Constitution Build Log Dec 18 2013

The holidays have been busy and progress on the USS Constitution has been slow. I have finished all the standing rigging for the lower masts, and have stepped the main topmast. All the stays, backstays, and shrouds for the main topmast are now complete. Here is the model and the real deal in a similar configuration.

Comedy or Errors

Yesterday
So I got home from work yesterday and found a FedEx delivery tag on the door, but it said they left our package at 1324 St Katherines Way. What the heck?!  +Joanne Turek and I walked across the street to 1324, but no one came to the door. JoAnne was working the concession stand at a wrestling match at school, so we just decided to try again later and off she went.
I decided to take the dogs for a walk to the entrance and back, then when I got back I changed the cat litter from up stairs. As I was going back to the house from the curb where the garbage barrel was located, the neighbor from across the street came up to me with "the package!"
I took it inside and put it with another box we had received the day before. I texted JoAnne and told her I had the package.

Me: The man across the street saw me walking the dogs and brought the package over.
JAT: K what is it?
Me: A paste board box with something inside
JAT: Hmmm
JAT: Well open it lol
Me: Argh
Me: I don't think I was supposed to open it yet. It is for me
JAT: Well don't open it
JAT: LOL
ME: Now it is too late, chuckles!
JAT: What is it?

JAT: Uh oh. I didn't realize that was coming feed ex (sic)
Me: Did you mean: Feed ox?
JAT: Yep
JAT: Hope you like it
ME: I do! Just not sure what to do about it. At least I have proof you told me to open it
JAT: Enjoy it.
So that is how Christmas came early to South Carolina.

Today
The circus continued this morning, but with not so much a happy ending. I got up as usual about 0520, got dressed and took out the dogs. I know I had my keys since I took the truck key off the ring to start the truck so the windows would defrost. I went back in, packed my lunch, kissed JAT goodbye and headed off to work. When I got to work, I got out of the truck, grabbed my bags, and reached into my pocket to get the truck key - and discovered I had two truck keys, two car keys, two house keys. Yup. Somehow I managed to grab both my keys and JAT's keys. She has no way to get to work. KRASNY OKTYABR!!!! I jump in the truck and head back to Rock Hill. I tried to call, but I think JAT was in the shower and didn't answer. Tried again at about Carowinds. About the time I passed the Ft Mill exit she calls me and asks if I know where her keys are. I tell her yes. They are at Ft Mill exit but should be home by 0715. She thinks about it and then says she will call Lisa and ask for a ride so I don't have to come all the way home. Short story, she got her ride. I will pick her up at school after work and I got back to the office avoiding most of the rush hour traffice by 0730. Thanks, honey! Guess I owe you dinner and a movie when I get home :-)

Shakespeare, eat your heart out!

Thanksgiving Trip 2013 Part Three - Going Home

Saturday, 30 November
We started our journey back to South Carolina a little later that we had planned, getting on the road around 1pm. Because of our experience with traffic in Austin on the trip into San Antonio, we decided to take a more "back road" route going home just to check out an alternate.

Only about the first 1/3 of the trip was on mostly 4-lane roads. The rest was on two-lane roads like I used to travel on as a kid. Still, the speed limit on the 4-lanes was usually 75mph and on the 2-lane 70mph.

It was interesting watching the landscape. The first part of the trip the land was rolling hills and scrub oak with lots of ranches. Some ranches had grand sized houses (in the likeness of South Fork on the TV show Dallas) but most were fairly modest homes - in many cases the work facilities out back were larger indicating a real working ranch. And you would see a pretty nice ranch on one side of the highway with a run-down trailer on the other side. After crossing I-45 the hills became more pronounced and the scrub oak landscape started to give way to "real" trees and woodland.

TX21, about 3:30pm, Bryan Texas
I used to live here back in...

• Rewind nearly to the beginning of the tape << 1958-59 Bryan Texas

Other than remembering a drive-in theater on the road to our house, I have no idea where we lived.

