we’re in the middle of october and it’s fall. it’s miserable and dark and the nights are closing in on us. it’s time to huddle under a blanket and turn up the heat, grab a cup of hot tea and snuggle with your favorite book. or you could just say… Read More »thirty-two days of creativity

there is a problem with modern education. it is neither modern nor does it educate. this, indeed, is an issue for our society. we are creating a future where we can’t possibly do anything but regress to the darkness of our medieval, brutal past because we aren’t just forgetting the… Read More »fuck school

let’s build a smoothing-plane. this smoothing-plane, in fact… there are many, many, many ways to do this but i believe this is the simplest. a few things before we begin. this is a plane design based on a traditional smoothing-plane but it’s longer than is typical of a western plane… Read More »a simple plane

i’ve been away from my usual life for a couple of days to get some medical treatment i’ve been waiting for and all the time traveling to and from the hospital and lying there unable to do anything – really anything (it was vision-related and my eyes simply didn’t work… Read More »a simple bench

something that’s been on my mind lately is the practical side of hobbyist and student woodworking. i have the advantage of a significant amount of shop-time in a typical week. while i don’t spend as much time as i’d like building furniture, i do spend a lot of time designing… Read More »being without making

no, i don’t mean you should talk like a hick. or write like an uneducated fuck. i mean you should stop writing (or reading) formal poetry. formal poetry isn’t formal in the sense of “honorific” or “respectful”. it’s formal like “written in a form” — a sonnet, for example, or… Read More »an ode to informality