Airships over UConn?!!

Let's just pretend, first of all, that I haven't been on a 21-month hiaitus from my presence here and skip right to the present day. Yes, I like that idea a lot. It avoids a lot of awkward questions which may or may not be answered in the next few posts anyway.

What I need to share with you today is airships. You know, blimps, zeppelins, dirigibles, rubber cows, lighter-than-air... that sort of thing! In particular, I re-discovered an old photo in my collection of airship-related ephemera that just begs to see the light of day.



I've been holding onto this photo now since I was an upperclassman in high school exploring my options toward a college education. Having been an airship and lighter-than-air enthusuast most of my life, I was stunned, amazed, astounded, and utterly entranced to find this photo of a crudely designed and built airship on the back of the pamphlet I'd received from the University of Connecticut's School of Engineering! "Do you mean to tell me, Mr Dean of the School of Engineering, sir, that if I go to UConn, you'll let ME design, build, and fly my own crudely designed and built airship, too?!!" Oh, I couldn't wait to hear back from the admissions office, because as it turns out, UConn back in the day was considered by my folks to be the low-cost alternative to such schools as RIT and WPI.

In the end, UConn is exactly where I chose to go, but due to a conspiracy involving the School of Engineering's insistence on a new project being tried every year, and my own crappy grades forcing me to reconsider something a little more my speed (rocks), I was never to fly my own airship.

So why do I bring all this up? It's not like I am leaping out of my skin to tell you I flunked out of the School of Engineering (oops, there goes my internal monologue again), but what I really want to know is who are these guys who got to participate in what would've been my dream thesis?!! Do they read poorly written blogs? Do they check out shamelessly self-promoting flickr.com accounts? I sure hope so, because I'm really hoping somebody out there can tell me about that project! It was way cool!!

Mini-Journal: Fan Blade Commission (Pt. 1)

Last summer, I stumbled into some commission work making ceiling fan blades for a company in New York City. It was a pretty nice bit of work to pick up, and it helped us buy our first tankful of heating oil for the cooler weather. Unfortunately, the economy soon turned crappy, and I had to reconcile myself to the fact that no more fan blade work was forthcoming.

Connecticut Wood Group Hardwood Outlet - my favorite lumber shop!
Come March of this year however, I decided to place a call to the company and see how things were going. As luck would have it, I was told I've got good timing! Woo hoo!! I was asked if I could make up another ten sets of fan blades for them in mahogany. It's a small order, relatively speaking, but everything helps, right?

No sooner than I had my materials for making up the ten sets of blades, and I received a new purchase order for more blades. I thought at first that the purchasing manager there had sent me a duplicate P.O., but when I looked more closely at it, I realized that they were asking me for another 46 sets of blades!!!

Sighting down a piece of mahogany to make sure it's straight
Well, I'm currently wrapping up the smaller order of ten sets of blades, but I decided to head up to my favorite lumber yard and grab the material for the next order. It helps for wood to acclimate itself to the temperature and humidity in the workshop prior to working with it, to prevent warping and cupping when resawing it to the thinness required by this kind of work.

Ever seen $1000 worth of lumber? Look behind me!
I now have about $1000 worth of mahogany, quarter-sawn white oak, maple, and lacewood sitting on my shop's floor waiting for me to finish up the current work so I can dive into the next batch. Well, not all of it. The maple and lacewood I picked up for projects I haven't designed yet. I figure the inspiration will jump out at me if I look at the lacewood long enough. It'll probably make some very pretty box tops!

Happy Birthday, Mrs SmileMoon

This past week was an adventure at our house. Most weeks are an adventure at our house, with all these kids tearing the place up, but this past week stands out for me, and it's taken this long for me to wrap my hands around it sufficiently to talk about it.

Our first apple blossoms
Last Tuesday, the school board in town decided to close down all the schools in our hometown of East Haddam, CT, due to a swine flu scare and the fact that two of our local students had been with a family that had just returned from a trip to Mexico and were ill. The students themselves weren't ill, but the school decided that if there was going to be any kind of too-strong reaction, that it was better to err on the side of caution. So, they closed the schools for Wednesday and Thursday.

All day Wednesday, our 16-year-old daughter had a case of the squits, and so was pretty much confined to quarters. At the end of the day, however, she made it known that she wanted to go out with friends. She was told that wasn't a good idea since she hadn't felt well all day and hadn't even eaten anything. As Mrs SmileMoon and I were upstairs putting the little ones to bed, she snuck out of the house. Long story short, she finally sauntered back home at 3:30 the following afternoon, on Mrs SmileMoon's birthday. An hour-long heated discussion that night didn't resolve much, unfortunately.

Then our 11-year old son woke up at 11:30 that same night and got ill all over his bed, the bedroom floor, the hallway, the bathroom floor, and - what was left - in the toilet. Ugh. Happy birthday, Mrs SmileMoon. Poor thing.

Friday was surprisingly non-eventful, relatively speaking.

Saturday we got our new pup for the Guiding Eyes for the Blind program we're part of. I'm going to co-raise him with my lovely young bride this time. He's a bit older than the usual ones we've gotten (usually 6 to 8 weeks old) - apparently, he'd had some trouble with his previous raiser (actually we haven't found anything exceedingly horrible with him yet, but I'll write more about him later) so we're taking over his training til he gets to be "of age".

Finally, on Sunday morning, Mrs SmileMoon took me for a little stroll through the grounds of the Smilemoon estate and showed me that one of our apple trees is in bloom. This marks the first time in about 7 years that any of our apple trees have had any blossoms on them. They're late bloomers, apparently - kinda like yours truly!

Mrs SmileMoon enjoying a breather between courses at this weekend's brunch
Afterward, I took Mrs SmileMoon out for a breakfast brunch at Waters Edge Resort in Westbrook, CT for a make-up birthday brunch. The spread was incredible, and well worth what we paid for the privilege of enjoying the scenery along Long Island Sound on a fog-enshrouded Sunday. It was beautiful spread; delicious food; impeccably prepared; and delightfully presented. Who could ask for more? Needless to say, by the time we were done, we just about had to be rolled out, and neither of us was hungry for anything the whole rest of the day. Now THAT was something to make up for the rest of the week.

Yoyos and a Case of the Nerves

Aye, such a weekend! I'm writing this right now from the Z Games Yo-Yo competition in Northampton, Massachusetts, where my two oldest boys are competing against some the best in the southern New England area. They've both attended similar competitions two times before, and I'd have to say they're fairly well seasoned at this by now.

