Replicator

If you have ever watched any of the Star Trek episodes, I believe you will be able to relate to what I want to talk about today.  The topic for conversation today is the replicator.  I remember watching as one of the members of the Star Trek crew would want something and simply enter a code on this piece of equipment and whatever they wanted appeared, as if by magic.  At the time, I believed this happened simply out of the clear blue, but as I have done a bit of research, the replicator was loosely based upon transporter technology, "storing" raw materials in a digital format for later use to form the items the crew wanted and needed.  Well, I think that the time of the replicator is at hand.

I have watched the world of 3-D printing for the last three years or so, waiting for the time that these printers cross the point where they could be afforded by the individual.  I think it is close.  Now, for a couple of thousand dollars you can own a 3-D printer.  I remember buying the first home laser printer for about seven hundred dollars and thought that was expensive at the time.  Maybe in another year or so, 3-D technology will finally be to that point and I will consider it affordable.  It is interesting to begin watching all of the infrastructure come on line to support this new technology.  In the last month I have seen libraries of 3-D renderings released to the Internet. UPS has announced they intend to have printers in all of their store front locations.  This is all amazing, but let me tell you the story that put me over the edge.  I was at a Product Show in Omaha last week.  We were there to talk about the things that we do - fasteners and hydraulic fittings.  The show was slow, as the weather was nice and it seemed that people had made different decisions with what they wanted to do with their day.  In the middle of all of this, gentleman who was older (older than me), come up and start talking to us.  Then he showed us what he was doing.  He had run a fix-it shop for many years, and now he'd purchased a 3-D printer to see what kind of business he could create with that - a true entrepreneur.

When I lived in Lees Summit, an acquaintance whose business was making signs for trucks made a nice living and was very happy with what he was doing.  Then one day, a salesman came in selling water-jet cutting machines - computer controlled machines that use a tremendously high pressure jet of water and abrasive to cut anything from paper to steel.  Tim was not doing anything like this at the time, but he saw the opportunity to build an entirely new business around this technology, and was not afraid to take the risk. He spent the money to try a new venture.  Tim has gone on to build a very prosperous business around the technology, doing work for many in the area and for some of the largest contractors of high tech equipment in the country.  Good for him.

These new technologies will continue to present themselves, and those who are willing to do what Tim did - to go ahead and 'pull the trigger' on a new venture even if they are unsure that it will work - will succeed.  Maybe not all of the time, but they will have more wins than failures.  This has to be the challenge and the marching orders for all of us.  I used to look at my grandfather and know that he had a tremendous sense for the new ideas that were going to take off.  I remember thinking that if he would just jump on one of his ideas it would be amazing what he could accomplish.  I have fallen into that trap before, and we all have to break out of it now.  When we see something that we know is the next good idea, we have to have the courage of our convictions and go for it.  We will not always be successful, but we will certainly be more successful than by doing nothing.  So, maybe not 3-D printing, but the time is now to get my Etsy website up and selling something.  Look for me out there.  It is time to make something happen.

And at the same time, I am going to continue to find all that I can find about emerging technologies to try to decide what the next big thing will be.  And when I do, I will probably talk about it here, so you should stay tuned.  Think about the things that we talk about here and decide which one is right for you.  Keep looking to the stars, think about the next big thing, and then talk about it.  If it is not the perfect idea for you, it may be for one of the group that you call your friends, and that is pretty cool too.

Keep looking.

Resilience

This word has seemed to come up again and again this last week in everything I have touched.  It actually began with nature itself and branched out from there.  As we had endured the "dog days of summer" and watched things get dryer and browner, I found that I was obsessing over the weather and its possible outcome.  I'm sure that I was not unlike many others in this.  The thing that I had forgotten was the unbelievable way nature can recover when given a chance.  No more than two days after the first good soaking rain we had in the last two months, I was walking JC, our dog, and was amazed to see small white flowers poking up through one of the pastures we walk past.  Admittedly, they were probably just weeds, but I was struck at how quickly nature comes back and proves that it is ready to grow again.  Absolutely astounding.  I talked to JC about it, but found that she was not as amazed as I was.

Later that week, I was invited to a day of activities and review with one of our regular customers.  They have this meeting once a year for their employees and suppliers.  Much of the meeting is about the past year and the goals of the company going forward, but one of the things they always do is bring in an outside speaker. The speaker typically doesn't come with a message about their specific business, but brings a motivational message.  The year's speaker was Charlie Wittmack.  If you've not heard of him, you should learn more about the man.  He is an extreme triathlete with several very prestigious accomplishments to his name.  Although his story is amazing, that wasn't what truly moved me.  I listened as he described the number of times he failed, or came to the point of quitting, and was able to reach down inside himself and find what it took to continue, or try again.  One of the things that Charlie said to us was that he knew each of us would be able to climb Mt Everest if it was something we decided to do.  Hmm, I'm not sure what I think about that, but Charlie truly portrays resilience.

