Fix Stuff - Don't Throw It Out! Replacing a broken suitcase wheel

If you have a broken thing, chances are, you can fix it.  And if you can't fix it, you can at least take it apart and see how it works as you break it some more.  For Cindy's birthday (which was in February), I fixed her suitcase.  It was a simple job, but I got more than I bargained for.  Watch, learn, and enjoy:

I'm intending to make more how-to and little diary style videos.  I've been filming most every project I've worked on for months... now the task is learning how to fold editing time into my regular day!

Let me know what you think and what sorts of videos you'd like to see in the comment section below:

Lewellyn Media Cabinet, Pt 1

Cardboard mock-up of early version with fancy-assed walnut plywood in the background.

I finally got started on the media cabinet commission I've had since last August.  In my defense, part of that time was a long design phase.  Then I had to wrap up at Blue Man.  Then Cindy's mom died.  Then I had to go out of town for a week for the Wilderness tour.  Then it was about 6 weeks of work on The Panther Room workshop... And then I had to clean the shop and catch up with all the other stuff that had been languishing - getting the garden planted, finishing the photography phase of a neighborhood survey to extend the historic district... and then the trip to California for blacksmithing and visiting family...

Current drawings, minus 2" of width.

Before I went, I did some experiments with various cutting methods.  The plywood I'm using for this cabinet is SUPER expensive - custom-made 5/8" Russian birch ply with A/A bookmatched walnut veneer finish.  I was afraid (understatement?  perhaps paralyzed with fear?) to cut the stuff and not sure what the best way to cross-cut it without getting tear-out on the veneer would be.  I bought a new 5/8" router bit, thinking I could try to cut it with that (as well as use it for dados to keep the plywood together), and I bought a fine circular saw blade.  It turns out the saw blade won the contest.  With painter's tape on the cross-grain cuts, I didn't get any chipping, and the edge was almost as smooth as it would have been if it were planed.  I free-handed the initial rough cutting, and then I made a circular saw guide and have been switching back and forth between that and my table saw for the final cuts.

Plywood edge as delivered

Plywood edge as cut with sweet new circular saw blade. (fuzz on the underside is painter's tape)

As with many things in life, the plywood didn't come in a state of perfection.  The edges hadn't been trimmed, and the corners weren't square.  So contrary to what we used to do back in my MPC scene shop days, I'm having to cut all 4 sides of each piece and try to get them square (I've resorted to diagonal measuring as a backup for my framing square, which is more flexible and fallible than I would have thought), rather than parallelograms.

I got the bottom, back and sides cut to dimension and started routing out the grooves for the shelves when I realized I had under-estimated the width of the cabinet by about 3/8".  You can't have a cabinet that's made to hold a record player and record cleaner, and neither one will fit!  I had to make a new back (I made it 2" wider to leave more wiggle room) and re-route the dados, but I got it all finished and up-to-snuff by the end of the day.  Good thing I ordered some extra walnut plywood to begin with!

The screw up with the back yesterday reminds me of a time when I'd borrowed Dan's 1970-something Cadillac El Dorado convertible.  I was desperate to return it to him without a scratch, and wouldn't you know it?  I hit a deer on Carmel Valley Road one night.  In that instant, about which I felt terrible (especially for the deer, but also for Dan's car), everything changed!  The thing I was afraid of happening, happened.  And after that, I was much more relaxed.  So it goes with this expensive plywood.  I had to re-cut the largest panel in the whole cabinet project.  There's still enough left over if I make another mistake.  And, although I wanted to call my mom or Cindy to talk my mistake through, I knew the only thing that would fix it was carrying on.  So that's what I did.  That's what I'm doing.  I'm carrying on.  And I'm pretty pleased with my progress.