At this point in the proceedings, the younger of my two boys has already competed at the junior level and scored a 46 out of 50 points - his best effort yet in this event. I think he'll be encouraged to attempt something a little more challenging at the next one. I hope so! He's nearly ready!

My older son had some trouble being convinced to compete at all, and I'm sad to report that I had to pull rank on him to get him to agree to it today. Not that he wasn't interested in being here - on the contrary, his intent was to be here, but simply as an observer. I had to pull him aside the other day and explain why it wasn't fair to expect that I'd take 3-1/2 hours of drive time plus how ever many hours it was going to be at the event out of my weekend for him to socialize with all the yoyoing folks he communicates with on the regular basis through Facebook and his yoyo forums.

I think he remained somewhat unconvinced about working through his nerves, though, until I pointed out to him that I had a perfectly valid frame of reference from my youth, in that I used to be stricken with a paralyzing fear prior to performances of any sort, and at far worse levels than anything I'd ever seen him go through. To be fair, the performances that used to bother my nerves were as a member of the school band getting up in front of moms and dads who were forced to sit in the hot and stuffy gymnatorium listening to us tune up for an hour and a half, whereas he was anticipating having to get up in front of a gathering of his peers to compete at a level that he himself may not feel completely and adequately prepared for - especially when one counts among his competitors several regional champions,a national champion, and a couple of his yoyoing idols. Yikes! While his method for dealing with the stress has been to attempt competing at a lower level than his ability (or as in this weekend's case, to attempt not competing at all), my method was barfing all over the place a couple times before showtime.

Hmm, perhaps I reacted a bit too strongly to a lesser threat than he does. Should I maybe consider giving him a break? Nah... If I had, we wouldn't be here today.

Update: It turns out my oldest boy had a decent run of it today. Not a championship performance, but a good time. In the end, he told me he felt a lot less nervous about being up there on stage performing and being judged. That's only going to help him...

The $50 Sock

It all started when I noticed that the washing machine was sitting idle last Sunday evening with a tub that was filled with a king size set of sheets, a whole bunch of laundry besides, AND a pillow. The sitting idle wouldn't have been so very awful if it weren't for the fact that they were completely submerged in lukewarm rinse-water, as well. I knew my weekend was not going to end on a high note.

I figured that the washing machine may have shut itself down due to an imbalanced load (not to mention a load that looked far to heavy for our basic residential unit), so I removed the pillow and attempted to restart it. Nothing but a loud hum coming from some indeterminate location. Crap.

I bailed a few gallons of water from the tub and again attempted to restart the machine. Again with the same loud hum from some mysterious location in the depths of the machine. I didn't like where this was going, but I knew what had to be done - I pulled out my least favorite (but most useful) book, the one about fixing your own appliances.

That book has helped me out of many a jam involving the self-same washing machine, its errant mate the dryer, and my gas stove, as well. I haven't had to deal with the refrigerators or the freezer chest yet (knock wood), but I'm sure that book'll help me figure them out.

I referred to the section at the top of the clothes washer section's first page: "Washer won't start". I hate starting at that one, because the very first suggestion is "Is the washing machine plugged in?" and I always have to smack my head and exclaim "Now, why the heck did I not think of that?!" Then I start in with the real fun stuff. I went through checking the electrical connections throughout, then tested the resistance on the timer and the timer motor, and checked for bubbles in the water level tube.

Then I fast forwarded to where I had a very bad feeling the problem really lay. I followed the instructions in the book about checking the continuity of circuits between the various leads going into the motor, and discovered that there was one pair of leads that didn't seem quite right. "Aha!" thought I, "they're a great band from Norway who had that cool hit song from 1985 with the really awesomely artsy pencil-drawn video!" Then I remembered that I was supposed to be solving this motor mystery.

I concluded that the motor was likely burned out from the heavy load, so I looked up new motors on line. Hoo boy - the three or four places I found dealing with this kind of motor wanted anywhere from $120 to $145 for a new one. Then I remembered to try eBay, and found a used one for $25 (plus $25 for shipping). I couldn't justify dropping a new motor into a 15-year old machine (let alone a machine that's seen us through two adults' and six kids' worth of laundry day in and day out for all that time), so I bought the eBay motor.

When the new-used motor arrived Thursday, I eagerly got into the job of replacing the old one with this one. Of course, that meant dismantling the washing machine again (but by now I could do it blindfolded), then put everything back together again with the new-used motor. I hit the start button with high hopes, only to be met by that same frustrating hum again. I used a few words I'll not repeat in a family-friendly account of the proceedings, then took to the book again.

Among the many pages in the book dealing with washing machines, I finally found a small little paragraph going through the best steps by which to perform troubleshooting of this nature, and just before checking the motor itself was something about checking the pump. Ohhh, the pump. That part that would normally be able to pull the water out of the tub of the washer when you're otherwise hearing the electric hum of the motor along with it.

Ooookay....

So I pulled the plastic pump off the new-used motor (which didn't seem to quite fit right either), and peeked inside. And that's where I discovered The $50 Sock.

*sigh*
It's the attack of The $50 Sock

After wrestling for another 20 minutes trying to pull the stinking sock out of the pump because it was wrapped entirely around the impeller (and you can't take the pump apart because it's a solid body unit), I finally got the sock out, put the pump back on the washing machine (after putting the old motor back on because there probably wasn't anything wrong with it after all - and when confronted with a choice between two evils, one should always go with the evil they're more familiar with anyway), and hit the start button again.

Yay! This time there was success (and much rejoicing)! So now we can do the laundry again, which when I spell it out and look at it like this, isn't really all that exciting. And of course there's the extra spare motor I've got sitting in a box out in the garage. But hey, it was something to do, right...?

Hot Date Night and the Arrow of Light!

Long time, no see!

Yeah, it's been crazy busy here at SmileMoon Labs as well as at Chez SmileMoon! Just this past week saw us with our oldest home from school for spring break and me completing a small project for my sons' Cub Scout organization. It was an Arrow of Light display for the crossing over ceremony (Webelos to Boy Scouts) and represents the only badge the scouts are allowed to keep from their Cub Scout days as they progress up the ranks of Boy Scouts.



