3/31-4/2/09 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

There was a sign at Monroe saying that the pass was closed for avalanche control, but I kept going anyway. If it really was closed, I wanted to get in line. I got to Scenic by about 11:00 and sure enough, there was a line of cars waiting. I took my place in line and waited until they let us go at 12:50. There was a lot of snow and slush on the road, so it was slow going. The snowbanks on the sides of the road were higher than I have ever seen them this late. They were about 8 feet high.

I arrived at the property at 1:40. Bert and Ernie saw me drive by and were at the truck almost as soon as I got parked.

After moving in and having lunch, I built a fire in the stove and went to work. The project for this week was to install as much as I could of the loft light switches and loft lights. I needed to complete the wiring in the Grid A1 corner before I could get it ready to chink, and I want to chink the loft as soon as the spring weather allows it.

I chiseled the recess in the Grid C2 RPSL which will hold the extended handy box for the loft light switches, switch box D. There will be one three-way switch for the loft stair light, and a single pole switch for the three loft lights that I will install on the purlins. The stair light will be mounted higher up on the Grid C2 RPSL.

The big challenges will be to drill the long nearly-vertical holes in the RPSL from the handy-box recess down to the loft floor, and another one up to the stair light fixture box.

Since I had successfully drilled a hole this way in the Grid B.5,2.5 loft support column, I approached the drilling job with confidence. I had a bigger bit this time, though. Instead of drilling a 5/8" hole, I would drill a 3/4" hole. This bigger augur was not only longer, (54 inches, I think) it also had a better looking head with more helical turns. I figured it would extract the drill chips better and be less likely to get stuck but I would have to lift it higher in order to get it out of the hole.

I also got the idea of using my DeWalt 3/8" corded drill rather than my cordless drill because it is lighter and that would make it easier to lift it up out of the hole, which I would have to do several hundred times in order to drill the hole.

In order to comfortably be able to work on drilling the hole, I moved the scaffold tower I had already set up under the loft peak for use in chinking the gable wall. I moved the tower over to the RPSL and mounted a plank on the second rungs down. By standing on the plank, I could comfortably reach high enough to get the bit in and out of the hole.

I started drilling and before I was in six inches down, the DeWalt drill started smoking. It was way underpowered for this job, so I switched and used a 1/2-inch drill motor. So much for having a light drill to lift up out of the hole. The half-inch motor had plenty of power and it worked well. I would push down on the drill and pull the trigger only momentarily and that was enough for the bit to cut enough for me to have to pull the chips out.

If I dwelled a little too long, the bit would get stuck when I tried to pull it out. Most of the time when it got stuck, I could get it out simply by pulling hard, but once it was stuck so tight I had to unchuck the bit and use a vise-grip to twist the drill backward and finally after a lot of struggle, get the bit out.

On these occasions, when the bit got stuck, when I pulled the bit out the augur would be packed tight with wood chips and I would have to use a knife to cut them loose and clean up the augur. For this, I had to lift the drill all the way out and set it down on the scaffold planks above me and work on it with a knife and a small wire brush. Since this was inefficient and hard work, I tried not to let it happen if I could help it. Even so, it happened a dozen times or so.

When I got down to 31 1/2 inches deep, I hit a knot. Here again I had experience and I knew what I had to do. Instead of dwelling and spinning the bit, which only burned the wood into the screw point, I would just drill a couple revolutions and then pull the entire bit out and lay it on the scaffold. Then with my pocket knife and a small wire brush, clean the small amount of sawdust out of the threads of the screw tip. Then lift the drill overhead again and stick the bit back in the hole to do it again.

It takes a long time for that drill to wind down and stop once you let go of the trigger, so it would still be turning by the time I got it out of the hole and had it lying on the scaffold plank. I tried to get the chips out of the threads before it stopped turning. A little challenge like that takes some of the tedium out.

I kept that up for a little over an hour until it was time to quit for the day. By that time, I had a pile of sawdust from the knot that couldn't have been more than a tablespoonful or two.

It snowed off and on during the afternoon but I kept a fire going in the stove so it was nice and comfortable working in shirtsleeves.

