Prediction Analysis

The Dancing with the Stars finale was last night. Now that the season is over, let's see how well I did with my predictions after the first show of the season...

The new season of Dancing with the Stars premiered last night, so it's time for my predictions. It seems like this season has a lot of really good dancers and a lot of really bad dancers. No heartbreak will occur for about the first five people kicked off (Gary Busey, Paula Deen, Chaka Khan, Victor Espinoza, and Kim Zolciak Biermann). After that, things will get real as the good dancers battle it out. 

Yep. Busey, Deen, Khan, Espinoza, and Biermann were all bad dancers - and were the first 5 to be eliminated (or to withdraw in the case of Biermann who would have been eliminated had she not withdrawn).

Here's what I predict:

1. Chaka Khan danced to "I Feel For You" on the first show, so next week she'll dance to "I'm Every Woman." Then if she gets kicked off there's no loss since she already danced to her only two songs people would recognize. (side note: Chaka Khan's real name is Yvette Marie Stevens - doesn't exactly have the same ring to it) Chaka Khan isn't too good, but at least she's better than the trainwreck that was Lolo Jones. She didn't dance to "I'm Every Woman," but she sang it during the finale. Singing > Dancing for her anyway.
2. Andy Grammer will dance to "Keep Your Head Up" this season since Derek & Nastia Liukin already used "Honey, I'm Good" for their Charleston last season (while Andy performed the song). Nope. He danced to "Good to Be Alive" instead.
3. Anna has contracted multiple diseases from just having to touch Gary Busey. I hope she showers immediately after rehearsals and shows. Probably.
4. Tamar is a good dancer, but she's way too outspoken. Her mouth will get her kicked off eventually when she says something that makes people stop voting for her. Sort of. The show had started to spin Tamar in a negative way, but then her illness took her out of the competition.
5. Alek and Lindsay start dating. Just change Lindsay to Emma and this is correct. As it turns out, Lindsay got married earlier this year.
6. Emma goes back to old partners next season after putting up with a 15-year-old this season. Emma sure seemed happy with Alek during the switch-up. Maybe the producers will take pity on her next season and give her someone her own age.
7. Credit to J for this prediction: Bindi Irwin will dance with a snake at some point during the season (by the way, J only watches DWTS to see Emma, who he finds highly attractive). Surprisingly, Alexa danced with a snake for her Britney Spears dance, not Bindi.

Board Beginnings

J has been busy making cutting boards, especially now that the holiday season is upon us. We took a trip to the hardwoods store yesterday to get more supplies.

If you've wondered where the boards begin, this is where. The hardwoods store is a huge warehouse full of just about every type of wood you've ever heard of (and many more you've never heard of). We sort through the stacks of maple, rustic walnut, and American cherry to find somewhat-equal amounts of each that are the right dimensions for dicing up blocks with as little waste as possible.

Rough wood.

Once we choose the pieces, they are milled in the back area of the warehouse by staff. Each is sent through the planer to flatten it, jointer to make the edges straight, and a giant sander to smooth it out. Once it's finished, it looks like this.

Milled wood.

From here, it gets taken home to J's workshop where he starts the cutting board making process. Eventually, he ends up with finished boards like this!

Potatoes and Cabbage

This week, I had the privilege to attend a flower arranging program with Laura Dowling, the former White House Chief Floral Designer. Her program consisted of tips and tricks for making wreaths and arrangements, as well as an extended question & answer session while she created several bouquets.

It was interesting to hear some of the "behind the scenes" stories about decorating the White House, especially at Christmas. For example, this Bo form is made out of 40,000 pipe cleaners that were hand-braided by volunteers for weeks prior to assembly.

Front row: Real Bo. Back row: Faux Bo.

Fun side note: Did you know that the White House has Bo and Sunny "houndstooth" wrapping paper that you can download and print?

Laura also talked about one of the Christmas trees that was way too big to fit through the White House doors. It ended up needing to be trimmed on the bottom, tied as tight as possible, and basically shoved through the door like a battering ram.

It was especially interesting to hear her story of competing to become the Chief Floral Designer since her graduate education is the same as mine. Before making a career change about 15 years ago, she had previously worked in public policy which she studied in college. She also holds a masters degree in management which she said was a huge help during the White House interview process. It turns out that interviewers were initially more interested in her experience with budgeting and project management than her design philosophy.

At the end of the evening, the arrangements she had created were raffled off to attendees. One of the bouquets included both cabbage and potatoes and my guest for the event had leaned over to me and said, "if I put potatoes in my floral arrangements, my family would think that I was nuts!" Well, guess who ended winning that bouquet!

That's an edible arrangement if I've ever seen one!

Clothes Rack

From J:

A's long nightmare is over. I finally completed a clothes rack for the bedroom. My first time using splined miters and pegs - this was a fun build.

Basic idea: make a mitered picture frame out of hard maple, then make an inset for that frame out of some tiger maple that you scored a super sweet deal on because it was in the regular hard maple pile at the lumber yard. I resawed the tiger maple to recess it in the frame and give the piece some dimension. The tiger maple is captured in the frame by some 1/4" dado slots. No glue on the inset, only around the miters, to let the tiger maple float and expand/contract with the seasons without busting up the frame. I added some v-grooves to the tiger maple at the router table for visual interest.

Plenty of clamps for this glueup.

Now for the fun part: splines. Splines are thin pieces of wood that bridge the two halves of a miter joint to add strength. Miter joints are just end grain glued to end grain, which is inherently weak. A spline adds a continuous long grain-long grain glue joint across the gap - much stronger. To cut my splines, I made a little jig that fits on my crosscut sled. It holds the piece at a 45 degree angle to the saw blade. You slide just the corner of the piece across the blade to make a slot that's 1/8" wide (the width of the blade) and a 1/2" or so deep. Repeat on all four corners.

It might not look very safe, but trust me: it is.

 Now, add the splines. I used the leftover thin pieces of tiger maple from resawing cut roughly to size. Glue liberally and slide into place. After the glue sets, use a flush trim saw to cut off the excess, then plane everything flat.

I found some maple shaker pegs at my local lumber supplier. Drill some holes, add glue, coerce them into place with a mallet. Drill two holes for mounting to the wall. Sand everything to 220 and finish with Arm-R-Seal semi gloss. The screw holes are covered with some maple buttons that were also finished with Arm-R-Seal. They're just tapped into place and can be removed if necessary for remounting.

Mmm, those stripes on the tiger maple. Delicious.

Project cost: around $10. Not much wood in this one!

Project thoughts: splines went well and building the jig was fun. My miters were pretty good, but not perfect - I'll need to be better about this in the future. Finish turned out well. Overall very pleased, and this was a long overdue project.

Up next: cutting boards and Christmas gifts.

Leaves!

I give you... Leaf Extravaganza 2015!

Good thing we got XL lawn bags... these grey leaves are huge!

Mani Margi Pedi Party

The "witch nails" that I grew out made it through Halloween! I lost nearly all manual dexterity (ever tried performing daily tasks with nails this long?), but at least my nails were festive!

Speaking of festive nails, I gave myself a harvest pedicure over the weekend. If you can't tell, those are little fall leaves.

Now that Halloween is over, the stores are in full Christmas mode. Apparently Schnauzers are hot this year, although we think they're hot every year. We saw this inflatable Christmas decoration on our latest trip to Home Depot.

Tis the season for Schnauzers!

Clamps

From J:

Sometimes the stars align, the Heavens smile upon you, and you have the perfect clamp experience. Little victories.