Projects!

I gave the presentation I talked about here.  It went well. 


About three weeks before the presentation, I went to visit the venue (it's a gallery in a small store) and talked to someone there about the set up.  The person I talked to (a store worker) said they were well able to set up power points and such, and I could bring my own computer or a flash drive.  I gave him my name and number; he said the person responsible would call a bit ahead to check what I needed.


But I didn't get a call.  I thought about going into the store again, but I was busy (see below), and since I'd gone in earlier, I didn't go again.  I did prep the talk with a powerpoint (to show some pictures), and a handout (for text passages), and put my powerpoint on my computer and on a flashdrive.


So I went in 45 minutes early on the day of.  The chairs were ready, the podium was ready, but they weren't at all ready for anything computerish.  But they got on it.  The person working the store called someone else, and they figured it out, connected their Mac, and I used my flash drive.


Then the person in charge of the local group came in and was surprised that I needed computerish stuff.  She said that the person responsible had called her, but she'd told them that we wouldn't need any computer stuff.  And it didn't occur to her to check with the actual speaker (me) about that, or to give them my name and number.  (And who knows what happened to the information I gave the first store worker.)


But, as I said, it went well.  There was a small but appreciative audience.


After I'd done the initial prep, as I predicted, I felt free to do other stuff. 


I woke up one morning, and decided that the other stuff would be sanding down and repainting the woodwork on the front porch.


Here's what I started with:

I'm lucky to have good neighbors, who lent me a sander, which was wonderful.

But as I was working on that, I thought about what to do about the bench, too.

It used to look nice, but it's really weathered since I got it (maybe 14 or so years ago).  I consulted with my neighbor, and decided to get some yellow paint for the wood and gray rust stuff for the metal.

I took it all apart, sanded.  There was a lot of sanding and priming.  Everything got two coats of priming.

Then I decided on another pair of projects, the ugly yellow circle on the front door and the woodwork around the garage door.





Once you're sanding, priming and painting a bunch, you may as well go for it.  All the house stuff would be the same color (the sort of light buff around the garage), and I chose a nice yellow for the bench.

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Look!

So now I'm off for a week's vacation visiting a friend in a somewhat far away city.