Christmas 1958

The drive-in is long gone so that doesn't help. I do remember Christmas time, dad had a reel-to-reel tape recorder and he had Christmas music recorded on it. And one album he had was a Bing Crosby record with White Christmas, Silent Night, Christmas in Killarney, Mele Kalikimaka on it. Here we are in 2013, and JoAnne and I are listening to the same "record" on the iPod in the car. Jessi could not find her copy of it earlier this week so I uploaded to the Skydrive so she could get it. I am sure my dad just put a microphone in front of a record player to get his recording of it back in the day.  In the picture, I would have been almost 5, and Mike would have been 3 1/2 years old. Notice his red vehicle and compare to JT vehicle in my previous blog. Some things may change, but some traditions live on.

It was about 4pm when we got to Madisonville, Texas. We were getting hungry and figured there would be someplace to eat when we crossed the interstate. +Joanne Turek said she would like some Tex-Mex food since she didn't get her fix in San Antonio. We saw this place and decided to try it out. It was actually pretty good. We would stop there again if opportunity permitted.

Los Ranchos restaurant, Madisonville, Texas

Monroe-Crook House

We passed through the town of Crockett, named after the famed Davy Crockett who died at the Alamo. It was apparently a very prosperous timber area at the turn of the 20th Century and had lots of large Victorian houses in it, like the Monroe-Crook house.It was after dark when we went through Crockett and we were tired so we just blasted on through.

Finally got to Monroe, Louisiana around 9pm and checked into the Comfort Suites for the night.








Sunday, 1 December

JoAnne at Civil War battery at Vicksburg Welcome Center

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel before getting on the road about 7am. Now on I-20, I could see old US80 paralleling us which would have been the road we would have used going from Montgomery, Alabama to Portland, Oregon in 1960. Sorry. No flashback this time. You could see how the old road ran right next to the railroad tracks most of the way.

Old Vicksburg Mississippi river bridge.
Note old US80 sharing the bridge with railroad.
New I-20 bridge is in the background.

About 8am, we stopped at the welcome center in Vicksburg, MS. Vicksburg was the site of an important siege during the Civil War. The city fell to General Grant on July 4, 1863, the day after Lee's defeat at Gettysburg. The fall of Vicksburg gave the Union full control of the Mississippi River.

We continued our drive, stopping at Tuscaloosa for gas, and in Georgia at an Arby's for lupper.







One more flashback:

Panama, 1986

About 5:00pm, I-20 eastbound between Aiken and Augusta
after dark
Seems strange and familiar to be on this road. Seems like we used to drive on it a lot in the past, and now I remember why.

• Rewind<< 1984-87

When we were stationed in Panama, we used to catch Space Available flights back to the States. Many of these would land at Charleston AFB/Charleston IAP. We would rent a car and drive up I-26 to I-95 then get on US78 to Aiken, SC. There we would travel on I-20 through Augusta until we got off on US78 to go to Athens. At least once JoAnne and I had to drive back to Charleston just to get our names on the Space A list to go home.

We went down I-20 from Atlanta to Columbia because the traffic on I-85 looked really bad. Only added about 7 minutes to the trip according to Google maps. We got back home to some cats who were mostly glad to see us. (Demon threw one of his little hissy fits by hiding under the bed until we went to bed. Then he wanted to be rubbed.) We picked up two very happy-to-see-us dogs the next day after work.

Now it is back to work. Can't wait for the next adventure in about 3 weeks.

Thanksgiving Trip 2013 Part 2 - The Visit

So we got to San Antonio around 7pm, and after fighting rush hour in Austin, we were beat. This was not good since:

1. We had some stuff we were supposed to bring that we elected to wait until we got to SAT buy.
2. Mom finally got fed up with her old HTC Thunderbolt, especially when she found out she could get a Samsung Galaxy S4 for free from BestBuy online for their Black Friday online special. She ordered one and it was available for pickup in SAT.

We volunteered to take care of the boys if M&V would go get the stuff. We just decided to wait until Friday to go get the phone. We hadn't eaten (the McD's we stopped at was awful so we skipped it.) M&V picked up some pizza while they were out.

Thanksgiving day was great. Vanessa's parents were there. We got to know them better while Shannon was in rehab in Rock Hill the month before, so we really enjoyed their visit.  I will let Vanessa tell the details of the day at http://thesctureks.blogspot.com/2013/12/thanksgiving.html. We did take care of the boys so she and Matt could go play tackle/touch football in which they were apparently the stars of the team. I will second Vanessa's motion that the food was great and I thought the tablecloth idea was pretty cool. Joshua kept both grandmas busy playing Candyland. Sadly we didn't get any cameras out to take many pictures. We did get a laugh at Joshua. We served sparkling cranberry juice to drink. He tried it, got this perplexed look on his face, then exclaimed, "This makes my tongue silly!"