The finished piece is made from a glued up plank of walnut (42" by 18") for the face of the display (salvaged from award plaques found in a closed down industrial facility) and poplar (purchased specifically for the project) to make the lightbox (40" by 17" by 9"). There's a fluorescent light fixture inside the lightbox, and tapered holes drilled into the top of it for the ceremonial candles. The carving of the design on the face was done freehand with a router from scaled measurements made from the Arrow of Light badge.

The piece was shown at the Arrow of Light ceremony on March 19th and was well received by the leaders and other parents. Sadly, it's been put in storage until next year's ceremony. On the bright side, I've still got one more son in Cub Scouts and one more who may join in the fall, so I'll still get to see the display pulled out and used a few more times.

Date Night

Mrs SmileMoon and I went out this weekend for a bit of a date night at the local watering hole. Neither of us is a huge party animal, and the venue we selected was unusually quiet for a Saturday night, so this suited us perfectly. While we were relaxing with our first Blue Moons, my lovely young bride took a pen out of her purse, and proceeded to set up a game of hangman on her placemat. "Hee hee," thought I! "This should be no problem!" Well, I went down in flames in the first match and she guessed the phrase I'd set up for her with only two wrong guesses.

Before long, the phrases took on a pattern of thought involving many of our pet phrases and (very) brief descriptions of events in our relationship. Phrases like "mushroom swiss burger" (her meal on our first date - unpretentious and showing me she was not afraid to be sloppy in my presence), "skirt of the month" (a fictitious club thought up to celebrate the limited wardrobe of one of our former neighbors), and "giant bandaid" (this would take too long to explain and probably wouldn't be funny to anyone but us, but she still gets tears in her eyes laughing about it 20 years after the fact) were among many of the choices we had to figure out for each other before our greasy comfort food was served.

This was such a funny way to bring up events that we've laughed at in the past, I felt it would be fun to share it as an idea, especially if, like us, you've got a few years invested in your relationship and have more to laugh about than not.

New Listing - Gunstock Wine Bottle Holder

Walnut Gunstock Balancing Wine Bottle Holder
While working on trying to complete some pillboxes that seem to be taking for just about ever, a friend of mine asked if he could 'borrow' my bandsaw to cut up some walnut he had on hand so he could replace the gunstock on his old 1908 Ithaca 12-gauge side-by-side shotgun. He showed me the original wood from the gun, and its 100-plus years of wear were abundantly in evidence. Sections of wood were missing, and bolts were being used to hold some of it together - not at all a safe condition for actually wanting to use the gun.

He traced the general shape onto his walnut and proceeded to coax the block into shape. The woodblock itself was almost twice as thick as what he needed to complete his gunstock, and since the remainder was too thin to make another gunstock, I inherited it and set it aside til I could figure out what to do with it.

This weekend, inspiration finally struck me while I was waiting for the glue to dry on one of those pillboxes. Why not a bottle holder? When I laid out where the hole would have to go in a block of wood the general shape and size of a gunstock, it all just fell into place for me.

Gunstock Bottle Holder Layout
I planed down the wood to a consistent thickness, cut the angled bottom, smoothed out all the rough cuts my friend had made (while being true to the intended shape of the piece), then drilled the angled hole through the wood. Keeping the piece steady while the hole was bored out was a bit more of a challenge due to the fact that it didn't fit in my usual jig for making these bottle holders. Once all the cuts had been made, though, I sanded the piece down to a P-320 grit (very fine), used a charged cheesecloth to suck up the dust stuck in the open pores, and applied 5 or 6 coats of clear lacquer to bring out the grain structure and to protect the wood.

Closeup of Gunstock Bottle Holder, showing woodgrain
I listed the bottle holder for sale this afternoon in my Etsy shop, then updated my google base data feed to include it so it can be found in the search engines. Hope you like it!

UPDATES: Finger's healing, Theo's growing, and I listed some new Etsy Items!

The past few days have been busy, for sure. Thanks for checking in - here's what we've got:

New Etsy Items

I've had an idea for making some tea light candle holders similar to the snowflake and holiday star candle holders I'd made in December, but my finger injury last weekend had put me out of commission for a while. I was itching to get out to my workshop on Friday, so I found a couple slabs of wood to experiment with. After finding a valentine graphic on the internet with pleasing proportions, I scaled it up to accommodate a tea light in its middle, then traced it onto my first piece of wood, a small piece of pine. Long story short, I liked the way it turned out well enough to finish it up with some bright red paint, and the result is what you see above.

I found a scrap of mahogany leftover from the snowflake and holiday candle holders, so repeated the process on it, yielding the three candle holders shown above and below:

I'm even more fond of the way these turned out. The woodgrain of the mahogany is so intricate (click on the above photo for a good view of the woodgrain), I figured it'd be a shame to paint them, so I finished these with several applications of danish tung oil, and polished them with a mixture of beeswax, carnauba wax and orange oil. If I do say so myself, I think I'm getting much better at wood finishing, a process which I'm slowly starting to de-mystify for myself.

The really neat thing about the mahogany candle holders in particular is that because I used a non-encapsulating finish on them, you won't have to worry about them getting wet in the long run. Why is that so cool? Because you can float them in the bathtub for some atmosphere during your romantic little rendezvous!

Theo Update
It's starting to look like Theo's not going to grow into a large dog at all. When Mrs SmileMoon had him checked out at the vet's office, she was told he'd be maybe around 40 pounds, which is pretty good because we were looking for a medium sized dog. Of course, that'd be downright minuscule if Theo was a full-blooded lab, but we're starting to think he's mostly terrier with lab added only for coloring and shaping. He'd be a bit large for a terrier too, so I guess he's a happy medium. He and Indy exhaust each other with their puppy shenanigans, and the photo above captured a rare daylight moment of rest.

My Finger's Getting Better
What - no picture?!! Keep dreaming, sicko. It's bad enough I have to look at it when I redress it. Actually, it seems to be healing rather nicely. There's very little opportunity for the wound to be transmitting any pain to my brain, except for when I bump it while driving (for whatever reason, that's the place most likely for that sort of thing to happen). Then I make up a whole bunch of new swear words I wish I could remember afterward. The dressing still looks huge to me, even in comparison to the injury. It just kinda calls attention to itself. [Yes, I know that's not unlike me just writing about it here.] With all the questions I've been getting about it, I've got my story down to about three sentences, and still manage to get that "Ewww!" face from everyone who asks. Hopefully by this time next week, it'll just be in a regular looking Band-Aid or something.