Baby Steps Outside

Occasionally people ask me what life is like since I left my job at Blue Man Group.  I can tell you, it's strange!  For a long time, I was struggling to figure out what day of the week it was.  I kept thinking it must be Sunday - that it looked like Sunday.  When I finally realized it looked like day, which I normally only saw on Sunday's (I was off Monday's as well, but those always had a miserly feeling with an undercurrent of dread - knowing time was slipping away and there was a coming need to return to work on Tuesday), I couldn't stop laughing.  I've probably told that to half the people who will ever read this post by now, but it is significant.  DAY.  I spent 8 years working 40 hours/week (more or less) in a windowless basement office with only occasional sojourns outside for lunch or walks.  This year, I got to see spring unfold, I've more-or-less been on top of my planting timing in the garden(s), and my eyes are awash with color and light.  I'm even getting a farmer's tan that reminds me so much of my childhood and of my grandmother's tan that I get these wonderful/tragic little flashbacks.

I've also been to California for a week.  My sister in law, Jodi, got me a rental car and a round trip ticket to go out and help with her school's California Gold Rush festival.  I was the mining town's blacksmith.  I spent most of the week visiting with my step father, Daron.  There is lots to say about that, but I've got to go to New Jersey later today for a tech rehearsal.  Another United Nations gig is coming up this week (World Ocean's Day), and I'm getting too antsy to sit in front of the computer.

Making my first pair of tongs, Daron operating the forge blower.  The school's garden (with chickens) is in the back.

So, I'll sign off for now with one last thing: I'm trying to post something to this blog or Project Happy Life's social media at least once/day.  Most of what I've been doing lately is on Instagram; I've been wrestling with the perfectionist tendencies in my mind and letting the blank blog post scare me... pressure, you know, it has to be good... blah blah blah.  This is me trying to train myself to let go and take baby steps as needed.

First Lesson of Project Happy Life

I want to find the perfect way to tell you that there have been huge changes for me lately.  Maybe you've heard:

I quit my job at Blue Man Group.

I never really wrote much about the fact that I worked there.  I wasn't sure what the rules were, and I was afraid, honestly, that I would inadvertently break one and get in trouble or embarrass someone or hurt someone's feelings.  There's a lot to say about what working there has meant to my life.  I'll get to that another time.  For now, the actual departure and aftermath:

The day I left - the day I had cleaned out my office and had everything packed and ready to get loaded into a cab for home, we also had my dear friend, Zea's birthday dinner to attend.  So we left all my things near the exit on the wardrobe work tables, and went to dinner.  On the way back to the theatre to get my stuff, Cindy heard a message on her phone that her mother had just passed away.  As we walked, she stopped every 50 yards or so and threw up in the street.  When she was as collected as possible, she hailed a cab, and I shuttled things up the stairs and out onto the sidewalk.  Our friend Elvin came by and jumped in to help as soon as he knew what was going on.  The cab driver was lovely and sympathetic.  Cindy sobbed most of the way home.  The driver even helped unload all the stuff into our house!

And then we were home.  I had no more job.  Cindy had no more parents.  I didn't know what to feel; I'm not sure I had any feelings.  Cindy was monumentally sad.  She was trying to figure out how she could immediately fly to Hawaii.  I was trying to figure out how I could immediately get to work on Project Happy Life.  Actually... I was a little angry.  I felt a little robbed.  I had just finished my last week in a job I'd had and loved for 8 years (one of the many I've had at Blue Man over the 20+ years I worked there).  I was the Production Stage Manager for the New York production.  My last week was beautiful.  I had my final show on Wednesday, and my best friend, Bernadette (who is also the Stage Manager there) and Akia organized a party for me in the lobby afterwards.  So many people said such nice things to me.  I wanted time to reflect.  I wanted to put those memories in my pocket, so I could have them whenever I need them.

But I said I felt robbed.  I had all these impulses - to stay at home for a couple of weeks and ball-up.  I wanted to have a good cry and to take stock of everything that happened to me.  But at the same time, how could I not go with my wife to her mother's funeral?  Honestly, I looked for excuses to stay home.  The first day of school for the class I am taking this semester was that Tuesday.  Cindy and her brother urged me to stay home and attend my class.  But, I knew that wasn't right.  As I made my peace with the fact that things weren't going to go as I had planned, some friends offered to skype me into my Tuesday class from Hawaii.  It was settled.  I was some kind of relieved. I was going with Cindy.  We organized and packed on Sunday, and we flew to Hawaii on Monday morning for the funeral.

