Dog Day Afternoons

For the first time in my life I truly felt like a father this week.

As you know, Gail is gone for at least a couple weeks to San Francisco, so I am alone with Peyton.

Although my office is 60 miles from home (thank God for our Diesel Jetta....), Gail only works 1 mile from home. So even though Peyton spends the day in "his room" (please don't let him know the truth that it is a kennel/crate) Gail comes home for lunch and lets him out.

Well, with me 60 miles from home during the day, Gail's absence would require The Boy to spend 11 hours in "his room." So when Gail flew out Tuesday afternoon, I found a Doggy Day Care in Grand Haven (about half way between our house and my office). On Wednesday morning, Peyton wondered what was up when I didn't beg him to go to his room so I could go off to spend time busting my hump for The Man. Instead, I put his leash on like he was going for a walk.

After all of the associated Leash Dancing was done, Peyton settled down and got in the car. We drove to Grand Haven and I took him into Paw Pro (the doggie day care experts). As I got ready to say Good Bye, the dad thing kicked in. I bent down and rubbed his ears and kissed him on his forehead. I told him to have fun. I told him I would see later that tonight. I reminded him that we were one winning lottery ticket away from spending all our Summer days swimming in Lake Michigan. Then, they led him off for a day of romping, playing, chasing, chewing, etc.

As he strolled down the hallway, he didn't look back. That's when I felt like a dad. I knew he was too excited to be thinking of me, and I knew I was going to have a worse day than him.

The Odyssey

Yesterday I faced my greatest challenge as a woodworker.

I wasn't even in my shop when I realized I was in this spot of bother. I was at my desk at work.

It was the space bar that got me.

As my right thumb hit the space bar the electrical grid of my body communicated that something was rotten in the state of Thumbsville. Yep....little splinter in my big right thumb.

I don't think I visited the shop yesterday morning so somehow a sliver of cherry had spent the night with me, living just under the surface of my thumb.

Normally, Gail is my splinter removal girl. However, less than 24 hours before this she had flown to San Francisco to visit her baby sister. It is interesting, because in our 12 years together this is the first time we have been apart for any reason other than my business travel. In other words, although we’ve spent weeks apart with my travels to Viet Nam, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Canada, and all over the States….July of 2008 will mark the first time I’ve spent a night alone in my own house. Of course I have Peyton.

So, staring at the splinter yesterday, and realizing Gail is gone, I considered options. Gail's middle sister is a nurse with keen eyesight, but she was leaving for San Francisco that very day to join up with her two sisters. Calling her was not an option.

I thought of calling on one of my friends in the office. Except I've been married so long I think I forgot how to "hook up" with a new woman....even for splinter removal. Am I supposed to take in the results of my most recent blood test. Even then, how does the conversation begin? "Excuse me , Gladys, I know you successfully raised children, so I know you've done this before...would you mind going after some wood I have here for you????" (Wow...that would have landed me in HR... PDQ.)

So I decided I was own my own. Naturally, the situation followed the Right Hand Rule. I remember learning about this in Calculus. It means if you are right handed, you will always have to do one handed tasks with the left hand, and vice versa. My tool of choice was a thumbtack/pushpin. As I took that pushpin between my left thumb and forefinger I thought of an interesting paradox:

I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous....

Like General Eisenhower who signaled the go ahead for Operation Overlord, fully realizing that this necessary step would still require the death and destruction of many Allied forces, I plunged the pushpin into my own Omaha Beach...my right thumb. I dug, I pried, I levered, I cried. The tears served as little magnifying glasses that easily improved my vision ten fold.

At times I pushed it deeper. At one point the delivery turned breech. Still, through the agonizing pain, I continued the pushpin torture. Suddenly, like a prairie dog in the desert or a Whack-a-Mole at Chuck E Cheese....a tiny portion of the splinter popped up. Because I am a committed nail biter, I didn't have the option of pulling it out with finger nails. My choice was to scrape and pray.

I scraped the pushpin against the side of the splinter fully expecting to see it shear off like a whisker in the graphics from a Gillette commercial. Yet, to my great joy, it did indeed pull the splinter fully out of my body.

I looked at that splinter laying on my desk in its own little biohazard containment area. And I was left wondering, "How do single guys deal with splinters?" Then the flood of memories came into my head of the woodworking adventures Gail has shared with me. They all came back...the wound scrubbing...the bandaging...the drives to the Emergency Room... scrubbing the shop floor with bleach...Gail has been an integral part of my woodworking.

So until she returns I am left with the dilemma...

Time in the shop is the perfect way to pass the time while I am alone. Yet being alone subjects my tender body to injuries that may require the assistance of trained professionals.

Finally, the solution came to me.

The Life Alert system (I've fallen and I can't get up) is on its way and will arrive tomorrow. Soon I will be able to maintain my shop independence and can stave off the attempts of those who believe I should move my work to a Group Shop.

Thank you, Life Alert.

The Grand Facade So Soon Will Burn....

Given the heat and sunshine in West Michigan, I just haven’t been in my woodshop. Instead, I have been out in the car switching from Barry to Van Halen at each stoplight (see previous post).

Well today I listened to Right Now by Van Halen and realized that in contrast to the Video of that song, the radio version just has very long instrumentals because there is not text to read to occupy your mind.

So as a service to the Van Halen listeners I compiled a “Right Now” list below. Print it out, keep it in your car, and then read it during the instrumentals whenever Right Now comes on the radio.

One warning…some of these might seem a little dark, so if you are squeamish, please turn away…..

Right Now….

Someone is playing with matches

Someone just tripped carrying a tray of Drinks

Someone unexpectedly got sick in a public place

Someone said “I Love You” for the first time

Someone is standing over the body of his first victim

Right Now….

Someone started filling the engine back up with oil, not realizing they forgot to replace the drain plug

Someone just picked their loved one out of a crowd of strangers at the airport

Someone said “Goodbye” and meant it

Someone pulled out without looking both ways

Someone is admiring their Grandma’s new tattoo

Right Now….

Someone realized too late the car was moving way too fast

Someone just moved on to the Harder Stuff

Someone achieved total clarity, if only for a moment

Someone is waiting for the phone to ring

Someone stepped off of their porch for the last time.

Right Now….

