Chez Kreider Sunderland

Bill and I are successfully moved in to our new home at 4114 Dayton Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103! We were fortunate to find something that was so close to both of our apartments, so "carload after carload" was the moving company we used. Kara had just arrived the day after we got the keys, so she got to help with the beginning of the move. She likened our sidewalk leading up to the house to a "3 story walk-up" in NYC... and Bill and I are already plotting to get a clinometer (used for trail layout) so that we can adequately determine the elevation gain from the "trail head" up to our front door. And, of course, trail head signage will be necessary. Other interesting details - it has (supposedly) an 150 year-old apricot tree out back from (supposedly) one of Seattle's first orchards. It also has a koi pond, which as far as Bill and I can tell, consists of one giant koi that lurks at the bottom and a bunch of little goldfish that a great blue heron was seen feasting on the other day (but, since the great blue is Bill's spiritual guide, it was a good sign!). It was built in 1922, and although it has seen major upgrades, it doesn't appear that anyone particularly handy has ever lived in the house, which means Bill will have plenty of little projects/upgrades to keep him busy, since he is quite handy.

From the dining room, looking to the front of the house:
The kitchen has french doors that opens to the back yard.
Bill bringing home some groceries up the sorta steep sidewalk:
Back of the house, with friend Heidi. We were enjoying some sun!
And, a little game of Settlers with friends. This is looking from the living room to the back of the house. Dining room is through the large opening, and Bill's office is through that back door. The floor in his office slopes 4 inches, due to settling when they added on many years ago. He is detemined to get that fixed:
We certainly hope that you will come visit - we even have room for multiple guests at one time!

Wind on Water, Peconic Bay

Big Pine Key, Florida

Normally we'd fly fish every day, but this trip was different.   There were howling winds out of the northeast at 25 - 30 knots and frequent rainstorms night and day.   With the chance of lightning one doesn't want to be on the water anyway.  We did lots of cooking, went to Key West one day to the Apple store, saw a movie and ate Chinese.  Never once picked up a rod.  The water temperature was a chilly 69 degrees so no fish were hanging about on the flats.  They'd gone to warmer deeper water. 

 We did get one day of calm with intermittent tropical sunlight that turned the water a warm turquoise from time to time.  Amy's dad, Gordy, said let's go.  He took us to the "outback country" 6 or 7 miles into the Gulf of Mexico to a group of mangrove keys known as the East and West Content Keys, a great place to fish on white sand flats. The fish are very hard to see but on a sunny day one can see their shadows and figure where to cast.  It's also a great place to see wildlife.  We got few good photos due to the motion of the boat and the long zoom distances but we had a lot of fun trying.

Gordy & Amy

Great White Heron

Osprey Dining on Fish

Threading Through A Mangrove

Alligator in Fresh Water Blue Hole

Effect of the Sun on White Sand Flat

Common Terns on a Wreck

Ibis

Hurricane Damage

Pelican

Pelican Rookery

Mennonite Chickens

Stongs is our local grocery store, where we do most of our shopping. I could make a snarky remark about the sign, but the Kreider brothers are quite able to make their own such remark!

Cutchogue Weekend

This weekend is my first post to the blog (thanks to a patient tutoring session with Mark) and marks the fifth annual visit of Kara and me with Mark and Amy in February. These visits always fall on President's Day weekend at the beginning of Kara's winter term break. This is also the time of Mark's birthday! I went to the DeWitt Clinton high school with Kara on Friday in the Bronx, reconnecting with the teachers I've been seeing there each year in the English Department's faculty lounge. It was two weeks into the second semester at a time when Kara was adapting to all-new students, but she already had them well in hand (i.e., very disciplined and meeting her expectations of decorum and participation in the class room) and we had a great time discussing literary devices and themes with them before and after I read aloud a DeMaupassant short story. We were exhausted at the end of the day and took naps before I went with Kara to the local gym before we had late dinner with her boyfriend Nick Demopoulos.

The restaurant where we met Nick was located around the corner from the apartment building in the East Village where Kay and I had lived during 1969-1972 when I was in I-W alternative service and Kay taught elementary school at PS 188 on Houston Street--at the lower end of East Village. Nick, who has previously visited Mark and Amy in Cutchogue--a prerequisite for gaining necessary approval to meet me, has lived in the City for 12 years, and works with his own band as a musician. While I have not personally heard him play, I enjoyed meeting him for the first time and finding areas of common interest. For example, he plays Bach violin partitas on his guitar! I also enjoyed hearing of his six week trip to the Middle East last year where his group performed and conducted workshops in several countries (U.A.E., Dubai, Yemen) in a solidly booked schedule under sponsorship of the US State Department.