The Doctor Says I Can Keep My Finger!

Well, I took a good look at my finger when I was at the good doctor's office yesterday. Both he and the nurse were giving me looks for the sheer stupidity of what I did to cause the injury, but I've been doing that to myself since it happened, anyway.

In short, it was a good clean injury, in that there was no contaminants in there to pull out. I remember bleeding like a stuck pig for many hours when it happened, so I don't see where anything could've stayed in there anyhow.

I was correct about the depth of the injury (a couple millimeters shy of the bone), which was good in that we won't have to worry about infection getting into the bone. Of course the downside is that I'm pretty much assured that I will not get full feeling back to that part of my finger. It won't be as nerve-wrackingly numb as it is now (anybody who's ever lost total feeling in a part of their body knows exactly how unsettling and hard to get used to that is), but there will be a nice little divot at the end of my finger to commemorate my stupidity.

While I'm in the process of healing, I'd like to thank all of you who've left your kind comments lately, and the many more of you who have just been sending me your good healing vibes. It's all been very helpful. As soon as this sawdust-absorbing gauze comes off, I'll be back in the workshop again. These projects aren't exactly completing themselves!!

"Oh, boy. I've done it good this time."

Today, I'm put in mind of a classic Jerky Boys skit, in which our protagonist makes a prank call to a hospital emergency room to seek advice. Why? Because his hand is all "numb & sting-y" after the firecracker he was holding went off in his hand. Said firecracker being about the size of the cardboard tube in a roll of toilet paper. Once the emergency room staff has finally convinced our caller to get to the emergency room ASAP, he lets slip with the coup de grace before hanging up with: "honestly, I'm not even seeing any fingers here!"

It plays out pretty funny on the old tape I've got, but it sucked when I hurt my hand in the workshop this morning. And it wasn't quite as bad as all that, thank God, but I was pretty upset for how stupid and preventable it was. Suffice it to say that one should never attempt to clear out a suspected clog of shavings from the ejection port of a wood planer when it's under power. It was so similar to injuries you always hear about this time of year with snow blowers, that I kicked myself as soon as I had my wits about me for letting it happen at all. Stupid stupid stupid.

I won't put any photos of the injury here to protect the squeamish (namely, me) and the lovely and venerable Mrs SmileMoon was very kind and wiped down the work area after the event so I wouldn't have to deal with it, not to mention that she's the one who cleaned and dressed the injury for me in the first place. I know, I know, I'm a great big baby. [Our unspoken agreement is that I'll always take care of the barf in the house, and she takes care of all the blood. I would've wiped down my own, but she got to it before I could.]

This probably won't effect the day job very much, except that I may take a couple hours to consult with the good doctor regarding some sort of follow up. The blade definitely got to within a couple millimeters of the bone, so it looks like there'll be permanent nerve damage, but at least it's just the tip. In the long run, I've spent time with woodworkers with much worse to show for their workshop accidents.

Oh, and in case anyone was keeping track at home, it was indeed the same hand with the carpal tunnel syndrome. Aye carumba!

Creative Again!

Whew! It feels good just to get back in the saddle again, you know? I was out in the workshop last night (for the first time in a month) working on a custom project for an Etsy customer - actually it's another pill box like the pair I'd made back in the summer for a couple of other Etsy customers - and it felt so good to be back in my element, among the feel and smell of the wood, the noise of the tools, and the silence between steps in the process that I use to evaluate the piece in hand and determine the best next step to take... It's all very relaxing, yet exciting at the same time, and always makes me ask why I'd been away for so long when I DO get back out there.

Custom Pill Box
Unfortunately, the answer to why I'd been gone for a month was that in my haste to meet demand for toy wooden swords at Christmastime last year, I may have made a new friend in something lovingly referred to in the medical profession as carpal tunnel syndrome. I can't tell if my work methods were the cause of the symptoms or if they simply exacerbated something else that would've shown up sooner or later anyway, but using a heavy power sander to round off small corners on the swords may have been the culprit. My symptoms at this point are tingling in my thumb and first two fingers, especially when using them to grip something like my razor or toothbrush, or a power tool.

The good doctor suggested I try taking 100mg of Vitamin B6 twice a day because that seems to help about half the cases in the research he's read. I can tell it's a little bit better, but it's still not up to 100%, that's for sure. I'm going to have to look into gel-cushioned work gloves to help take some of the vibrations from the sanders out of the process and see if that helps any. In the meantime, I'm resorting to hand-sanding as appropriate and using my other hand to handle the tools that vibrate. We'll see how that goes.

In any case, it's good to be in the workshop again! I've got some ideas for new products for my Etsy shop that I'd like to work on this weekend. Stay tuned...

Fun!! Pinewood Derby 2009!

This past weekend saw 3 out of 4 of my boys participating in the annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby in our little town. Our youngest won't be eligible til next year, but he's looking forward to it, and hung out in the Smile Moon Workshop most of the time I was working with the older boys on their cars.

Now please understand that I can't get into the inner workings of building the perfect Pinewood Derby car here for you because A) it's a big secret, and B) I still haven't figured out how to build the perfect Pinewood Derby car - at least not for my own kids (more on that in a bit).

Front to Back: "Crazy Car", "Cuttle Fish", "Speeding Block 2", and "De Plane De Plane"

As you can see, we had a variety of ideas to work on this year. Depending on the age of the boy and his ability and willingness to participate in the construction, there were varying degrees of proficiency on display.

Calvin, who's currently completing his last year as a Cub Scout, designed and built his car from his own idea with very little help from his old man. I walked him through all the procedures we've done side by side in the past and let him do them on his own this year. I give him a lot of credit for thinking on his own about the design of the car he wants every year. He's always won an award for Most Unique Design, and this year was no exception. "Cuttle Fish" took 4th place behind some very good cars and he was happy with the results.

Mason, who's in his second year of Scouting, gets more help from yours truly. However, the design, rough shaping, and finishing of the car are all his. I invited his Den Leader to the Smile Moon Workshop so he could work on his kids' cars, since he doesn't have much for woodworking equipment at home. I let him in on some of the procedures I use, and wouldn't you know it - his son took first place for his Den! Mason's "Crazy Car" got 4th place like his older brother's, but he was happy with it.