Vanessa didn't mention the circus around the turkey. Matt turned on the oven before going to play football, but didn't put the turkey in. JoAnne saw the oven on and Turkey on the table and put the turkey in the oven but managed to turn the oven off. It wasn't until M&V got home that we got the turkey into a working oven.

Friday, despite being told if he worked one last case on Wednesday they would not have to come in on Friday, Matt had to go into work on Friday. He hoped to be home by noon. We just puttered around the house and played with the boys. Adam and Janie Goodwin were in town and dropped by for a short visit. While they were there, Matt came home, so we all went to Panera for lunch.

(Here is where the movie review starts!)

After lunch A&J headed back home, while the rest of us went to see Frozen. I really enjoyed the movie, but I always was a sucker for an animated musical. I would compare it to Lion King or Beauty and the Beast. Casting was great. Kristen Bell nails the "Miss Feisty Pants" Princess Anna with both the acting and singing. Josh Gad's snowman is hilarious. And then there is Idena Menzel's Let It Go accompanying the animators spectacular visuals of Princess/Queen Elsa building her Ice Palace (Upper case intentional. This palace is not a lowercase type of place.) Think Defying Gravity. Demi Lovato's cover of the song over the end credits is pleasant enough, but you believe Idena when she sings "Cold never bothered me anyway!"

 The whole soundtrack is pretty good. In addition to the usual Broadway style songs, I also like the song Vuelie used to open the film. Sung by a Norwegian female choir a cappella, the song  is "inspired by indigenous Saami and Norwegian culture and was written and composed by Norwegian composer Frode Fjellheim. It is a combination of Saami yoiking and the Danish Christmas hymn "Dejlig er jorden"/"Fairest Lord Jesus"." (according to Disney.wikia.com) The song is used again at the end of the film, this time with full orchestra.

The audience applauded at the end of the show. I would go see it again, but would try the 3-D version if I could.

After the movie, we asked Joshua if he liked it and he shook his head, "no." But by the next morning it was his favorite movie (until he watches something else!) JoAnne missed half the movie as she volunteered to take Nathan out.

After the movie we went over to BestBuy to try to get JoAnne's new phone. Bad news, the carriers were so backed up (Verizon in our case) that they had stopped doing any more activations. We would have to come back in the morning. We swung through Target and then went home.

Then JoAnne set me up. She asked if I would mind watching the boys while she went shopping with M&V. I said the only thing I was worried about was Nathan. Not so good with babies. No problem, we will feed him and he will go to sleep the whole time. And I believed them! They were gone less than 15 minutes when Nathan started to holler. I tried holding him, swinging him, rocking him. We even went up to Joshua who was also in bed but not asleep. Nothing worked and it was too early to feed him. I called and asked what to do. Let him holler! and by the way we are going to the BX at Randolph now. Finally it got late enough I could feed him and we had a great time. This kid will laugh and smile at anything as long as his tummy is full.

When the shoppers got home, they brought me a CD soundtrack and I will let you guess what it was. JoAnne also bought Joshua a battery powered car. Matt put it together so it was at the bottom of the stairs when Joshua got up in the morning.

Saturday morning started with Joshua coming downstairs and seeing the car. We quickly discovered that

hardwood floors and toy cars with one-wheel drive don't get along well. Alot of wheel spinning and not much moving. Think running dog trying to change directions on waxed floor and  you get the idea. We went back over to BestBuy pretty much about the time they opened. There was still an hour wait to get the phone activated so we went back to Panera to get something to eat. The salesperson at BB took moms phone number and said he would call when it was her turn. After eating we went back and the salesperson was getting ready to go to Target to look for her (He thought that was where we went). Seems someone had deleted mom's phone number from the computer. Soon she was in business on her new phone. (While we were waiting around, Matt showed me the TV he had ordered and a Sony tablet he had looked at which was pretty cool)  I must say that the staff at BestBuy in SAT was about as helpful and friendly as I have ever seen, even with a Black Friday crowd to deal with.

