Why a Woodshop?

6FPS V5#1: January 9, 2023

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Welcome to the new issue of 6FPS.

Welcome to 2023, and a new year begins. New Years is somewhat of an arbitrary milestone but I still find it useful to use it as a reason to step back, consider the previous year, and course correct into the new year. But… no resolutions, that’s not something I do now.

Instead I try to think in themes and broad gestures, and to figure out what things I should start doing, or do more of, and what I’m going to do less of to make room for them. It’s a challenge, of course, because there are always more additions than easy deletions, so prioritization and trying to be realistic about it are key.

A big theme for me the last year, maybe two, has been “Simplify”, where I try to make the things in my life less complex and easier to use and manage. It’s reduced how much I spend on things (“do I really need these three apps?”) and how much time I need to spend just to keep everything working right. Simplify has in a way become an ongoing thing that I try to pay attention to as I start up new projects and work on improving ongoing ones.

I don’t specifically have a word I can say is my "theme” for 2023. I’ve considered “transitions”, which, given my current thinking that I might be retiring this year, might make sense, but it’s unclear to me how that frames any course correction planning — except, of course, that there’s a big, sudden change that may happen mid-year (and as of right now, I’m moderately leaning towards doing it, but no final decision yet).

Most of what I’ve come up with in terms of course corrections has been minor things — I didn’t write as much as I’d intended to, as time got sucked off into other things and my enthusiasm on various topics lagged. I want to get myself back into posting regularly to the site again.

Another focus is fitness. I exit 2022 in somewhat better shape than I entered it, but 2022 is the first year in over a decade where I didn’t lose weight, although the gain was very small (< 5 pounds). Still I have to do better this year.

There are various things I want to do more of; my photography is a key one that improved a lot in 2022 but still needs more of my time and focus, and my wood shop is now ready for me to work on things in it, rather than the shop itself (sort of: shop infrastructure is a forever project).

All I need to add to make those things happen is, well, time and energy and focus. And I’m going to clear time and energy by removing…

What?

Well, other than possibly my job mid-year, I don’t have any good answers. Sometimes that’s life, and I am continuing to think it through and see where I can make changes that make room without breaking other key parts of life.

A couple of other things are on my “figure it out” list for 2023: One is I’ve decided that it’s time to start getting out and meeting people again. Since Covid started, and with the move to Washington, most of my social interaction (well, other than clerks and vendors, ALL) has been online. I’m ready to stop being a complete hermit and start meeting and interacting with folks up here. Which, I guess, is an invitation to anyone who’s in this area and reading this who wants to grab coffee to drop me a line. I’ll buy.

The other thing I want to do is find some group that I can start doing some volunteer work for; I don’t want it to be a major time commitment, but I really love the sweat equity aspect of volunteering as being a lot more fulfilling than writing checks. I’ve had my eye out for the right opportunity and looked into a couple. I had one I really thought would be one to get involved in and had some good conversations with the team leading it, and I thought that was going to be the one I signed up to help with — and they never followed up on our chat. Which happens. So I’m still keeping an eye out where I can be helpful and spend time working with some organization in the region where I can make an impact…

If there’s a key takeaway with what I think exiting 2022 and entering 2023, it is that I am, and will continue to be, a work in progress. And that’s rather fun.

I have to admit I exited 2021 with kind of a bad attitude. I was struggling to manage some health concerns that had me wondering if some of the things I wanted to do were going to be out of reach, but with the help of the medical team I’m with, we got things pretty well straightened out, which is why I finally felt ready to take that trip to Astoria in October. The success of that trip has me more willing to plan other trips, and I’ve got both some short, local ones I’m considering — it’s time to start digging into Olympic National Park — and one big longer one that I’m seeing how I might pull off.

But I think the best thing is I’m entering 2023 with a really good attitude and looking forward to seeing what I accomplish, rather than sit back and see if I’d be able to try. And that is making me really look forward to the next year.

2023 E-books

In the last few years I’ve put a lot of energy into my e-books, and as of now, there are now eight available. As I move into 2023 I’ve been pondering which topic to cover next, and so far, none of them have reached out and grabbed me. I do plan on producing my annual image chapbook, but as of right now, I think the time I’ve spent producing the e-books will be freed up for other things, at least until I find an idea worth committing the time to. So, at least, there’s that chunk of my time freed up…

That said, I got some very good feedback on my Merced book from Ted Forbes of the Art of Photography Youtube Channel in one of his recent videos, and I found the comments quite useful. I can say, on reflection, I agree with effectively everything he suggested, and I plan on integrating those suggestions into the next e-books I produce. Once I figure out what those e-books will be, of course. Perhaps I won’t do one this year beyond the chapbook — one thing I’m considering is more emphasis to online versions vs. the printed books, much as I really enjoy having those books to browse here, and the PDF versions of them to share with all of you.

It may be that doing this primarily online without the printed book as a final objective might both improve them and reduce the time needed to make them happen. I’m starting to think I might focus more on online content until some project comes and demands to be a printed book again.