Even in the midst of the pain someone thought, “Wow, it’s weird how you see the explosion before you hear it….”

Someone generated the courage to publicly admit their favorite band of all time is CROWDED HOUSE

Someone is discovering Boo Radley for the first time

Someone just realized his fly has been down for hours

Someone just lost their grip

Right Now….

Someone just shared their wife’s deepest secret with a stranger

Someone just took a joke way too far

Someone just cheated his own children while playing Chutes and Ladders

Someone was just told the cancer is advancing more aggressively than they previously thought

Someone convinced another person to do the dirty work for them.

Right Now….

Someone is driving on Snow Tires in the middle of Summer

Someone doesn’t know they are being messed with

Someone just lost their Security Deposit

Someone realized there was no movement on the ultrasound

Someone inadvertently mixed gasoline and diesel

Right Now….

Someone achieved the Dream of their Lifetime

Someone lost all hope

Someone just quit his day job

Someone just spoke at his best friend’s wake

Someone felt the tingle of true love

Right Now….someone just decided this shit was “Blog Worthy.”

(and yes...I do realize the title comes from Peter Gabriel...not Van Halen)

Signing in the Shower

I know, I know, I know….it’s been a week.

Were you worried? Any chance you thought I had been sucked into a machine and was still spinning around the cyclone just waiting to drop down into the dust bin?

Well, it’s nothing that dramatic. Instead, I have just been distracted by things in life other than the blog. I’m sorry. I know you deserve better.

Today on the way to work I started fixating on all of the pressures and distractions that we face in life, and the next thing you know in an effort to find clarity I was scribbling out my random, deep thoughts as I drove along.

This morning I bypassed the 40mpg economy of the Jetta in favor of the top down sun-basking glory of the Benz, and I think that (the near heat stroke from the sun) is what led to the eclectic mix of today’s thoughts .

Without further babbling, here are today’s little nuggets....or as the late, great Mr. Carlin would say....today's Brain Droppings:

Recently I put Baby in a Corner, and it was actually about as anti-climactic as the time I messed with Texas.

My old girlfriend Carly still confuses me….even now, years after we broke up. I understand she was mad about the breakup, and she wrote the song about my being vain. However, given her follow-up song about me was NOBODY DOES IT BETTER, don’t I kind of have a right to be vain? Come on, Carly. It’s time to move on.

Speaking of songs, I was talking to Neil Diamond last week, and he told me that in the original version of Cracklin’ Rosie….the line went, “Cracklin’ Rosie make me a sandwich….”

Which do you think chess playing woodworkers struggle more with…..end grain or end game?

Do Deaf people sign in the shower?

That was it. Notice there were far fewer thoughts today. It’s because the commute is so much faster in the Mercedes than in the VW….

For the record, there was no Night Ranger during this morning’s drive to throw my world into a Tizzy. Rather, the drive was somewhat calm and relaxing, with the exception of one radio visit from Rammstein that made me move the shifter lever from sixth to fourth and plant the right foot hard.

Motorin'

My wife and I have 4 cars, but one of them is my baby. However, like any baby…it requires a lot attention. It's my Mercedes SLK 320 (with AMG Sport Package).

I don't want to discuss performance; otherwise I will get carried away talking about mine being the fastest time of the day at our MBCA (Mercedes Benz Club of America) Autocross event three weeks ago. (Note the trophy plaque in the photo below....braggin in your own blog...how pathetic.)

Instead, I want to finally clear the air about how much work it is to operate the radio while driving with the top down. I live just off of US31. US31 is a 55 mph 4 lane highway, but it has crossroads and stoplights. That means that each time I stop at a light, invariably someone pulls up next to me, causing me to scramble to change the radio to something far more hip than what I was really listening to.

While passing long lines of cars at very high speeds, I can be belting out "Looks Like We Made It" right along with Barry Manilow. However, at the next light I have to quickly punch up a station that is playing something more along the lines of Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher." 5 seconds after the light turns green, with the car back up to 60 mph, I can jump back to Barry for a strong finish to our duet.

This morning, though, something different happened when I switched to Sirius Radio's Classic Rewind while stopped at a red light. I hit the radio preset and found Night Ranger. Immediately an entirely different set of obsessive compulsive activities started. Sister Christian is a trigger song for me. Like the folks who would act out The Rocky Horror Picture Show down in front of the screen on Friday nights back in college…I do a one man production of Boogie Nights every time I hear Night Ranger's Sister Christian. Here is how today's show went.

I immediately went to the glove box, grabbed the firecrackers, started lighting them off, and tossing them in the air.

Next I grabbed my long-hair wig and bathrobe from under the seat and started doing air keyboard, transitioning into air drums, followed by full-blown windmill air guitar each time the song would crescendo toward "MOOOOTTTTTTOOOOORRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I suppose that I should mention that even though my one man show starts with the Sister Christian scene, once the song is over I actually turn the radio off and play out the full film from there. (We've established it's obsessive compulsive behavior, folks…I cannot control it.)

Normally, it goes pretty well, but today was different. Because just as I got ready to roll the credits, having given myself a pep talk in the mirror as I vainly tried to convince myself that I am still a star…I looked up to find my only audience member was an Ottawa County Sheriff.

If anyone in West Michigan knows a good bail bondsman, please have him give me a call. I am currently in the Fillmore Detention Facility under the name of D. Diggler.

Saving Voicemail

Everybody does it at some time or another….the eternal voicemail.

You know the ones I mean. The attaboy from the Vice President, Your mom telling you that your dad’s surgery went ok, the one where your wife’s excited giddiness comes through the phone like she's screaming in a bullhorn as she tells you that she successfully negotiated Indianapolis traffic to arrive at the Mass Avenue Knit shop. (It was a solo field trip for her while I was in Joinery 2 at Marc Adams School of Woodworking back in 2007). FYI…I don’t think Gail even knew that I have kept that one.

My oldest saved voicemail is actually woodworking related. It’s from Bill W. at Penn State Industries, and it is from December of 2006. Now I would have to believe that Bill would never in his wildest dreams believe that some guy in Michigan still has his voicemail from Tuesday, December 19^th 2006 saved on his cell phone, but I do. I probably haven’t listened to the whole message more than once or twice. However, every three weeks I get queried to erase it, and I spend about 2 seconds listening to Bill tell me that “they are upgrading me to a better dust can” before I hit the 9 button that saves that message for another 3 weeks.