On Wednesday I built another fire in the stove and fed Bert and Ernie a couple dog biscuits before I went back to work drilling through that knot. It took another hour, and produced another little pile of chips about the size of the first one. Once I was through the knot, it didn't take long to drill to a depth that was under the loft floor. The bit didn't poke out the side of the log anywhere, so I really didn't know exactly where the hole was. I would have to drill a hole from under the floor to try to intersect it so I could run the wires all the way through.

The recess for the switch box was cut on the side of the RPSL directly opposite the front windows, that is, it is cut on the loft side of the column. The opposite side of the column, and the right side, as you are looking at the switch box, are both finished and will be exposed all the way down to the loft beam, so I don't want the hole I drilled to poke out on either of those two sides. Fortunately, it didn't. If it had, I would have to patch the hole with a wood inlay like I had to do on the loft support column.

Since I couldn't drill the hole so that it curved back and came out on the same side of the column as the switch box, the only reasonable choice was to have the hole emerge on the left side of the column inside the loft floor. Unfortunately it didn't come out there either. The hole stayed completely inside the log.

I set up a table under the loft floor up against the Grid C2 RPSL so I could reach up and work on drilling the intersecting hole. On the side where I wanted the hole to come out, there is a loft joist just an inch or so away from the RPSL. I used my 4" hole saw to cut a hole in the web of the joist so I could at least see the log through a 4" hole.

I inserted a length of 1/2" EMT in the hole up in the loft so I could sight from various positions to try to figure out where that hole was inside the log. Then, not knowing exactly where I was aiming, I used a half-inch augur and drilled a hole at an angle up into the base of the RPSL through that 4" hole in the web, hoping that I would hit the first hole. I got excited and encouraged when the bit quit drawing into the hole.

Normally, the screw tip on the augur keeps pulling the bit into the wood so that you don't have to push on the drill in order to keep drilling. When the screw tip hits a void, like when it comes out the other side, or hopefully in this case when it hits the first hole, the bit quits drawing and simply spins.

The question now was, how am I going to figure out if the two holes intersect inside that log?

I got the idea of setting up a light bulb in the loft right above and in line with the hole I had drilled. I dropped the lamp and broke one light bulb in the process of setting this up, but I did get a light suspended over the hole. With the small end of the long bit, I could feel that there was sawdust in the bottom of the hole. I figured that would block the light so I needed to get it out. I got a length of 1/2" copper tube and hooked it to the vacuum cleaner hose. I used that to vacuum all the sawdust out.

Then I went down below and peeked into the half-inch hole I had drilled up into the bottom of the log. I was beside myself with joy to see a dim little spot of light up in the hole. I actually danced a little jig and hugged a post as I reveled in the idea that, once again, serendipity had shown its favor to me on this project. Just by dumb luck, those two holes had intersected inside that log without me being able to determine where they were except by guesswork.

After my celebration, I put a 3/4" augur in the drill and enlarged the half-inch hole to a 3/4" hole, hoping that this would be all I needed to do in order to get the wires run through the log.

With the hole enlarged, I looked into the hole again, expecting to see a bigger spot of light. Instead, I saw a puzzling blue light. It took me a while to figure out that I was seeing the tarp that I had laid out to catch the chips, and that I was seeing the tarp straight through the log. I had the horrible thought that my hole had gone all the way through the log and had come out the other exposed and finished side.

I had to go back up into the loft and remove the tarp in order to see exactly what had happened. What I discovered is that there is a deep check in the log that is right in line with the lower hole I had drilled. The point of the bit had entered the check a little beyond the center of the log and that is why it spun, and that is why I could see the tarp through the hole. The two holes had not intersected one another after all. My celebration was premature. I still needed to figure out how to find the first hole by drilling into the bottom of the log.

I tried a lot of things. I did a lot of thinking. I climbed up and down that loft ladder more times than I could count and it was telling on my right knee. It was not only the ladder, but the scaffolding, the front and back staircases, the snowbank on the hill between the trailer and the cabin, the trail through the snow to the woodpile, and the concrete staircase which I used to get things from the truck. By mid day, my knee was hurting so bad that I could hardly use it to step up or down.

Among the things I tried, in addition to that light shining down the hole, were various methods of sighting and estimating where the holes were. I bent a 10-foot length of 1/2" EMT into a big shepherd's hook, with the long shaft parallel to the short shaft on the other side of the hook. With the short side inserted in the hole drilled down from the switch box recess, the long side ran down outside the log so I could see it and sight with it from various positions down on the main floor. I also inserted a long straight piece of #9 wire through the bottom hole and all the way up through the check so that the wire was visible from both sides of the log. Nothing gave me a clear idea of how to find that first hole.