We've been home now for 5 weeks, and for the majority of the time, as Cindy has been grieving, I have felt like I've been working without inspiration.  I've felt aimless and yet excessively busy with school, theatre projects, organizing...  I haven't really known what to say to you.  I wanted to have some big sort of splashy reveal of Project Happy Life, LLC and how it will work.  I wanted to be able to tell you about all my big plans.  But it's honestly, I overextended myself with theatre projects and volunteer projects and class projects.  First lesson of Project Happy Life - don't take on too many projects, and leave space to show up for the people you love.

More to come.

Green Roof Update - Late Summer 2016

  It's high time for a Project Happy Life green roof update.  And, while going through the pictures I've taken this season, I found a bunch of good ones that I'd like to share.  So, in chronological order, here's what has been going on in this, the 4th growing season of our Brooklyn green roof.

Spring always brings a blanket of flowers to the green roof, although which species of sedum blossoms the most has changed over the years.  This year, we hardly had any of the tall blue-green sedum plants blossom.  They would make buds, and then it looked like the ants would get them.  Here, however, is a shot of the shorter sedum in bloom along with a couple of sage volunteers that seeded themselves in that spot last year.  I wish I liked using the sage as much as it likes to grow.

Here's some of that happy sage parent plant.  I love the color of those blossoms!

The strawberries in the Woolly Pocket are still doing well.  And, because we've had fewer squirrels on the roof so far this year, we've gotten to eat a lot more of what we're growing.  But all is not well, as you'll see later on...

A wide shot for you.  I've tried a couple of times to get peas to grow up the railing from those copper planters above the strawberries, but they never make it.  I think the soil is too poor and the railing gets too hot.  Next year, I'm going to fix that soil up (I've been composting like crazy, which is another story for another day) and give them some string to climb on.

For the first time, last year I planted some flowers on the green roof, and the bachelor buttons have been re-seeding themselves and spouting in some spectacular colors (last year, we just had blue and white).

I also experimented with planting a purple coneflower (echinacea) last year, and it came back really well this year.  There are even some seedlings starting in a couple of other spots on the roof now!

I had the opportunity to try my hand at stone carving when I was in school this past Spring semester.  I made a little addition for the green roof that we see as we're coming out of the hatch.

The berry production was prolific this year.  We had red strawberries, alpine strawberries, blueberries, and black raspberries.  For a while, our breakfasts could not have been beaten by the finest restaurants in the world.

Blueberry glamour shot.

We have had some spectacular skies over Brooklyn this year too.  We have had two double rainbows.

Some incredibly colorful sunsets:

Beautiful cloud formations:

And even a night when we could see the full moon in one direction,

And a lightning storm in the other direction.

As the summer has worn on, a lot of the bachelor buttons have dried out.  I can already see the next generation sprouting, though.  One neat thing I hadn't expected when I made the redwood planters last year was how many things would grow out of the sides of the planters.  In this shot, you can see some of the bachelor buttons even did it!

Two days ago, I even found a mushroom growing out of the side of one of the planters!

While I'll steer clear of eating that mushroom, we've had some nice harvests this year.  Our summer crops have consisted mainly of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and carrots.

But I also planted some of the little "Rich Sweetness 132" melons from seed I saved last year.  They've been doing well.  I like how they echo the cucumbers strips in a different color palate.

I'm growing my first crop of onions, and they appear to be doing well.  I started these from some little green onions that my neighbors put in their compost, because they were a little wilted.  I stuck them in water, and they sprouted roots.  So I transplanted them to the roof in the early spring.  I saw a youtube video that recommended cutting the tops back to encourage bulb formations, so that's why they've been lopped off.

I'm also experimenting with growing crops right in the sedum.  I've got a couple of collards and cabbage plants in there.  There used to be four of each, but I'm having a problem...

Doves, mockingbirds, or robins are digging up the sedum!  They're practically mowing it down - ripping up big clumps and tossing the clumps into the drainage rock.  In the process, I've lost some of the collards and cabbage seedlings.  I'm not quite sure what to do about it; I assume they're eating some grubs or something.  But they sure do make a mess!!  There's a walking path buried under the sedum clippings the birds have made in this shot.