I was redoing the dust collection in my shop over the Christmas holiday in 2006, and the fine folks at Penn State scrambled to get my cyclone system out to me in time for me to install it during my time away from the office.

It was nice that they upgraded me to a “better can” in order to keep my plan on schedule, but the reason I save that message is because installing that new cyclone was the last thing I worked on with my dog, Simon. Somewhere in the confused, cobweb filled part of the brain there is this belief that as long as that message stays on my phone, Simon and I are still together working on that cyclone.

I never would have imagined while stepping over Simon that day as I ran 6 inch pipe along the basement ceiling that his healthy 6 years of life were near an end. I suppose I was naïve. Simon died 4 weeks after Bill W. left that message.

I’m not quite as naïve as I was back then. That message is my ongoing reminder that life happens.

YO K2TOG

My wife has me looking at Spinning Wheels.

So help me God, every time I think about it I get stuck humming Blood, Sweat, and Tears for hours.

Anyway, I am sure I have explained that Gail is a prolific knitter. She is quite likely a better knitter than I am woodworker. There is no doubt her completion of projects blows me away. I complete about 0.33 projects per year, and Gail busts out about 2 finished goods PER WEEK. The woman is a machine. Now she wants to start spinning her own yarn. I believe this is analogous to the fact that I use rough sawn stock. Once she starts wanting to raise sheep or alpacas, I’ll have to counter by buying a forest and a sawmill.

I may end up building her a spinning wheel, if only so I can weasel in and take partial credit for all future work she does. Then, at dinner parties I can say things like, this is an Irish Fisherman’s sweater my wife spent 60 hours knitting for me, but hey….back in 2008 I made the spinning wheel that she used during the 10 hours of spinning that was necessary to make the yarn that was needed for the 60 hours of knitting.

While in Dublin last month we visited a knit shop (Cleo) where I saw a different way to collaborate. I first whipped out the camera to get some shots of the clothing racks they used. I thought they were cool.

Then, I saw something on some of the sweaters that struck a woodworking note….6000 year old buttons carved from Bog Oak. (click the photo to read the tag)

So if Gail and I collaborate on some of these sweaters, how might my bragging go… "Well, Gail has about 40 hours in the sweater, but each button takes me approximately 6000 years and 20 minutes. However, you know me…you can’t rush quality."

Relaxing with Mimes

My wife and I subject each other to a lot of second hand noise.

As Gail sits in the living room knitting, she deals with the background noise drifting up from my basement woodshop. She also has to deal with my scream of testosterone-induced rage as I don one of my Old Man sweaters, stand at the front door shaking me fist, and yell at the neighborhood kids to “STAY OFF MY YARD!!!” Probably once or twice a year she has to tolerate the sickening sound of the bitchslaps I put on the migratory mime troupe that comes through on their way up to Mackinac Island. (I call this event Silent Scream.)

The second hand noise I tolerate isn’t quite as offensive. Let’s face it…Gail’s knitting isn’t very loud. However, each morning as I sit with my laptop in the dining room desperately trying to feed all of my Webkinz before I start my day, I am forced to listen to the cable news show Gail religiously watches. It’s not just the perky talking heads that I have to hear…it’s the commercials from hell, too.

I first heard this commercial yesterday, and my brain semi-consciously registered a What the $@#%????? However, this morning the replaying of this commercial solidly lodged in the conscious part of my brain and chiseled out a ledge where it has painted a sign that calls it out as one of the nuttiest things I have ever heard seriously marketed.

(Pleases note the “…” in the title below creates a pregnant pause of almost a second and a half from the voiceover actor as he narrates the television commercial).

The Most Relaxing Classical Album in the World...Ever!

Honestly, it’s a real title. You can get it here.

Wow, there are a lot of unsubstantiated statements in that title. Well, it’s my belief they are unsubstantiated. Perhaps there are competitions among albums to see which is most relaxing.

They get really bubbly waitress types, pump them full of ephedrine and caffeine, then strap them into La-Z-Boy’s and force them to listen to music through headphones. Whichever album creates the largest total reduction in heart rate, respiration, and certain non-essential brain waves is considered to be the Most Relaxing Album. Obviously, competition among Classical albums is more intense than in the EuroTechno or ThrashMetal categories. In fact, the Classical competition is the main event; those ringside seats command Super Bowl ticket prices from scalpers.

I still have questions. Does one competition really determine the winner for the ENTIRE world as indicated by this album’s title? What if there is an unheralded classical album making the rounds in a village outside New Delhi that is putting people to sleep left and right?

Finally, I am skeptical of the use of the word “Ever.” Does the word “ever” in this title mean “from the beginning of man up to this point in time” or does it imply all future time as well? Even if it is possible to gather all of the music that has come before and rank it for relaxation value, it is not possible to know something won’t come along next Thursday that will make narcoleptics of all of us.

You know what…I just realized I am probably not the right guy to be complaining about sweeping generalizations like ones used in the title of this album. After all, am I not the guy that Chris Schwarz links to with the subtitle, “Is Jeff Skiver the funniest woodworker ever? Yes. Yes, he is.”

I suppose I should just be happy Chris chose to accentuate my sense of humor as opposed to my ability to put the smack down on non-verbal artists.

Dude, Where's My Pie Safe????

As the darkness envelopes you, there seems to be a communal scream of "NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!."

There's nothing like a power failure in the working world setting of a Cubicleville office complex to immediately clue one into which employees are diligent about backing up, and which of us are just too busy to be distracted by prudent acts like that.

This morning I was listening to one of my good friends describe the horror of losing a document that had about 3 hours of time invested in it….

Wait. I know it shocks some of you that I have friends, but I do.
Really. They're not the kind of friends who will lend me money or help me move, but I do have friends.

Anyway, my buddy's tale of lost document woe started me wondering…..
(cue the wavy edges on the perimeter of the screen.)

What if other areas of our life were impacted by power failures?

