JDW Photos and Life

When I picked up the piece of monkey pod for the cutting board shared a couple of days ago, I also bought a piece of live-edged walnut. It had bark on both sides and a nice sapwood edge with a symmetric center grain. When I was finishing the two cutting boards, I decided to go ahead and use this piece of walnut that had been sitting around for months to make a charcuterie board. As I was milling the board, I decided to add a cheese slicer to the board. Who wants slices of cheese that have been sitting on the board for an hour versus freshly sliced by you to whatever thickness you desire??? The finished board is 19" x 9" x 7/8" - a size OK for a party of two. I would need to find a larger board to support more guests. The total time spent on this board was 2 - 3 hours - a super easy project. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

While making the board posted yesterday, I decided to make another "basic" board that had been on my list of styles to try. In some ways, it's just as easy to make two boards at the same time as one board since I am waiting on glue to cure for stretches of time. I'm already grubby and the shop is already messy so why not use that slack time to make another board? The key to multi-board construction is to have enough clamps! I had flattened and prepared a slab of 2" thick walnut (~10" wide by 40" long) several months ago. Obviously, the board is a brick and mortar pattern. It provided a few challenges in milling and gluing the maple mortar in order to keep everything as an end grain but it was simple in hindsight. This was an easy board to make. The final dimensions are roughly the same as the board shown yesterday (12 x 18 x 1-7/8). Just to answer any question in your head, no, I did not make a 3rd cutting board to show you tomorrow.  I see small improv...

I have no big need nor good excuse to build more cutting or charcuterie boards but I did anyway. I bought a piece of cutoff from a wood shop here in town several months ago (around June). It has been sitting in the shop waiting for inspiration or motivation. After building one of my favorite cutting boards in April using a piece of wood with a great sapwood edge, I found another piece with similar characteristics at this shop. I knew it was shorter than what I really needed for a cutting board but I bought it anyway. Not long after purchase, I flattened it, re-sawed it into book-matched slabs, and then planed it to thickness. That was the end of work for months. Those two pieces sat off to the side in my shop for months in part due to motivation and in part due to frustration over not being quite enough wood to copy the work of my original board. I looked for inspiration to use the pretty book-matched panels but was again limited in my imagination given the limited quantity of material...

This is the end of the Alaska photos. As we continued south, the Denali mountain range became more pronounced. Unfortunately, the clouds set in and we were in rain for the last 1/3 of our trip so we visited with passengers around us. These photos show the heavy clouds over the mountain range (first two photos) but they still have some decent landscape features. The conductor announced we were passing Denali Mountain but the clouds were so heavy, nobody had a clear definition of what the conductor was pointing out! I am guessing that the last photo is Denali Mountain. I have tried comparing its profile to clear-weather photos on the net and I think I'm correct in my assumption. My traveling partners were not giving me much encouragement at the time. To be honest, the photo was more clear (editing can remove some of the haze) in hindsight than I thought we could see at the time. The emails will slow down now as we have not done much since the Alaska trip. I have a few small things I ...

After a short break yesterday, we continue our train journey. The further south we went, the clouds got heavier and heavier. The first photo was obviously taken from my seat as you see reflection shadows on the mountains. The second photo is a nice river shot - now with no clear sky visible. The third shot is the halfway point of the trip where we meet with the north bound train. The engine crews from each train swap places so that they are back to their home base for the evening. The serving staff did not change. It was about a 15 minute pause in the trip and then we were off again. The fourth photo is typical of the real joy of the trip. Lauren is enjoying the cool (and getting cooler) breeze in her face while taking in beautiful scenery. Lauren and I spent quite a bit of the trip in that open air section. Now that I have scared you by saying we are just half way through the train trip, I'll let you know that there are not many photos left. The weather was degrading quickly at th...

And a few more. There looks to be some kind of disease that hit some of these trees in this area.   Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

The first shot is another view of the bridge from yesterday - shooting to the rear of the train as we continued our journey. In the second shot, you see that the train and the main road are on opposite sides of the Nenana River (with one of the MANY tour buses heading north). The last two shots are views of the facilities at the entrance to Denali National Park. Both of those shots were taken from my seat and through the glass of the observation car. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

May be getting repetitive but here are some more nice shots from the train. The first is a quick peek through a deep gorge where I just happened to have the camera ready. The other three photos are various angles of a highway bridge. My favorite is the second photo. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

Just some more Alaska as seen from a train. This old mine entrance looked in pretty good shape. The second photo is a train's equivalent of "if you can read this, you are too close" bumper sticker. We saw several of these and I finally caught a decent photo of one. The last two are "just" landscapes. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

More scenery from a moving platform! Like I said, you don't get a lot of framing choices! I though the second photo was interesting with what appears to be terraces. I wonder if this area had been mined in the past but I didn't see any signs of tailings in that area. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

It seemed that there was another interesting landscape feature around every bend. In this one area, we saw several signs of recent landslides. These shots were taken from my seat (through glass) and have a little bit of reflection and motion blur. I would never have guessed that there was this much soil on these mountains. You can see the sharp rocks under the soil that appear to have stabilized the landslide. Maybe it's not soil and it is just rock/rubble but it still surprises me. Having no knowledge to base my speculation, I wonder if glacier activity was the fundamental force. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

A few more Alaska landscapes - at least as best I could frame them from a moving train. You see the clouds are starting to come in around the mountains (an important fact later in our ride). The variety of landscape was interesting. I can imagine these large, wide river bottoms to once be glacier flows (no clue if that is even close to correct) that could make the Mississippi look small. Rarely do I intentionally take an out-of-focus photo but I did so in the last photo. This is our railcar for the trip with a view of the observation glass. We were in the second row up front. The first half of the trip was maybe 1/3 - 1/2 full. We picked up more passengers later in the trip. I'm standing at the bar where you could use one of your 2 included drink tickets or buy more. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

Just some more scenery and a little more perspective on the train. The two white cars in the back were part of a cruise / tour line. It was interesting to see old telegraph poles along the route. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

We boarded the train in Fairbanks and started our all-day trip south the Anchorage. The train was clean and appeared well maintained. We opted for the Gold Star service after reading reviews and were not disappointed. Our seats were in a domed car with an open viewing deck to the rear. The people around us were very nice and the staff was excellent. The fare included 3 excellent meals in the dining area on the first deck of our car. The train mostly followed the main highway but the leisurely pace was relaxing with the beautiful landscape all around. In the first photo, I stuck my head out of the open area to capture that curve! The second and fourth photo shows the highway bridge across a river. The third photo is the approach to the rail bridge. I had the back deck nearly to my self until more of the car started to realize it was another way to enjoy the trip. It then got a little crowded at times but that's life and everybody was polite and considerate - how unusual in today...

I interrupt the Alaska trip photos with a few photos from the annular solar eclipse Saturday. I posted these (and a few more) on Facebook yesterday but a lot of the people on this e-mail don't have FB (one of the reasons I use e-mail). Donnice and I travelled to Robstown, a bit west of Corpus Christi so we could see the full eclipse. We also used the opportunity to make a visit from an open invitation by a young family to see their place they are working so hard to make a dream a reality. The temperatures were great but the clouds posed a bit of a problem. Fortunately, the heavy clouds in the morning became more wispy with a few breaks into clear sky. After a tour of their land, I pull out my camera only to realize I failed to bring an adapter for my zoom lens - one really dumb mistake. I had a more general purpose lens on the camera so I used it the best I could. What I missed by not using my preferred lens is additional details around the edges that I really wanted to explore. Ev...