Riverbend Journal

  I am familiar with radon. It is a radioactive gas produced by decaying uranium deposits underground and is particularly prevalent in some parts of this country but not mine. It has been linked to cancer especially in significant exposures and if one has comorbidities like being a smoker. The gas is heavier than air so tends to collect in basements of houses which are prevalent in my part of the world. But in this part of Iowa, radon isn't listed as being abundantly around and is more hit and miss in nature. One house can have a problem and another 100 yards away won't. One of the old farmhouses I spent my later teens in had a radon problem but my parents had a mitigation system put in to bring it down to safer levels. When we moved into this house some twelve plus years ago, testing for radon did cross my mind but since this house, as with both houses I've owned, had a walk out basement. In my mind, it meant that any heavier than air radon that accumulated in the basement...

  In preparation for a house project that needed doing, I had to make some space in our storage/laundry/utility room to make some room for the work to be done. In doing so, it brought up this project from long ago. Above is the first computer I ever saw or used and I even learned how to do Basic programming on it, creating at least one program that my family used for awhile. Mostly I played various games on it when allowed by my parents.  At some point, it was gifted to me by my family and I thought it might be nice to set it up and be nostalgic of old times by playing some of the old games or seeing if I could remember my Basic programming skills. I put it in the storage room and there it has sat for I don't know how many years, in the corner gathering dust. Moving it out to create some working space reminded me that I likely will never accomplish the nostalgic fix but I could probably clean it up and sell it to someone who might. Empty space has also become more valuable to ...

  I have a love hate relationship with my local big box LowNards Depot, more hate than love. But when living out in rural America, there isn't a lot of better options especially since they drove out all their mom and pop competitors years ago. So when I placed my order for six sheets of A1 graded red oak plywood, I knew just getting it home would be a struggle. Under current prices, not sure if the tariffs on Canadian wood is in place or not as of this writing, this stuff is pricey coming in at about $120 per sheet. I need six sheets. I could have paid for delivery but in my past experiences, delivery operators that LowNards Depot contracts out too are usually reliably rough in handling the merchandise, not to mention, it would cost me the price of another sheet of plywood to pay for the service. The alternative is to just haul it myself. It is a lot of physical labor and six sheets is pushing the envelope of what my poor old minivan can handle, but I thought with no need to hurry,...

  March 24 With full intentions of beginning work on the altar project in earnest, I went to the local big box wood store, my sole supplier of plywood and found their selection to be very lacking. So I went back home and placed my order online for some superior looking product, hopefully, which I will not wait patiently a week for delivery. Meanwhile, I did a tour of our property looking for signs of spring and found some. Above is a flat of basil in our greenhouse that is indeed starting to show life. We planted three early flats using leftover seeds and none of the three every sprouted. To be fair, our unheated greenhouse received at least six days of below freezing weather during the early morning hours which may have played a part. The above flat was one we replanted a little over a week ago along with me replanting the tomatoes. They haven't shown life yet but it takes a little bit longer for them to sprout. March 24 In the garden, the surest signs of life is the garlic patch....

  I have been commissioned to build an altar for a neighboring church and though a bit nervous since previously, all my work has stayed in my own home or with close family members, I agreed to do it. After some back and forth, the design that was settled on is shown above. It is the CAD file that I created based upon some rendered drawings provided me. Now that my show is clear and the weather is starting to warm up, I thought it time to get started on the project. The first step was to create a template to use in making the ogee arch details on the front of the altar. First I created a dimensioned print of the area in question. To create the ogee arch, I had to learn the geometric tricks involved for creating it which required some YouTube research.  This was helpful in drawing it on some MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) to create the template. I only need one template and will just transfer it twice to get the proper locations. MDF is great for templating material as it is ea...