More specifically, what if our woodworking fell victim to gremlins in the grid the way our computer work sometimes does? It would lead to guild meetings and Woodcraft Coffee Pot discussions that sound more like share time at 12 step meetings…

So anyway, Tom, I spent 6 hours last Saturday morning dovetailing that new blanket chest for my Aunt Tillie when I'll be dipped if the power didn't go out. The lights were only out for about 2 minutes, but so help me Fred, when they came back on…every single dovetail I had cut that morning was gone.

There could be much more painful stories.

You know that storm that rolled through last Thursday? I lost an entire Hoosier Pie Safe. I don't know if it was how I had saved my work or what, but I didn't just lose the rails and stiles I was working on at the moment the power went out…I lost the whole project. I've been Googling like crazy trying to find out if anybody knows of a way to recover it, but it ain't looking good. It's upsetting because I not only lost all of my hours of work, I lost the lumber, the hardware, the punched tin panels. I lost everything. And to think…woodworking is supposed to be fun?!?!?!?

However, something tells me that the Festool Snobs would gloat about some kind of built in back-up protection they have, similar to the way all of you folks in the Apple/Macintosh crowd are right now wondering what the hell I am even talking about.

Royale with Cheese...

I was talking to a close friend today about differentiating twins. I mentioned that my nephews Harrison and Jackson are the most identical pair of human beings I have ever encountered. The only discernible difference is that Harrison has an Alec Baldwin-esque voice that sounds like he smokes 4 packs of Lucky Strikes per day (that is excessive for a 5 year old).

I just cannot imagine my two nephews being apart. For example, once when Gail and I were babysitting the twins and their 3 siblings, all 5 kids went down to the basement to watch a movie… slumber party style. I went down there and found 4 sleeping bags. When I asked why there were only 4 sleeping bags, the middle child (Maddy) looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “The twins sleep together.”

Harrison and Jackson recently got a room to themselves, and they got bunk beds. When they gave her a tour of their room, Gail asked them who slept on the top bunk. The reply was, “Nobody…we both sleep on the bottom.” When I think of the twins, I just can’t conceive of having one without the other.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered the story of a different pair of twins who were separated at birth. This story is one of the things I learned when Gail and I travelled to Dublin recently. It’s a lamentable and cruel tale of two twin brothers separated at birth. One was taken to America, and the other was hustled off to Ireland. However, the DNA connection of these two was so strong that even though each never knew of the other, the very chemistry of their makeup carried them down educational roads and career paths that were remarkably similar.

It wasn’t until I happened to go shopping one day in Dublin that I discovered the story of TK and TJ….The MAXX Brothers.

“You know what the funniest thing about Europe is…it’s the little differences.” Vincent Vega, American Philosopher (deceased)

Oh....I Forgot to Mention...

My niece Hannah turned 12 today.

Because there were pre-teen girly sleepover things happening at her house, Gail and I invited her 10 year old brother, Isaac, to spend the night with us last night.

Isaac and I played Wii. I am not a video game person, but as soon as I tried Wii bowling last year, I knew I had to have one. Isaac doesn't even have a Wii, but as an American 10 year old he has logged about 3000 more Wii hours than me, a full fledged Wii owner.

However, I had never attempted Wii golf until last night with Isaac. The stupid thing is that as Isaac was "teaching" me to play Wii golf, I was having to go first. So, on the first hole AFTER I managed to drive the ball about 30 yards right of the fairway, Isaac told me I should watch out for that 25mph wind blowing left to right. Then, he aimed way to the left and drove the ball about 300 yards landing right in the middle of the fairway. (Thanks for the tip, Isaac.)

Then, AFTER I used an iron to hit the ball so far over the green that it went out of bounds, Isaac pointed out the swing power meter, and he hit his iron with about a half swing and dropped the ball onto the green inches from the hole. It seems that my nephew is the King of Post-Failure Instruction.

Perhaps in a few years he will get the woodworking bug, and I can get some paybacks:

1) Oh, yeah....I forgot to tell you about dry-fitting the parts prior to glue up.

2) Wow, Isaac. You're quite the bleeder. I guess I should have told you about pushsticks....

3) Dude, you should have heard the Banshee scream you let out when that glove got caught in the jointer. Sorry for not warning you not to wear gloves, Little Buddy.

I Must Have Them ALL!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago we talked about Ken Wisner planes. Then about a week after that blog entry a very special Wisner showed up on Ebay. It was special (in my opinion) because it had WISNER cast into the side of it in the area where I have always seen Ken Wisner’s name hand scribed. Naturally, I had to have it. It would perfectly complement the one I own with the autograph.

As I followed the end of the auction on Ebay, I was pretty sure I was going to win it. It was going for about $85 and I knew that I had my AuctionSniper price set for at least 50% more than that. As the closing seconds ticked away, I waited to see my name and bid magically appear. Then, with 5 seconds to go nothing happened. AuctionSniper blew my bid. I watched as someone else won my plane (with the cast in name) for about $90. I was not crestfallen; I was PISSED. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars through AuctionSniper going back to at least 2001, and it had never failed me before.

I emailed, called, did that whole “Automotive Engineer SENSE-OF-URGENCY Crap” and tracked down what went wrong. I put a permanent corrective action place, and I should have no more AuctionSniper trouble as long as I live. However, it is little consolation since I had missed the only Ken Wisner plane I had ever seen with the name cast in.

Then it happened.

In our universe where celebrities die in threes…apparently Name-Cast Wisners appear in pairs on Ebay. Less than a month after the AuctionSniper fiasco a second one appeared out of nowhere. The bad news is that it was due to end while we were in Ireland. I would have no choice but to trust AuctionSniper to bring it home for me. I placed my bid on AuctionSniper and left the country. I actually forgot about the plane…(the wood cutting plane….I thought a lot about jet planes while out over the ocean.) Then one day in Ireland while checking my email I found I had completed my Wisner collection by winning the auction. My successful AuctionSniper bid easily covered the second highest guy and I brought it into the fold for $107.50.

The plane actually made it to my house before I did. We were still in Ireland when my mother-in-law collected the package off of our porch. So along with the suitcases, the new Wisner got unpacked when I arrived home. Take a look at it.

It actually has grime on it.