Saturday morning Kara and I caught the Long Island Railroad train at 8:19am at Penn Station and arrived at Bayside to be greeted by Amy. We thus began our wonderful weekend together with Mark and Amy, heading to Cutchogue via a Starbucks-fueled road trip in the Jeep. After a relaxing afternoon of some napping and bread making, we dined on two of Mark's home made soups (corned beef and cabbage, and tomato) accompanied by various cheeses, breads, fruits, and the wonderful Blackberry wine from the famed wine region of Kansas. Sunday breakfast began with espresso made from an ancient Italian manual machine that involves an inversion and drip through process which works amazingly well. It followed with sparkling cider, "eggs Florentine" (pictured here) which is a most wonderful combination of home made toasted bread topped with spinach greens, lox, poached eggs, and hollindaise sauce, and, sectioned citrus with pecans, apples, and dried cranberries. This has been a perfectly sunny weekend and we took advantage of that to get in some walks around the Laurel Lake Preserve near Mattituck as well as the Little Peconic Bay beach at the end of Pequash Ave. Mark and I both spoke with Grandpa Kreider afterwards and were delighted to find him bright and alert, so we had a very satisfying conversation with him.

I also have to mention that last night Mark showed me the process he uses to play internet poker games with various participants including Bruce, which was quite fascinating to watch. I understand Bruce is easily able to participate in and win two games, simultaneously, while instant messaging Mark and spending quality time with Kristin who I understand often sits at his side for the sessions. I am amazed at how rapidly his mind must be capable of working.

Tonight, Amy prepared a wonderful dinner of Peconic Bay Scallops and shrimp, accompanied by a fresh green salad, young red potatos, toasted bread topped with her special roasted garlic spread and a nice North Fork white wine. While having after-dinner coffee during a game of Super Scrabble Deluxe (which involves a much larger board than regular Scrabble) Amy brought out a Red Velvet birthday cake topped with cream cheese frosting and accompanied with ice creams. It was nice to see Mark win with a score of 468! Scoring can be quite high in that game format.

Book on Hans

This is a view from Hans' picture window

Shoo-Shoo, my one and only nude model

Whenever Hans wants to read the newspaper, Shoo-Shoo jumps on it. This is breakfast.

I may crop this for the front cover of the eventual book. This is a winter sunrise reflected off the front picture window. Sheila designed the renovations and asked for this particularly wide window (wide in those days).

I always enter from the upper back (fewer steps to climb). I caught Hans heating milk for his coffee and cereal (the Austrian way).

It was snowing (again), the mountains are invisible.

This alley shot was taken from his front yard, but he cannot see this from his house.

Sheila collected cards and put them up in the basement. Since they collected teddy bears, people usually sent cards on that theme. When we first took our young children here for dinner, Sheila had them go downstairs to count the bears.

I took this this morning. I like its wistfulness. We already know the book is about preserving memories.

Time and again I get up, check the sky, and if it is promising, go to his place to take some pictures. We cannot see sunrises at our place because of the tall trees.

I have been working on a book for Hans which will help to preserve memories for him. He has become an enthusiastic partner in the project, encouraging me at every turn. He is eager to share copies with relatives in Austria who have never seen Vancouver or any part of his life here. Now another older friend is hoping that I will create a similar book for him . . . this could take care of 'free time' for quite a while.

Mark Makes A Mess!

The newest photos of this series are at the bottom.

Amy and I in a moment of confusion decided to make some "improvements" to our house. What seems like such a simple project can become quite complicated when one doesn't really know what he's doing and just figures it out on the fly. The first project is building a through-the-wall cabinet to hold glassware etc., and to let more light into the kitchen. Now that the hole is cut, there's no turning back. This is called the Regret Stage. Sheetrock dust is everywhere (my navel for instance) even though I used a Shop-Vac attached to the jig saw. Cleaning up takes more time than all the other aspects combined.



