Slow going today.

I ended up taking the roof off the treehouse and making a few changes. Thinking about the design a little bit more I wasn’t happy with the way the panels were attached. 2 clear polycarbonate panels (like skylights) and 2 brown polycarbonate panels to blend into the trees behind the structure — I really like the material and colors: super-light, easy to work with (mostly), aesthetics are good.

The mistake I made was that I attached the roof framing (very light 1×4 cedar) and then screwed the panels down with pole barn screws from above. The screws have a rubber washer to seal the screw hole in the plastic. The first panel, top-outside screw as very tricky to get in being the farthest away – I had an 8ft ladder on top of the treehouse deck. Too big a reach and not really safe. I couldn’t see through the solid brown panels, so without a chalk line – a little bit tough to get the screw line straight (I could have snapped a chalk line but didn’t). I managed to attach all the panels, the last panel from the outside of the treehouse – way way up on the ladder.

Good design shouldn’t be so difficult. It should be simple and elegant.

I was thinking it through one night and realized that I should have fabricated the entire roof assembly and then lifted it up to attach it (the panels are very light. I also noticed that some of the pole barn screws were coming through the underside of the 1×4 – so the material was too thin. Oftentimes the reaction to problems like this is to build around it – and I could have. I could have added another strip of 1x material on the inside to cover any screws that were poking through; but this is the road to bad design. This happens all the time in software. It’s the same problem.

In climbing there is the concept of SRENE. I think the acronym may have changed slightly in the last 10 years, it stands for Solid, Redundant, Equalized, No Extension. It’s the correct way to build belay anchors.  Catastrophic accidents are rare in the mountains and most can be chalked up to objective hazards – rockfall, avalanche, etc. Most risk can be mitigated though. Travel before sun hit, dig an avy pit, etc.  Most accidents that happen are a result of cumulative mistakes – it’s never the first mistake, but it’s a chain of mistakes that lead to a catastrophic failure.  Mostly it’s the reasoning that, “it’s good enough”. The first few probably are and you won’t get nailed… not until the third, fourth or fifth. Best to never make the first mistake. So I took down the roof and built it correctly.

I also built the ladder to get into the treehouse. The slope should be gentle enough to walk facing down. Always tricky getting the correct angle and then the proper angle of the treads.

Once I scribed one 2×12, I just transferred the angle and  spacing to the other side. The rise is about 7 inches for an 11 1/2″ tread, 20 wide. Comfortable slope and wide enough for little humans (and probably dogs). Tricky to get the first couple of treads attached working solo; big cabinet clamps helped but it was awkward.  The base still needs to be graded, then I’ll use a leftover piece of flagstone for the ladder base.

Maybe it will be a deserted island or a castle or a spaceship or a private boat …

Let the wild rumpus start!

 

That’s the code word for _runner_ in Forest Park with the day campers (kids) I encounter on the trails. It means split off the trail to let the runner through. Super cute and makes me smile every time I hear it as they yell it up and down the trail.

I was going to take the day off, then went  across the street and worked from Glyph all morning… and had a latte…and didn’t take the day off. Literally binging on the trails. And don’t even care.

http://www.strava.com/activities/173693815

This loop is one of my favorites from the office. I used to be just crushed on the last climb up to Council Crest;  today I just slowed it down a little and pressed harder – a ride and tie pace. I was imagining that I was running down my horse who just bucked me off. Cause that’s what you do when you get bucked off – run ’em down…all day pace. Like a cowboy Raramuri.

There were some tourists(?) on the Marquam trail right after crossing over Hwy 26 taking a big group picture – I was running up behind the photographer thinking, -what is this?- there are so many beautiful places to get a picture in Forest Park and this isn’t one of them. They did a banana split and I heard over my music, “he’s got more energy than us” as I ran up past them. *You have no idea citizen*.

I stopped my watch and looked up the road toward the caboose. I couldn’t see it.  I can wait for 3 more minutes I thought to myself. Another runner came up the path and I jokingly said, “you could just jump through…”. He turned around and went the other way. I waited…1 more minute.

I peeled off my shirt and tied it around my waist thinking: I don’t want to run around the Esplanade. I came over here to run the flats – alone. What if the train starts to move? What is risk anyway? I worked with a guy in Virginia whose brother used to ride the rails, he was trying to get to Alaska. His brother had trouble with the law and drugs.

When I graduated from high school and left Georgia for D.C. I rode the train from Atlanta to Union Station. Woodie Guthrie to the Delta Blues – music travels on the rails. I left the Shuffle on my desk today . I wanted to drop the hammer and it takes focus. Music is a distraction – sometimes that’s a good thing. Not today. I wanted to feel it.

10 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

I climbed up a 3 step ladder at a refrigeration car, ducked my head under the motor, jumped down the other side, started my watch and spun the engine back up.

