Tuesday, August 1, 2017

30th Wedding Anniversary, New Power Tools and a Blog Series idea

 Last week (July 25th) was my wife and I's 30th Wedding Anniversary.  Thats a pretty big milestone, so we decided to splurge a little bit and spend a week at our favorite place in the Florida Keys - Little Palm Island.  We had a very nice little cabana and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  If you like to fish or just see wildlife, the Keys are an amazing place and every day we were either kayaking, fishing, snorkeling or spearfishing.  It really is a fantastic place.


 We also had a firepit that we enjoyed each night.  The suites do not have TV's and internet is very limited so it really forces you to unplug which is another plus.
 Here's my lovely bride - looking forward to the next 30 years
 The place has a few key deer, like this fellow named Trace who swim between the islands.  He's not very shy is he.

Mary Beth took most of the good pictures - we bought a few disposable cameras for snorkeling. I'll post those a bit later.  It was a wonderful week.
 Of course we returned to an overgrown garden
 with just a handful of tomatoes. cakes and peppers
Some of the tomatoes where a bit overripe so it was time to haul out the food mill and bring them down
 "Blood for the blood god"
   
Tomatoes sauce, which will become....
Red Gold!
One of the many blessing I have is my wife who knows what I like and what I need and manages to combine the two into really cool gifts.  This anniversary is no exception and see got me some really nice Festool power tools, like the TS-55 track saw pictured above.  Festool is a german company and they make the Mercedes Benz of power tools - both in terms of quality and pricing.  I also got a certificate to get a few more Festool items like their Domino DF-700 Joiner system.  Oh my, I'm in tool heaven.

People either love Festool (because they have them) or hate them (cause their super expensive).  I'm at that stage in life where I just don't care what others think and I can put these tools to good use.  Bring on my shop's Festool conversion!

and this brings my to my last point for the 5 of you who have waded though my ramblings above.  I'm thinking of doing a series of posts centered around basic to advanced woodworking skills for wargamers.  Essentially a series of how to articles that may range from:

- basic woodworking skills and shop safety tips
- cutting and beveling MDF for terrain pieces
- building dice trays
- building dice towers
- organizers for specific game systems
- display trays
- storage units
- terrain panels
- basic and high-feature gaming tables

I'll do a more specific post about what I'm thinking of doing but would love to hear any ideas from others on what they would like to see.




16 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Hearty congratulations on a most impressive milestone anniversary!
Clearly she is a most forgiving and understanding woman :-)

Peter Douglas said...

Congrats to you and your wife Miles!
My first thought on seeing the title of your post was - there are power tolls that Miles doesn't already own? But have fun with the upgrade, do your best Tim the Toolman Taylor imitation. Looking forward to your new series too.
Cheers
Peter

john de terre neuve said...

Congratulations and very nice hand saw.

jmilesr said...

Hand saw?, HAND SAW? !!!!!!

I'll have you know, Sir, that the Festool TS-55 is a state of the art TRACK SAW and is both faster than a speeding bullet AND able to jump tall buildings in a single bound.

Excuse me while I return to guzzling the pitcher of kool-aid provided by my new Festool overlords.

Harumph hand saw indeed, I'm surrounded by tool philistines.

MartinC said...

happy anniversary. The Key looked amazing. Having the woodworking skills of a man in boxing gloves who's forgotten his tape measure the idea is a good one. The super posh saw is very shiny

Ubique Matt said...

Congrats on the anniversary. The articles all sound very interesting, looking forward to seeing them.

TamsinP said...

She's put up with you for 30 years? There must be something to this mathemagics malarkey after all ;)

Congrats on the anniversary :)

Steve Williams said...

Congratulations! It looks like a very relaxing break. I would very much welcome a woodworking series - I learnt some skills at school as a kid, and then later on, some as a teacher, but clear explanations coupled with relevance to the hobby would probably help the skills 'stick'.

Pastor Burt said...

Congrats! 30 years is an awesome milestone!

Looking forward to the new blog as I contemplate building my own gaming table this year.

Ivor Evans said...

Congrats Miles! Funny, one day earlier for Therese and I, July 24th, married in Newport, RI :)

Lasgunpacker said...

Congratulations! Looks like you had a fun trip to celebrate.

And yes, a woodworking for wargamers blog series would be much appreciated, I have read through your game table posts a few times now, and would appreciate more. (in addition to what you have mentioned, materials, tools, terrain, other sorts of tables/work stations, and ideally each would have a section on how to get by with cheaper/simpler tools... not everyone has a workshop like yours!)

Joe Procopio said...

I'll add my congratulations to the chorus here, as well as express my enthusiasm for a series of posts on a basic woodworking for wargamers series of entries here. I was recently trying to cut and bevel MDF for some terrain pieces with my jigsaw (which I haven't touched in 15 years), and was thoroughly convinced in the end that I really did not know what I was doing. So, yes, this series would be a boon to folks like me!

DaveD said...

An excellent way to,mark a milestone.

Cool tool too..

Yes let's have more woodworkery on the blog o spher

Curt said...

Congratulations Miles and the lovely (and obviously patient and saintly) Mrs. Miles!

Good score on the posh circular cutty thing. I like that it has green bits. Please make me a gaming table. (Notice I said please, cause that has to count for something...)

jmilesr said...

Curt - pay for the wood and shipping and you're on!

You see, being polite does have rewards!

Miles

Curt said...

Hmm, now that is tempting...

Maybe I'll try to convince you to come up to Canada for a build-week. (If you could get through the migrants scampering for the border.)