Monday, October 6, 2014

Cycling 'round Norfolk

It has begun...my dive into the nerdy world of mapping out local cycling routes.

Norfolk cycling map

Click to download Norfolk cycling map


For anyone who hesitates to ride on anything other than established trails, I say you are missing out on so much glorious terrain! Beautiful open roads with no semis, cars or pedestrians in sight--urban dwellers would love to have such a thing.

This map is for anyone--not just the nerdy. I've made a goal for myself to make detailed and accurate maps available to anyone so that they can know where all these lovely paved tributaries exist. I want to help share the road and encourage other riders to get out there and take advantage. I have often been asked where I ride and when I try and explain it even to native locals, they seem perplexed as to what roads I am referring to.

The red lines indicate paved roads suitable for road bikes as well as others (road surfaces are subject to changes without notice). They allow a number of combinations to make your journey as short or as long as reasonably needed while simultaneously offering up scenic rural Nebraska beauty especially when the sky is blue and the sun is shining!

This map has no start or end points. I leave that to you to decide where you go and how you get there. This map simply provides some "officially" recommended roads around the city so you don't have to go unknowingly explore it all yourself...but by all means please do!

Stay tuned as I continue to add more to the map such as mileage and hopefully GPS equivalents for even more user-friendly options. Enjoy!


Saturday, April 5, 2014

How to Make a Quick and Easy Card Display

This was a project that was inspired by my mother-in-law. Her previous house had wooden louvered doors throughout the home. One in particular was a closet door in the den near the kitchen.



This door became the place, especially during the Christmas season, where she hung all sorts of cards. The cards hung by slipping them in between each louver. When she moved into her new home, she commented, "I don't have anywhere I can hang my cards!"

Now it happened that her birthday and a scheduled visit was coming up, and since she lives so far away and I had the chance to easily give her a gift in person, I decided that a hand-crafted birthday gift was the way to go. So, I went to work on a cute and functional item that I hoped would give her a new place to display her cards.

To get started, I purchased an unfinished, pine bi-fold louvered door from a local home improvement store. The door was on clearance so I paid less than $30. I went ahead and had a guy in the lumber yard cut the door in half so I could fit it easily in my car.

One side of the door after being cut in half.

I removed the hinges, filled the holes with wood filler and then lightly hand-sanded the entire surface using 180 grit sandpaper.



Once I finished sanding, I wiped them down with a dry cloth and then got to painting. Spray paint was definitely the way to go since you cannot beat how easy it is to use. The red paint required primer, however, the teal paint was a handy paint plus primer in one (awesome!). I painted both sides of each section so that the color coverage would not be an issue when hanging on the wall.



Once they were completely dry for 24 hours I deemed them good to go. I then added 3 hooks to the bottom of one of the longer sections that I was making specifically for my mother-in-law. I thought she could hang keys and such from them. I then attached picture hanging hooks to the back for easy hanging on the wall. I made sure to place the wall hanging hooks so that the louvers pointed up since that would make the cards hang easier.



Once this step was finished, I placed some cards and they were ready to hang!

These are two that I made for my own.

I (as well as my mother-in-law) think they turned out great! We look forward to changing the cards up with the seasons!