I held him up to the light and tried to imagine his life over the last 30 years. I wondered what kind of work he had done to accumulate this kind of gritty patina. As I pondered his existence the little plane opened his mouth and yelled at me in a voice surprising like Mr. T’s, “I’m blue collar, Fool!!!! I ain’t no Bridge City sittin’ on a collector’s shelf. I’ve had to pay the cost to be the boss!!!!! Now give me somethin’ to cut on, Boy!!!!!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I already had a Wisner #95. I could not find the cojones to let him know I had only purchased him to complete my Wisner collection. I don’t think he could handle it. There’s a lot of working class anger pent up in this grimy little guy.

I Used to Be Irish Catholic...Now I'm an American

"I used to be Irish Catholic, Now I'm an American..." those were the words that changed my life.

I was 14 years old, and my brother had just put the new (to us) cassette into the stereo of his car. The years before this moment had seen my sense of humor shaped almost solely by network TV and Bill Cosby albums. However, George Carlin's Class Clown was my graduation from the School of Cosby to the Working World of Carlin.

The weird thing is that George Carlin and I appeared so different on the outside. I have always been the the squeakly clean, crew cut honor student who never even considered a single experiment with drugs or alcohol. Also, my politics seemed nearly 180 degrees off of George's. However, George taught me timing, delivery, and he most importantly taught me that in my world it doesn't matter what a person looks like, thinks like, or acts like if he can make me laugh.

George and I did have some similarities though. We were peeved by some of the same pets. In one of his books he mentions how much he hates the fact that 99.9% of the world mispronounces forte. His response to the argument that the dictionary lists "for-tay" as an accepted secondary pronunciation is to say that the reason it is secondary is because it is not the PRIMARY (correct) pronunciation of "FORT."

I used the above example of forte in describing to my wife that 99.9% of the world doesn't understand damping of vibrations. To reduce or damp a vibration one would install a damper. If one desired to make something wet, he could reach for a spray bottle to serve as a dampener and could dampen the offending dry item. It bugs me that the repeated misuse of a word actually leads to its becoming an accepted usage. I recently saw in an Engineering dictionary that with regard to noise and vibration, dampen has now become an accepted substitute for damp. To paraphrase my late comedic mentor, the reason dampen is an accepted substitute is because it is not the primary (correct) word.

I may have always appeared to be the poster child for the nerdy, hard right, but when I would open my mouth and unleash a volume of sarcastic wit in the style I learned from George, it made me the life of the party. Thanks to George Carlin my circle of friends includes stoners, cripples, religious nuts, MILFS, doctors, immigrants, gays, convicted felons, soccer moms, truck drivers, professional athletes, former Captains of Industry and the legally blind. I love a variety of ladder climbers, under-achievers, and the comfortably uninformed and unconcerned.

I am a man of the people, and I owe a big part of that to a former radical, dope-smoking hippy who was willing to rip on anybody if he thought it would get a laugh.

The world is a sadder place today now that George Carlin is gone.

However, George will always be with me because he provided me with alternatives to consider when I reached the formative years of my adolescence.

George made me a classroom hero by providing me with the mantra I gleaned from his Class Clown album, "Well, I'm Bored...why not deprive someone else of their education."

It's good to know with people reading my blog at their places of employment depriving their bosses of the time they should be working, I continue to be the same apparently squeaky-clean smart ass 14 year old kid George Carlin turned me into.

Kellogg's Rice Krispies for Ireland: Snap, Crackle, and Bang

When the writing gig started, I couldn’t be sure I was a published magazine feature writer until I saw the magazine on the shelf at Barnes and Noble’s. Sure I had gotten (and cashed) a check weeks before. They even sent me a few copies of the magazine a couple of weeks before it hit the newsstand. However, I could not be 100% sure those advanced copies weren’t Photoshop’ed fakes until I saw the identical thing on the retail shelf.

When that finally happened, it took everything in me to not grab the magazine, flip it open to my article, and run through the store while screaming incoherent rants to the long line of foster parents, parole officers, and counselors who told me I would never amount to anything. (Mom and Pop, I know you never gave into the urge to walk away from your parental responsibility. The previous sentence is a complete fabrication that many authors (and ALL political speech writers) call “jazzing it up” in order to make a boring story a little more interesting.)

While in Ireland, Gail and I visited every bookstore we saw. (We do the same thing during our daily lives here in the States). I would immediately head to the Magazine Rack to see if I could do an international version of the Bookstore Ranting Jog. Unfortunately, most of the bookstores did not sell any woodworking periodicals. Also, the selection of woodworking literature I found in the bookstores followed a line closer to DIY Home Restoration than building fine furniture.

Then, one day in the City Centre of Galway I happened upon a large bookstore that had a significant selection of magazines. As I approached the woodworking magazines it seemed a certainty that I was going to be able to forever say that in June of 2008, I travelled to Ireland and found pictures (and an eloquent 4 page description) of my building a Windsor Tall Stool back in my homeland.

Here is what I saw….

WHAT?!?!?!?!

I understand Fine Woodworking being a logical choice for export to the Emerald Island. It has International Appeal. But how can American Woodworker be required reading in Ireland with Popular Woodworking nowhere to be found? There was no PopWood anywhere in Ireland. The other tragic absence I noticed was Pop Tarts. There were no Pop Tarts in any of the groceries we visited during two weeks in Ireland.

So even though I thought about yelling at Chris Schwarz, Megan Fitzpatrick, and the entire F+W Publications team about the lack of penetration into the Irish Market, I have decided to let it go. I eventually realized that if the Multi-billion Dollar Cereal Giant from Battle Creek, Michigan cannot get shelf space for Pop Tarts, how can Popular Woodworking chisel out a niche. Clearly, all of Ireland is opposed to anything whose name starts with “Pop.”

Given the Anti-"Pop" Irish bias, my advice is for Mr. Schwarz to concentrate on Woodworking Magazine being the opening salvo of F+W’s invasion of Ireland. Meanwhile, I am currently working with Kellogg's on my plan to get PopTarts into Ireland. I have no doubt they will eventually replace either the mushrooms, the beans, or the black and white pudding in the traditional Irish breakfast.

I am the Lizard King...Wait...Different Doors

Dublin is famous for its painted doors. The legend is that a husband returning home late from the pub entered the wrong house, got into bed with the wrong woman, and was shot and killed when her husband arrived at his correct (although crowded) bedroom. Therefore to add another visual clue to drunken Irish men that they had found the correct house, women would paint their doors a distinctive color that was different than their neighbor's.

