The boat project is going well, there are more hours involved in the re-purposing than I expected but it’s been fun. Here you can see the box the mattress fits in.
I have all the wood on the bottom and 5 coats of varnish laid down now. Sanding between coats has my arms looking like Popeye the sailor man…. 
I can now turn the boat over and finish out the top. The bow will be a toy box, the cowl will raise on brass hinges like a car hood. A motion activated light will mount inside the toy box so when the lid is raised, the light comes on. I just bought the magnetic hidden latch that holds the hood shut until you push to release it. You’ve seen those on bathroom mirror cabinets right? push to close, push again to open…. A hidden latch will work well, not detract from the lines of the boat.
I love how the wood looks. The lighter color is of course new wood, the darker wood is the 30 year old highly abused original boat bottom. Its hard to replicate the richness of old wood isn’t it? I still have to make a display base for the project. I’ll stain the stand much darker, so the boat will display nicely. I think my 3 x 21 belt sander is about to give up the ghost… I should call this build “grind and sand” because that’s what it’s been. Building a new boat doesn’t include deconstruction, this project is as much about deconstruction as the build out.
I have some ideas about how I’m doing the dash board, but it won’t be clear until I start holding pieces up where I think they go to make that final decision. … still a little “butt scratching” to do but that’s part of the fun of it too. If your from the South, you are familiar with my mental imagery. Some would hold their thumb up and look past it, some might frame the piece with both hands like a movie producer, some would sit on a rock with fist under chin to consider it, others might cross their arms and tap their lip with a one finger to decide. Here in the south its just butt scratching…. nothing fancy, nothing presumptuous, and definitely not meant to be rude…. Unless you know “southern charm” intimately you might regret my choice of imagery, but I promise it’s well chosen and not meant to be offensive in any way. Self deprecating southern hospitality should never be misconstrued and thoughtlessness.
I know I’m digressing here, leaving the previous subject, but now that the Superbowl and the Presidency are decided…. I’d like to take this opportunity to say why don’t we all calm down… huh? It’s simple really, if your an American you are blessed. If you are an immigrant, simply don’t come here if your angry about what America represents. Here is the Oath you have to take to become a naturalized American citizen: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.” I’m a simple guy, but this looks pretty clear to me. If you swear this oath to obtain citizenship, shouldn’t you lose that gift if your actions are different than your words? I’m just a dumb country boy but it seems to me, the contract you made to become a citizen is broken when you don’t entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen. If you don’t defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic shouldn’t you lose the status it affords?
Yeah yeah… I know the executive order to step back and take a better look at immigrants might have been rolled out better, but what do you do? There’s no way to stop the immigration process other than to just stop it. If you warn people it’s like saying OK, all you dangerous immigrants come this week… because next week it will be too late. Sometimes the best solution is actually the simple solution. That’s why I voted for a businessman.. and no, I didn’t expect him to be Ronald Regan… we didn’t have that choice did we? Trump’s a narcissistic duffus, we all know that, but he’s also not stalemated by political correctness like the Washington elites have been for decades. The only difference between self grandizing Trump, and any of the other self grandizing politicians are that Trump says it to your face and the rest do it in secret behind your back. A politicians LIFE is self promotion, this one just looks you in the face and you don’t like it.
Action after years of inaction is going to look different…. get used to it. If your too good to be led by an American billionaire, I don’t know what to tell you, I guess my advice would be to get over yourself, your not that tall of a ruler either. Trump isn’t going to drop by your house for dinner. We need major changes regarding how America handles itself and other countries, this latest hooraahh shall pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass…. and we will all be better off for it.
Consider his unconventionality as entertainment, we might have to if all those Hollywood whiners quit, lol. Here’s a hint for you too (pssst… those guys on TV… they are actors, that stuff on TV isn’t real. They lie to your face for a living, they make you believe something is true that isn’t and the better they do it…… the more we pay them. Don’t let the characters they adeptly portray endear you, or provoke any kind of value decision…. that’s what we pay them to do, actors are just like politicians…. why would anybody mistake them as agents of truth? Consider that for a while….. am I right, or way off base here?
The only reason I can think of we would want to listen to an actor or politician is that somehow America craves deception. Is the truth too blunt, too real… do you need somebody to lie to you and make you believe things are OK? while they secretly manipulate us all? I’m so tired of that covert / subversive norm…. I would have elected Woody Woodpecker over somebody that lives and breathes the Washington elites “rare air”. The silent majority (which I consider myself one of) finally had to say something about how America is run. The pendulum that swings from Perceived Truth to Reality was hung up on the left side…. What people perceive as truth has much to do with what lawyers can currently prove in court. Think about that a while….
Politically crafted social “truth” is designed by those that make money manipulating those rules for their own profit, either in money or in power. Often social acceptability has very little to do with reality… It’s all about what some lawyer can prove in court.
Reality sometimes hurts… sometimes life causes pain. If you allow your kids to grow up in an environment that absolutely denies them a scab or mental scrape, they won’t know how to handle themselves as an adult. They might grow up and decide to give a big speech on women’s rights, forgetting they make their living dancing half naked on stage, putting their womanhood in the face of fans so they can touch it.. women’s rights…. really? They might decide to protest a pipeline crossings for “ecological reasons” and literally trash miles of the surrounding country when they leave camp. They might do stupid stuff like that….. If your kids don’t have a strong sense of reality they are a leaf in the wind my friend.
I’m not a Democrat or a Republican, I vote for who I think America needs at the time so don’t write me off as your opponent, I promise I’m not… I’m just an old guy that had enough scabs and broken bones while I grew up, experienced enough reality in my life to know what’s real… and what’s politically or socially impressive at the moment.
Trump is going to stand there and tell you things you don’t want to hear, OK. He’s going to shoot himself in the foot from time to time but the man wears steel toed boots, he’ll be fine, get over it nobody thinks he’s perfect. If you think your going to “help” the situation by protesting Trump, you better do it with reality in hand…. not some left handed ideology that is frankly getting very old and starting to show how far off base you really are. My humble advice is to quit acting poorly while you are ahead.
If your one of those who prefer to not look while the political elite lie cheat and steal as a normal part of daily business, lets be fair…. It’s time we expect better. I lived years regretting the norm, the sliminess of Washington politics, the underhanded political shell games made me so dizzy I was sick… Now, finally our elected leader is doing exactly what we elected him to do… don’t be mad at him, be mad at me if that helps. It wasn’t Putin, it wasn’t Comey, it wasn’t even the damaged opposition candidate that put Trump in the white house, it was real people like me. People that were tired of denying the Christian principles and standards this country was founded on. Blame me (the silent majority) and quit acting a fool.
Man that got way off subject didn’t it? Sorry about that… going back in my hole..