Rainy Days and Tuesdays

Tuesday was another occasionally rainy day. Although it was still warm, the dampness made it feel unpleasant.

Unfortunately, it started raining before lunch this time. I had to go out to both the hardware store and to Westborn. For my hardware store, I picked one of the few non-chain ones left around here at Farmington and Five-Mile. You know, the old-school type where the owners still work there and people actually help you.

From there I went over to Westborn. Since time was running out, I bought a container of chicken soup and took it back to work with me to eat at my desk. I hadn’t bought anything that needed refrigeration, just lettuce, tomatoes, apples and a head of cauliflower, so I figured my purchases could wait in the car until I went home at 5:00 PM.

At home after work, I fetched my garbage can in from the street and chatted with my neighbor for a short time in the light rain (he was getting his can in, too).

Inside, I treated the cats and then immediately went back out to the garage. I turned the clock over and applied the first coat of polyurethane to it. Afterwards, I made a mockup of one of the joints of the clock. I glued and nailed two short blocks of wood to a longer piece of wood and then clamped a round hour indicator wooden disk onto that. Now that I am close to being done, I want to practice the final phase on the mockup before actually attempting it on the clock. It would be a shame to ruin it at this point, the point of no return!

Back inside, I set the stove timer for another 1 1/2 hours and watched the end of the news. Then I heated up the last of the cheesy potato chowder for my dinner.

The timer went off and I went out to apply the second coat of polyurethane to the clock. Back inside, I watched the new NCIS in real time, for the first time in a long time.

Then I watched two extraordinary  shows I had taped. The first, on Nova, was called Ancient Computer. It dealt with a corroded bronze lump found by sponge divers in 1900 from a wrecked Roman ship. It was with a vast treasure of Greek bronze statues, coins and so on. What was fascinating about it was that small gears could be seen in it, although it has been dated around the 1^st century BC!  Only now, using modern technology, could the contents of it be examined and the inscription be read to determine what it was. It is called the Antikythera Mechanism if you want to look it up.

The second was called Dangerous Edge – A Life of Graham Greene and dealt with that author’s life and works. Since I am a fan, I found that show interesting as well.

It was 11:30 by the time the show ended and so I went to bed.