I'm going to experiment making this a serial blog subject, adding text and pictures to it now and again by back dating posts. The new photos will be at the bottom as I progress... wish me luck

Blank Slate

Regret Stage

Routing

To be able to put glass into my doors I needed to route 48 linear feet of wood frame, the verticals and horizontals of the four future doors. As you can see, I had the Shop-Vac attached to the router. It was a big help in keeping the mess minimal. Please click to enlarge the photos for a full, enjoyable experience.

The Set-up

The Happy Result

The Box & Door Frame Horizontals

Here's the box, the walls, ceiling and floor of the future cabinet. It's dimensions are approximately 46" by 34", I won't go into the sixteenths. After glueing and screwing I used wood-fill to "cheat" everything into looking as good as possible hiding minor flaws. It will be flipped 90 degrees when mounted making it longer than high.

I finished all the cutting and routing on the door frame verticals and horizontals and didn't like what I had. It was too complicated needing way too many tiny adjustments to properly marry the pieces and I started thinking that it might not be the strongest way to do it (Regret Stage II), hence, off to the lumber yard for more wood, all that routing and mess and cleaning up in vain.

The Ones I Didn't Like, aka Kindling

Remaking the Door Frames

The compound joints I attempted was a phenomenal waste of time though I did learn something from it.  KISS... Keep It Simple Stupid!  The experience did make my relationship with the table saw more intimate.  I keep thinking how much I could have learned if I'd spent a few days with Kay's Dad in his shop.  A lifetime opportunity missed.

I decided to go with lap joints, a very straight forward and strong joint, glued, then pinned with a dowel.  The wood is 5/4" thick (hardwood measure) so the structure should be very solid.  After cutting the horizontals to equal lengths I lined them up and taped them together four at a time so as to mass produce them and make them as near identical as possible.  I practiced with a waste piece of wood until the saw blade was exactly half the height of the lumber so that when one lap lay upon another it would equal an original piece.  That took some time, but when you've got it, you've got it and all the wood can be cut to fit.  Starting at the end of the wood I made a cut, moved the wood one blade width (the kerf) cut again and repeated 20 or so times until I had the length of lap needed.

Next was checking the fit and sanding the laps smooth so the glue wouldn't experience any voids however minuscule.

One by one I clamped each frame together,  measured, then drilled the holes for the dowels. I started with a fairly small bit, made the first hole, then used a larger bit and finally a larger bit, 21/64ths to accept a 5/16ths dowel without needing to force it with a hammer. Using graduating bits kept rip-out to a minimum.

Cutting Dowels to Length

The poplar is 5/4" lumber.  When milled it's 1 and 1/16th.  I cut the dowels just a hair longer so they could be sanded flush.

Lap Joint and Dowel Glued and In Place

 

Dry Time

The 65 Mile Router Bit

I've been working on the "hole in the wall" for a little while every day.  I finished sanding the fills on the second set of frames.  Next step is routing out insets for the glass (again!).  I want the inset or reveal to be 1/4".  My smallest rabbet bit with a guide bearing is 3/8ths and I felt that was too big last time.  I went to Bob's hardware here in Cutchogue to buy a 1/4" bit, he didn't have one, then Orlowski's in Mattituck, nope, then Hart's in Southold, uh-uh, then Riverhead Building Supply in Greenport, they have everything but NO, then White's in Greenport.  He didn't have one either but there I learned that some bits can get a different reveal profile by using a different size bearing.  Of course, he had no bearings but back at Riverhead Building Supply they did (why didn't they tell me about this when I was there the first tme saying I've got a 3/8ths and I need a 1/4 ???).  So, I picked up a bearing, $6 as opposed to $25 - $30 for a new bit, took it home to find that mine has a different spindle diameter.  Time for lunch.  

Driving west I stopped at Jamesport Hardware just in case, then continued to the Riverhead Building Supply main location in Riverhead.  At last...  they had a 3/8th rabbet bit which with the bearing I'd just bought would cut a 1/4" reveal.  Oh, bits have gone up since I last bought one...  $45 smackers not including fuel and depreciation!  Ka-ching! 

The Bit... As Elusive as a Yeti's Tooth

Back To Routing

Now that the door frames are mostly assembled I'll route them out for the glass panes. Once around with the router doesn't make a deep enough cut so I needed to reset the depth and take another pass. The test board will become a depth key as I'll need to use both depths for each door. The last two are still drying so they'll get done later. Once routed, a squaring angle is marked, then chiseled and carved out.

Key