I've noticed that our mint blossoms are being visited by a bunch of black and orange wasps that I've never seen before.  They don't linger, so I couldn't get a great picture of them, so here's an excellent picture from bugguide.net.  They're called "blue-winged wasps" or scolia dubia, a wasp that preys on Japanese beetle grubs.  I'm guessing these wasps' presence supports my grub theory about those birds. 

No matter what the reason is the birds are tearing up the sedum, at least it'll make it easier to plant more crops on the main "lawn" of the green roof next year!  It's always so hard to think of pulling up the sedum to make room for other things when it's covered in little flowers in the spring.

Anyway, in case there's any doubt, the green roof continues to be my favorite place to be.

Prospect Lefferts Gardens - a historical history in many movements. Opus 1.

What follows is a rewritten excerpt from a paper I wrote for my History and Theory of Historic Preservation class at Pratt last autumn.

Prospect Lefferts Gardens is Changing

As I was walking around, admiring the architecture in my neighborhood and feeling fine, I pondered the question of how landmark historic districts relate to the cost of housing in Prospect Lefferts Gardens (PLG), where I have lived for the past 11 years.  I wondered if historic districts drive rental/housing prices up, or if they help keep prices stable.  PLG is a small neighborhood with three historic districts within its boundaries.  Since the buildings in the historic districts are protected (more or less), large-scale housing developers, who haven't paid much attention to the neighborhood for decades, are now focusing their attention on the areas surrounding the historic districts.  As a lover of old buildings, I originally thought maybe the quality of the area's historic architecture (due to its landmark status) was the main reason for the local rapid price increases and gentrification.  In other words, I wondered if the historic districts were so nice, it made the neighborhood more desirable to live in.  

But, I found out that things are far more complicated than I thought, and it has to do with the history of Brooklyn and the history of race relations in this country.  Let's start with a basic history of the neighborhood.

This is the first installment of a journey through gentrification, if you will.

PLG Resident Groups Through Time

Picture in your mind verdant forests filled with huge trees, meadows, streams, and pleasant hills. The Wisconsin Ice Sheet had receded, leaving Long Island behind.  Native peoples and all manner of non-human animals, birds, plants, and insects lived here.  As far as we know, Brooklyn carried on more or less in a state of lush abundance from the end of the last ice age until the early 1600’s.  The first white (Dutch) people arrived in the area and purchased land from the Lenape people in the 1630’s.  Prospect Lefferts Gardens is today’s name for an area on the northern end of the original Dutch village of Midwout (established in the 1650’s).  The village was renamed “Flatbush” in 1664, when the British took over.  In the 1800’s, the bustling country town of Flatbush was home to Erasmus Hall High School (established in 1786) and Kings County Hospital (originally founded in 1830 as an almshouse for the poor).  By the late 1800’s, with the urban expansion of Brooklyn, the town-turned-neighborhood boasted several thriving theaters and cinemas, including Lowes King’s Theatre, an opulent building which was neglected in recent decades before being restored and re-opened in 2015.  In 1913, Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team was opened.  At one time, Flatbush had so many impressive Victorian mansions (including one belonging to the Vanderbilt Family, which was very close to today’s Prospect Park subway station), the town was a tourist destination, and picture postcards of the mansions were popular.  In 1957, The Empire Rollerdrome was opened in an old Ebbets Field parking garage, and by the 1970’s, it was the epicenter for roller disco.

The Flatbush neighborhood is currently bordered to the north by Crown Heights, to the east by Brownsville/East New York, to the south by Flatbush/Ditmas Park, and to the west by Prospect Park.  The area was also briefly referred to as "Prospect Park East" by real estate developers in the early 1910's, but that name didn't last, probably because it's kinda lame.  In 1969, residents defined and named a small neighborhood within the larger Flatbush area “Prospect” (in honor of Prospect Park) “Lefferts” (in honor of the original prominent Flatbush land-holding Lefferts family) “Gardens” (due to its close proximity to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

In addition to your run-of-the-mill professionals and immigrants, it's fun to think that what is now Prospect Lefferts Gardens has over time been a center for baseball fans, horticultural enthusiasts, park-goers, those needing to make a stopover on their long, horse-drawn journey to Coney Island, and disco roller skaters (including Cher).

