It may seem strange, even rude, but I rarely read blogs, despite having been involved in writing this one for so long.
There are a couple of reasons for that. One is time. A huge one is time. So what does it mean that I’ve actually been reading a couple recently, and will in all likelihood expand that portfolio as I discover what so many of you out there already know- the amazing richness of the woodworking blogosphere (and the wider blogosphere as a whole)? Do I have more time now?
On the contrary – I am now so short of time, that I am failing to keep up with everything, and that includes writing my own blog. It takes time, every one of the entries on this blog took a decent amount of time to write, to research, to do the work that is being written about, and without having that time to spend, I find I have a few minutes to read the works of others.
The other reason I haven’t gotten into the habit of reading other blogs, is when I started there were only a few out there, if not only two- Marc “The Wood Whisperer”, and Matt’s Basement Workshop. Yeah- this blog as been around that long. I’d given up reading forums- too much irrelevent crap being spouted by people only interested in getting their post counts up, or starting flame wars or whatever. Certainly not enough woodworking was happening.
I read an interesting snippet from a blog this morning “It’s funny how the English words ‘Experiment,’ ‘Experience,’ and ‘Expert’ both have a common root in the Latin, Expertus, which means ‘to Try.’ “
That little pearl of wisdom comes from James Watriss’ blog, which in turn I discovered from a blog I have recently been following regularly by Christopher Schwarz. The Schwarzenegger of traditional woodworking. “May the Schwarz be with you” as the T Shirt says. The blog being Lost Art Press
Of course the Navy has another opinion of Experts: An ‘ex’ is a has-been, and a ‘spurt’ is a drip under pressure. You cannot assume all those who claim to be an expert are, after all, when you ‘Assume’ something, you make an ‘Ass’ out of ‘U’ and ‘Me’. (Ass U Me)
That reminds me of IT helpdesks, who regularly tag incoming jobs as PEBKACs (problem exists between keyboard and chair) and by the spoken descriptor that this person has an ‘eye dee one zero tee’ problem…. Aka they are an I.D.1.0.T. Anyway, I digress.
Another recent article by James is this one on design Design Elements – Make sure they get the joke, again, getting to the bottom of the philosophy of what we do, rather than being about doing what we do.
I did get out to the shed for an hour or so this last week. And managed in that small window of time to shoot a new video. It is pretty bad – I am SO out of practice. And time-poor to do a better job. But I did it anyway in the hopes I can use it to reinvigorate myself to make some more. So that’ll be available in the next few days, along with something I have been working on, on the iPad- a Keynote (aka Apple’s equivalent to PowerPoint on the Mac) presentation detailing the start of a new project I am working on in the shed. So it isn’t all doom and gloom- there is still content for the blog coming. Just not a consistently as I’d like!
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Filed under: Blog | Tagged: Blogosphere, iPad, Keynote, Schwarz | 5 Comments »
There is also a Melbourne Hand Tool Event at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking, which will have Chris in attendance. Unfortunately we don’t know when that is actually on – they forgot to put the dates in their newsletter, and their website hasn’t been updated since 2011! If I hear a current date, will let you know (check the comments).