Jacob, my oldest boy, was involved in Scouting years ago, and still loves participating in the Pinewood Derby. Unfortunately, his idea of participation is showing up on race day and watching his car speed down the track without regard for the work that goes into making the car. As you can see, very little effort was made to design his car (even less so than last year's "Speeding Block" which, as you can tell by the name of it, also required very little effort), so I had him at least prepare the axles on his own to justify his participation. [He had to do something!!] "Speeding Block 2" took 2nd place in the first heat of the adults & siblings race, but failed to move beyond the second heat due to a wheel that fell off. Tough break, but he was still pretty happy with the early showing.

As for myself, I waited til everybody else's cars were in the box, then started on my own. The idea for a model of a woodworker's plane came to me slowly while working on the other cars. My first attempt was severely overweight, though (the rules limit a car's weight to 5 ounces, or 142 grams), so I had to substitute softwoods where I had hardwoods before and hollow out significant portions of the body of the car. I was well pleased with the way it turned out, even if it only claimed 8th place in the adults and siblings race.

Yes, my son's block of wood with Sharpie decorations on it beat my own way-cool car.

I'm over it. Almost.

When the 'Economic Downturn' Hits Home

The Hudson River, looking south toward the George Washington Bridge, and beyond, Manhattan

Up til this point, I thought the 'economic downturn' (as the optimists put it, and let's face it - at heart, I'm an optimist) would have little to no effect on me. I knew that ye ol' day job, which works in support of the automotive, aerospace, and petroleum exploration sectors, was definitely having some troubles this past year and that 2008 was a banner year as being the worst on record for us. But I was still a bit surprised when they announced that our hours were being scaled back til our sales start moving in the proper direction.

So, now I'm working 4 days a week at ye ol' day job, haven't had a sale out of my Etsy shop since December 30, and am faced with the distinct possibility that I may not be able to sell my best-selling wooden toy swords after February 10. Put that all together, and it pretty well stinks.


Well, this isn't meant to be a pity party. Even if it was, I'm too cheap to send out invitations anyway. However, there's a few things about this that are prodding me in a good direction:

1) I'm sending out job applications. It's the first time in a long time I've done this with any actual intent.

2) I plan to bulk up my Etsy shop on the days I've got off. That was one of the goals I'd set for myself for 2009 a month ago on this blog.

To be fair, we've been told that the hours scale-back is subject to review should we start seeing some sales come in the door, so I may be back to a full paycheck again before too long. Even still, it's high time I started looking at what's out there for alternative employment. I know I'm not the only one in this sinking boat, and I know there're a lot more folks than me in much worse shape (and I've had to collect unemployment benefits before, too), but I'm the only me I've got, so I've got to help myself by doing what I can!


Please wish me luck!

Welcome Home, Theo!

I teased about him last week in some of the Etsy forums, and he finally arrived yesterday on the puppy truck in from Mississippi. Introducing a very happy little black lab mix we've named Theo. His face and ears suggest that one of his parents was at least partially a Russell Terrier, so he may turn out quite a bit smaller than your average black lab.


He's a rescue dog who was found abandoned roadside at the tender age of about 6 weeks. He's about 19 weeks old now, according to vet estimates.


Last night was his first night sleeping here and he was the very model of a good pup, not whimpering even once in his crate. Mrs SmileMoon has been working on his training since he got in the door, too, so he's already getting a handle on his new name and seems to know how to sit on command already too. Yay!


We're still raising Indy, our Guiding Eye program pup, too. He's about 15 months old now, and being a very good big brother. We'll keep you posted on progress...

Happy New Year 2009

So, here I am, sitting at the dining room table with a pair of cans on my ears (those'd be the precursor to those buds that come with your iPods), listening to a CD that iTunes doesn't seem to be able to identify the tracks on (since it's a mixed CD), and chuckling to myself because there's a preposition I'm ending this sentence with. Oh yeah - when you set the bar this low, there's no end to the good times.


We got a couple of snowstorms right around Christmas, and another couple inches the other day. Our Muscovie Duck, Ed, decided that instead of outrunning the snow, he'd literally lie low and see what happened. As you can see, the first inch or so sort of rolled off his back like so much (frozen) water.

Christmas celebrations were pretty low-key this year at the Smile Moon household. Mrs Smile Moon and I had agreed to limit our gifts to each other to just about nothing, preferring instead to make sure the kiddies had some fun stuff to open. Unfortunately, the agreement had been made AFTER I'd already bought a few things for her. I can only grin sheepishly in my defense, but she did get a really pretty little bracelet from an Etsy shop, a 'Best Of' collection from Plastic Bertrand (mostly because it was the only place I could find the lost track "Jacques Cousteau," which would otherwise have remained a lost track if it weren't for the fact that she remembered the song so fondly from her high school French labs), a few things to read (because that's the way she rolls), and a few choice stocking stuffers.

[Why do I always substitute Weird Al lyrics whenever I hear Michael Jackson singing "Beat It" ? It can't be helped, I swear! Oh, and I guess you can figure out at least one song on that mix CD, eh?]


Probably the best present we got was a Belgian Waffle maker from my uncle and aunt on Christmas Eve. It's already gotten a lot of usage in the couple weeks since. You can also see my Mighty Mug (featuring one of the famed Viking Kittens of Rathergood fame) in the photo above, another favorite Christmas gift from years past. Mrs Smile Moon might just contest the waffle maker being "the best" present, because she got a really sweet blender from a friend of ours too, which really does look like it'll do everything but sew my fingers back on.

We found ourselves with a much busier social calendar for the holidays this year, too. It was crazy - I think we ended up at no less than four holiday parties and open houses. The lamest by far was the New Year's Eve party we tried hosting at our house. Due to illnesses in our friends' families, it ended up being just us and a whole crapload of our kids' friends staying over. You'd think that'd be crazy enough, but it was tamer than I'd like to think could happen at our place - one group was over here shopping for boots online, another group over there checking out youtube videos, and there's Mrs Smile Moon with a few other kids working on a jigsaw puzzle. I'd show you a photo of the procedings, but you'd only find yourself waking up in an hour with an imprint of your keyboard on your forehead.

On a positive business note, I was good boy today and downloaded all my financial info from Etsy and Paypal for tax preparation purposes. [Yes, I was a good little doobie and registered my business when I started it back in March 2008.] I just need to start sorting through it all and try to make sense of it. I'm no accountant, but I should be able to figure out all my business stuff, but with my oldest one in college this year, that's going to throw a whole bunch of new things our way tax-wise, so I think I'm going to break down and let a professional have a stab at my return this year. Ugh - I'm not looking forward to it!

