Back in November of 2006, I got my first miter saw. DougS found it at a garage sale for me. It was a 10″ Delta and it served me very well, especially considering that I only paid a few bucks for it. Aside from the fact that I needed to sharpen the blade, the only thing that really bugged me about it was the small size. I couldn’t cut through a 4×4 or a 2×8. I use 2×8’s a lot in my projects so that means making a cut, flipping it over, cutting again, and then going over to the table saw with the cross cut sled to get a clean cut. That’s three cuts where I should have one. After months of hemming and hawing, I finally pulled the trigger on a new saw: the Ridgid 10″ sliding double bevel miter saw.
My search originally started with 12″ sliding saws and for a long time, I was saving up for the DeWalt. More recently, I gave the 12″ Ridgid a serious look and was very impressed, especially considering that it was $200 less. The drawback was the size. 12″ sliding miter saws are huge and the Ridgid was significantly bigger than the DeWalt.
Looking around at various reviews, lots of wood magazines targeted at the amateur and semi-pro woodworker did 10″ sliding miter saw reviews. Why were 12″ reviews so hard to find? I ran across one article which talked about the advantages of the 10″: lighter, smaller size, and the blades are a little cheaper. And it turns out that unless you’re doing big crown molding, you probably won’t care too much about the difference in capacity. For example, when cutting at a 90 degree angle, both the 10″ and 12″ can cut 4x4s and 2x12s. At a 45 degree miter cut, the 12″ can cut a little more (2×10 vs 2×8), but that’s about the only major difference in the cutting specs. The smaller size seemed like a positive tradeoff.
I would have jumped on the 10″ at that point, especially since it won a lot of those woodworking magazine shootouts, but it was exactly the same price as the 12″. Huh!? It took me a while to weed through the specs but I finally figured out that the 10″ has a few extra features compared to the 12″. There is a laser system that people say is actually somewhat useful, an LED light that illuminates your cutting area, and most importantly for me, a soft start system. On my old saw, I’d hit the button to turn on the blade and the instant 100% power surge would often jerk the saw around a bit and the wood would move. The soft start system spins up the blade a bit more slowly so it’s a very smooth operation.
I haven’t done a lot of serious work with this yet, but so far I’m in heaven. I was tempted to wait for this saw to go on sale (it was a Black Friday deal in the past), but eventually I decided that I wanted to be done researching and I wanted to start using it. Now that I have it, I wish I had bought it a long time ago!
Poaching is a $19 billion industry in Africa. It’s a big problem with a huge ecological impact, but it’s a very difficult one to solve. There’s too much ground to cover to do it with actual humans, but there is now a team in Africa doing this with drones. Obviously it’s good because it’s helping to save animals, but the tech angle is awesome.
There are a lot of choices when you want to buy a steak. But what is the best? Should you pay $9/pound for a boneless rib eye or $20/pound? While my parents were here, we had some people over to help us test this out in a semi-scientific manner.
The Seahawks made a big trade to get Jimmy Graham as a TE. They gave up Max Unger to do it which is a pretty big price, but hopefully it’s worth it. I won’t get into the discussion about whether or not this was a good idea (I’m unqualified), but here’s one interesting point: last year Graham had 85 catches for 889 yards and 10 TDs. That would BY FAR make him the most prolific receiver on the Seahawks. The Seahawks only had 20 TD passes total the whole season!
Kitchen Table
You know you’re getting old when you get excited about something as mundane as a kitchen table, but that’s where I’m at. When I moved out on my own, I got Great Grandma’s small table and four chairs. It wasn’t really an heirloom as she bought it after Great Grandpa died and she downsized to a smaller living space. But it was fun to think of her when we ate at the table.
Anyway, the table was nice (and free) but it was small. We just got in the habit of dishing up straight from the kitchen and then eating at the table. When there were four people eating there, you had no chance of getting any extra dishes on the table. Plus, the ends folded down and weren’t very sturdy so it wasn’t great for having people over to play games, etc. And when we have Tyla’s family over, we’d have to set up the folding table just to fit everyone. I’m 34 years old but I still have a college kid’s table.
Finally Tyla and I decided that we were in a position to buy a new table. We were somewhat discouraged when we tried this last year and couldn’t find anything in our price range. We saved up some extra money and then went for it again this year, but to our happy surprise, we found a crazy good deal! This new table comes with six chairs and can fit all six chairs without the extra leaf. Or we can extend the table and fit two extra chairs. It’s big enough to seat a bunch of people but it fits perfectly in our smallish kitchen eating area. (Our formal dining room is Elijah’s playroom.) The leaf is pretty cool to. It folds down inside the table so you don’t have to store it in a closet.
The table and chairs came from Don Willis Furniture in on Lake City Boulevard. It’s an odd place but they have some really nice furniture (no particle board.) They have some furniture that is unfinished and you can either have it finished in the exact color you want or finish it yourself to save some money. We’ll be checking them out again when we need more furniture.
The first time we used it was while my parents were still here. Mom had asked if she could do anything to help while I was outside grilling and I said, “Yeah! You can set the table!” That’s something we never did before! I got a ridiculous amount of joy out of seeing the main course, side dishes and condiments all sitting there on the table while we ate dinner. I’m an old man.
PS. Thanks Don for lettings us borrow your truck! Dad and I got five of the six chairs in the back seats in the cab and the rest fit easily in the bed. You saved us a $99 delivery charge!