Working Overseas: Brno at Night

After work, I went out to dinner with another consultant from Adobe.  We shared stories from the field and generally talked over surprisingly good steaks.

I forgot my camera when we went out, so after we got back to the hotel, I grabbed my camera and went out to get some pictures as night was closing in.



Here's the hotel I'm staying at, the Grandhotel Brno


The contrast of old and new buildings in Brno can be pretty shocking.


The Freedom Square or Lower Market, the largest and oldest square (ironically it's actually triangular) in Brno, we went to dinner at a restaurant just off here.


The Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul the seat of the diocese of Brno. It sits over the city on the top of the hill and can been seen from nearly any point.

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Working Overseas: Vienna

When I arrived in Vienna Sunday morning, I was pretty tired from the trip, but I really wanted to make the most of my chance to see the city.  I was able to delay picking up my rental car and foisted by bags off on the rental agency with a promise that there was nothing ticking in them.

After some checking I got a ticket for the S7 train into Wien Mitte (Vienna Center), the country coming into Vienna was picturesque.



Once into Vienna proper, I got off the train and promptly wandered into a food festival called Genuss Festival in the Stadtpark, one of the larger parks in the city. There I bought myself a traditional Viennese meal, roasted pork with potatoes, mustard & fennel sauerkraut and dark bread, and of course a beer. The food was really good and having the experience of eating it in this picturesque park was quite something.



After I finished my meal, I wandered up through the narrow streets to St. Stephen's Cathedral the main cathedral in Vienna. The square around the cathedral was quite busy and inside there was a mass going on.



Unfortunately, right as I was leaving the cathedral, it started to rain, leaving me to huddle under the awning of a closed store until it let up a bit and I set off to the Hofburg, the imperial palace of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and residence of the President of Austria.



There I walked the grounds and visited the amazing State Hall of the Austrian National Library. The sheer number of books there and their obvious age was just astounding.



After leaving the State Hall, I found a nearby cafe and got my kafee and apfelstrudel.



I walked around the Hofburg and it's grounds and was about to leave, when I stumbled onto Café Central, which I had been trying to find before. The Cafe had been a central meeting house for many notable figures of the 19th and 20th centuries and I could not give up the chance to go in, plus I really needed another cup of coffee.



After I finished the coffee, I really needed to get to Brno, the drive there was interesting to say the least as it was raining pretty heavily and the sun was starting to set. I made it safely, and pretty much promptly crashed.

You can see the rest of the photos on SmugMug.

Boat Motor Part 1

Earlier in August I found a boat motor under my mother-in-law's back porch.  She didn't want it, so I decided I would try to fix it up and make myself a fishing boat.  After some research, I found out that the motor is a Johnson DT-39.  I was even able to find a fully restored one online.

The motor, after being pulled out from under the deck.

Making a Stand

After I got the motor back down to Dayton, I made a stand for the motor.  It only took two 2x4's, some screws and a couple nuts & bolts.

The motor on it's new stand

It looks like the spark plugs need to be replaced, and I found some good tips on fixing up Johnson motors from this era.

Back of the motor with the cowling down

Other side of the motor

The back of the motor

Over the next couple months I hope to get the motor cleaned, fixed up and working.  

4th of July 2012

We've posted all of the photos we took this 4th of July on SmugMug. You can also see some of the highlights on Google Plus.

Painting the Nursery

Though we are still hoping to sell the house Tricia and I decided to paint the nursery so we can be sure the baby has a warm, comfortable nursery.

First, I started emptying the room and removing the various pieces and parts that needed to go before painting. And that's when I got my first surprise.

Bees! About two years ago bees had gotten into the house through an unblocked hole and we never figured out how they got in... Well now we know.

After vacuuming out the bees, I continued cleaning and everything seemed back on track, until ADD kicked in. I found that two small cracks on the wall seemed to be coming up around the edge. I decided to keep chipping and peeling until I got to solid plaster. It seemed to make sense until I found that I had chipped off about square feet of plaster in two different sections of the wall.

Still, the Internet came to the rescue. After reading about fixing plaster walls and a trip to Ace Hardware, I was able to purchase plaster and a texture spray to fix my mess. I cleaned up the cracks that caused the issue and spent the first evening filling and smoothing the plaster.

Early Saturday morning I was able to add the texture to match the old sections of the wall. Tricia had picked out the colors of the room. She decided to have a two-color design with a lighter color on top and a darker color below, separated by a chair rail. Since the top color was supposed was above the drying texture I was able to start painting.

At the same time, I had also retrieved an old bookshelf I'd had for years. It was partially painted and so the day before I sanded and primed it. I decided to use the same paint as the room, painting the outside the darker color and the inside the lighter color. Painting was painstaking, but kept me busier than watching the paint on the wall dry.

After some pretty repetitive paint cycles I was able to paint both the top and bottom colors on the wall and the entire bookshelf. Once I had the paint finished, I put up the chair rail and filled and painted it.

It was a long, long weekend, but the nursery is now beautiful and ready for our baby.

Refinishing Tricia's Rocking Horse, Part III

This weekend, I put two coats of polyurethane, giving the horse a bright, shiny exterior and a long lifetime of heavy use. Once the polyurethane dried, I added the new ears and screwed the base back onto the rocker.

A closeup of the horse's head with new ears.

The horse with reassembled with new ears.

While I was working on reassembling the horse, Tricia started trimming and arranging the new yarn for the mane.

Tricia arranging the yarn for the new mane.

Soon after I finished reassembling the horse, Tricia finished creating the mane. It was a challenge getting the mane to fit into the groove, it was a very tight fit. I ended up using a nail punch to cram the mane down into the groove.

The horse with it's new mane.

Tricia and Cameron with the horse.

Finally, just a bit later, the mane was ready to go. We used a coat hanger to pull it through a hole in the back of the horse and fastened in place with a dowel I nailed in.

The finished product.

Refinishing Tricia's Rocking Horse, Part II

After finishing up stripping and sanding Tricia's old rocking horse, I started staining it.  Tricia and I chose a dark cherry stain to complement the baby furniture we have picked out.

The top and rocker right after staining.

Closeup of the rocker body.

Closeup of the top of the rocking horse.