The Dublin Doors were great. This massive nine foot tall door at the Bunratty Castle provided a lot of interesting woodworking-related thoughts as I pondered its construction.

Then, there were the doors in our condo. The condo in County Clare that we rented for a week was truly beautiful, but it has the ugliest doors on the planet. I say this as a woodworker. My travel mates didn't seem to be as bothered by the doors as I was. However, these doors were intentionally made using raw materials that to me were unworthy of being used in a bonfire...let alone a show-off piece in someone's home. Perhaps this is an Irish cultural difference that I just don't get. However, I think this is just an example of cheap construction being marketed as a feature.

I freely admit that I don't like Knotty Pine. I also don't like Knotty Cedar even though there are very few clear Select and Better Western Red Cedar Boards used in the ceiling of my sauna.

In my projects I meticulously plan out my lumber to match grain and create visual harmony. So the thought of intentionally including knots strikes me as weird. There have been times where I kept in a knot to add some texture and variety, but even then it was done with great effort...(I used wood flour and epoxy to fill in the voids and stabilize the structure of the knot).

That kind of planning did not go into the construction of these doors. Here is what the doors looked like.

The panels were glued up from boards no wider than an inch and a half. The knots themselves were cut in half and then glued against clear sections of adjoining boards only an inch and a half wide.

Prior to becoming a woodworker, I would have never noticed these doors. Now I have just enough knowledge to recognize a door that should have been installed in Dublin where it could have gotten a bright Sears Weatherbeater covering.

Angels Among Us....

We are home from Ireland. In the 16 years since I graduated from Rose-Hulman (my glorious Alma Mater), this is the first time I have ever had two weeks off of work (other than Christmas shutdowns or the dreaded company downsize). It was almost like having a sabbatical.

Although at least 100 people a day hit this blog, I have to assume my mother is the only one who actually reads it. So, Mom, I know how tough it has been for you to not have new material to stare at. Therefore, I think to make up for the lack of blogging over the last two or three weeks, I am going to do a bunch of short little posts over the next few days. They will be much shorter than normal, but there will be more of them. So, in some ways for at least a week or two I am going to finally make this blog what a blog should be....short and interesting. We will start that plan off tonight.

Ready.... Let's do it:

I am about 77% bought in to that concept of a parallel universe that is exactly like ours with the exception that George Bailey was never born causing Bedford Falls to indeed become Potterville. I saw something on my trip to Ireland that provides a data point in support of parallel lives/universes.

While in Dublin a couple of weeks ago I happened upon a 14 year old version of myself.

I have a fun little thing I like to do. When I see someone taking pictures, I like to provide delightful background scenery. I don't mean the obligatory throwing up of bunny ears behind one of the photo's main subjects. I mean adding happy little scenes that although visible are still subtly pushed off in the shadows. For example there are more than a few wedding reception photos where a keen eye will catch me performing the solo Heimlich maneuver on the back of a chair. There are family reunion photos that would APPEAR to have me punching one of my 4 year old nephews right in the kidney.

Two weeks ago as my lovely wife Gail took a picture of our friends and travel mates crossing the Ha'Penny Bridge, a young Dubliner managed to stop and jump into the photo just at the exact moment when Gail fired the shot. My best friend Matthew saw this going down and was clearly puzzled by the event, but his wife Marikay was oblivious to it. As soon as the picture was shot, the young man drifted away into the crowd, and was never seen again. Let me go on record with this...Guinness Factory, Cliffs of Moher, River Shannon...none of the subsequent photos from the trip gives me as much happiness and joy as the smart alecky kid on the Ha'Penny Bridge.

I am glad to know that as I move onto young adulthood there is a new generation of Weisenheimer out there ready to pick up the mantle and make this world a less serious place to be.

Perhaps he was a comedy angel???? Here is a new scripture for my personal Bible I am writing in my spare time, "The funniest candid moments of life are when you have entertained comedy angels unawares."

Bravo to my kindred spirit in Dublin shown in the photo below.

Jimmy the Saint and his Gate

I am alive.

When I checked email today there were 317 new messages. The most recent one was from the editing staff at Popular Woodworking. Megan was worried I had gone all literary/artsy and pulled an Ernie Hemingway 12 Gauge move or something. I am okay.

I am in Dublin. We have been in Ireland for the last few days, and we are here for another week. I haven't been on the internet since I arrived because I have finally gotten cheap. We've been at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin, and since it costs about a Lie-Nielsen #8 Jointer Plane per night (or in our case a boat load of Hilton Honors points), I refuse to pay an additional 18 Euros (per night) for internet access in my room. Honest to God, the most expensive room I have been in since a stay in Hong Kong in 2005 makes you pay an additional 18 Euros a night to check your damn email.

So tonight I finally grabbed my laptop and found a nice tavern with WiFi.

I will have Irish Woodworking stuff to babble about when we return to the States in the second half of June, but for now I will close with photos of today's Woodworking Research Project.

While in Dublin today, I investigated Coopering.

Here are some photos:


Now some probably wonder why I would take time away from vacation to spend time researching Coopering. Vacation is supposed to be a time to "get away from it all." Well, that is just my dedication to the craft of woodworking. Even during a respite from the stress of work life, I can still find a way to improve my knowledge of woodworking and its history. Basically, I decided to do something to help with my future woodworking articles and my work. It's not always about doing what I want to do. Sometimes one needs to suck it up and be academic.

If you are ever in Dublin, I encourage you to follow in my studious footsteps and do your own research of Coopering. Just look for the place shown below.


Apparently, they have an extensive history in this important area of woodworking.



I suppose some day I should find out what they put in all of those barrels. This trip was only about woodworking...

Live from Studio B

I’ve been thinking about nomenclature. I’ve been thinking about what I call the area where I do my woodworking thing (or at least where all of the tools and equipment live when I am busy surfing the internet or playing Wii Fit and complaining about having no time to do any woodworking.)

Some people call those tool filled places their “SHOP.” However, that seems a little too generic for me because I have more than one shop in my life. All of the car stuff happens in my garage, but it is more of a combination garage/bicycle shop. I’ve said before that somewhere in between my Park Double Arm repair stand and Park TS-3 Master Truing Stand are enough tools to make 90% of the bicycle shops in North America jealous. Do you need to re-tap a bottom bracket? All decent shops can do either English or Italian Threads. However, for some reason I also have a tap for French Threaded bottom brackets, even though I neither work on bikes professionally nor have any French Bicycles. (I never know why I buy every tool I see, whether I’ll ever need it or not).

