Despite the rain in Portland, most of Oregon is dry desert. This beautiful landscape is worth visiting, but the temps can be extreme with very cold winters and scalding hot summers. However, for a few weeks each spring, the opportunity for camping is perfect. We headed out to Cottonwood Canyon for a few nights. There […]

I have a running document for the optimal settings on my 20W Atomstack diode laser. It includes: wood, acrylic, fabric, glass, and even rock. However, there is a material that I’ve been meaning to try… metal. Raw aluminum would be near impossible to etch. Luckily, most of the aluminium we encounter (like your Apple laytop) […]

This is more of a reminder for myself than anything else… I am not an expert woodworker and not claiming that this is the only way. Rather, it had been a while since I needed to finish a piece and I didn’t completely remember my prefered method. Next time, I can just look back at […]

A quick trip to the Goat Rocks before the falls weather sets in. My father and I set out on Friday from the #95 trailhead for a quick look that we had never done before. The 95 trail climbs quickly to goat lake and provides lots of views along the way. From the bright blue […]

One day, I signed out of Facebook and just never signed back in. This was an easy choice to make. Sure, the owners, advertising, and tracking all concerned me… but it was more than that. The entire community had become toxic. Even with a limited number of connections, FB would constantly push hateful and often […]

A family of scrub jays decided to set up a nest right outside our bedroom window. We managed to throw together a makeshift birdcam.

I try to climb Mt. Adams each year. It is a beautiful mountain and the climbing route offers majestic views and a reasonable challenge without being too technical. Last year, I decided to try a single day, car-to-car climb. This made for a very long trek: 14 miles, 7000′ of elevation gain and losses not […]

I used to bake a lot of bread, but eventually got out of the habit. Then the pandemic happened… and like everyone else, I suddenly had the time and need to again bake. But… if I’m going to take he time to bake bread, I might as well bake beautiful bread. For the past few […]

Just keeping track of the initial sake experiments: Day 0 (2021-02-01) Preparing the rice. After a false start, I am planning to do things right. This time the rice will be soaked and steamed in preparation of day 1. Day 1 Koji Day 2 Koji Day 3 Moto: Day 7 Hatsuzoe  Day 9 Nakazoe Day […]

Just keeping track of the initial sake experiments. Unfortunalty, this first attempt didn’t make it far. Feel free to learn from my mistakes: Day 1 9 cups (dry) of sushi rice was prepared. This took 3 batches in my small rice cooker: 3 cups rice + 3.75 cups water for a firmer rice. Why plain […]