Labour Day Weekend.

Well friends, I have survived my first week of school (with all of my appendages too, might I add).

Friday was a godsend. The violin kids have the day off, so we guitar kids don't need to fight with them for grinders. I may have also skipped a few kids in my own class to use the grinder, but I was damn determined to get my block plane blade ground before this long weekend. 
Grinding a blade is a frustratingly imprecise procedure. You need to grind the bevel on your blade to a 25 degree angle while maintaining the straightness of the edge, which takes a LONG time to get just right. It is especially difficult to measure the straightness/squareness because the grinder creates a burr on the edge that you are trying to measure, and it can play tricks on your eyes. Then, once that meets the standards of the instructor, you need to lightly hone the edge of the blade on your whetstones, but be careful, because one pass too many, and you have to re-grind the bevel. UBER STRESSFUL.

So, after I got all of that fun stuff with the block plane taken care of, I was given an 8" piece of mahogany that I was supposed to plane all 4 faces flat and square to each other. Of course, by the time I finished all of my grinding, there were only really gnarly pieces of wood to work with, but I got my first face flat and level and checked off by the instructor. I would work on my second face over the weekend.

In power tools class, I was finally able to joint my first face and edge on the jointer. I totally got the adrenaline shakes using that machine, because for some reason, the jointer scares me more than any of the other machines. One of the benefits to being in the last group to use a particular machine is, that by the time you are done working on your current machine, chances are you got go right ahead and use the next machine right away. I was able to use the jointer, planer, and table saw all in one class period. I went from being behind the rest of my classmates to level footing in one class period. Awesome.

One of the downsides to living in this town is that everyone is either a) really old or b) still in high school. My social life is more or less nonexistent in this town. So, my Friday night consisted of a bottle of Jameson, a snickers blizzard from DQ, and bad movies on Netflix. I did get a call from my friends back home and I briefly was able to interrupt their fantasy football draft, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

On Saturday, I decided to ride my bike about town to one of the really nice bike trails that circles the city. After about an hour trying to fix a leak in my tire pump, so that I could inflate my tires to go riding...I was on my way. For about a block. because the chain fell off my sprocket. UGH. 
I was able to fix it and finally able to go on my ride. It is about a mile from where I am staying to the trail head. I then proceeded to ride until I came across this spot called Belle Creek:

   That's when I decided to turn around and make my way back. My round trip was about 22 miles. I haven't ridden that long since New Zealand, and boy, did my legs tell me. I slept really well that night.

Sunday, I wanted to continue to familiarize myself with the town by going to the laundromat to do a load of darks (my bike stuff was REALLY stinky). It was pretty painless, that is until a local asked me if he could use some of my laundry detergent. 
"Sure, how much do you need?"
"Enough for 2 loads." 
not seeing the harm in sacrificing 2 cap-fulls, I lent him my bottle. Jerk took half of my bottle, poured it into his bottle and promptly bolted. I've been had!
I spent the rest of the day going from store to store looking for another bottle of ultra Tide laundry detergent (which they don't carry here AT ALL). I did, however, pick up a few more school supplies that I neglected to think to pack before I moved...I found a really good fresh sushi place practically across the street from my place, I worked on my mahogany block, I was able to watch the Brewers game, AND played guitar for like the first time in a month...the day wasn't a total loss.

Finally, today.
I spent the morning wandering about Memorial Park, which is a really neat park set on top of the bluffs overlooking the city.

After that sweat-fest (seriously 90 degrees with close to 100% humidity), I took a little stroll around the rest of downtown and found my way to the Red Wing Boot store. Needless to say, I picked out the boots I wanted, but I didn't buy them yet, because SOMEONE has his birthday this week. I did, however finally buy that lunchbox I needed for school: 

Here's to week 2....