The non-bicycle part of the garage is pretty well set up for anything I need to do with cars. In the last ten years I have done engine swaps, clutch replacements, Air Locker installations, countless tune-ups, 30 or so brake jobs, 100 oil changes, water pump and radiator replacements, Axle replacements, ring and pinion set-ups, and on and on and on.

Before my wife and I moved to this house, most of the automotive stuff was done at my father-in-law’s shop. Long before I met him he ran a 2000 sq ft body shop behind his house, but he retired and closed his body shop before I ever came on the scene. So in the early days of my marriage, I would commandeer his shop for various automotive projects.

So now to differentiate between his shop, my bike shop, my garage shop, and the area of my plantation where I do welding and metal work, I always refer to my basement area as my WOOD SHOP. I say to Gail, “I’ll be downstairs in the Wood Shop. If the lazy dog should wake up, feel free to convince him to come keep me company.”

I am very happy with the Wood Shop in my basement. However, I will inevitably have to rename that space. Eventually my work will be good enough for me to call my wood shop a “Studio.” It’s a subtle little thing, but it is the key to being a wood artist. Adirondack Chairs are made in Wood Shops by woodworkers. Commissioned furniture projects are done in studios by two types of guys. To the uninitiated, woodshops and studios look a heck of a lot alike. They have identical equipment and tools. The difference between woodshops and studios is the guy doing the work and the deposit slips for his bank account. Today I came up with the official list of criteria required for a woodshop to be called a studio, and here it is:

1) If the woodworker went to art school then it is acceptable to call it a studio. Art School guys are different. A couple of years ago I was a Mechanical Engineer who worked with a bunch of Industrial Designers designing Office Furniture. It was my job to make sure the roll-formed steel and the drawer slides could support the required loads. It was the responsibility of the Industrial Designers to make sure the theme of the company was represented with a passionate design that made one think, “If I have to spend 10 hours a day in a cubicle, this is the work space I want.” Those left handed, beret-wearing guys were studio types.

2) If you are a woodworker who has ever made $1000 profit on a piece then you can call your woodshop a studio. The keyword here is profit. It’s more than selling cherry cabinets for $2000 when you have more than half of that total tied up in materials, overhead, labor, and burden. Woodshops produce items that either generate no income or can sometimes sell for as much as one half of the price of the lumber they use. However, studios are the setting where profitable wooden art projects are created.

Someday my basement woodshop will become my Studio. I am not able to go to art school, so criterion 1 will not happen. However, I have a plan for creating a 4 digit profit on a piece of furniture or a similar woodworking project. I’ll share that plan with you now.

Someday I am going to resaw a walnut plank and find that the bookmatched inner faces form a distinctive picture of Jesus. Then, I will put the resawn slabs on eBay, and send out a press release. Within 24 hours of FoxNews and Headline News doing bits on Jesus in the Walnut, my auction will have bids over $5000. And when the auction ends and the buyer’s PayPal clears, my basement woodshop with the resawing 18” bandsaw will forever be referred to as “My Studio.”

And I’ll get to show pictures to people and say things like, “here is a picture of my Studio. The Unisaw is in the middle, and on the left is my hand crafted maple workbench. If you look closely in the corner you can see my bandsaw where I created my most famous pieces, Jesus in the Walnut, as I was resawing stock one day…”

Perfection Among Mortals

Yesterday, I witnessed earthly perfection. I saw something that was profound enough to be one of those things that sticks with you for your entire life. I didn’t know it was coming when I woke up yesterday. However, by the time I went to bed last night I had something I can point at and say, “That is perfection!!!”

It started as Gail and I were backing out of the garage on our way to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. I had the car about 6 feet out of the garage when I looked over and saw a box sitting on the porch. I stopped, pushed the shift lever out of reverse, yanked the parking brake and ran over to find a heavy box that had originated in Oregon.

I handed it to Gail as I got back in the car. She cut it open to find my CT14 Foxtail Shoulder Plane had arrived from Bridge City. I hadn’t purchased one when they first came out, but a few weeks ago I got to hold one. As I held it, I listened as Bridge City Tool Works owner John Economaki spoke of his theory that beautiful tools serve as an inspiration to perform beautiful work. Holding it that night, I felt the magic, and finally placed my order for one.

Yesterday while driving to BW3’s I felt teased as Gail sat in the passenger seat telling me how pretty the Foxtail is, and telling me how heavy it is, and I could hear her playing with the locking lever and the wheel that holds the front part of the plane and allows for adjusting the throat.

Rather than taking it into the restaurant, I left the plane in the car. Gail said she would drive, and I could look at it on the way home. (I am actually a five year old kid trapped in the body of an old man, and Gail understands how to deal with me). With the Foxtail out in the car, Gail and I sat down at our table, and that is where I saw a thing of beauty and perfection. It was not brass and chrome; it was brown. As beautiful as the Foxtail may be, and as great as its design may be…it pales in comparison to what I saw as I ate dinner yesterday afternoon. Yesterday on the huge televisions inside BW3’s I saw The Preakness, and for me it took me back to Italian days in May from a few years ago.

I am not a horse person, but one didn’t need to be to recognize the perfect dominance of Big Brown in the race yesterday. Big Brown was the favorite. Big Brown was EXPECTED to win. Big Brown’s reputation mandated that anything other than victory was complete and total failure. The weird thing is that everyone involved in that race knew that except for the horses. Big Brown has no concept of his reputation. He just knew he was jogging. All of the way to turn four, Big Brown was a horse that was doing a fun run. Then, with the urging of his rider, Big Brown turned to the other gasping horses and said, “Kids, what do you say we stop this strolling along and make a run for the finish. I bet I can beat you.” And out of the fourth turn, Big Brown started running. Instantly The Preakness became a race with one amazing horse and a bunch of ponies struggling to see who could come in second.