I worked hard today. It was hot, I was hurting.  It was pure bliss.
http://www.strava.com/activities/173190448

 

 

It usually comes when I’m just about wrapped with a project. I’ll step back and look… and have the urge to rip it apart and start over. Once you do something the first time – you learn so many things that you didn’t know when you started – seems like a natural urge.

I reached that point today as I was trying to determine a way to screw in the last roof panel – the apex is about 14 feet off the ground. Dicey reach from the ladder while holding screws at the same time.  I found a way to hold the screw in my mouth (threads in) and pull it off my lips with the magnetic tip of the drill bit [warning: do not try that at home.]

This one was sketched as I was building it – I built the platform and then starting thinking about how to make it light, open, airy, bright…and safe. It’s a mix of clear Cedar. I’d still like to make it a bit more weather tight. I was thinking maybe canvas or sail cloth with grommets added and then pulled taut around each side (the back is solid Cedar). It would keep the wind out and make it more usable when the weather cools in the fall.

There is also no way to get into it yet – by design.

I was not able to satisfy the customer’s request of “a sink to wash hands” and “a shower”. Maybe the next one will have plumbing.

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My medium/short weekend run has been the loop from Mt Tabor to downtown, over Hawthorne, back over the Steel bridge and then back up the hill to home for 8 miles. My short/short is up Mt Tabor for a quick 5’er.

Unbelievably, I changed my medium/short run this morning in an attempt to do more anaerobic threshold training. I ran the Tabor 5’er, but went back up Tabor twice more 🙂 for a total of 3 climbs. Mileage came in just over 9, still making it a medium/short run.

It seemed like there were a lot of people running this morning, I was thinking maybe the Fall marathon people are starting to do weekend group runs.

“Fall 7 times, get up 8 times”
– someone’s Kanji tattoo (somewhere)

I was thinking a lot about being a beginner and having beginner’s mind this morning. I passed a lady near the top of my 2nd loop nearing the top of Mt. Tabor and I gave her a, “good job.” During Mt. Hood 50 miler (the course consisted of 2 big loops) – on the first loop everyone was giving and getting “lookin’ good”, “good job”. The second loop – after everyone had been running for 35 miles… nada. Maybe eye contact and a grunt. The difference was stark. And very funny.

I’m not sure if she was thinking <–STFU–> or maybe it gave her a little bump nearing the top of a long climb. The thing that no one every stresses though – is that when people start out doing *anything* no one knows what they’re doing. And everyone is a beginner. Like the Karate Kid.

http://www.strava.com/activities/171244917 Mile 6 was a ton o’ fun – I pulled off my shirt and ran like a [mountain goat?] down the backside of the mountain (it’s really a hill)… but I learned that 3 loops are good for 1K vertical, so I’ll take it.

JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

I’m finding myself in a lazy summer morning routine – sleeping late, relaxing with the paper and coffee – then shoving off for work. I took the long way to the office today which entails running East away from downtown and up to the top of Mt Tabor, then down the back of the park, over to Laurelhurst park and onto  the regular cycle commute route over the Burnside bridge into downtown. It’s 8.5 miles, starts with a nice climb and then rolls mostly downhill all the way to downtown. It’s nice running trails like a wild animal on the way into the office. The inbound run is always fun. Outbound with wet clothes and tired legs sucks.

On my run I was mentally preparing a deep philosophical treatise on ‘being uncomfortable’ and how good it is for you.  e.g. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, but actually I did… mean to.”

It was amazing and inspirational — I was going to write about how everyone should do something to get out of their comfort zone each day and it will become easier and easier and how great it will make you feel. When I got to my desk I tried to write it down and I bogged down in a distinction between being physically uncomfortable or mentally uncomfortable (which is really just fear), or emotionally uncomfortable (which is something else). And couldn’t get past the distinction between the three types.  I thought of examples of being physically uncomfortable which were really just physical exhaustion, mentally uncomfortable (some climbing examples).

Then it just devolved into a litany of things I’ve done over the years where I was just really terrified… stories of misadventures in the mountains (they were really adventures). In the end I’m not sure what I actually meant about being uncomfortable — maybe something about breaking out of habits, trying something new and dreaming big dreams (that are worthy of your time and attention).

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Something like that, well stated by someone much more eloquent than I.

Inbound:
http://www.strava.com/activities/170344345
I *cannot believe* I was able to 808 State my average. Amazing.

Outbound:
http://www.strava.com/activities/170547937
This was uncomfortable.

I have thought for a long time now that if, some day, the increasing efficiency for the technique of destruction finally causes our species to disappear from the earth, it will not be cruelty that will be responsible for our extinction and still less, of course, the indignation that cruelty awakens and the reprisals and vengeance that it brings upon itself…but the docility, the lack of responsibility of the modern man, his base subservient acceptance of every common decree. The horrors that we have seen, the still greater horrors we shall presently see, are not signs that rebels insubordinate, untamable men are increasing in number throughout the world, but rather that there is a constant increase in the number of obedient, docile men.

—George Bernanos