Wes, Mason, and myself set out with three bikes and trike on a trailer. This was the end result:
[For the quick answer to fix Notes in the Mail app from failing skip to the final paragraph]
I love Apple and most all of there products, which is why it pains me so much when they royally f*** up the simplest things. Some time ago I started trying to use Notes in the Mail app to help keep myself more organized. I was also curious if I could sync my Mail notes with my iPhone Notes (which I the time you couldn’t). Soon I realized that Notes did not work properly in the Mail app. Pressing the “New Note” button or selecting “New Note” from the File menu did nothing. It simply would not work. Upon investigation more online I could only find that some people were experiencing the issue and some were not, but absolutely nothing on any sort of fix.
With the release of the 3.0 firmware for the iPhone and the new capability of syncing iPhone Notes with Mail Notes, I started up on the quest that I had left behind months prior. I was able to sync with my iPhone but trying to look at any of the notes in Mail would just cause mail to hang while trying to load the Note. Basically I’d have to force quit. This time I felt quite determined to find the problem. I began digging through my Library folder and anything else I could think of that could have possibly effected my Application. Oh, one thing to note here, I knew that it wasn’t global issue on my machine, logging in as a different user I could use the Notes functionality in Mail just fine.
So I kept digging and diggin infuriated by the fact that Notes would not work with my user only. Finally I came across a post in the Apple Discussion pages. And what did it say!?
I just read another post that says you need to have the font “Marker Felt” installed and activated for notes to work correctly. I tried it and it works!
Are you f***ing kidding me!? That’s the problem? A font wasn’t active? For months I’ve been frustrated by Apple’s inability to use a default font that isn’t as obscure as “Marker Felt”. How about if Marker Felt isn’t available you just use some other Sanserif font? How difficult can that be? Instead the whole functionality of Mail completely fails.
So. If you’re having the same issue, that is, Notes in Mail is not working for you. Try this solution. Activate the font: Marker Felt. To do this open Font Book, in the upper left hand corner select “All Fonts”. Scroll down on the middle column until you find “Marker Felt”, right click and select “Enable Font”. Done. Notes should work now (assuming there isn’t some other asinine issue with Mail).
This is the bike ride we went on today. Too tired to write more right now…
…now able to write:
So yesterday we went on a pretty amazing ride. When I really think about it I think it’s one of the longest bike rides I’ve been on in my life, at least that I’ve recorded. We were planning on going for a long ride but were thinking the route we chose would me more like 30 miles. Turns out the round trip came out to close to 40.
There’s a route that goes around Portland called the 40 Mile Loop. Based on the map it looks more like a series of trails that surround Portland, so you could do the 40 mile loop a number of different ways, and I’m pretty sure that there are a few loops that would be far more than 40 miles (considering what we did yesterday).
With the Loop in mind, it seemed like a good general destination was SE Portland (the opposite corner from where we live). There seemed to be a few good parks in that are so we chose one (Powell Butte Nature Park) and decided to go for it. We didn’t really know anything about the part, just wanted a goal. Turned out on our ride out we noticed signs for the Leach Botanical Gardens and decided to go there instead (about half a mile shy of Powell Butte). As it turned out the Botanical Gardens weren’t quite as awesome as we were expecting. I guess by the description of Botanical and Garden we were expecting clusters of flowers. I don’t think we saw a single flower in the whole place. It really just a forest with a stream running through it and trails running all around. However, there were a few really cool buildings along the trails that were entirely made of stone. Laura’s first response was that they looked Hansel-and-Gretal-ish, which was very true. It was interesting to think about when and why someone would have built them in the first place and if anyone ever lived there.
We’d packed a nice lunch with some fruit and sandwiches. Once refueled we were on our way again after our short stroll through the “Gardens” and some quick stretches. The next 12 miles or so were pretty brutal.