I have only seen one other thing like that I can recall. Before his retirement a few years ago, I had the privilege of seeing the greatest bicycle sprinter of all time: Mario Cipollini. When Mario’s team would form up the train to lead him to the finish, it was the most beautiful thing in sport. It was perfectly orchestrated teamwork that would take control of a bike race to put Mario where he needed to be with 200 meters to go. And when his final leadout man, Giovanni Lombardi¸ pulled off there was never any doubt that Mario would end the day atop the podium. At his prime, Mario was a man among a peloton of boys. Yesterday took me back to the Giro d’Italia’s of old. Because at the fourth turn of The Preakness I saw an invisible Giovanni Lombardi peel off, and the Mario Cipollini of Thoroughbreds, a horse named Big Brown, allowed me to experience again the joy of seeing athletic perfection.

We mortals do not get to see perfection very often. My new Foxtail is nice, and I know John Economaki is happy with this tool he designed. And as much as Mr. Economaki hopes this beautiful tool will serve as a muse that inspires the highest level of craftsmanship, I don’t know if the Foxtail will ever move me to tears.

The following is a language censored quote from a scene (available on YouTube) from the film Vision Quest, one of my favorite coming of age movies from my youth:


Elmo: I was in the room here one day... watchin' the Mexican channel on TV. I don't know nothin' about Pele. I'm watchin' what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in - upside down and backwards... the ^%$damn goalie never knew what the %$# hit him. Pele gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around over his head. Everybody's screaming in Spanish. I'm here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying.

[pause]

Elmo: That's right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species which I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute... let me tell ya, kid - it was pretty %$#damned glorious.

Yesterday afternoon, a horse named Big Brown did that same thing to me. Out of nowhere as I sat at a sports bar in Michigan I started crying as I witnessed the glorious moment when another creature on this planet achieved a moment of perfection that lifted me to a better place.

It made me think that perhaps I have what it takes to follow those dreams I keep buried down inside. Perhaps this is my moment to drop down to 168 and take on Shute…

Cat Scratch Fever

In 1980, my brother and our friends (a couple of toe-headed twins named Keith and Kevin) decided to start a club. We figured since we liked riding our BMX bikes along the side of the tracks of the Burlington Northern route than ran west out of Lima, through our village of Elida, and off toward Delphos we naturally needed a club to encompass the excitement of peddling 20” bikes in the blazing sunlight. We discussed some names, and somewhere between Danny Zucko’s T-Birds and the Doug Henning Magic Men we came up with a name…The Black Panthers.

Don’t ask me how four middle class white boys in Northwest Ohio came up with the same name as Huey Newton’s black Mao-ist/socialist movement. There are some who believe the human brain stores every piece of information a person encounters in life, and the limitation of human existence is not the possession of knowledge but the ability to recall. (This leads to the possibility that hypnosis can cause one to recall seemingly tiny, unperceived details from previous life experiences.) So perhaps one of us had heard Walter Cronkite mention the Black Panthers in our pre-teen lives, or perhaps Keith and Kevin were actually black radicals just passing as Arayan twins…who knows. The point is the four of us decided to call ourselves The Black Panthers. We even went to the T-shirt shop at the mall to see if they had any panthers iron on thingies that we could have put on black shirts. They didn’t. We could have had fuzzy block letters spelling out Black Panthers put on shirts, but that seemed lame. We thought about getting custom air-brushed t-shirts, but that was too expensive. So we just waited 3 or 4 days and forgot about it as focused on our 2 on 2 football games where each person running the ball claimed to be Earl Campbell. Edward and I moved back to Indianapolis a few months later, our family having only spent 6 months in Elida.

I spoke to my brother a few days ago. I haven’t heard from Keith or Kevin in over 27 years. 26 years after the disbanding of The Black Panthers of Elida, Ohio, Panther Fever hit me again. In 2006 when I bought my first hand plane and fell into the Galoot Crevasse, I purchased the two volume boxed set of Garrett Hack’s books. I really wanted The Handplane Book. I bought the boxed set because I love books, and I love to think I am getting a bargain. I had no real interest in the second volume of that set, The Handtool Book. But when those books arrived at my house, I got Panther Fever. One look at the Woodrough and McParlin Panther Saw on the cover of The Handtool Book and an abscess formed in my soul. I instantly had an infected cavity that could only be filled and healed with a Panther Saw.

I went looking for them on Ebay. There were none. What’s the deal????? None on EBAY???? Are they rare, or something? Some Googling told me they were rare. One website went as far as to estimate there were only 30 in existence. Obviously, there are probably more than 30 of them around, but I like how some people vehemently disagree with that total. I’ve seen bulletin board posts that say things like, “Oh, he’s full of crap if he says there are only 30 in existence. The total is probably closer to 50!!!! There could even be 100 of them if they were all dragged out of the barns and basements.”

I couldn’t find one. Gail and I went down to John Sindelar’s last year and there were four of them mocking me. I asked John about them, and he said, “I’ve had a few of them through the years, but I kept these because they were unique. These are weird ones…” (Friends that is a man after my own heart. His collection is so extensive he only collects “weird” Panther Saws.)

A year or so ago a Panther Saw finally showed up on Ebay. It was beat to death, and it went for about $600. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even bid. A few weeks ago another one showed up. It wasn’t in Sindelar Condition. It had a couple of issues. It had a blade that had seen so many sharpenings it was only about an inch and a half tall at the toe. Also, it had a big nasty drip of latex paint on the handle. Even though I felt my background as a black panther (Elida, Ohio white guy pre-teen chapter from 1980) entitled me to own this saw, it was actually my Ebay bid that made it happen.

So, even though I spoiled this story a week and a half ago by showing Gail pruning trees in the backyard with my Panther Saw, I am officially on record as being a panther owner. I have described my Panther Saw as being like a Gutenberg Bible that is missing Psalms. Sure, given its condition, it is not the most desirable sample in the world, but why don’t you show me yours before you say anything bad about mine.

A couple of weeks ago a Panther Saw in really good shape turned up on Ebay, but the final $1800+ bid did not meet the reserve.

How many are out there? There have to be at least 30 Panthers. I think there are still more than 50 Panther Saws in the world. There could be as many as 100. Mine isn’t perfect, but owning it does make me feel like I am special. And I haven’t felt this special since the Nigerian Government sent me that email asking me to help them move some money around through the use of Money Orders...