I AM looking forward to getting back out to the workshop, though. I stayed away for the duration of the Christmas break so we could function like a family unit and play some games (Pentago, Trouble , Laser Battle). I swear, though, there were some mornings last week when I woke up working out solutions to how I'm going to tackle some of my next projects! I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but at least I know I'll be able to hit the ground running when I get back out there!

2008 Sales Report (and a Winter Hint!)

Well, it's not "the year in review," but online woodworking sales have all but dried up for the year so it seemed like a good time to sit back with my Sunday morning mug o' coffee, put on my headphones with some classic EM playing, and take a look at where Smile Moon Woodworks is at this point and perhaps make some goals for the coming year too.

But before I do, here's a quick little helpful hint for all you little snowbirds shoveling out from another couple inches every other day this winter: SILICONE SPRAY! I picked up a can of silicone lubricant spray a few years back to help with a sticky handle on the tailgate of my pickup truck. I figured out along the way that it makes a great DIY non-stick surface if you spray it on a snow shovel. Anybody who's done any snow shoveling will tell you the worst part of it is all the snow that sticks to your shovel, making it twice as heavy every time you give another scoop the old heave-ho! Spray the whole surface of the blade before you go out to shovel, and you're all set!

As for the woodworking, by all accounts, it was a pretty successful first year. Without getting into specifics, I'd have to say this year has exceeded my expectations by a long shot. When I first set up shop in March of '08, I'd anticipated that it would help me supplement my craft show sales. The advice I'd been given was simply to make sure I had some sort of an online presence to make sure customers had somewhere to find me for repeat business.

After three craft shows where I barely made my table fees back, I was starting to wonder as to the wisdom of doing this at all, but while the in-person sales were decidedly unimpressive, my online sales were starting to take off. The very first thing I listed on Etsy sold within two days of listing! Then I discovered the Custom feature on Etsy, and that took care of the slower sales periods in the spring and summer when many sellers were closing up shop. At this point, about 14% of my sales volume has been custom work, but it's accounted for nearly 70% of my online woodworking earnings for 2008.


Now that I'd have to say that Smile Moon Woodworks has been successful (as a garage shop) in 2008, I've got to wonder what would make it better in 2009. I'm not the type to set goals for myself, but if I don't give myself something to shoot for, I don't see it moving beyond where it is now. Therefore, I'm setting fingers to keyboard and making some commitments to myself:

1) Make more stock items for my shop. If nothing else, the Christmas season has taught me to be much better prepared in terms of keeping stock "on the shelves." I ended up making 4 batches of toy swords this year - 3 of which were within a month of Christmas.


2) Make a wider variety of things for the shop by creating new listings. I need to examine what sells online in general and at Etsy in particular.

3) Explore and utilize effective advertising. So far, the showcases on Etsy have been a wash, and Majaba (craftcult.com) has been uncertain in reaching potential customers, as opposed to reaching other sellers. This is going to involve finding and examining real web traffic stats and learning about other tools such as adwords, google base, twitter, project wonderful, etc.

4) Participate in really good craft shows. Last spring was pretty poorly attended by all accounts and I don't know too many folks who said they had good shows at that time either. Staying away from the fall shows didn't help my in-person sales, but I was too busy keeping up with the online sales to notice. I'll need to step it up and maintain a presence at both types of venues.

5) Streamline the woodworking process. I need to be looking at things to make my job easier and quicker in the workshop. One way is to make multiples, especially of custom items that have even slight universal appeal. I've had more requests for the custom pill boxes I made back in the summer, for example, and it always brings production costs down to make more than one of anything.


6) Streamline the packaging process. This process improved 100% over the course of the Christmas selling season, but has a long way to go to justify the absolute minimum I've been charging for "shipping & handling." I got lucky in finding somebody with access to small boxes (that he let me have for nothing!) that worked out really well for my 3-D Wooden Puzzle Cubes, but I need to see about either finding ready-made boxes for those Wooden Toy Swords or at least making up a bunch at a time ahead of time to speed the checkout process somewhat.



7) Make sure my kids' stuff is going to pass muster when the CPSIA is enacted. Not sure what to do with this one just yet, but I'm going to have to at least familiarize myself with the letter of the law and see what it's going to take. Of course, with all the petitions and talk of possible revisions to the law, who knows where all this will lead?

In addition to all these, I remain committed to my goals of working as "green" as possible, by acquiring and using materials that are cutoffs and leftovers from other jobs or rescued from the trash bin or firewood pile, buying from sources committed to sustainable harvesting when new material is needed, and using finishes that are non-toxic when finishes are called for at all.

Financially, I don't really know how achieving any of these goals will materially contribute to the bottom line, but I know that I'll feel better about the work I'm doing if I know I'm keeping busy and that my customers feel they're continuing to get good value from me. With 12 full months for Smile Moon Woodworks to play with in 2009, I hope I can double my 2008 sales volume and earnings.

Interview with MuffinTop Designs

A brief aside...

Here it is, the end of 2008. Christmas (and other related holiday) shopping is in full swing, and my Etsy shop has been very busy the past month or so now. I'm not sure if things are going to continue to be this brisk for the next couple weeks, but I went ahead and made up another batch of Wooden Toy Swords (almost 60 of them this time) just to be on the safe side, because I've already had three batches sell out within weeks already this fall. I've also had to make up a new batch of 3-D Wooden Puzzle Cubes because my first batch finally ran out on those too.

I can't complain about the extra work, I suppose. I don't know if I could've anticipated the Christmas rush, this being my first year of selling my woodcrafts online. And honestly, I don't think we'd have been able to buy Christmas presents for the kids (nor could I have bought much for Mrs SmileMoon) if it weren't for the success of my shop.

And now, on to the main attraction...

I recently had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Cy, the proprietrix (proprietress? young lady who's in charge?) of Etsy's Muffin Top Designs. After warning me that an overdose of super sugary sugar cookies and the sounds of Dwight Yoakham had the mini-muffin whipping around like crazy (more on that soon), we got down to business...



