November 16, 2025Nov 16 It's a small and crazy world! Many of you know that I've semi-retired as a Carpenter, and am working at a Lumber Yard/Hardware store here in Fairfax, CA. I help a lot of Contractors locally, and being a small town, many have heard of my work, because of Jack Irving, who I worked with on Al's house years back. Some that I'm close to have seen pics of many of my past projects. Today I got a call from an older, local Contractor/Musician (there are many in the area). He was at Linda Ronstadt's house in San Francisco yesterday. He's been her Contractor and her friend for decades. She was telling him about some bookshelves that she saw at a bookstore in the Sunset district. She wanted to know if he could build some like them? So they went to look them over. Upon arriving, the store owner recognized Linda and struck up a conversation. Linda explained how she loved the custom shelving. The owner told her about the man that built them, but that he wasn't working with the same Contractor anymore. She showed Linda more of his work at the bookstore, and then invited them to her house a few blocks away for lunch, and to see all of the custom work he'd done there. During lunch she informed her that she still had his phone number and said she'd call to see if it was OK to give it out. In doing so she mentioned his full name. Her Contractor and friend Andy Giddings said "wait, I know him, he works at the lumber counter of my local lumber yard". Today Andy Giddings got my number from my employers after explaining the story, and he called me to tell me that Linda Rondstadt would love to have me build her some bookshelves, and maybe more. He told me that I was going to love her, and she me. We talked about possibly working together on that project. He was also impressed with my work. It's a funny world. I'm not actively seeking weekend projects, but who's going to turn down Linda Ronstadt?
November 16, 2025Nov 16 Holy Fuck Dude! That is amazing. To be approached based on prior art is so incredible. You'll have to let us know how it goes.
November 16, 2025Nov 16 As for me... played with my kids all day (my back is broken from sitting on the floor). Rachel is helping her Parents move all weekend, so I'm solo. Just ate dinner and am cleaning up. May stream later, but may be too tired. Not a bad day, but no fucking 'contacted by Linda Rondsadt's people' kind of day, haha.
November 16, 2025Nov 16 The funny thing is, I don't really find those bookshelves to be anything special. But people like what they like. But the bookstore owner is one of my favorite past clients. She and I collaborated on many of the things I built at her stunning $8,000,000 home. It's literally across the street from the ocean on the Great Highway. The bookstore she owns is a coffee shop as well, where I was awarded free coffee for life.🙂 It was my first big project after the pandemic, and she told my boss that on that project I would be her employee, so that we didn't have to run our ideas through the company. She paid me more than I made with the company, and we only grew closer in that time period.
November 16, 2025Nov 16 Well, nothing has happened yet except a phone call from another Contractor. But I'm excited just to meet her. I watched her documentary a little while back and was even more intrigued with her life than previously. I'd be extremely honored to build anything for her, but there are some time hurdles to jump over before anything is going to happen. Still, I can't imagine not jumping a few hurdles to make this happen.
November 16, 2025Nov 16 Well congrats Steve! That is effing amazing! Sooo... moar cool/inspiring pics coming soon at woodworkers sub-forum hopefully.
November 25, 2025Nov 25 On 11/15/2025 at 8:59 PM, swt61 said: It's a funny world. I'm not actively seeking weekend projects, but who's going to turn down Linda Ronstadt? Jack is just getting into the Simpsons and we just watched the Mr. Plow episode, so I got to tell him about your Linda Ronstadt story.
November 25, 2025Nov 25 For those of you so inclined.....my nephew (niece's husband) Chris is in Russia (Kazakhstan) now, and he will be launching EARLY local time on a Soyuz rocket to go to the ISS!!! Streaming is available at https://plus.nasa.gov/ 3 highlights (times are EST): Edited November 25, 2025Nov 25 by skullguise
November 26, 2025Nov 26 That's awesome! Congrats to him on being the furthest from Trump one can get.