We went back home, and gave Matt the option of getting his big Christmas present early or not. He elected to get it early, so we gave him his new iPad Air. Then JoAnne and Vanessa went to get a pedicure and spend some big girl time together while Joshua drove his car around the driveway and Matt set up his iPad. 

Too soon, JoAnne and Vanessa were back and it was time to pack up and get on the road. There is never enough time to spend like we would like to, but it must be worth it because we keep coming back.

Next - Thanksgiving Trip Part 3 - Going Home

Thanksgiving Trip 2013 Part 1 - The Journey

As +Joanne Turek and I headed out to San Antonio for Thanksgiving, could not help but think about other trips down these same roads. So I am going to attempt to share some of those thoughts that went through my head while driving to Texas. Roads can take you to more than just another place.


Tuesday, November 26 
about 2pm: I-77 southbound
raining
Glad we were able to get on the road a little early. Hope we have everything we need...

• Rewind << May 6, 2006, morning: I-77 southbound

Glad we were able to get on the road. Hope Matt remembered everything he needs. Man, he has done well getting +Vanessa Turek  to marry him. She is a very special girl - smart, pretty, and can give it back to him as well as he can give it out. She will make a great wife and mom for their kids. Glad mom and dad are able to come out for this wedding. Welcome to the family, Vanessa.

• F Forward >> Dec 29, 2012, morning: I-77 southbound
  

Glad we are on the road. Hope Jessi and Peter remembered everything they need. Peter is a nice guy. I like him, and Jessi seems to love him, so that is a good thing. It was great that his family was willing to come out to South Carolina so they could get married this winter. Glad dad could make it out, and somehow I suspect mom will be there, too. We may not see her, but we will feel her there. Welcome to the family, Peter.

• F Forward >> Oct 1, 2013, afternoon: I-77 southbound
  

On the road again. Hope Matt and Vanessa have everything they need for the temple. I am pretty sure the temple can pull their records up. Adoption court took longer than I expected this morning, but it was kind of a neat experience. Especially Matthew with his statement under oath "we split the work 50-50. Well maybe 90-10!" That is now on an official record of the court, Matt! Welcome to the family, Nathan.

About 3pm, exit 19, I-77
Time to stop for fuel and a drink. We used to get off at this exit a lot. I remember...

• Rewind << May 7, 2010, morning: just off I-77 at exit 19 - Providence Hospital Northeast
  

That was a little scary. We were in the waiting area just off the room Vanessa was in labor in. We looked back in her room to see what was going on - there was no one there. We went down the hall and found out they were doing an emergency C section. Matt was with her. About the time we figured out where she was, they came out and told us Joshua was here, and that mom and baby were doing fine! Welcome to the family, Joshua.



About 3:15pm, SC277 southbound between I-77 and I-20
Still raining
This connector brings back another memory..

• Morning, May 6, 2011, SC277 southbound
  

Matt says this is the best way to get downtown. Hope finding a place to park isn't a problem. Just think, Dr Turek (aka Captain Turek). San Antonio is kind of a drive, though!














About 3:45pm, I-20 westbound between Columbia and Augusta
still raining
Seems strange and familiar to be on this road. Seems like we used to drive on it a lot in the past...

• Rewind << 1994-1996, I-20 eastbound out of Columbia
  

This road sees a lot of us now days. Since I got transferred to Shaw AFB, we tend to make this trip fairly often. Seems fair since we could not go to Athens to visit much when we were in Sacramento but we could go to Vegas to visit my family. I just hate that stretch of US78 from I-20 to Athens once we get into Georgia. There has to be a better way to go to Bambudder and PawPaw's house.







About 5:30pm, I-20 westbound, Conyers Georgia
Rain is letting up, not like the last time we tried to do this trip at Thanksgiving. It was pouring rain and the road was under construction. Glad +K Turek  was with us to help with the driving. I would need it the next morning driving through Alabama.

• Rewind << November 22-27, 2011, another Thanksgiving trip to Texas
  
  
  

We wondered if the trip was going to be worth the drive out and back. All doubts disappeared when we arrived in San Antonio and watched Joshua go into the most joyful dance you ever saw a 1.5 year old do when he saw us. We saw the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Who knew Joshua would love guacamole!

