Ouch!

I can;t believe how much the weather changed from what it was last weekend. I am sitting here looking out and it is a winter wonderland. If I wanted to live up north with snow and ice as a regular visitor I would move to the north.  I check my garage/shop this morning and the temp is 38 degrees. a little too cold for this old man. The good news is spring is a month and a half away.

I live in the DFW area and right now and with all of the hoopla over the super bowl needless to say JJ and the city leaders are wishing they had attended church a little more. Personally I could care less. all it has meant to people like me is a great inconvenience.  The money that is fed into professional sports in my opinion is one of the biggest waste and greatest fraud perpetuated on mankind.

All I am saying is that because you have big hands and can run fast does not mean you are worth  million dollars plus a year. Then when you add to that the greed of the stadium owners such as Jerry Jones and they are selling tickets for $200 to sit in a tent outside and watch the super bowl on big screen TVs.  Folks there is something wrong. The same goes for all pro sports today.

There was a time you could go to Ranger Stadium and set in the bleachers behind 1st and watch a great  game for $4.  My boys are wanting for us to go to see a local minor league team the FW Cats' and catch a couple of games and we probably will because the price is still affordable. Truth is these guys are putting their hearts into the game hoping to make the majors and end up giving us a better game than we can get most times watching the Ranger's.

Enough on Pro sports.

Reading

Currently reading "Woodshop Lust" by David Thiel and truthfully it is good. I enjoy seeing how many of us amateur and pro woodworkers tackle our shops. What we choose for tools and benches. Also the type of projects we undertake in them.

One Reason I enjoy reading them and looking over the shops these guys and gals work in is that I am reminded that it is not always the tools and space but rather the workman who uses them that makes the difference in the work. But I know that if I had the right tool my work would improve. No Seriously.

 Projects

I was thinking about how to laminate and cut out blanks for wine bottle stoppers for my wife to offer to the non-profit she works for to auction off in the spring. What I am thinking is that if I laminate a thin piece of mesquite between two 3/4"  pieces of red oak then cut the blank out at a angle then when I turned the wine bottle stoppers they will come out in a spiral. That is the way I see it anyway. I expect some experiment in the near future once the garage/shop get above 50 degrees.

That in turn got me to think about the first time I turned a pieces of wood. When I was a 13 living north of Houston TX my Dad always busy. Had taken on a series of building cabinets for someone. Anyway it called for him to turn  spindles for overhead cabinet supports at a breakfast bar. 

At the time he was using a shopsmith for just about the complete build and he had setup to turn the spindles and I was fascinated with  the process. I remember he ask if I wanted to take a turn at it. The next thing I knew he was showing me how to duplicate the spindle and suddenly I had turned 4 legs that became legs for a step stool for my mother.

When I think about it that was what my Dad was always doing trying to get me involved in what he loved to do and that was woodworking. My Dad could take what most would use for kindling and turn it in to furniture. Often using tools he had scavenged from what folks had set out on the curb. He in his career had worked on renovation of the furniture and woodwork of governor mansions in Ark and Georgia as well as working on the bar for the club that had Elvis had built at Graceland.  I always felt like maybe I dsiappointed him when I choose to go into construction inspection instead of moving up to journeyman as a cabinetmaker.