I have a tendency to jump from hobby to hobby, pouring myself into each one for a brief period of time before moving on to the next. Some months I’m so consumed by music that it’s all I think about all day long. I write lyrics at work; I hum melodies into my phone; I get so wrapped up in recording something in the evening that I’m genuinely surprised to discover that it’s two in the morning.

Currently, I’m pretty focused on woodworking. The problem with this hobby is that it’s somewhat noisy. Oh sure, there’s gluing and sanding and fitting pieces together, and none of that is particularly noisy (except for the random cussing when things don’t fit together quite right or I pinch my finger in a clamp). But then there’s the cutting and the drilling and the routing (my router is by far the noisiest power tool I own, even louder than my Skilsaw). So when I have an evening free, I head straight to the workshop as soon as I get home where I cut and drill and route as much as I can, knowing that at nine (ten at the latest), I’ll have to stop otherwise someone’s going to call the cops.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve built a medicine cabinet/vanity for my bathroom (I placed my order for my mirrors today which should be ready on Monday, and then I’ll have to fix a couple of mistakes and then paint the whole thing, but otherwise it’s finished). Then I made a storage box for Alison’s bathroom. I’m pretty happy with it, although there is a blemish or two that I’m sure I’ll notice every time I look at it. That was actually pretty fun to build because it was small and there was a considerable amount of detail that I needed to concentrate on. I built a greenhouse a few years ago and I was pleasantly surprised by how imprecise I could be with my cuts and still manage to make things fit together. On that large scale, a not-so-perfect 90-degree cut didn’t matter. With this storage box, anything less than 90-degrees meant that the whole thing would be lopsided. Again, it’s all about scale.

Which reminds me of guitarmaking. Some of you may already know that I’ve built two guitars, one of which I call Frankenstein (even though Frankenstein was the doctor and not the monster) because of the patchwork of odd implements I used to put it together: a piece of old andiron for the truss rod; a steel plate on the back of the headstock with a couple of steel pins inside to keep it attached to the neck; and a maze-work of electrical tape on the back to keep the wiring from getting caught in my belt. This might go without saying, but I don’t ever play that guitar. However, I’m hanging on to it because, well, I made it.

The other guitar I built was actually quite nice. I called it El Vato. It was a classical guitar, which means it was a hollow body, which means I had to bend wood. Bending wood was really fun. First you soak the pieces in a bathtub for a couple of hours (which I couldn’t do now because I don’t have a bathtub anymore), then you bend the pieces around a pipe heated by a blow torch (or if you’re me, you just use a clothing iron to heat up the already soft, wet wood and then bend the wood around a piece of PVC) to reach the desire curvature. I ended up having some problems with the fretting of El Vato but it was a nice-looking guitar if ultimately unplayable. But that’s not something I can go back and fix now because, sadly, El Vato is gone. That’s a story I might tell you about someday.

In the past, I’ve also built a nightstand for my mom, a couple of bed lamps for Julien and Gabriel, a coat rack for Julien (and a half-finished coat rack for Gabriel), a playscape for the boys, and an odd assortment of router and table saw jigs that I no longer have a use for.

And now I am beginning work on a credenza for my bedroom. This is going to be an interesting project because it’s a scale I’ve never attempted before. I’ve built small things and large things, but never medium-sized things. I know that precise cuts will be required, but the way I’ve designed it there aren’t too many cuts at all. And yesterday at lunch I bought a mortising chisel and bit for my drill press from Woodcraft Supply (it occurred to me recently that I could spend all my money at Woodcraft Supply and not feel the faintest hint of remorse (although the same could be said about Musicmakers during those periods when I’m consumed by music)). I’ve never used a mortising chisel before and so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll cut the dadoes with my dado blade but then I’ll square up the ends with the chisel. It’ll be fun, I think.

Anyway, I realize that this is mostly just a summary of my recent activity rather than a story with a beginning, middle and end (or even a point). But it’s about all I have to offer right now.