1. Welcome to The Thoughts of a Poor Woodsman. You look familiar. Where have I seen you before?
well, you may have seen me poking around Etsy - where i have two shops: Muffin Top Designs and Muffin Topsy Turvy and in the Etsy forums! i also have a blog that i'm not too great at updating here, but i'll hopefully get better at it!! you, my dear poor woodsman, have also seen me at a Starbucks in east Toronto!!! Your humble narrator will attest to that!

2. What kind of crafting do you do, and how long have you been at it?
in my past life, i was a fine arts major, but meandered into the world of social services and property management!! however, about 2 years ago, one of my good friends introduced me to the world of beading, and i'm proud to say that i'm a jewelry maker now! i also dabble a little in sock monkey making. i still paint and draw but right now i love making wearable creations out of shiny things.



3. What was the first crafty thing you ever sold? Do you still make that same thing for sale?
i think that the first crafty thing i EVER sold was an acrylic painting that was part of a body of work that i did in university. but i don't do large scale paintings anymore, sigh! i wonder whatever happened to that painting????
this is the first crafty thing that i sold on Etsy - a Glass Bead Lariat Necklace, but i don't work so much with seedbeads anymore. the allure of sterling and fine silver and wire wrapped pretties are my current obsessions!

4. How do you get into the creative zone?
my creative muse is an elusive one. sometimes i sit in my little basement "studio" and create more than i can even handle... other times, weeks can go by without something new. i try to keep my space organized and clean, and i also love browsing on Etsy and the internet for inspiration. also having a full stomach helps.



5. What level of distraction can you put up with while you're working - music, TV, telephone, onlookers?
i absolutely need music or a movie on in the background in order to work! and that goes for both my full time job and my creative one!!!!!! however, i can't tolerate the phone or people looking over my shoulder. it's irritating!!!!! the husband and i have a wonderful basement space where his music equipment is close to my jewelry table - we're close, but not TOO close!

6. Do you have a dedicated crafting area that's forbidden from the rest of the family?
see above. however, i'm one of those people who knows where everything is even though it might not seem like it... once i put something down on my jewelry table, i need to know it will be there when i go back. hence, the husband and i are respectful of each other's spaces. i have caught him running his finger through my beads though!!! i don't know what will happen when our baby arrives though... :)

7. Do you come from a crafty background? Do/did your parents and/or siblings work with their hands like you do?
my sisters and cousins are quite crafty and artsy in their own right... and while none of our parents seem to be outwardly crafty, we've been slowly finding out that there is quite the artistic streak in some of them. my grandfather was a fabulous self-taught furniture maker - he would construct stools out of large cable spools and my grandmother would whip up padded covers for them!



8. What are your crafting goals for the next twelve months?
for 2008, i vowed to learn 10 new crafting/art techniques, which was really fun - and fully documented on my blog! for 2009, i want to take a metalsmithing course before the baby comes - how's that for a goal?????

9. How do you promote your business?
i wish i was better at promoting my business! working full time makes it difficult to get out there as much as i can, but i pass out my business cards as much as i can, blog, am present in the Etsy forums, and talk about what i do to anyone that will listen! perhaps one of my 2009 goals will be to draw up a formal marketing plan... and maybe get some MOO cards made up!

10. What is your most favorite handmade item that you have made?
probably the first sock monkey that i made. when i took it home, the husband immediately claimed it as his own. it was totally endearing.
i also fall in love with my new designs, wear them for a while, and then end up loving something else. i never liked wearing jewelry before, but now i'm quite flighty with my affections!



11. What is your most favorite handmade item that someone else has made?
i have sooo many. bizzielizzie makes the best zipper bags and key fobs and i can't live without them. scabbyrobot made the purse that i now carry. indulgentcreations makes lovely soap and body butters. i also have my eye on your wooden swords... i fully expect the husband and the baby to have tons of sword fights!!!!!!

12. What was your best handcrafted "moment"?
lighting up my butane torch and firing my first piece of precious metal clay at home. there's something to be said about a 1200 degree flame and molten silver. what a rush.

13. What's been the best advice you've received regarding your crafting and/or business?
stick with it and don't give up. things go up and down and as long as you're doing something you love, everything else will follow.



14. How far do you plan to take your craft? Do you envision being able to support yourself at some point down the road?
i am hoping to one day be able to only work part time and be a full time jewelry creator and sock monkey maker. it would be a dream to be able to stay home most of the time to create and take care of my family.

15. Describe yourself in 5 words.
kind, easygoing, creative, dynamic, hungry

...And there you have it! Please support my good friend and fellow artist by checking out her shop!

Using Google Base to Increase your Business Exposure

I only just this past week added my Etsy listings to google base. I made sure I followed the many tutorials that several fellow etsians have provided in the various forum threads - much appreciated. Let's Ets is a particularly good place to start.

One thing that I hadn't seen discussed was some of the important Contact and Payment information that can be added. If you leave those information blocks alone, then folks won't know that you accept Paypal or RME, for instance. Assuming you've already got your Etsy store items (or any items you're selling, regardless of your online store representation) listed in google base, go to the Settings Tab (the link works only if you're already signed into Google Base), then make sure you're in the Base Settings section. Toward the bottom of the page, under the blue heading for "New Items", you'll see subheadings for "Contact," "Location," and "Payment."

Editing "Contact" will allow you to set up your contact email and/or phone number. Click OK afterward.

Editing "Location" will allow you to insert where you're located, which gets translated to one of those little Google maps - cool! Again, click OK afterward.

Editing "Payment" will show folks what you accept for payment. Here's the rub: it only shows check, cash, wire transfer, and the major credit cards. There's nothing under the standard choices for money orders, Paypal, or Revolution Money Exchange (RME). There's a box for Notes, though - use it! And once again, click OK afterward.

Here's the final step, and it's important: be sure to click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page! I forgot the first time, navigated away, then came back to find out I had to remember what I did the first time so I could re-enter it.

This time of year, I'm after all the marketing and advertising help I can get! I hope this helps you, too...

Home from School and the Joys of Rocky Horror

Our oldest daughter came home from school for the weekend. At her school, there are a number of students who live far enough away that they can't go to their own homes for the Thanksgiving holiday, so we had one of them stay with us as well. She was very pleasant to have around and my lovely wife enjoyed having an extra daughter on hand, too.

