Letter of intent

My intent for this blog is that it will be a storage place and catalog of the variety of things that I am working on and/or interested in.

Such as:

Woodworking projects
Tool building
Blacksmithing
Japanese carpentry tools

and occasionally cooking, home improvement, travel.........well, basically whatever. Who knows? I may take suggestions if they seem interesting to me.

In various places you will notice an Amazon Affiliate link to my store. These are products that I find useful and that I think represent good value for the money. A few items will be for reference purposes, but I'll let you know. I search for good deals that offer a low price combined with free shipping in most cases. A few things are just something I would REALLY like to have (if I wasn't so cheap). I have no interest in gouging anyone on price, so If you find a better value, please let me know! Also, read the customer reviews of the items. This is the most valuable part of the Amazon model (and free shipping, and easy returns), but look out for testimonials that seem fake. I have a sneaking suspicion that some companies are using paid testimonials, particularly some of the China made products. Just sayin'.

Often I will go on a building spree and make like, boxes or something for a month just because I love to build boxes. These and other things will occasionally be offered for sale on this site. I haven't decided yet how to go about this, so we will have to figure it out as we go.

My mind behaves in a similar fashion to a ping-pong ball, bouncing from one thing to another, which is hugely frustrating to the people closest to me (I love you Renee!). Even I forget how many different projects get started, then abandoned for other interests, only to re-appear months or years later. I am fully aware that this is going to annoy the crap out of anyone misguided enough to actually be reading this on a regular basis, but maybe this blog will encourage me to actually finish more of the projects that are stuck in the Dead Letter Office. Nothing like public scrutiny to enforce good behavior, eh?

My plan is to post a brief thought for the morning to give myself focus and then to follow up with a more detailed post later on in the day (Yeah.....we'll see). I am barely technically literate, so no bells or whistles, and poorly worded rambling run-on's will be the norm, just a warning. And my typing skills, at best, are pretty poor and on bad days my neuropathy makes typing just way to difficult so I may be brief(er). Terse even. I have no aspirations to write a book, a great relief to all.

Remember when I said that I am a private person by nature? This will also be a means for friends and family to see what I actually do. I am originally from Minnesota, but currently live in Oregon, and spent most of my adult life in the wilds of Montana and now........I don't get out much, shall we say. We don't visit often enough, so this is somewhat in lieu of. My wife, Renee Bellinger, has family in Oregon state and clear over on the (right) coast, in Mass. so I am REALLY a cipher to them. I'm sure that Renee will be appropriately mortified when people find out what a weirdo she is married to.

And.................some know, others don't, that I was diagnosed with a very rare type of Cancer in April or May of 2012 which causes a condition known as Psuedo-myxoma peritonei (I should be able to spell this by now but I'll get back to you). Google is some help, but not much. My surgery was in June of 2012 and I obviously lived, albeit in a slightly modified fashion. If I can talk her into it, I'll have my wife write a guest post on PMP, as it is referred to. She's the vastly more knowledgeable of the two of us, particularly about that stuff. Mortality is always in the back of our minds but.......well.......hmmm....I suppose that it does serve as an aid to focus. I am here today and hopefully tomorrow as well. More to come on that subject (fingers' crossed).