Most of you know that I have two amazing kids.....not unlike most other parents, but when I think about this word, it really applies to both.  Andrew continues to come up against changes and decisions that come from leaving college and entering adulthood.  In his world, these are big and it has been interesting to watch the way he has handled things and the energy that some of them have sapped from him.  On the other hand, Meg has faced being back in school, leaving a world she loved this summer (at camp) and regaining a full understanding of what college is.  Additionally, she is taking a very full offering of classes and work this year.  The need for resilience is huge.  On top of that, as she continues to work through all of the medical challenges, she wonders why it takes so much sleep.  Being resilient takes effort.

Of course, as I've been thinking about all of this, it has really brought me to question the way we go through our daily lives, and what type of resilience we carry within.  Some time ago, I had a really good conversation with a friend about will power, and whether or not will power was something that wears out.  We came to the conclusion that it is.  Consider dieting - it always seems that you have a great deal of will power at the beginning, and then with time, willpower tends to wane, making it harder and harder to lose weight.  I think that resilience may work the same way. With a really high need to be resilient, the amount you have available gets 'used up.' leaving less ability to come back from challenges.  However, I also believe that if the world gives us a chance,  we can rebuild the amount of resilience we have in our reservoir.  So, the challenge then becomes to get through the tough times and take a breather to rebuild when we get to the other side.  Nothing really new here, but everything I encountered last week brought me to this realization.

At the Toybox, things are really filling up. After all of the items that I completed while off work, the list of work to be done has been refilled.  It is time to get started on holiday gifts for family, and in the last year or so I have been asked for gifts for organizations I support to use as fund raisers.  Additionally, after getting the chest of drawers, Sara has decided she needs a set of drawers next to her writing desk.  There are also a couple of very exciting projects coming up, but as one of them will be a gift to a life long friend, I am going to speak about it very carefully.  Anyway, lots of panel products and lumber to be purchased in the next few months.  This is exciting stuff.  We will have to see if I can stay in front of all of it.

Have a great week.  Tell me what you plan to create as gifts for your friends and family for the holidays.  Get busy, they're just around the corner.

Peaches

Several weeks ago, I had a thought about a blog that I needed to write about the Dog Days of summer, but now that we are either in them, or through them, the idea really doesn't move me.  But at the same time, we had a bag of peaches show up in the refrigerator last week and those brought back a flood of memories that I decided that I really needed to share. So, here goes.

When I was young (a long, long time ago) my grandparents were very important and very involved in my life.  My father died when I was not yet ten and because mom still needed to work to support us, we spent a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpa.  My grandmother was a wonderful person, but those stories are for another day,  Today I want to tell you about my grandfather.  He was a man who that had only an elementary education, and I remember that he cried at the thought of one of his grandchildren going to college.  However, he was one of the smartest, most hard working people that I ever knew.  Not only did he work for the Keokuk County roads department as the rock foreman, his passion was horses - training and showing them. Rare was the time that we had less than fifteen head around the place that they lived.  This was always a combination of those that he was training and those that either belonged to him or to one of his grandchildren.

About forty miles from where we lived, there was a community that hosted a horse sale one Monday each month.  This community was in the heart of Amish country in Iowa, so the number of horses going through this sale was significant.  The thing that we had learned years before however was that you should never buy a horse from an Amish man.  If they were selling the horse, either they were too old to work or something was really wrong with them.  The event was amazing, though.  Many of you may remember things like this, and for those of you who don't, these were the closest thing to the village bazaar you would see.  Merchants and individuals alike showed up to sell their goods and wares in any and all manners possible.  This was the thing that made this particular day so memorable to me.

Up until this point in my life, I thought that peaches were something that came in a can, bright yellow and smooth, packed in heavy syrup.  What else could they be?  I had never seen them in any other manner.  Well, that day there was a merchant there selling fresh peaches. Grandpa decided that we should buy some to take home so that Grandma could make a pie or something.  He bought half a lug from the gentleman which is twelve and a half pounds, or about twenty-five peaches.  To my surprise, they were not bright and yellow, and, they were kind of fuzzy.  I wasn't really sure what to think about this, but, Grandpa told me that it would be alright, so I went ahead and tried one.

