Patrick O'Connor

I tested the dowel making jig I built last weekend tonight. It works nicely & produced some usable 3/16" dowels. I need them to plug holes in mason bee nesting blocks. The scrap I used for the test was a bit iffy, but it proved I can create dowels that small with a bit of patience. 👍

I salvaged a bunch of clean wood from broken pallets for making mason bee nesting blocks. The wood is perfect for this job & it's being thrown away otherwise. When I harvest the cocoons next October the wood bits make great kindling: the ashes go into the compost for soil enrichment. 👍

Huh?!? Didn't clue into this before. Cool synchronicity. 👍

It's amazing how well CPAP machines work. It would be great if there was another solution that didn't require a mask & hose etc., but so far CPAP is what we have. 👍 When my wife & I travel I like to pretend I forgot my machine. 😄

a man holding a camera asks another man " listen do you smell something ? " ALT: a man holding a camera asks another man " listen do you smell something ? "

This sounds a lot like the plot of Ghostbusters II 🤔

👍Spot on good science. My question would be: By the time the sonic boom from falling space debris is detected, what opportunity would there be to do anything about it?

Almost finished restoring my Dad's old ball peen hammer. Mostly I just sanded & varathaned the handle (and polished the head a bit). Now I'm drizzling CA (krazy) glue into the top to seal things in tight. I don't want a 1-1/2 pound chunk of metal flying through the air when I use it on something.

Perhaps Denmark should launch an official probe into the Epstein affair, with witnesses & firsthand accounts, in retaliation for the aggressive moves on Greenland. Shine more sunlight where it hurts the most.

Eddie Murphy

What! Sorry to hear. It's a dangerous pastime at times.

A busy week ahead at Vancouver City Council.

From public washroom access and arts funding, to housing, childcare, and downtown planning — here’s a quick look at what’s coming up and why it matters.

🎥 Watch for a 60-second rundown.

#Vancouver #CityCouncil #vanpoli

This slab flattening jig I built over Christmas is working beautifully. It was a lot of precision work to build, but now it takes no time at all to flatten woodworking projects that are too wide for my planer. And it lets me move to the next steps on this guitar project. 👍🎸👇

I remember reading an article once that argued dinosaurs were trending toward upright bipedalism before they went extinct 65 million years ago. This photo seems to point to that argument having some validity. Perhaps even as a supporting argument in favour of the strong anthropic principle. 👍

When my wife started playing pickleball she slipped, fell, and hurt her back/butt. They called paramedics for her to be safe. The paramedics had a bit of a chuckle hearing that she was hurt in a freak pickleball accident. Same at the ER. Humour heals.

Guitar players will understand. I'm repairing this Epiphone SG neck & building a custom jig to route channels for reinforcing splines. The guitar was broken when I fished it from a friend's garbage can several years ago. Fixing it properly this time.

But my favourite Barney's Beanery story was the time Phil "Road Mangler" Kaufman & Mick Jagger were kicked out for not having ID. Story told to me by close friends of Phil K. They shared a house with him in North Hollywood. I stayed there with them once for a month in the early 80s.

There's also the famous story where Morrison reportedly jumped up on the bar counter at Barney's Beanery in Hollywood and proceeded to urinate on it.

"Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see"

Had just enough energy left when I got home tonight to crack open the remaining mason bee blocks from my friend's orchard and retrieve the cocoons. 👇 Now to wash and clean them all for cold storage until late February.

I'm a bit late harvesting the Orchard Mason Bee cocoons from my backyard colony (usually done late October). But it hasn't been cold this winter to date. So all good. I'm guesstimating close to 300+ cocoons: And I still have to retrieve the motherload from my friend's orchar.

Restoring my Dad's old ball peen hammer. I don't know exactly why he had a metalworking hammer, but it must have made sense back in the day. I'll varnish it later. The dark marks are CA (Krazy) glue I used to fill the small hairline cracks to make the handle strong.

On the off chance that I might find the manual online for my Dad's table saw from the 50s (mine for the past nearly 30 years), I checked and there it was in a pdf. Seems it was a popular saw. It works great with a few quirks. I've been using this saw or helping since childhood: On my own @ 12 yrs.

Definitely the funniest movie ever made. I knew a couple of brothers who had a band. They saw the movie and didn't realize the Tap weren't a real band. They weren't the brightest bulbs. 😀

I've decided I do like marigolds. I'd gone off them because of the bi-colour maroon & yellow ones I saw as a child. But there are a lot of different varieties & colours now to pick from. These orange ones have been a nice splash against the more muted occupants of my garden this summer. 👍

Rhubarb did well this year as it always does. 👇 I must have snagged a really good variety when I rescued the original plant bits from an elderly neighbour's compost heap.

This year's basil crop produced well, but next year I'll plant fewer plants because it's time my kids started growing their own if they want endless pesto year round. 👇

Yup, and in Johnstone Straight as well. That whole region in fact. I remember going down a narrow channel on a fish packer with orcas swimming alongside sharing that channel.

I'm curious whether the word "totem" is a preferred term for poles. I was told a while back that Indigenous communities in BC don't use the word totem (it's a European description that simply got used and stuck). Curious to know the scoop. 👍

Sometimes you come across a broken pallet at Rona, and you just know those ugly, rough boards will plane out into something quite nice and usable. 👍