Of course, my daughter knows she needs to be earning a bit of scratch while she's home from school (next semester's books ain't exactly buying themselves, y'know), so she'd signed up to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during her "time off." As I write this, we're getting a dusting of wet snow and she's on her third day in a row of work while on vacation. To her credit, she hasn't grumbled too much. She's lucky in that her summer job employer welcomed her back during her school breaks.

The working while on break's not too far off of what I've been doing with the woodworking during my own holiday time off. One of the first things I did was make up a new project for sale in my Etsy shop. It's a Holiday Star Wooden Tea Light Candle Holder:


It was ready just in time for the Thanksgiving Day feast we had here at the house (with 22 people in attendance). One of those in attendance was my sister, who celebrated (or probably tried to ignore) her 41st birthday earlier in the week. She saw a pair of the candle holders on the table and complimented me on them. I said "You like those? They're for you - happy birthday!" Then she proceeded to tell me what else she likes of mine... I guess it'd be safe to say they went over with her fairly well.

As I recall from being a college kid (and this is a stretch since I'm so very old, right?), one of the best parts about being on break is getting together with your friends from town again. My daughter had a few friends over to the house last night and after all the giggling at inside jokes, they sat down to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show - another step in the rite of passage that is getting through college. Since our home DVD player is busted at the moment, they gathered around the nearest widescreen laptop to watch.


Now, something I recall about watching Rocky Horror as a kid young adult was going to the theater (without a clue of what I was in for) and slowly figuring out for myself why people were squirting water pistols during outdoor rainy scenes, why rolls of toilet paper were being thrown at the screen ("Great Scott!"), and why everyone declared the actors were eating meat loaf for dinner; none of which my daughter or friends had even a clue about! One of the more enjoyable things I did as a college student at UConn was to present the film on campus as part of a fund raiser. When an ameteur acting troupe out of the New Haven, Connecticut area heard we were presenting the film, they asked if they could perform on the floor during the showings. I was naïve enough to say 'yes', but it turned out to be a highlight of the presentations.

Something else I recall about Rocky Horror was trying to relive the theater experience on a home theater VCR, only to discover that certain movies just do not translate well to the living room. Rocky Horror being first among them. The girls had their giggles while watching some of the racier stuff in the movie the other night, but they simply had no clue about the rest. They definitely missed out on the better 70% of the fun of going to "the show"!!

Coming up in my next installment: an interview with Etsy's MuffinTop Designs!
Stay tuned...

Idle Hands and Idol Worship

A long time ago, a good friend of mine turned me on to some music, the likes of which I'd never known existed. We were at his mom's apartment after school one day back in 1981 or so, and he had put on an LP without showing me the cover. It turned out to be 'Oxygene' by Jean Michel Jarre, and it absolutely blew my mind! Over the ensuing years, we became the best of friends and hunted down albums of electronic music to share with each other. He'd find LPs by Vangelis, Klaus Schulze and Michael Garrison, I'd find albums by Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre, Edgar Froese, and Synergy. We taped each other's collections (as well as our own, because you just didn't want to take that chance that your kid brother or sister was going to take out your LPs when you weren't home and use them as frisbees for the dog to chase).


We made it through college, or whatever passed for higher learning, and moved out into the real world. He moved into it a bit quicker than I did, go-getter that he was. I ended up getting married and sprouting children a lot quicker. Sooner rather than later, my disposable income was now necessary, so the additions to the LP collection became fewer and further between. Of course, LPs were starting to see serious competition from CDs, so it wasn't long before there weren't many LPs to be had anyway. But I digress...

Back at the end of the 80s, when Tangerine Dream was recognizable enough of a name here in the States to be able to mount a 30 to 40 city tour and realize a profit, I decided it was time to meet the man behind the band, Edgar Froese. At this time, I'd already amassed about 50 LPs by him and his band, had written to them and received press kits and autographed photos of the band's members, and was, in short, a bit of a fanboy. I figured it was high time I met my idol.


I discovered the phone number and contact for the label Tangerine Dream was signed to at the time, called her up, gave her my name and told her I was a college kid working for the campus radio station with an assignment to conduct an interview for airplay. About the only part of this that wasn't a big fat lie, of course, was my name. After getting my brother-in-law (who WAS a campus radio station DJ) to sign off some sort of credentials on my behalf, and submitting a list of potential questions, I was approved for the interview.

By phone.

"Uh-uh", I remember telling the label rep. "I want to conduct this interview in person." I already had tickets in hand to see the band perform in Boston, so why not get together before the show and do it then? After a bit of hemming and hawing on her part, we agreed. I ended up sitting down with Edgar Froese and a tape recorder for about 20 minutes, going over his views on music technology (presaging by about 10 to 15 years the advent of compact flash drives), analogue vs digital instruments, and several other such inanities as he's covered in countless better interviews conducted by folks a lot less gormless than yours truly.

Following the interview, my brother-in-law and I strolled over to Newberry Comics and found a rare Tangerine Dream CD that I just had to add to my collection. Meanwhile, I think my extremities felt somewhat numbed at the excitement of it all. We had the privilege of meeting the full band backstage after the show as well. I also traded a transcription of the interview for a membership in the Tangerine Dream North American Network, some members of which made me seem quite casual about the whole thing by comparison.

Eventually, the editor of the Network's newsletter must've had a falling out with Edgar's management or something because the direction of the newsletter went from covering all things having to do with the band to covering everything close to the band but not the band itself. Yeah, odd, I thought. One particular band the editor had become very fond of during this transition was an electronic music band from the UK with the strangest sounding name I'd ever encountered, considering the music they played: Radio Massacre International. Shame on me - it was years before I actually found anything of theirs to listen to. And what a revelation it was for me, too! Unfortunately, much of their music is privately pressed, meaning it's recorded to CDR and distributed through limited channels til the supply runs out, then it's 'tough luck, Charlie.'


The connection was made for me a few years later, when upon listening to a BBC recording of Tangerine Dream live at the Royal Albert Hall in 1975 (and incredible recording if you can get ahold of it!), I heard the radio announcer mention that the concert was being broadcast from the vaults at the request of one Steve Dinsdale - - who, as it turns out, is a member of RMI. I guess I wasn't the only fanboy out there after all. I'm glad Steve did that, though. What a great recording! And an obvious inspiration to his band in their formative years.

And even though RMI has played various shows in the US at least four times over the past several years, I have yet to get out to see them. I kick myself, too, because they're right up there among my all-time faves now, right alongside Redshift...

...but they're a subject for another day.