November 27, 2025Nov 27 But hopefully not too far in the evening. https://theonion.com/astronaut-hates-long-nightly-spacewalk-to-iss-outhouse/
November 27, 2025Nov 27 Went to sleep last night with sniffles, woke up today with a cold or something. So much for Thanksgiving.
November 27, 2025Nov 27 Congrats to Chris! Perfect launch.* *to time with my middle of the night switch from legs to breasts in the sous vide.
November 27, 2025Nov 27 Thanks Ric! Something was meant to be, we had a power blip at ~3:45am EST and my alarm keypad beeping woke me up. Managed to watch the launch as well! Time for caffeine....a whole fucking bunch of it! 🤣 Have a 3.5-4 hour (if I'm lucky) drive in a bit.....
November 27, 2025Nov 27 I saw the launch as well. Looked like a hell of a ride to be strapped to that thing. Glad he made it safe!
November 27, 2025Nov 27 Indeed!! My mom said his kids took it hard when he left for the rocket but were excited to see him in the ISS itself. Edited November 27, 2025Nov 27 by skullguise
November 27, 2025Nov 27 Well I definitely have something. Haven't tested for covid yet, but will later. No cough at all though. Just my usual cold symptoms, which means just a stuffy nose. Musinex is effectively handling that. I have several pounds of Green beans, a ton of mushrooms and fried onions that I was going to turn into an elevated version of Green bean casserole. Not quite sure what to do with it. I guess I'll make it up later and try freezing in portions. Sorry Al. As for myself, I'm going to start my Thanksgiving with biscuits and gravy. Not the traditional meal I had been looking forward to, but still a favorite of mine. Still, this far better than my worst Thanksgiving. In 1983 I had flown to Juneau, Alaska for a new job building a mall. I flew the evening before Thanksgiving. Got into my hotel and went to sleep. Thanksgiving day I woke up to find everything in walking distance completely closed up. Even to hotel Cafe was closed. I had candy bars from a vending machine for Thanksgiving dinner. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!
November 27, 2025Nov 27 2 hours ago, swt61 said: Well I definitely have something. Haven't tested for covid yet, but will later. No cough at all though. Just my usual cold symptoms, which means just a stuffy nose. Musinex is effectively handling that. I have several pounds of Green beans, a ton of mushrooms and fried onions that I was going to turn into an elevated version of Green bean casserole. Not quite sure what to do with it. I guess I'll make it up later and try freezing in portions. Sorry Al. As for myself, I'm going to start my Thanksgiving with biscuits and gravy. Not the traditional meal I had been looking forward to, but still a favorite of mine. Still, this far better than my worst Thanksgiving. In 1983 I had flown to Juneau, Alaska for a new job building a mall. I flew the evening before Thanksgiving. Got into my hotel and went to sleep. Thanksgiving day I woke up to find everything in walking distance completely closed up. Even to hotel Cafe was closed. I had candy bars from a vending machine for Thanksgiving dinner. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you feel better soon.
November 27, 2025Nov 27 When I was a kid my Mom made the same Thanksgiving dishes every year. One of them was green bean casserole. Probably like many of your Moms made too. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. Canned green beans, French's fried onions and cream of mushroom soup. Like many vegetables and other dishes of my childhood I didn't know that I liked them until I was living on my own and tasted the fresh version. So I thought the concept (Trump joke) of green bean casserole was good. But what if it was elevated to using fresh ingredients? So today I set out to test that theory. I trimmed and sautéed about 3 pounds of green beans. Then sliced and sautéed a large amount of mushrooms in butter and white wine. I decided that making my own fried onions might not be worth the extra effort, so French's fried onions it was. In place of cream of mushroom soup, I used cream of celery soup, as I like the flavor better and had already incorporated fresh mushrooms into the dish. I have enough for a small army, as I had planned to take this to Al's before catching a cold. How is it? Well it has about 15 more minutes to bake, so I'll let you know later. You can't tell, but there are two layers of everything in the dish.
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