About 6:30, I-20 westbound, downtown Atlanta Georgia
Still a little drizzle, but rain is no longer a problem, and traffic in Atlanta has been pretty good. There was another trip through Atlanta in the dark...

• Rewind << 0 dark early, December 26, 2011, I-20 westbound, Atlanta Georgia
  
  
  
  
  The state capital is lit up for Christmas in Atlanta. It is pretty. Jack is not feeling well. We did not know it would be his last trip with us, and that we would not see Rosey again either. But we had a good time in San Antonio with the whole family, including Jessi this time. Really enjoyed our mini-Christmas with Matt and Vanessa and Joshua, and we got to see the Alamo and Riverwalk decorated for the holiday, this time with Jessi. 
  
  
  
  
  

About 8:30pm, I-20 westbound, downtown Birmingham, Alabama
Glad Google maps updates itself. We got an advisory on the navigation program on my phone that a better route was available than using the I-459 bypass around Birmingham. There had been an accident on the bypass that was holding up traffic for more than an hour. We stayed on I-20 through town with no problems. Birmingham at night looks about the same as it did...

• Rewind << I-20, downtown Birmingham, 1976-1978

  

  Christmas 1978, Maxwell AFB, AL

The first couple of years I was stationed in Little Rock, mom and dad were stationed at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. I would come into Birmingham on US78 from Memphis when I went to visit them. Part of this time was while Mike was on his mission to Finland.






About 9pm, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Rain has stopped
We finally pulled into the Hampton Inn in Tuscaloosa for the night. We will get up and head towards San Antonio before 5am.




November 27, 6am, Mississippi Welcome Center.

Nov 27, 2013, 6am

This looks familiar for some reason! Lighting was a little different last time.

July 28, 2012, 12:21pm

7:36am, I-20, Jackson, Mississippi

Been on the road about 2.5 hours and time to stop for breakfast...

• Rewind << 1984-87 sometime

While stationed in Panama, we would occasionally take a trip via space available to visit family in the States. One trip, the National Guard unit from Nashville was coming home from rotation in Panama and we caught a ride with them to visit Bambudder and PawPaw in West Helena. We caught a ride back to Panama on a C-130 from Jackson, Mississippi. Apparently we didn't own a camera for that trip so you will have to be satisfied with this picture of Chick-fil-A in Brandon MS, near the Jackson airport that we flew out from.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, other than JoAnne tried to convince me to go around Austin by some "back roads." I didn't think it would be that bad, but it was. It was after dark around 7pm before we rolled into Matt and Vanessa's driveway. I should have listened to JoAnne.

Next blog - The Visit

Ratlines

One week and one day until Thanksgiving break!  We plan on going to Athens early on Saturday morning for mini-Thanksgiving and birthday party for Bambudder.

We had a pretty good weekend. Saturday we kind of puttered around the house. Mom worked on the closet in the master bedroom, while I did some straightening downstairs. I also did some work on "the ship".

We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. We were not impressed. The service was pretty good, and the food was okay. (We were not all that impressed with the teriyaki chicken sauce - too much ginger.) But what turned us off was the noise. This is definitely a sports grill, and they had twelve large screen TVs in the room all with a different sports events running. Just think Papa Joe not having to flip through the channels while watching a ballgame because all the channels are already up on their own separate TV!  The was loud music playing in the background, and there appeared to be nothing in the room to absorb the sound of the fairly large crowd they had in there. Talk about sensory overload. I won't say we would never go back, but it is pretty far down the list on restaurants we go to. (We can get pretty good wings at Applebees and be able to talk to each other over the table.) Just not our cup of Pepsi.

+Joanne Turek went to see Thor: The Dark World with one of her teacher friends. She really enjoyed it. I went home and worked on "the ship" and put away the few groceries we bought at Target (aka Nani's store.) Turns out that I should have gone to the movie. Everything I did on the ship looked bad, so I ended up cutting it out and doing it over again.

Sunday we had the sister missionaries over for lunch, and then went with them on an appointment to teach Pablo and Juan. As you can guess, they are hispanic, and the good news was that we had Sister Monterosso from Guatemala with us. The bad news was that most (but not all) of the discussion was in Spanish. They do have a return appointment, so I hope it will work out. Maybe they can get Bro Arce to go with them.