I hobbled in for lunch feeling a combination of discouragement and excitement at having a really tough geometry problem to solve.

My knee hurt so bad that I had a hard time getting my Sorrel boot off of that foot. After having lunch, I laid down on the bed with my right knee up on a pillow and a heating pad. I took a two hour nap in this position. I felt good enough afterwards to go back to work. I figured that maybe the Sorrel boots were too heavy and were aggravating my knee so I switched to a lighter pair of work boots. That seemed to help.

I went back up to work, and using a 3/8" augur, I drilled four more holes up into the bottom of the RPSL hoping to hit the first hole. None of them did.

I stuck dowels in all five of the lower holes so that I could stand back and sight using them trying to figure out which way to drill in order to hit the first hole. Nothing helped.

My leg hurt something fierce but I kept my leg straight and did all the bending and lifting with my left leg. It still hurt, but at least I could still get up and down steps and ladders.

Since I wasn't having any success by sighting and guessing, I decided to make some systematic measurements and solve the geometry problem mathematically. I decided to establish an x, y, z coordinate system, measure and record the positions of each end of all the dowels and the pipe that I had stuck in all the holes, and then use the orthographic projection techniques I had learned from Prof. Valdemar Valdez in college to determine which of those holes was the closest to intersecting the first hole, and by how far it had missed.

I started by hanging a plumb bob from the Grid C2 RPSL so that it hung near the switch box recess and went down to the main floor through the space where the last log tread will be in the loft staircase. The origin of the coordinate system was chosen to be on the underside of the loft floor on one edge of a joist near the RPSL. Using that joist and the plumb bob string, I measured and recorded the x, y, and z values for two ends each of the five dowels and one pipe. That's three times two times six equals thirty-six separate measurements. It also involved a lot more climbing up and off the table and the ladder to the loft. I finished making the measurements and hobbled back to the trailer for the night.

It snowed overnight so on Thursday morning there was about 10 inches of heavy wet snow on the ground. My leg still hurt so I decided not to do any more work in the cabin this week. Instead I watched lectures on DVD while lying with a heating pad under my knee.

At 10:30 I got up and went outside to get ready to go home. I shoveled the driveway between the truck and the road so I could drive out. I also shoveled the snow off the truck and the concrete staircase. My knee felt pretty much OK as long as I didn't bend it much. I used my left knee for that on the steps. When the snow was cleared, I closed up the cabin, had my lunch, and left for home at 12:45.

The sign at Cole's Corner said that the pass was closed. Since it had stopped snowing and the sun was out, I figured it wouldn't be closed for long. I kept going. At Rayrock the sign said that Hwy 2 was closed at milepost 39. That is on the other side of the pass so I figured that at least the pass was open. But I had to wait in line for a half hour just a couple miles from the summit. They had all but one lane closed at MP 39, but I wasn't delayed there at all. There must have been an accident there earlier.

4/3/09 Got out my drafting instruments and went to work on the geometry problem. I drew an x,z and an x,y orthographic projection of the five dowels and one pipe. Then I drew an orthogonal projection of the x,z projection so that the pipe was true length. Finally, I drew a fourth projection to that one with the pipe as a point. That view would show the true distance from each of the dowels, or their extensions, to the extension of the pipe, which is aligned with the main hole.

After looking at the drawings, I could see that something was wrong. The pipe angle was not quite right. After looking at my measurements, I found that I had made an error in the drawing of the pipe.

I erased the parts of the drawing that were wrong, and re-drew the projections. Now it looked even worse. It obviously didn't match reality.

I re-checked my calculations, studied my measurements, and re-checked the drawing. I concluded that one of the y measurements of the pipe must be wrong. There was nothing more I could do until I go back up to the property and check those measurements. Bummer. Doing the drawings was fun, though.

I noticed that I had a swelling a little smaller than the size of an egg on the lower half of my right kneecap. I spent an hour on the bed with a heating pad under my knee and an ice pack on the swollen lump on my knee. When I got up, my leg felt fine and I had no trouble walking the dog. I decided I didn't need to consult the doctor, but I also decided that I had better take it a little more easy when I am up at the cabin.