There has been just too much of that reality stuff going on to get caught up on links. The last couple of days has been finishing up a new website and getting ready for Robyn's visit. Robyn is our 8 year old granddaughter who will be on spring break next week. Jenny, my oldest, and William are her parents and they all live at Fort Carson, Colorado, except that William is temporarily residing in Baghdad. She will be flying unaccompanied so this is a big adventure for her. She arrives at 11:20pm tomorrow night. Pictures will ensue. We can hardly wait!

Wednesday was another trip to the dentist for some oral surgery. My favorite way to spend an afternoon. Tuesday we made it down to Tacoma to visit Zoe's mom, Gerry, who has Alzheimer's. She was in a good mood and a good time was had by all. Most of her conversation was not understandable but it was easy to get the feeling and there were times when Gerry actually did make sense. I made up some of Gerry's squash souffle and Zoe make some of Gerry's "American Sphaghetti" (with tomato sauce and Cheez Whiz - comfort food from when Zoe was a kid.) Gerry loved it. Zoe has a lot more. It was good seeing her. I wish it wasn't a 2 1/2 hour trip each way.

And, to back up one more day, Monday was over at my friend Vern's building the box for my 5x7 Burke & James Commercial View camera. It will go into the rolling luggage camera case I'm making.

Vern's wood shop is perhaps a little overkill for this little project. He is currently using it to mill custom trim work for a 5,300 square foot house he is working on. High end stuff. We used 1/4" square section spruce to hold the box together. He ran the spruce thru a planer to get it down to 1/4 inch thick.

We had first cut up some marine grade 4mm thick plywood for the box sides.

Then he cut the spruce into 1/4" strips. Twigs he called them.

Then to cut the twigs to length.

He used a pneumatic pin gun to shoot teeny pins into the plywood and spruce to hold it together while the glue went off.

The box takes shape.

The final piece goes together to achieve boxness. Now I need to glue foam on the inside and install in in the rolling luggage. Now I need to design a top to the box that will also hold sheet film holders. I will be back at Verns for more building but probably not until Robyn's visit is over.