Happy New Year around the globe

May you'all have a new year filled with excitement and good health.
Yes, I know my "Merican friends will say I spelled you'all wrong, but I tend to write like I speak...with a French Canadian accent, Heh! :-)

Last year we celebrated our first New Year celebration together by going to the New Year ball on the base. I am still an associate member of my Sgt and Warrant Officers mess  (CPOs mess for Ralph)

Getting ready to celebrate, last year

This year we are doing something different, we are going to the city, Halifax, overnite to celebrate the New Year. My first thought was to partake in the outdoor festivities, skating, concert and etc, but as we are now in the middle of a deep freeze, I think we will retreat to something warmer inside instead... :-)

That deep Artic freeze shows no signs of letting up soon, it is already the longuest we had in a heck of a long time. If anyone out there still does not believe in climate change... Come here and experienced for yourself its effect. We breaks new records almost daily!!!!

Its not only cooooocold, there are also strong gusting winds wrecking havoc.

I lost my metal flag pole up front to rust and gusting winds earlier

so I replaced it by this bracket on the house last June

It broke in the gusting winds, up to 95 Km/hr.

Flag and pole flew by my Lincoln and missed, phew !!

That was a plastic bracket, next one will be metal, hurricane proof!!

Yah I know, climate goes in cycle and yaddy yadda, but it would be foolish to expect no effect from umpteen years of pollution. And we are still seeing the effects of years ago, wait for it, the "best" is yet to come...brrrr

Me at a young 59...

Ok, off my frozen soap box and here is what I plan on doing this year:

First off being now 61, I decided that this year I am becoming dyslexic !!
That way I will be 16 all year long, bonus :-)

That brought approval from most of my friends...except the ones still in their late 50s... Hey, I liked it until I realized that would make me 75, says one :-)

I have a never ending to do list, but currently, on my bench and pissing me off, is this small wifi drone I bought my son for Christmas.
We had lots of fun with it for a few days and then, the battery went dead? No, the battery pack can be forced upside down and knocked off the battery terminals on the board. To get to it took a while, it's packing a lot of technology in a small package, almost old man proof, but I got inside; RF and Wifi transceiver, HD camera, one touch take off and landing pre-programmed etc, etc...

Two mother board assemblies and camera pack removed later...

Why is it pissing me off ? Because I can hardly see anymore, 

that's why I quit fixing electronics years ago ...

If you look closely (hint click on pic to expand, as usual)

The only solder traces on the pins connections to the mother boards 

are just on the tips... Poor wave soldering job, oh surprise...

On a multi layers boards no less

I need a better way to secure the board while working on it and my desoldering wicks are a tad dry after 20 some years in storage :-)
Need to dusted off my Panavise and more stuff, and get my eyes to focus up close, sigh...
Meanwhile I up my Ante by buying a new one, so I'm covered, no matter what :-)

Wood working wise, my current to do list includes, in no particular order:
- Finishing my boring till
- Installing a 6x6 post in my shop for my Post drill
- Said post drill needs to be rehabbed first (in progress)

- Work with my son on his projects. Current project is a lap table for his laptop. He has a few more projects he would like to tackle with my help
- Finish rehabbing my Beam Boring Machine (BBM)
- With all my recent acquisitions, it is grand time to survey my kid's toolkit inventory and finished it.
- This of course meant that I would need to build two tool's storage box, cabinet or what have you. Have not decided on a format yet, depend on the size of the  tool piles :-)
- It became quite obvious this holiday that I need a bigger dining room table.    First I will make a bigger leaf for it, while I figured out what style we want.
Between Jean's mother and siblings with spouses and our own kids, grandkids...  it's a tad crowded, needed two tables and two services :-)
- Need two more garden tools storage station like I built last year for Jean
- I have a large accumulating pile of tools that need to be gone over, rehab as required and etc.

This year I am going to experiment with more drastic rehab like repaint and etc (got inspired by the tool collector, a fellow Vet whose YouTube channel features lots of in depth restorations of various tools,  and Ralph work lately)
Then there is the never ending tasks of clearing out stuff and regaining spaces. I made a good dent in the garage, but still a long way to go...
I got two new windows to install in the garage, bring in 220V inside so I can resurrect my poor old Unisaw rusting away...

Need to install new bath fan in the ensuite bathroom, demolish and build new deck in the back.

Probably (as in no doubts :-) a few more projects related to her gardening plots etc, more landscaping, planning a new access road to the back of my property and etc.

There is no doubts a lot more I am forgotting, but this ought to keep me occupied and out of trouble for a while...

And now that I put it down for the whole world to see, I have a record of my official 2018 to do list, humm  :-)

This year we also plan on a few trips, both around our country and abroad.

With my luck, when my ship comes in, I'll be at the airport...

Will I get thru this list I just layed out?? Tuned in next year at this time and find out!! :-)

Bob, slowly regaining his workshop