Now ... fast forward to getting home at the end of that day.  When we walked into the house, carrying our spoils as though back from a conquest, there were exactly three peaches left.  We had, in fact, eaten the rest of them throughout the day and on the way home.  When we told Grandma that we had bought them for her to make pies or something with, the look on her face was quizzical.  It took a bit of time for us to admit to her that we had eaten about 22 peaches that day.  At that point, the laughter was nearly hysterical.

This memory has to be the better part of 45 years old now, but each and every time I bite into a peach, I remember the day, the time with Grandpa, and the amazed look on my Grandma's face when she figured out what we had done.  I know that things such as smell or taste are powerful memory triggers.  I have read this time and again over the years, but when something like this happens, it really drives the point home.  My family will tell you that I can become a complete basket case over a movie or even a television commercial if they use the right music and I can remember people that I have not thought of in years simply by walking through a mall and experiencing the fragrances people wear.

I have no idea how we would ever capture any of these things, but if you are like me, you certainly know them when they present themselves.  Stop and enjoy, or at least process the things that act as memory triggers for you.  They are a door to a part of your own history that only opens for you once in a while, but when it does, typically the memories are powerful and as fresh as if they had occurred this morning.

Stay-cation

Like many of you, I look forward with anticipation to our family vacations. We like to get away, see something new, and have times we will never forget with family and friends. We had one of those earlier this summer, visiting my sister in Maine and celebrating time with Jaye and Karen.  Today I am coming to the end of a week that although very different, feels much the same in regards to how time was spent.  This week I had a stay-cation - a time off from work - and the farthest I got from home was the Toybox.  The week was great and although I got a lot of things done, I also discovered how many things there are needing to be completed.

I spent a great deal of time in the Toybox.  The number of projects I completed was incredible. Well, at least I was impressed.  I finished the maple and cherry four drawer chest I have been working on for Sara.  This is a piece to compliment the cherry and maple armoire in our master bedroom.  I used medium stained cherry and tiger maple for the drawer and door fronts and birds eye maple for the carcass.  There is a lot going on with this piece, but I really like the end result.  The other thing I like is that I can see that I have improved my woodworking skills since I finished the original piece.  Things just look better this time.  Some of that could also come from having my shop set up the way I want it, and having all of my equipment "zeroed," so that cuts are the same off any of the equipment.  Anyway, I was very pleased with the results.

Still in the category of work for others, I also finished a trivet for our friends in Kansas City that will be given as a host/hostess gift next weekend (B&V, if you are reading, act like it is a surprise), and I finished two shelves that my god daughter Kristin needs for her studio.  I still need to install them, but at least the construction is complete.

Not bad for a week.  But those are the things I completed for others. While working on those projects, I also completed a storage and charging station for the tools I use on the most regular basis (thanks to Wood Magazine for the idea) as well as a storage rack for my saw blades.

     

The saw blade storage station was built from scrap, so all of the dividers are not yet in place.  I will cut those when more left over pieces show up as I move forward.  So, all in all, I completed three projects for others and two for myself. I also managed to get in a couple of days of just being a sloth at home.  This activity is so-named when Andrew was so lethargic during a summer trip that his aunts compared him to a sloth.  Well, that was me for a day or so this week.  Not bad overall however for getting things done this week.

Maybe the most interesting part for me though was what I learned about myself.  I always believed that I worked most effectively in the shop if I started one project, work that project completely to the end, and then start on another.  I've worked that way for years, but it certainly wasn't what I did this week.  This week I worked on one project and thought about, or worked on parts of three or four other things.  This is typically the way that I function at work.  It seems obvious, but the best part of this is that when I got stuck on one project, as typically happens somewhere in the middle, rather than having the project languish and wait, I simply moved to something else while I cyphered on how to move the first project forward.  In the end, I am sure that I got more done during the week than I would have in any other typical week.  What a great stay-cation.

As the week comes to an end and I prepare to head back to work and discover things I should have been involved in that happened while I was gone, I find that even at a more mature age, I can continue to learn about how I think and how I approach that things that are ahead of me.  I have always said that I believe that we are life-time learners, learning every day of our lives, but this week truly pointed it out to me.  I learned this week that it is generally better for me to have several things to juggle, rather than just having one project in front of me.  At work I am much happier when busy than when things are slow, but it works better in my personal life as well.

Alright, stay-cation is over and now back to work. Do you take stay-cations? What things do you like to do?

Embrace the stay-cation.