The Jerk Store

Nerding Out.

2011-02-22T19:52:00.001-08:00

Lately I have been playing Magic: The Gathering card game over lunch. I picked up a play set of the common and uncommon cards from the latest series. I have made a couple of decks and picked up a fat pack to carry all my new cards. For some reason this just wasn't good enough for me. I decided to make my own boxes...

There are tons of scraps of foam board and mat board from cutting mats and backing boards for Kathy's paintings. I started by making a box out of foam board. I wasn't that happy with it. I could do better. I changed my material to mat board. First I created a box using the matboard. I then cut out a piece of brown paper to cover the box. I used artist's mounting adhesive which is basically a spray contact cement.

I sprayed both the box and paper and let it sit for a minute or two.

I started at the bottom of the box and moved up the sides.

Eventually I covered all sides of the box, wrapping the covering around the lip of the box.

I created a top to the box and added an insert to hold the cards.
Ok I have some brown boxes, they are looking pretty good but boring.
Let's add a little decoration. I took the mana symbols and grabbed some pens that were the correct colors and started with the tops.

I made six boxes this round. I have decorated 3 of them with the colors of the decks they hold. the other three are still blank, I will decorate them when I finalize more decks.

-Jason

Desk Complete.

2010-11-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

The desk is officially complete and installed. I am very happy with how it turned out.

The total cost of the desk was around $850 in materials including the glass top. To build this desk from Pottery Barn it would have cost roughly $2800. Pretty good savings for a couple months worth of work.

-Jason

Painting, I am so over painting.

2010-11-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

It has taken a couple of weeks but the bookshelves are almost complete. I started painting them a couple of days ago and I finished the bulk of the painting tonight. Tomorrow, I have to cut and paint the backs of the bookshelves but other than that they are complete. I took a pattern to the glass shop on Friday so I should have the final pieces of glass the middle of next week and we can install these beauties to finish off the room. These bookshelves are basically twice the width of the other cabinets, but they seemed a lot larger every time I went to paint them.

-Jason

Fabrication Complete

2010-11-01T14:57:00.001-07:00

I had time to finish the construction of the bookshelves this weekend. I started by adding the trim to the top and bottom of the cabinets I completed the other day.

I then added the trim to the bottom of the desktop, this will keep the desktop centered on the bookshelves.

The remaining components completed. The two bookshelves, their desktops, the final desktop for the already completed cabinets and the connecting pieces to tie all of the components together. I will be sanding and wood filling for the next couple of days, hopefully I will be painting in the next couple of days.

-Jason

Bookshelves

2010-10-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

I started on the on bookshelves that will finish the desk unit. Sunday I cut the plywood into the blank pieces for the bookshelves and desktop units and glued the desktop pieces together.

Over the last couple of nights I cut the pieces to final size, cut grooves for the back piece, and glued the basic bookshelves together.

Over the next couple of days I will build the foot and top of the bookshelves, hopefully I will start painting sometime this weekend.

-Jason

Desk Installed

2010-10-23T13:16:00.003-07:00

Well the first section of the desk is installed. I am very happy with it, I think it turned out amazing. Going to start on the bookshelves soon. I will post pictures of the progress.

Preview

2010-10-21T19:34:00.001-07:00

Finished up a couple more items on the desk including the drawers and getting glass cut. Looks like we will be installing the desk this weekend.

-Jason

New Desk

2010-10-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

Kat has wanted a new desk for a long time. She has never really been happy with her setup in the studio. She did some looking around and was interested in this desk from pottery barn http://www.potterybarn.com/products/build-your-own-bedford-home-office-system-components/ . It is a pretty cool system basically there are various cabinet configurations but all have the same outside dimensions. that you can configure in a corner with a corner desktop. Hmm, thousand dollars to put a desk around the studio, I can build something like this for much cheaper. So I have been working on it for the past several weeks.

I started by designing out the cuts using google sketchup, it's not perfect but it works. After figuring out how much wood I would need for three cabinets and a corner desktop I picked up the plywood and started making sawdust. It didn't take too long to get everything cut and glued together, I had everything put together in the first week.

I have been slowly finishing the cabinets over the past couple of weeks and I am down to finishing the drawers.

Cabinet with 2 smaller drawers and file drawer. Each cabinet will have a 23 x 23 desktop like the one shown above.

Two more cabinets completed, one with two file drawers and another with shelves on the right and two vertical slots for Kat to put wet paintings in to dry.

Finished corner desktop, the desktop will have one leg in the back corner and will attach to two cabinets to support the front.

Drawers and more drawers, getting close to finishing.

As you can see the first set is almost complete, I need to get glass cut for the desktops and put a couple coats of paint on the drawers. We should be setting the desk up shortly. I plan on making two more cabinets but they will be bookshelves and will be twice as wide as the other cabinets.

-Jason

Still Here

2010-10-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a long long time. What has happened in the last two years? Lots!

Let's see 2009 was a bit of a blur, I traveled a lot. I spent the first three months traveling back and forth between Florida and Omaha for work. After all of that fun I spent a couple of months in Amman, Jordan also for work. I did get to see some cool stuff, Petra, Dead Sea, Camel in the back of a really small truck, and many more things. 2009 was a bit stressful, with all the travel I ended up gaining some weight, booo.

2010 has been a lot less stressful. I started doing ceramics again, it has been a lot of fun and very relaxing. I also haven't had to travel as much this year which is a bonus but the one trip was across the world to India. I spent three weeks in India for work, it was very cool. The food was amazing. 2010 has been the year of projects. Kat and I completely redecorated the upstairs adding a workout room. I started working out late last year after all the travel was completed and now we are working out at home. I have dropped close to 40 pounds first going to the gym and then completing p90x at home with Kat.

Well that is not very much detail for the past two years but it is he major highlights. I will post some pictures of all the adventures later.