Constitution build log - ratlines 

Grandma Lola, Grandpa Ed
Matthew and Kira
Little Rock, ca 1983

Before I get started, I found a picture with the old model I built back in the late 70's. If you look at the upper righthand corner you will see the USS Constitution almost in the picture. (The ship in the upper left is the Cutty Sark.) Grandpa Ed and Grandma Lola are holding +Kira Turek   and Matt.

 So last update I had the shrouds installed. The shrouds are the mostly-vertical lines that keep the masts from falling over the side, or falling forward. Here is the foremast with the shrouds installed before the ratlines have been added.

Ratlines, pronounced "rattlin's", are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. Here is a picture of the real thing, and you can see the shrouds and ratlines in the background.

Preformed ratlines and shrouds

Here are the shrouds and ratlines that came with the model. Everything is perfectly spaced, but the shrouds are the same size as the ratlines. On the real deal, the shrouds are 9" in diameter and ratlines are about 1". That is why I decided to make them myself.






To get them on the model evenly, you must create a template to go by. The real things are 13-15" apart, which comes out to about 0.014 inches on the model. Now you can get out a ruler and carfully measure out about 50 lines 0.014 inches apart on a piece of paper, OR go into MS Word, create a table with one column wide by 50 rows, with a custom row height of 0.014 inches, and print it out. Voila! instant template :-)

I tried to tie the individual ratlines to each stay, but ol' shaky hands did not cooperate, so I ended up just gluing each line on with Elmers glue. The other part of the project is to add the futtock shrouds. They can be seen on the real ship to the left. I had to create the rings at the bottom of the shrouds out of 26 gauge brass wire by wrapping it around a kabob skewer. They are a little larger than scale, but that is the way it goes. This is the piece I tried to do while Mom was at the movies and had to rip it back out. The second attempt came out better, but still isn't as clean as I would like it to be. I am going to try a slight variation on the install when I do the foremast.




So here is the mainmast with ratlines and futtock shrouds installed. Now I get to do the whole thing over again on the fore- and mizzenmast.

Jury Duty

Tuesday, I had the opportunity to answer a summons for jury duty in the court of common pleas (civil court). I reported as instructed a 9am at the Moss Justice Center in York. I had to go through an airport style security check, except they do not allow any electronic devices. Oh my! I will have to read something that is actually printed on paper!.

A representative from the county clerks office came in and told us all the rules about who we can talk to, how we find out if we are needed the next day, where we could eat, and what was going to happen. The judge was a circuit court judge from Spartanburg rather than a local judge so they weren't quite sure how he liked to do things. After a short break at 10, they came in and said roll call would take place in the jury waiting area, rather than the court room, but we would have to wait until the attorneys in the case came down. So we waited. And waited. Then around 1130 they gathered everyone together and told us we were released, thank you for your service. That was it. I was a little disappointed. I am not sure I really wanted to be on a jury, but I would have at least liked to have seen the selection process. So I went home.

USS Constitution build log

I have all the shroud lines tied down, the fore-, main-, mizzen stays installed. I also added the spritsail yard lifts and braces to stabilize the yard arm on the bowsprit, even though that is supposed to wait until last to rig. I added the netting to the railings on the tops and installed them. I may have to adjust the tension on some of the shrouds and stays, but that is yet to be seen. The next challenge is installing the ratlines. those are the "rungs" of the rope ladders installed on the shrouds that the sailors use to climb the masts.With my shaky hands this might be a problem.

Nov 8:  Shrouds installed but not tied down

Nov 12:. Shrouds tied down and stays installed.
Rails installed on tops.

Nov 12: Another picture with better light.
The spritsail yard braces and lifts rigged in light
colored thread can be seen.

USS Constitution after recent refit in approximately the same
configuration as the model.

Foremast shrouds installed. Starting on Main mast

Lower fore-, main-, and mizzenmasts are in place. Bowsprit with spritsail yard and martingale booms (aka dolphin strikers) have also been installed. Shrouds have been installed on the bowsprit and foremast and started on the mainmast. Other than the shrouds on the bowsprit, I have left them untied and untrimmed until all the standing rigging is installed so they can be adjusted if necessary. The masts have not been glued into the ship, so the rigging is holding them in place as it would on the real ship.