A Long Winter

December was extremely long, even though the daylight wasn't.

The second round of layoffs at the plant hit, and I, along with 42 others, were part of the exodus. Probably the kick in the ass I needed to get on with my professional life - I hadn't been able to execute many of the plans I had in place and frustration was getting the better part of me. I was more concerned for the people who were left as the workload wasn't going to diminish any.

There were a lot of "goodbyes" to be said after 12 years, it was going to be the people I miss the most. Last week, yet another round of 30 people were let go. By March, the place is going to be a pale ghost of the plant that used to be the jewel in the crown for Zomax during the last 10 years.

I should be able to complete my CPIM designation by next fall and, in the interim (if I can get the study materials and exams scheduled), get my CSCP designation before spring. I think I am going to take a little time before I get seriously looking for the right position. There have been a few postings I've applied for and my resume seems to be getting noticed on the job websites.

Hopefully, I'll be able to help some of the folks out who have been let go in that last round. I still have a few contacts in the valley. I'm probably in a lot better position than most.

The last week was the first week out of work - and man did it drag on. Even trying to keep a routine going (applications, gym, canoe, housework) it felt like the days went on forever. This will probably change once I get accustomed to it, but to go from the fast pace of work to a slow crawl is very hard.

Fit, Form and Function

Last Sunday I set up the bow and stern forms and aligned them to the strong back center line with a string. Some things sound deceptively easy when you are writing - it took me at least 4 hours to get this perfect. The idea is to have a perfectly square set forms in all x, y and z axes.

These look like two dimensional mushrooms from this angle, but these forms are what I will be pinning my cedar strips to. The string (which I'm not sure you can see) runs from end to end about an inch above the tops of the forms. Each form has a center line that you need to align to the string and the center line on the strongback - this makes it square in all direction once you screw it into the station block that were put on earlier.

If you look at it from a slightly different angle, it starts to look a little more like a canoe.

Aligning and squaring these took a few extra hands and eyes - you start to see things after a while.

On the fitness front - it was a sorry state of will power this week. I got out to the gym only twice (once for a cardio workout and once for weights) and I only played one game of hockey. The league game this week was late (10:30pm) and a combination of the weather outside and the nice fireplace inside resulted in an instinctive decision.

I'm digging out an old work out routine to mix things up a bit - changing the workout routine every now and then helps.

MoviePix is running a Bond film marathon this week. Some of these bring back memories of the gang going to see these on a Saturday night at the Somerset. Man, some of these are so cheesy when you look back and scenes obviously stolen from previous movies, you'd think they'd never cleaned off the story board.

Casino Royale is on tonight and I have to say I like the grittier, darker bond films - s it's going to be a toss up between Bond or BSG "Razor" .

...and now....the Larch...

Stealing the title from the Monty Python skit seems appropriate. A lot of work went into leveling the strongback....and it doesn't look that much different.

You've seen it before - now here it is perfectly level. (Ooooh and Aaaah at your leisure)

And here it is with a bunch of sticks on it - oh, the craftsmanship!

I am certainly hoping that this weekend gets to be a little more substantial as far as progress.

Al and Ez put on a new coat of varnish on Ezzie's "Redbird".

In the rink -

We had a break last week. A lot of the guys are out on the hunt, sounds like a good year so far.

I had 3 starts in net and won all 3, although there is plenty of room for improvement. A couple of late mistakes in the last game made it more interesting than it needed to be.

The most unpleasant outing I had in nets was this past week. I made all the saves off the first shots, but the rebounds were terrible. All the follow up shots I would get a piece of, but not enough to make the save (this becomes extremely aggravating). It was like that all night.

My league game last night still haunts me. I got the first goal on a decent enough backhand, but the puck was bouncing on everyone during the game. Transitioning from goal to wing is a bit of a challenge. Towards the end of the game, I was fed a beautiful pass that I couldn't (or didn't) adjust to fast enough to get a one time shot off. Instead, I took it in the skates and tried to set up off the kick up (yeah - didn't work so good).

Keeping up at the gym is helping quite a bit. I am usually able to keep my acceleration and speed up throughout the game, which is a good compensation for my lack-of-skill level.

Bends and Boxes

Puttering away in the woodshop is fun. The pace is a lot slower than work and it requires a great attention to detail - which suits me just fine.

So far, the stems have been crudely constructed and need some planing/finishing before being secured to the strongback forms. A couple of days after the pieces were steamed and clamped, they were taken apart and a laminated together using epoxy. Each of the bonding sides gets 1 coat of the epoxy and another coat of epoxy blended with a filler (Carbosil I beleive was the name). The blended epoxy is also coloured with fine sawdust of the same wood you are bonding (ie walnut or cedar in this case).

The walnut laminate is going to be on the outside of the canoe, the cedar on the inside. In this picture there is a layer of wax paper separating each set so they don't bond together. They need to be clamped together on the form to maintain their shape. When they are paired up during the building process, they are going to need to match perfectly. They'll stay clamped together for about a week which will ensure they do not spread (as would be there natural tendency).

The next step is to prepare the strongback, which will need to be perfectly level and square in all planes. The better it is set up, the fewer "adjustments" need to be made later on. It's like the foundation of a house - so it may take a few days to get it set up right.

This strongback is on loan from a fellow canoe-builder, Peter. It's in very good shape and the only thing I've had to do, so far, is to flip the plywood top. It's been used a few times and had earned a few dents and ridges. Once I have it completely square, I'll mount the forms themselves. That might take a bit of tweaking as well.

Of Ice and Wood

On the ice........

