Before we had brunch with the Browns, we had a great visit from Pat Babka and his fiance, Laura. They drove all the way down from Minneapolis to spend Saturday with us, so we had to make the most of it.
Pat and I went out and had a 7 a.m. round of nine holes at Columbus Park. We got back in time to take Francis to Scoville Park to meet the Easter Bunny at 10:00. Unfortunately, the Bunny didn’t meet his end of the deal. We waited around for a while and met up with some friends of ours, but the Easter Bunny never showed up. We finally saw him on our drive home.
When we got back, Pat and Laura graciously helped us get some things done around our house that really needed to get done. We lugged air conditioners upstairs and shelves to the basement.
I then enlisted Pat’s help in cutting the tabletop for Francis’s table and chairs. For those interested in the mechanics of this process, continue reading this paragraph. Otherwise, skip ahead to the next one. We started cutting a 36″ circle using a pivot on the bandsaw table (basically a nail around which the workpiece spun). That wasn’t creating an accurate cut – more of a spiral. So we took the piece off of the pivot and roughed out a circle to about 1/4″ – 1/8″ accuracy. Now, here’s the master stroke: we mounted my router (with a 3/4″ straight bit) on a 5″ x 20″ piece of coated particle board. I nailed one end of the board to the center of the circle, and that pivot point guided the router in a perfect 17 1/2″ radius around the circle. It was beautiful.
We had steak and potatoes for dinner, and ended up wishing we lived closer to each other. Funny how that’s a topic on this board often – our friends are scattered to the winds.
by Sally
Kristen - If only you'd lived in Austin, you wouldn't be so scattered, now would you?? Please move soon. I'm saving a place for you.