Let's Try This...

 Back in the ... well, I started reading quite a few folks who ware no longer with us, and thinking "ya know, maybe I could do it."  And I kept it up for for  a few years, but things have...  Well, changed a lot.

For starters, no longer being responsible for other folks computers has been both good and bad.  I still enjoy working on and with computers, but I do not have to be responsible for what happens when one of my fellow employees clicks on a link in an email that might seem harmless...  and never is.  I haven't clicked on a link in an email message in at least 20 years now.  At where I work now, there are regular "phishing" messages that show up and we're supposed to report them as phishing.  I usually do.  But most of the emails with links that come into my work address get deleted immediately.  

Other than that, I'm doing well health-wise.  I'm not twenty, or even forty, but I'm feeling much better than I had.  Surgery is coming in early November, so there's a hurdle, but I'm going to hope I can start a streak of posting.  

So what else is there to whine about?  Well, I suppose eventually I'll wander into politics, but I'm going to try to stay out of that for a while.  I am working to get another workbench built.  This one is going to be a carefully considered one, not just a "table in the garage".  This one is going to be a bit unusual. I'm planning a tool-storage workbench.  I haven't had one of those.  

The plan is to start from the top.  I'm going to put a piece of pegboard up so I can hang the tools up that I need and can find them.  Then I hope to build the rest of the bench as boxes.  I'm usually looking for tools, or parts of tools, that I have scattered all over.  So my intent is to build the bottom portion of the toolbench is a a box for boxes.  The intent is to build two rows of four boxes each, out of 3/4" Plywood.  The "base" of the box will be three inches wider than the box, because I'm going to build a sort of set of runners for the boxes to ride on.  I'm hopefully going to find an affordable source of whats called UHMW plastic.  The UHMW stands for Ultra High Molecular Weight plastic - or in other words, it's a dense plastic that is often used for things like cutting boards.

I first encountered it 17 years ago when helping my daughter with a science experiment for school.  It was science fair time, and she wanted to do something fun.  At the time, we were interested in "Punkin Chunkin" where they would launch pumpkins downrange using a variety of medieval machines of destruction.  She did some research then asked for help, and I suggested we build some scale models.  Because I lacked a ready supply of animal grease to lubricate the machines, I did some homework and found a supply of that material.  

I wrapped the steel pipe we used for the pivot with the plastic, and it worked just fine.  Then I found a lot of cuttong boards were made with the stuff, and it could also be used for homemade drawer slides.  So I'm going to put some strips on frames in the bench, so I can slide boxes in and out.  And I'll cut some nice handholds into the front and sides to allow me to carry the box to where ever I'm going to work.  That should help get me better organized out there...

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