-Jason

No smoking

2008-10-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally decided to quit smoking, again... I was only smoking at work and on travel, but here of late that is all I have been doing so the smoking followed me home. Time to stop this crap. Why is it I enjoy smoking when I am not doing it and hate when I am? Oh wait must be the addiction. Any way I haven't had a cigarette since Friday afternoon. I have had a couple of bad cravings, especially this morning. I took a walk with a friend from work to calm down, it worked. I can kick this thing.

Busy Busy Busy

2008-09-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

Wow it has been a long time, what have I done in the past couple of weeks. Well first I traveled to Bremerton, WA for work. While I was there I took the ferry over to Seattle and met up with an old friend of mine. Had some great salmon the first night and some awesome sushi the second night. Including geoduck, I was pretty excited to try this ever since I saw the episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe harvested them. It was ok, not real strong fish flavor but a really strange texture. It was kind of like cooked octopus in texture, but I dont know, crunchier if that is even possible.

I think this is Mt. Rainer but not 100% sure.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge from the road.
Part of the Seattle skyline.
Space needle at night

After I got back I made another batch of beer, still need to bottle it but so far it looks really good. I made a German Weissbier with some Hefeweizen yeast that will give the beer a banana clove flavor. Really looking forward to this beer, hopefully it should taste like Franziskaner one of my favorite beers.

This time I didnt have to steep any grains, add extract and hops boil for an hour.

Ice Ice Baby! Last time as you know I couldn't get the wort down in temperature very quickly, this time I got a lot more ice. It helped but I think I need to invest in a immersion cooler.

Yesterday Kat and I went to the Nebraska game with our friends Brett and Kristal. We had a great time and Nebraska won so that's a bonus.

Are we wearing red? We swore it would never happen, how things change.

Horrible picture of me but that's Brett and Kristal being goofy in the back ground.

Sea of red anyone?

2008-08-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a busy couple of weeks, traveled to Gaithersburg, MD for work last week. On the last day we had some extra time so we went to Arlington National Cemetery and saw the eternal flame and the tomb of the unknown soldier. Both were very cool, we did catch the end of the changing of the guards, neat experience something everyone should see. After the cemetery we went to see the lincoln memorial and the Vietnam Wall, the wall is so much longer in person than it looks on TV.

Took a bike ride yesterday and today on the Wabash trail. Yesterday we got halfway to the next town Mineola. Today we ended up riding the entire way, ended up being close to 17 miles round trip. Fairly easy ride though, a little up hill halfway there, then it switches to a little downhill. So both directions the hardest part is at the beginning.

New Bike

2008-08-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

Since the new house has access to a couple of local trails the wife and I decided to buy a couple of bikes. We picked up Trek 7100 series, she got the WSD frame and I got the regular one of course.

We rode a couple of times over the weekend, first day down the Wabash trail and the next day we rode to Lake Manawa. Was fun, look forward to more rides. You can see the wife's lovely bike here.

Hooray beer!

2008-08-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well the day has come, finally opened a bottle of the beer a week after bottling.

Man was it tasty, guess the first batch worked out good. Cant wait to make more.

Bottling Time

2008-07-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

Well that time has come, at least I think it has anyway. I have been checking the hydrometer reading for three days now and it hasn't changed. It is steady at 1.022, the directions say it should finish between 1.013 and 1.018 but it hasn't moved so I am going to go ahead and bottle it.

First step sanitize everything, bottles, bottling wand, 6 gallon carboy, everything...

Transfer the beer from the 5 gallon carboy to the 6 gallon carboy we are going to use for bottling.

Isnt that yummy, lovely waste from fermentation.

I got everything sanitized and then I just decide to drink it from the carboy, who needs to bottle it anyway.

Yeah like that would happen, here are some lovely action shots and the final bottles, the batch net 46 bottles of beer, a little less than the recipe said but I left an inch or so in each bottle so I didn't put waste into the bottles. Cant wait for a couple of weeks until I get to try it.

So the starting hydrometer reading was 1.082 and the final was 1.022 giving the beer a 6% APV, a little lower than the recipe says but hopefully it still rocks.

Secondary Fermentation

2008-07-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

Opened the primary fermentor today and took the hydrometer reading, it was at 1030 so we moved the beer to a 5 gallon carboy to finish the fermentation. When I first opened the bucket it didn't look all that great but man did it smell good.

Isnt this what it looks like after you drink too much?

Isn't that pretty?

The fermentation started right up again, it had slowed down quite a bit in the primary fermentor but after moving it bubbles started up again every minute or so.

Homebrewing

2008-07-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well finally went out and purchased a homebrewing kit, been thinking about it for months. The wife and I went to the local fermentation supply company, they walked us through the different kits, we decided to go with the deluxe model. Not sure how that will work out for us but hopefully everything goes well.

We purchased an ingredient kit for making Belgian Tripel beer. Got home and decided to get started, we read all the instructions and it says to use a stainless steal pot that is 20 quarts or larger. Great the supplier sold us 16 quart one, what do we do? Oh well, they are closed all we can do is try. We put 3 gallons of water in the pot, and it was close to the top, so we decided to remove some of the water. I would say we had 2.75 gallons of water in there.

Next step was to steep the grains for 15 minutes, that was really cool. The kitchen started to smell like grapenuts cereal. Then we brought the concoction up to a boil and added the malted barley, hops and other ingredients. Boiled it for 45 minutes then added the finishing hops and boiled for 15 more minutes. Now the important part rapidly cool the mixture, well that didnt go so well, we got it down to the 100 degree range fairly quickly but ran out of ice so it took a while to get to sub 75 degrees so we could add the yeast and start the fermentation. Hopefully everything turns out alright but if not, oh well scratch it up to a learning experience.