My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

“What if I…” he thought to himself, as he bounced a small paper ball off the wall of his cubicle.

But before he could continue with his daydream his boss, a very stern, and often angry cat named, Mr. Fuzzy Pants, shot one of his trademark glares at Bob.  Bob cowered behind his computer and tried to work.  He was not the research in the R & D team today.  He was just search.

Everything had been so different since Dec 21, 2012, and he often wondered if it would  have been preferable if the earth had ended.  Everyone was more than a little relieved when it appeared that Mayans had been wrong, and life had not come to an end.  When some of the animals started to talk though, there was a lot of head scratching.

Cows and Pig were still just animals, much to the relief of the bacon cheeseburger eating crowd.  Cats were an entirely different story.  They started to speak, sometimes in Latin, and while pet owners often did their bidding before Dec 21, now that their pets could verbally order them about, made life slightly unpleasant.  When Mrs. Huffy’s Maine Coon, applied for and later received the management position at Foster Technical, which Bob had been hoping for, it made life completely unbearable.

All over the world, middle and senior management was being replaced by tabbies and other assorted members of Felidae Felis.  The only benefit which Bob could see, was the mandatory nap time around 10:00 and 2:00 each day.  Other than that, the change of focus had been hard on him.  He had been working on a new prototype of a 3d screen phone, when Mr. Fuzzy Pants had shifted him to a ‘string based’ project.

So he tried to focus, but he was coming up blank.  As far as Bob knew, it had been quite some time since the last major break through in yarn technology.  He thought about the creative process.  Though Bob felt that the likelihood of a discovery was slim, he still took it seriously.  Well at least for another 20 minutes, until he would be saved by the afternoon nap.

Mr. Fuzzy Pants let out a meow, and then said, “Bob, get back to work!”

Today in the Shop

I felt a lot like Bob.  I wanted to work on something, but I didn’t know what.  The dovetail box I had started a while back, sat there needing a bottom, so I thought I might make it one.

As I looked over my pile of practice wood I had an idea.  Not a great idea mind you, but an idea none the less.  I thought I would make a base for the box.  Something sort of cool looking, or maybe not.  I couldn’t be sure.

The idea was to cut a mortise out that would hold the box.  Manfred was excited to get some use and I was looking forward to it too.  I drew a mark around the box.  The first step was to route out most of the space.  This is the first time I have tried using my plunge router base in this fashion.

It was much easier than I had thought it would be.  The box fits and now I just need to trim off the sides and sand it up, and I will have a somewhat silly looking base.  I am quite sure that my goofing around yielded a rather bad idea.

So I may have to go back to the drawing board.  But that is just fine.  I started without any real expectations, and wasn’t disappointed when I finished without a base that excited me.  I did get some good router practice.  Manfred is a really amazing chisel and each time I use him, I realize the value of such a high quality tool.

Sometimes it is just fun to mess around.  I am calling today research.  I do wonder…What if I …