Cher and Bill Butler at the Empire Roller Disco 1979.
Photo: Pinterest by way of Brownstoner.com

Flatbush has always been home to a mixture of different people, however original homeowners in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens area were predominantly Dutch farmers.  As the area became developed, it was home to prominent Protestants of Western-European descent.  From the 1920’s through the 1950’s, Irish, European Jews, and Italian immigrants settled in the area.  In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball and began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, just north of Flatbush.  And in the 1950’s, although the neighborhood was still 99% white, a handful of black families started to establish themselves in the area.  

Ten years later, in 1960, at the end of PLG’s first 50 years as an urban neighborhood (as opposed to a sleepy farming town or Revolutionary War battle site), parts of the neighborhood were changing. Although there was still a majority of white people, in some census tracts, the majority had shifted from 99% to around 75%.  “White flight,” redlining, and blockbusting had begun.  Within only 10 years, by 1970, black people held as much as a 70% majority in the blocks East of the Manor (I’ll explain what The Manor is in a later post).  The total number of people living in PLG in 1970 was reportedly very close to what it had been 10 years earlier, however there were likely significant numbers of undocumented black workers from Haiti and other West Indian countries in residence. Also, the majority of the white population by then would have been Hassidic Jewish residents from the border of Crown Heights further east.

By the 1980’s, the entirety of PLG was 70-80% black of either African-Caribbean or African-American descent (two separate groups which have had tensions between them).  The neighborhood has had a white minority for the past 30-40 years, and since the arrival of my white self ten years ago, I have occasionally sensed and been witness to expressions of worry and displeasure from some long-time neighborhood residents that my presence was a sign of coming gentrification.  My neighbors were right, but it took a while.  The neighborhood racial makeup (mostly Afro-Caribbean) stayed generally steady through the 2000's, until the past 3-5 years, which have seen a large influx of young white people.  There has certainly been some racial turnover in home ownership (as happened with my own house, for example), however today’s new residents are mostly moving into neighborhood apartment buildings, because what working class person can afford a house these days?

That pretty much catches you up on the history of PLG’s human residents.  In the next post on this subject, I’ll explore the architectural history of the neighborhood.  Then we'll get to shenanigans, and eventually wrap up.

Planter Project - Part 2

When last I wrote about the redwood planters (Planter Project - Part 1), I hadn't yet filled them with soil and plants.  I ended up making 19 of them in total, and I can't remember for sure how many bags of potting soil I carried up to the roof.  I think it was 4 bags per planter, but I've brought up some compost and stuff since then as well.  Just to button things up, here's a little photo-journal of the rest of the story.

Once I had all the planters built, I decided I should level them so the water in the bottom tank portion of the planters would be the same distance from the filter fabric along the full length of the planter.  If they were left to rest evenly on the parapet wall, the water would have filled up to the fabric on one end, and barely made it into the net cup on the other end.

I got the first shimmed and leveled, and then I could fine-tune the shimming and leveling of the subsequent planters down the line.  The were then screwed to each other.

I have a 1/2" drip irrigation line running around the perimeter of the roof, and I have one 1/4" line branching off for each planter (in addition to the other lines branching off for pots and such).

The line runs up, between the pond liner and the redwood, then it pokes up through the filter fabric, before arching back down, and poking through the filter fabric into the inside of the pond liner tank.

Shimming and plumbing my way down the line.  It's too bad I cut the parapet capstone profiles into the bottoms of both ends of the planters.  I ended up having to fill them with scrap pieces on the down-slope ends.

Rooftop storm glamour shot.

I had some seedlings from the farmer's market waiting in this planter.

Once all the planters were shimmed and plumbed, I cut the top horns off.