Free Prints to Subscribers

I started this giveaway last month, and I’ve decided to continue it for now. And yes, there are a couple of you who haven’t yet gotten your prints, and I’m sorry, I had printer problems and I’m working on it (well, I’ll get the printer running again this month, honest. Yes, it’s been sidetracked).

Anyone who’s interested in a free 8x10 print of one of my images si welcome to it. All you need to do is check out the images in one of the four portfolio galleries on my photography page, and then send me an email with the request, including the title of the image (or URL to the image), your name and a mailing address. My only requirement is that the email the request comes from must be a subscriber to 6FPS when I get the request. I will mail these out at no charge worldwide for any request I get during November, as quickly as I can make the prints and get them packaged up.

What do you want to hear about?

Since I’m done with the e-book projects, I expect to put more time on writing for the blog again, and while I have a number of topics in the to-do list, are there things you want me to talk about and write about? I have been asked recently about how I produce the e-books, and that’s on the list, but what else do you want me to cover? Drop me an email and let me know.

And with that, see you next issue!

What's New from Chuq?

Why a Woodshop?

I posted an update on the Woodshop, and it generated a couple of questions that I can paraphrase as “Why do you want a woodshop, anyway?”.

The short answer is I’ve always enjoyed woodworking going back to high school, and for a number of years I kept a tiny shop in the Santa Clara home, but it finally got squeezed out by a combination of lack of space in the garage and lack of time in my life, so I sold off or gave away most of the tools and put my energy into other things.

The old space was maybe 8’ x 6’, really tiny, and so keeping it functional and clear of clutter was the primary use of it for a couple of years. The new space is not huge, but much bigger at 13’ x 15’ and I don’t need to move five things out of the way to make room to get to the table saw.

But now that I have it, what are my plans?

One thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is an annual project to make gifts I can give to people, especially around Christmas. My mom was an artist, and for many years she would hand-paint up to 50 christmas cards, and each year she would do a new design and send them out to her friends - I’ve collected them and you can take a look at them here. Ultimately her failing eyesight as she got older along with her arthritis took away her ability to do this, but for about a decade and a half, this was one of the things she did that she loved.

I have no artistic ability like she did, but it gave me the idea I could find some way to do something similar. The woodshop gives me the opportunity. I have a few ideas in mind (as an example of the kind of thing that I’m considering, take a look at this video on YouTube). Creating a dozen or two ornaments a year with a specific design seems like a good use of my time and satisfies that itch to do something I can share with others.

I also want to look into creating objects that I can donate to various organizations that do fund raising auctions — this would be a good mesh with my interest in wood turning of bowls and plates, for instance. I like the idea of being able to create something that goes on to help some worthy organization, and then live in someone’s home where it is looked at with affection.

There will be other projects as well, of course — I’ve designed my first one, and all I need to do is get down to Home Depot to grab some cedar to build them with, because I want to replace my current metal pipe bird feeders with wooden ones that will (I hope!) be prettier.

Beyond that? We’ll see where it takes me. As much as anything, it’s a nice hobby that distances me from computer screens and tickles the creative part of me, and in many ways, it’s enjoying the process that attracts me as much as, or more than, actually finishing things and getting them out the door.

I already have two ideas in mind for a christmas ornament for next year, and I’m looking forward to experimenting with both and seeing what come out of it. And yes, in the back of my head is an annual giveaway of one of the ornaments to a subscriber on this list. I will figure out the details of that later, but it’s one of my goals.

Recent Photography

As I create new images and re-process older ones, I post them on my site in the Recent Work area. Additionally, every Wednesday is Photo Wednesday on the blog, where I post one of my non-bird images, and the bird images are posted on the blog each week as part of Feathery Friday.

The last quarter of 2022 was slow for photography, in part because I was putting time into the work needed to take the wood shop from being a project to being useful for projects. Also, winter, cold and snow. But I did get some decent imaging done, and I’ve started off 2023 with an outing where I got a couple of images I rather like. These are both taken along the water in the town of Suqamish. The first one is, I believe, Mt. Baker, and the second one is Mt. Ranier.

For Your Consideration

Photography

Birds and Birding

Science and Technology

Interesting Stuff

Recommendations

This month let me recommend to you the new novel by Mary Robinette Kowal, The Spare Man: This is the first book I finished in 2023, and it’s one of my favorites of the last year. It is a fast-paced and energetic murder mystery set on a spaceship travelling to Mars and starring, well, two characters very closely modeled on William Powell and Myrna Loy’s The Thin Man film characters. As you might imagine, there’s lots of wry and witter banter, even more alcohol, a really cute dog, a growing number of bodies, and of course a buffoon of a security chief all set on a luxury starliner that anyone who’s ever been on a cruise ship will recognize and either want to be on, or consider suicide at that thought. I will admit I didn’t figure out who did it until very late in the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire silly and enthusiastic book. Highly recommended

About 6FPS

And with that, I'll see you in the next issue. I'd love feedback on this, what you like, what you want more of, what you want less of. And if you have something interesting you think I might want to talk about, please pass it along. Until then, take care, and have fun.

Chuq

6FPS (Six Frames Per Second) is a newsletter of interesting things and commentary from Chuq Von Rospach (chuqvr@gmail.com).