It's a start

Hooray it's another woodworking blog!  Terrific there'll be loads of stuff to learn!  There won't.  Insightful insights! Nope.  Pithy commentary!  Well commentary, you may have to provide the pith.  Okay well why the heck should you read it?  I dunno, I suppose it's something to do at work when you're slacking off.

Bad jokes aside, introductions are a pain, but at least they seem to follow a standard pattern.  Experience, what got you into the activity, what your goals are, why you're writing a blog, who the heck are ya etc.

May as well start with the basics.  I've been woodworking for a few years now.  I did a few small things when I lived in apartments, but didn't have anything resembling a shop until I bought my first house.  Before that my experience was lacking, to say the least.  I didn't grow up in a real handy household.  My father didn't have much interest in the craft, and I grew up as one of the first generations without shop class.  I had more knowledge of socket sets than chisels.

Without all of that I still wanted to build stuff, specifically wooden stuff.  Why?  It's funny, when I hear people talk about their influences and what got them started I generally hear the same responses: their dad, Norm, David Marks, Sam Maloof, Jim Krenov, Chris Schwarz.  All valid, and I do and have taken some influence from all of them.  But for me it boils down to an old book.  Home Repairs Made Easy by Lee Frankl. Published in 1949, this yellowing, beaten up book sat on my dad's workbench longer than I've been alive, he in turn I presume got it from his father.  It's not a woodworking book, but it does have sections on basic woodworking, framing and other related topics (as well as plumbing, plastering, etc.). I'm sure it's well written, I've never read it.  But as a child, I'd creep down to the dark corner of the basement where my father's workbench was, pull out the book and leaf through it looking at the pictures and imagining building the stuff.  If there's anything I can look back at that really woke up the desire need to build, it's that book.

So why am I writing this and what do I hope to accomplish.  Well the why is more self-motivational than anything else.  Finding shop time can be difficult.  Up until recently I traveled a lot for work, add in other commitments, the Texas summer heat and inherent laziness and shop time can fall off the charts.  Adding a journal selfishly will put a commitment on me to get my butt in the shop, whether or not anyone reads this.

Which gets to the last thing of what I can add to the blogging community.  My best guess is the follies of a half-arsed hobbyist.  I'm only half-joking there.  There are some tremendous woodworking blogs out there right now, by much better woodworkers than myself.  The biggest difference I can see, is that I'm not a professional, and I'm not as far down my own journey as many of the others.  That means there's less knowledge in my repertoire than theirs, but on the plus side it means that anyone who reads this can learn from the inevitable errors I'll run into!

Well that's longer winded than I'd planned, so I'm gonna run.  Apparently I've got a musty old book to read.