Its a shame because we’ve had a good run with the current host and they’ve always been on top of things when there’s been problems in the past. Nice friendly guys too. The past week though the organization has been looking a little shabby. Hopefully it will improve.

As far as other matters are concerned I’ve been busy updating various sites, as well as organizing a few tutorials for Handplane Central. I’ve conducted a bit of a poll there and it appears that most people, by far, want plans and tutorials — so I’ve been digging a few profiles out, sawing some wood and taking a few photographs. I’m part way through making several hand planes and documenting the stages as I go. I had been slowing down on making hand planes in general the past couple of years but I’m on an upward curve again. It happens like that sometimes and I worked out that next year will mark my 15th as an infill plane maker, which is kinda….well weird I suppose. It hardly seems that long ago that I first got into it!

Speaking of which, it’s taken a while — too long really — but I started making a proper tool box earlier this year for taking along to woodworking shows, exhibitions and demonstrations. Previously I’d used a shabby and rather crudely made tote that I had knocked together when I was doing my furniture design course. I basically made that tool chest in a day — and it shows! Still, it worked well enough but it was hardly a showpiece item! This new chest — in a machinist’s style — will be much nicer. For the most part it’s made from mahogany, with rosewood drawer fronts and ebony moldings. The panels are fielded and I’m thinking of designing and casting up the drawer knobs in silver, featuring my trademark “windmill” design. The carcase is done (I should get a few photographs actually) so I just need to do the fitting out of it now – which is really the bulk of the work when you consider those drawer dovetails. Speaking of which, each of the panels for the carcase use sliding dovetails to help keep everything solid. I also want to add a bit of beech wood somewhere… possibly the drawer sides or bottoms. Might add some boxwood and lignum vitae accents as well. Then I’ll have most of the planemaking woods covered!

Hopefully I’ll have it finished by the end of the year. With everything else happening though, nothing is certain!

Online I’ve been creating a heap of websites for friends and/or for special interests of mine. I had planned to do “100 websites in 100 days” to (a) See if I could do it and (b) Get a lot of sites up very quickly. This didn’t go to plan however — mainly because it’s difficult (well for me anyway) to think of 100 different websites and construct them in such a short time….and the fact that the websites themselves would not exactly be what you would consider as “quality affairs” by any stretch of the imagination. Nonetheless, part way into the exercise I decided to change tack and spend more time on building up the quality of the sites that I was working on rather than increase the quantity. To this end I feel that I’ve been somewhat successful but there’s always room for improvement.

Obviously coding, setting up and writing content takes quite a bit of time and I’d have to say that I’ve found myself being a little “burnt out” at times and having to pull back a bit. In this regard I’ve tended to do a lot more offline activities as well as just chilling out in front of the idiot box. There’s a lot to be said for just sitting back and doing nothing at times like these.

Earlier this year Amy and I caught up with Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer again and we were able to see, first hand, the guitar that we’d made being used on stage during a Posies gig. We’d made the guitar so freaking fast that it wasn’t quite finished when I presented it to Ken way back in December 2000. It was almost done but the top nut needed to be filed and the guitar strung up and tuned etc. (Ken got all of this stuff done in Seattle as far as I know). I’ve talked about the making of the guitar on here before so, if anyone is interested, you can do a search for it in the archives.

Anyhow, the verdict: I simply could not see how all of the sounds that Ken squeezed from that guitar actually came to be — I was simply blown away by the stuff he was doing and I was hugely impressed — and relieved — that the instrument sounded so good, as I really had no idea beforehand what it would sound like. I had employed a few methods and ideas that I hadn’t done before in making an instrument so it was good to know that it all went together well. Ken had told me, via email, that the guitar was his single-most treasured worldly possession — which was great for that ego of mine I must add — but I just had no idea of how it sounded in real life. I also couldn’t believe the energy I saw on the stage that night. It was just fantastic though, at one stage, I thought to myself “how the hell is that guitar staying together?” before realizing that if it did begin to spectacularly unravel on stage and spontaneously combust then we could just assemble a new “team” and make a brand new guitar, no probs….

…Speaking of which we still need to do just that for Jon some time.

After the show we partied with the guys for a while afterwards at a club run by Wally Meanie, which was pretty cool. Late into the night — actually it was the morning really — we said goodnight and went on our way.