It seems that the second half of any journey is always harder. Like climbing into a tall tree and then realizing, “how the hell am I going to get down from here?” I think it’s partially the physical exhaustion but I also think a lot of it is mental. Once you’ve accomplished the goal you were working for you just want to be done and that makes you feel even more exhausted. So how do you rectify such a thing? Make another goal. We decided to set our sites on a place to have dinner and a few drinks to help relax after our haul. We ended up at the Tin Shed, a place just outside of our hood that we’ve frequented a bit. And after are tummies were full once again, and we had a slight buzz for the remaining 5-6 mile ride home, we were off.
Might take a second or two to load…
View Portland, Sunday, May 17, 2009 in a larger map
Once home, we were both incredibly exhausted. We each wanted to other to massage us for a good hour or two, but neither of us had the energy. We’re still feeling sore and a bit cranky because of it. My ass still hurts as I’m sitting on our comfy couch. But it felt great to have the ride that we did. I hope we start doing rides like that every weekend.
The table is finished (mostly). I finally got it all sanded and then we decided to use Tung Oil as the finish. It brings out the color and contrast of the wood without darkening it too much. It looks pretty awesome. I just put on the second coat yesterday so there’s still a bit of gloss to the finish, but it should dull out a bit more when it’s full dry. We’re totally in love with this table. Here are a few before and after pictures…
Before...
Before...
And with the Tung Oil…
Finished.
Finished.
Finished.
This past weekend we had visitor #5, a Miss Nancy Marshall in town for a visit (conveniently over Mother’s Day weekend). It was a really great time having her out here.
Nancy at the confluence of the Columbia and Walamet Rivers
Walamet River <-------> Columbia River
Apple Tart Deserts
The ladies had a good Friday filled with some herb gardening while I worked.
Our beautiful yard.
Herbs.
A new tomato plant.
Saturday we trekked to the other side of Mt. Hood to visit some Marshall family friends, Bill and Demi Brackmen. They have seven acres that they built their “dream” home on a year and a half ago and it really is a pretty amazing home. It really reminded me of Tao of Steve if anyone’s seen that. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of the house.
Checkin' out rocks
Beautiful Oregon Sky
The geography of Oregon can change dramatically.
While there we went on a hike out to some waterfalls by their house which were really incredible.
White River Falls
I think it's interesting how both their legs are crossed.
Aww...
Timer photo of the whole gang.
For Mother’s Day we headed into the Columbia Gorge for a hike near Maltnomah Falls. It was about a 4.5 mile hike and we saw 3 or 4 water falls. The peak of the hike was to Triple Falls (followed by Horsetail and Ponytail Falls). Really an awesome hike and a great example of how living out here has its advantages.
Triple Falls
Nancy had just thrown my keys into a tree. That trickster.
Lunch.
Ponytail Falls
Under Ponytail Falls.
It was a great weekend having her out. Coincidence that the weather has been amazing for both of the mother’s trips?
End of a wonderful weekend.
This week we finally got our Black Walnut planned out so we could begin working on building the coffee table. So far I think I’ve got about 8-10 hours in on it. I finished working on it last night at about 10pm and I’m pretty sure my hands haven’t hurt that much in long time. They’re still pretty soar. It’s coming along quite nicely though. All the major stuff (the legs) is done now. I don’t have a lot of the tools that would make the job a lot easier so I’ve been making due what what I’ve got. Pretty much have just used a handsaw, chisel, hammer, drill and dremel so far. A table-saw would be well appreciated at this point, but then again I’m past all the stuff that would require one.
A few more tools would be nice.
Chisel, chisel, chisel.
Thus far, I’ve only had one mishap. I’m cutting notches out of the legs to fit around a shelf under the table. Getting a tight fit has been the most difficult part of the process because I have to cut the notch with the handsaw, chisel the wood out and then fine tune the notch with the dremel or sandpaper. On one of the legs I think I tried to force it a little to much and put a crack in the foot of the leg. I didn’t think it was a very big crack, but when I tried putting the table up on it’s site the piece broke off. Not a huge setback. I glued the piece back on with Gorilla Glue and fastened it with a couple of screws. It should hold and probably makes the foot a bit stronger than otherwise.
Oops.
Progress thus far.