The mail and keys organizer located just inside our home entrance had to go. It couldn’t handle our lifestyle, by which I mean, hold a bunch of mail of varying sizes for a bunch of days. Oh, and some keys and the super long IKEA shoehorn (the best!).

I began to dream up a new replacement as a woodworking project. I made a Pinterest board to get some design inspiration. Then one day I just sat down and sketched it out using GoodNotes on my iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil.

I’d imagined that the plywood would be 1/2" thick, but after some discussion with Jenni, we decided to go for the chonk look that was distinctive of the tabletop shelf/box I made a couple of months ago. This lowered the costs as well since I already had enough scraps of the baltic birch plywood. All I needed was the dark walnut stain, a birch dowel, and hanging hardware. The mail holders are held together by glue, and attached to the back by screws drilled in from behind. The pegs are held in by glue. There were a couple other changes as evident from the sketch and the photo of the final piece.

The groove detail in the pegs was Jenni’s idea. I tried a couple of ways to cut it out and landed upon just keeping the table saw blade low and using my crosscut sled to spin the dowel in place over the blade. That worked wonderfully!

I finished the build a few weeks ago but the hardware I bought to hang it didn’t work well. Then other things took up some time so I finally procured some new hardware and hung it up this week. We’re both very happy with how it turned out.

And in parting, here’s a photo of the old organizer trying hard to keep up.

So Nationalism tightens its grip on India as well.

PSA: Something ripped a big hole in the Milky Way, and we have no idea what it is. This happened “recently”. www.newsweek.com/huge-hole…

When you get to the gym and realize you forgot your headphones at home 😞

This new composite photo of the Large Magellanic Cloud created by amateur astronomers is gorgeous! lowell.edu/astroaler…

Last weekend we went hiking at Coyote Wall. Jenni and I had never been to this hike before but our friends were familiar with it.

There are multiple trails that meet each other at various points. Some are gentle slopes, while others are steeper. One can pick and choose paths based on how much of a workout one wants and switch that around as needed.

There are beautiful vistas all along the way to the top of the wall. I could see myself bringing family and friends here that are not used to hiking much, to just go for a bit, enjoy the views, and head back.

There are cute little waterfalls and streams as well along the way.

Spring flowers, sunny weather, and spotty clouds, made everything look a lot more beautiful.

At the top, we hung out for a bit to have snacks and enjoy the views some more.

On the way down we took the steeper route for a bit. Some folks were mountain biking along the cliff and down the steep trails, which was incredible to watch but not something I see myself doing 😅

I can see myself coming back to this hike again in the spring, and probably in other seasons as well.

Activity stats:

Distance: 7.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 1662 ft
Time (including breaks): 4h 45m

Friends, especially those in Portland, this is great project by good people. Back them on Kickstarter and let’s get them to the finish line! www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

It’s that time of the year in the neighborhood.

PSA: It’s about time to cancel Apple News+ if you signed up for the free trial at launch and haven’t used it enough.

I just did.

Got some yard work done on this lovely day.