It’s probably not the best time to call it quits for this post as there’s a heck of a lot of stuff I haven’t mentioned, however I’ll do so now so as I’ll have something to talk about for the next post (hopefully tomorrow).

Until then….

Speckled Band possibilities…

One of the things I thought of over the Christmas break was that I might do my own version of Speckled Band – the Sherlock Holmes story I mean. I thought of this for a few reasons. One, it’s the reason why most people end up here nowadays – my absence during the middle part of last year decimating my core readership and all – so I probably already have some sort of interest there, market wise. Another reason for doing the story is that no-one has ever done it like I plan to do it so it’ll be unique in that regard. Also, I could “save” a bit of time in designing a new blog skin by just using some of the artwork from the book. Of course I won’t have really saved any time whatsoever as the making of the artwork will likely take a year or two to finish….

I will probably leave the original story intact and not mess with it at all. I mean it’s long out of copyright now so I don’t need to pay anyone to use it, and it’s a top story anyway! Why would I want to mess with it? It’s the story Sherlock Holmes fans know well and love and it’s my favorite Holmes adventure. I’m not sure exactly why that is? I only know that it captured my imagination when I was a kid and I’ve never lost that interest since. Who knows, maybe I’ll start illustrating my own versions of all of the Sherlock Homes stories. Then again, probably not…..It would just take too long the way I do things!

And speaking of which, that would be the main reason stopping me from illustrating the story -Time!!! I mean I already have a couple of books on the way – though they’ll likely be done by the middle of the year now that I have a big chunk of my website work out of the way. It’ll also depend on how much time Amy has to work with me on getting the illustrations organized and the composition right. Anyhow, we’ll see what happens and I’ll keep people updated on any progress that’s made.

Of course I’ve broken one of my “cardinal rules” insofar as not mentioning future projects until they’re well and truly in the pipeline. Sometimes things can take years to finalize and other times they may not see the light of day at all! I’m slowly learning to be more organized and productive with my time though – mainly to do with the drama of last year – so there’s a good chance at least that something will get done about it. It would be weird to see my name alongside Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle but I could get used to it quite easily I think.

Now I’ve just got to see if I can drum up any interest with my publishers! Either that or start hitting the publisher yes/no acception/rejection trail again…

Man, what a year it’s been….and oh so busy to boot! I don’t think I’ve ever worked as hard or had as many ups and downs as I’ve had this year. Even when writing or illustrating books I don’t think I’ve worked as hard? Then again you kinda forget a lot of the details as you get older……Well I have anyhow.

2005 FINALLY saw me finish The REG Temple redesign…….almost! The bulk of it has been done anyway and there’s really only a bit of “plugging up” to be done here or there. I’ve had a couple of false starts on this site already in the past two years, so I’m finally glad that I’ve been able to break the back of it – as well as clear out much of the the backlogged stuff I’ve accumulated over the years.

When Amy got sick and went back to the States to recover I was able to knuckle down and get the work done on The Temple, but now that she’s back I haven’t really slowed down from the pace I set and I’m still doing a ton of website stuff – a few mini-sites here and there but two very work intensive sites that I envision will be – with any luck – quite large affairs. One is nowhere near being launched yet and the other has had a low-key “launch” but needs to build up an extensive backlog of articles quickly. In the meantime I’ve been getting Amy to help me with scanning and typing which has been a great help.

While I’ll be continuing on my website work well into the new year, the summer will also be a time to clean out much of the excess junk we have around the house. We’ve already cleaned up quite a bit but I still have a ton of stuff that needs to go. Amy is overwhelmed by it all but I keep assuring her that it’s very possible with “small steps” – a bit here, a bit there. Every so often we can have a cleanup lasting several hours so that also helps to keep things in check. While I’ve spent many years taking stuff UPSTAIRS to the attic, the past few months have been spent taking the occasional thing down and using it or throwing it away in the trash. It’s working and, so far, it’s not too tiresome to do.

As far as New Years resolutions are concerned…..well…..At the moment I don’t really have any – but then I don’t usually have them anyhow. I think I planned a few things last year and look where that got me! If it happens, it happens. I’ve learnt to be as flexible as possible when it comes to that. 2005 will definitely go down in my life as a very unusual year though. A year tinged with sadness, but also hope…..and a very productive year to boot!

Who knows what 2006 will bring…