Since my last real progress report, I've actually gotten some real work done.

The next couple of entries here will catch you up on some of my trials, tribulations and successes (and failures, I'm sure).

First movement was putting the "window stop" pieces in place. These are the "bumpers" or whatever you call the piece of trim that a swinging window closes against to keep it from swinging inside the boat.

I know we all get tired, burned out, or otherwise just need a break sometimes.

Over the last couple of weeks, between life, work and a very nice vacation to see friends and family, I had a "break" from boat building.

I don't really know that it was a good thing. One of my reasons to build is the enjoyment I get. The flip side is that, like anything, it can have its frustrations, but having time to get out, do something physical with my hands, enjoy time with Dane and generally be away from a desk and computer is a good thing for me.

Anybody that's dealt with computers for any length of time has learned (probably the hard way) that you should always make backups.

When you're building a boat, the same rule applies to your paper plans.

When we came back from being out of town, I found that a couple of pages of my plan set had blown over into my epoxy drip pan. Normally the epoxy jugs of resin and hardener sit in this little tray. As you can see, from my normal messiness with glue, it has caught a lot over previous the year.

Between being out of town, having to work, and inclement weather part of the time, I had only looked at the boat a little bit in the daylight. Didn't see a problem with it (other than being full of water - see my previous post).

Melanie wound up talking to one of the neighbors and found out at least two of them are having roofs replaced due to damage from the hail that apparently came with the storm that filled the boat. She filled me in on this at the church, which led to a long drive home (it's about 10 miles) wondering if there was some damage I had missed.

Sorry things have been a little slow, we've been out of town visiting some friends. Made a trip "out west" to Oklahoma. Being a driving trip, we passed over several nice waterways of note: the Tenn-Tom, the Mississippi, the Arkansas River (multiple times) and several others. Every time I go across some of those rivers, it really reminds me of why I'm building this thing, and makes me more anxious to get back to it.

Since I last wrote I've had a couple of rounds of noticable progress. Dane was sick for a bit, so I didn't have my usual helper, but I muddled through.

I spent a while cutting most of the pieces for the port side window frames. Got most all of them cut, including the lap joints. Have to pick up a 2x6 to finish that up, but hopefully those are close.

Moved from that to trimming the roof at the bow end. I had left it "long". Mark the ends and the center point and a nice flexible scrap and I had a line to cut.

Got started on window frames this afternoon. Originally the weather wasn't going to allow for that, but wound up having shirtsleeve weather and bright sun. You never know in Atlanta.

As most of the U.S. probably knows by now, we're having a cold snap. Well, it's finally made it to Georgia. We're battening down the hatches (in some cases literally) for single digit temperatures. I'm sure that's nothing to some of you, but not something we get often.

Since the last update, we've actually gotten a few things done that seem "visible".

First off got the next (hopefully final) coat of bed liner on the forward deck. Seems to look really nice and is tough as nails. Here's a picture.

Front deck coating

After much excitement and family time doing Christmas most of the day, I took a bit of time while Dane played with the new Wii and worked on the boat.