I guess the lads on my league team had a bit of a bad outing a couple of weeks ago - so I was tapped to play last week and this week in the pipes. This makes me goalie # 3 so far this year (I usually play forward in this league) - needless to say, I was a bit nervous.......and so was the rest of the team after the first five minutes and a 0-3 deficit. But we did win that one 5-3 and this last week was a much improved 5-1 win.

Try as I might, I have a terrible time with my glove hand - my stick side is great, and maybe that's whats keeping me looking good, most goalies have a harder time on that side, so that's where most of the shots are. I got the glove on ebay, but the manual never came with it.

The regular goalie has a severe ankle sprain and thinks he might be back after hunting season. But I was talking to my buddy at work who has played nets since he was 6 and he told me he had to take almost a full season to recover from a similar injury (it's the stance and the push-off that can be painful during play, you may not even feel it from day to day).

It's still a blast - all the guys know each other and I was filling in for a goalie on a Sunday night pickup game. That was 4 on 4 with some of the better players from my league - I was soaked by the end of the night.


In the shop....

I finished re-cutting the a couple of the forms that had been damaged through previous builds. I might still have to shave down the edges a bit, but nothing major. Tomorrow, I'll be setting up the strongback and setting in the forms. This provides a skeleton to build the canoe on.

My wood is on order now from my canoe place -and I should be into actual construction by the first week of Nov. The big deal this week was forming the stems for the canoe.

Stems are laminated strips of wood at the two ends of the canoe. I had spent a few hours cutting and planing down some strips of walnut for this. Al Witham (who is essentially teaching me how to do this) finished off the cedar and ash strips during last week.

After steaming the stems for about an hour (just bundle the wood together, set it in a long tube overtop a kettle and plug both ends with rags) Al told me that in theory we have about 45 seconds to get these pieces bent and clamped onto the form......but in reality it was probably closer to 15 sec. A weeks work dependent on 15 sec.....boy I love carpentry!.

Everything went well and even Al and my friend Ez were suprised, because no one who made canoes with them had ever tried to bend walnut before (I found this out afterwards).

Some fun

Ok - no posts since August. Yeah, things are going that well. Work seems to be sapping the life out of me.

So - as far as fun updates from Iain....

Tuesday night hockey (The Rusty Blades) has started and we are all floating around having fun. One chap was caught backchecking, at least that's what we believe the term is - he was sternly reprimanded...well maybe mocked ad nauseum in the dressing room is a better way to phrase it.

It's always a good skate - even though I was playing nets last week and was helping the lads pad their stats.

Thursday night hockey is on, as well. Gentlemen's league. A little more competetive - at least the off season conditioning helped a bit. Still a good time - I leave the Industrial Hockey to the the twentysomethings who are still trying to make the NHL.

I have tweaked my PC a bit - finding a new graphics card and a new power supply. Well, new to me. Purchased via ebay - they are running well. Can't really tweak it any further, but I do enjoy tinkering with PCs. Though I don't think I could do it for a living. Our IT Department (one guy) is a now a self-confessed ludite who has nothing to do with computers outside of work.

So, coming up for the winter: APICs night school, cedar strip canoe project and music lessons on the guitar if I can find the time.

On Walden Pond

Getting out for a couple of weeks was needed. Deb and I hunkered down at the cottage for the whole two weeks of vacation - and it was great.



Work has been getting the best of me lately. I knew I was stressed, but no idea how badly. After coming back from holidays, my guts were immediately in a knot and I had trouble sleeping all week. Far too much going on at the plant and a lot of staff cuts were made final this week.


Although the weather wasn't as hot as Deb likes it (ie air temperature 30 and martni temperature 10 or less), it was always sunny and the martinis were always cold.




However, while I was at the lake, I made the best of it. Read a couple of novels (actually two and a half), made some repairs, built some chairs and had some very nice leisurely dinners with friends and family.



The chairs were made out of left over lumber from my back deck at home. It's red cedar and the grain looks amazing with the clear finish (the picture is the unfinished product).

I could only use a jigsaw and my circular saw, so a lot of the cuts are done by eye without a guide. I think they turned out pretty good - just goes to show what you can do if you can take your time and have fun with something.

Of course, I couldn't put a brand new chair on the ratty, old looking deck (at least I think those were the words used - just kidding Deb).





















Still - it was very relaxing.

Craig and Karen came up for a weekend and we all had a blast. Friday and Saturday night were both spent in front of the fire pit looking at the stars and watching the meteor showers. Quite a sight.


At one point, we all spotted a satellite moving across the sky. As chance would have it, it caught the light of the sun that had just set low behind the mountain. It was like a flash bulb from space, only for a second, but something none of us had ever seen before.



We had brought the "fur kids" up with us and they had a blast. Phantom bagged 2 shrews and a field mouse - no credit was given for the 2 chipmunks that played possum until they were dropped. If only I could have captured the look of suprise on his face when they bolted under the cottage - he must have had it figured out after that as he was on a mission every time he went out.

Phantom also found a snake - which was very entertaining as he had never seen one before. It reared up a couple of times trying to look imposing, but Phantom batted at the things head like a ill tuned metronome - wow a toy that moves on it's own. Not to worry, it got away unharmed.



One thing I am glad to see is the variety of wildlife around the lake. A good sign of a balanced eco-system. There were tons of frogs and toads this year. Karen saw a snapping turtle with a shell about 2 feet in diameter. Minks (possibly otters) have been seen around as well as a couple of ospreys (which is a first). The loons had two young ones this year and it looks like they are eating well given their size.


So, now it's back to the grind. Hopefully, the batteries are recharged enough to see me through to Christmas. This break sure does help put things in perspective.