I know it doesn't have much to do with the planters, but I bought some blueberry plants last year, and I was very impressed that they actually made blueberries!  On the roof!  And they are producing even more this year!

These planters really allowed me to increase our crops last year.  This is from May, 2015. 

And here's how things looked in July, 2015.  The drip irrigation system turns on for 20 minutes, 3 times/week.  It waters all the potted plants, and it fills all the reservoirs in the planters.  Some day, if I ever make a second generation of these planters, I'm going to work out a float valve system that will allow the reservoirs to stay full all the time.  But, for now, it's working well enough.

It's fun to go back now (May, 2016) and see these pictures of how the roof had gotten even woolier by August of 2015.  I'm planning to make a special redwood planter for a small crab apple tree this year.  And I'm going to try planting tall plants on the short side and short plants on the tall side.  Project Happy Spring!

PHL: Cindy Keiter's Upcoming Show

Life is moving pretty quickly these days.  Here's the first in a series of short posts to catch you up on some of the things we've got going on around here.

First and foremost, Cindy is in rehearsals for her next show: The Ballad of Rodrigo.  Cindy is reprising her role as "Sally the Muffin Lady," a character she played in the first of this modern film-noir style play series, Doubles Crossed, which was produced in June of 2012.  The Ballad of Rodrigo is the first time Cindy has ever done a sequel on stage, and she loves it.  Jason Grossman, the playwright, has shifted the tone of this current play away from the full-on farcical comedy of the previous edition and towards something a little darker, without losing its heart.  Cindy reports that it is working really well.

I won't read the full script; I prefer to know as little as possible about shows before I see them.  But we're now in the phase of rehearsals where I employ my old stage management skills from my pre-Blue Man days to help Cindy run her lines.  That makes spoiling some surprises unavoidable, but I can tell the script is good, because I can't wait to see how it ends.  Besides, I don't even need to see rehearsals to know that Keiter is bringing it in a Lucille-Ball-meets-Estelle-Getty sort of way!

Opening night is May 24th, and the show goes through June 22nd.

If you want to come see a great "neo-noir" thriller, this is where you make your arrangements:

The Ballad of Rodrigo

Fun factoid:

I fell in love with theatre in 1975.  Cindy fell in love with theatre in 1977.  In the spirit of competition, I won.

Quick Project - Sprucing up the Tree Pit

Here's a quicky, "Look What I Did" sort of post.

Last year, when I cut the sedum mat out to place bluestone slabs on the roof to make a sitting area, I didn't throw the sedum mat pieces away.  Here's the only photo I have of that process.

I tossed all the sedum mat chunks overboard (aka - into the backyard) and laid them out on the cement in the back yard for the winter.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but I didn't want them to be wasted.

Well, a few months ago, the city put these new railing things around the tree pits on our block, and they removed the old cobblestones that were in there since long before I moved in to this house.  They also made the tree pits wider, presumably so more water could get to the trees.  But the barren dirt sort of gave the impression of a wasteland, and it was a magnet for trash.  Here's a shot of what it looked like after I picked the trash out.

For context, here's my little front yard full of ephemerals that are almost done blooming.  I hope to replace our chain link fence with something that mimics the green roof railing one day.

Anyway, back to the tree pit.  I decided to make that my target for the left over sedum mats.  But I didn't want the plants to get squashed by people getting in and out of their cars.  So, first I carved out a strip of dirt along the curb to make a landing spot for people's feet.  The tree roots were too close to the curb in the middle, though, so I didn't carry my strip of bricks all the way across.

I found a MONSTER earth worm under the sedum mats in the back yard.  I'm sure you want to see a video of it, so I'll oblige:

Out front, I watered the dirt, tried to push as much of the fine stuff in between the bricks as I could, stomped it all down, and laid the sedum mat pieces in place.  It turns out, I had the exact right amount to do the whole tree pit.  Once I had them all in place, I watered them some more.  

So, there you have it.  A nice, spruced-up tree pit (even though it's a maple tree that's growing there) for our neighborhood to enjoy.  The sedum are native to this area, and they shouldn't need me to water them once they're established.  They'll also send up really pretty flowers within a month or two.

Ta da!