warping joints, and useless covered up planter troughs the table just had to go. It's in a better place now, and despite the stress of a new job and school, we have a much nicer table I'm very happy with right now.

What I'm not happy about is our current weather; We might have gotten lucky over Memorial Day but as soon as it was time to finish the top and get it together things turned to shit. It spent the past few days covered with half the umbrella stand in:

So sad.

Despite the shitty weather I love how it came out. I hope the finish holds up and lasts a long time. It's a little more aesthetically pleasing and definitely a little lighter so we'll see how the summer rain and fall winds treat it. Fingers crossed.

The good news is I already have a few more projects lined up. I wanted to redo the couch table, but the wife wants a cabinet for the garbage cans so that takes priority. And that's an outdoor pizza oven hiding under the table in that first shot; that's just dying for a little brick-top table to put it on. Either way, once I find more time I'm happy to have the rest of my summer projects lined up.