I thought I would post some of the things that I've been making/working on recently:

My friend gave me a slab of rough cut oak, so I decided to make a corner table out of it.
Sanding and cleaning up the edges took a good chunk of time, but the wood was really pretty.










The legs attached are definitely a temporary situation, but making them detachable was the easiest means of transporting the table between moves.

My roommate and I found some scrap wood behind the industrial design building, so I made a shelf for his desk to give him some extra storage room. The shelves were red cedar scraps, so they smelled awesome.
Recently, I've combined the two to make a pretty handy little entertainment center.

My buddy, Shane, would take me out to work at his blacksmith shop last winter. This letter opener was one of the last things I got to make before he moved off to New Hampshire.

Used cold-rolled steel roundbar (1/4 inch, I believe).

Justin King - After the Harvest

"Being realistic is for people with boring jobs who can't fish."

And reconnect me to the beauty that I'm missin'

I recently discovered Grooveshark, and made a sharable playlist:
http://grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Bkmusic/57438162
^It's a lot of electronic stuff, but good for working on the computer.
I'll be making another playlist soon for driving or sitting on the back porch. Also, regular updates should be expected.

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Have you ever been hit by the reality of how beautiful existence is? Not any particular or isolated aspect, but the pure harmony of existence?

This happened to me this afternoon. I was driving back from Virginia with a friend of mine and something in our conversation caused me to close my eyes for a moment and allow myself to be struck by how incredible my life has been up until this point. I have had such unbelievable opportunity and experiences. I think that, far too often, people get so caught up in the task at hand or the necessities of their current pursuit that they remove any inessential distractions. Unfortunately, this often includes the details of life.
I realized that I was as guilty of this as anyone.
On my way home, I stopped off in Boone, NC to walk around the Appalachian State University campus. It was the first time that I had been able to do that since graduating. I took time to look at things that I had walked right by on a daily basis for four years. I made a point to keep my eyes and ears as open as they could be.
I was captivated by what I saw around me.
I had to stop to sit and watch the critters crawl around the flowers more than once. I tried to feel every gust when a breeze blew by and pick out the individual bird songs.
This all sounds very whimsical and un-masculine, I know. But if I could bottle that feeling and sell it, I guarantee you that I would be a very rich man.
Take the time to appreciate the purity of Creation once in a while. It can be quite humbling.

The reason that we had traveled to Virginia was to be in the wedding of a good friend of ours. The trip was much more than we expected. All us out-of-towners were put up in a bed-and-breakfast that had a pool with a waterfall. It was the nicest place that I have ever been to. Definitely eye-opening.
I realize how much there is out in the world to experience, and how limited my scope is.
If there is one thing that I pulled from the weekend (and not due to any direct happening, but more by incidental pondering), it is that I need to be more appreciative of how great my life has been so far. In addition, I need to make things happen. It sounds simple, but I understand that the only thing separating what I am capable of from what I am actually doing is my own laziness and apprehension of making the wrong decision.
Live your life fully. Do what you love and do it well. Help others along the way. Make a difference.




Additionally, and just as an aside, I'm evidently still a little shaky with my confidence around a pretty girl.

Back on my grind

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Hey.

I apologize for my conspicuous absence from writing. I spent half a year waiting for something to have a profound enough impact to cause me to voice an opinion. After half a year, I've decided that this probably is not the best approach.

So, this post is going to be a casual update, just to ease back in to things.

Since I last posted I have:
1. Grown a beard and shaved it off.
2. Graduated from college.


On a more current note:
-I have joined the Crossfit Indian Trail team and am starting to really commit myself to that.
-I have recently registered with the USTA and will hopefully be playing for a league team this summer. As a matter of fact, I am going to dedicate a good portion of this summer to getting serious about tennis and getting back in to golf.
-I am looking to get a puppy. My top choice is a husky. However, I really like the idea of a redbone coon hound or a bluetick.
-I am selling anything that I don't really need to keep and establishing a travel fund. I'm planning to spend about a month traveling to different places that I've always wanted to see.
-I am looking to get my own anvil and forge and possibly set up a blacksmith workshop in my backyard.
-I purchased a bathrobe specifically for the purpose of being the unemployed college graduate who gets the paper in his bathrobe every morning.
-As a gift, my mother gave me the book Lone Survivor written by Marcus Luttrell, and I am very excited about this.

More posts will be coming much more regularly in the very near future.
I promise.

This past summer was a great time. I was able to attend the wedding of two good friends, which was the first one I had ever been to. I lived with some great guys. I spent my time on worthwhile activities (mostly).

I really enjoyed myself, and I frequently miss it. It is certainly nice to have the memories, though.

I'm going to begin posting more casually. This will largely consist of things that I make or find interesting.

That being said:

This a model of a WWII foxhole radio. When connected to an antenna or ground receiver, it picks up AM radio wavelengths. GI's would use these to listen to the news or sports scores where tube radio sets were not practical.

These can be made largely with household items and couple spare hours.

I assembled this one in an afternoon, and although I don't know a ton about radios, it works.

Hello everyone.

I haven't posted anything in quite sometime, so here's a quick update before we proceed:

-I'm doing well.

-My family seems to be well.

-I tore my ankle up a few weeks ago and it hasn't been the same since. I never realized how much I was taking mobility for granted. Not being able to run is slowly killing me.

-I'm ready to be out of college. Don't get me wrong, it has been a great experience, but I think it's about time to move on.

-Christmas is fast approaching!

Well, now that we're caught up.

I was heavily considering the lyrics of some of the better known contemporary praise-and-worship songs available today. This left a lot of questions.

Allow me to better explain.

Recently, and for the first time in my life, I tried to earnestly pursue a girl.
I really botched it up.

It was a learning experience, to be sure. More pointedly, the situation caused me to become unsure of myself. I lost confidence in who I was and what I was doing.

Today: This evening marked the conclusion of what I would consider to be a very poor day. A concentration of unfortunate things seemed to occur within close proximity of one another, setting me in a dour mood.

My point is this: we sit in church and sing "Your Grace is enough", but how far does that Truth really take us?

If I'm being honest with myself, the lyrics should read like this: "I would feel much more comfortable with the thought of Your Grace being enough if you would allow things to happen according to my desires and in my preferred time frame."

"Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, as long as it only shows me things that I want to see."

Doesn't really flow.

If I can let one wayward situation or unpleasant day shake the core of my being, then how satisfied in Him can I really claim to be?

This line of thinking draws me to the story of Joseph in Genesis. You have to believe that Joseph, being left for dead and sold into slavery for a number of years (as well as being human), at some point began to wonder where God's will could be found in his situation and where he might have strayed off of the path. However, by the end of the story we come to find out that this was the way by which God raised Joseph up to be, essentially, the Prime Minister of Egypt and put him in a position to save many people from famine.

During this process Joseph's brothers come to him and ask Joseph if he is going to kill them for what they had done to him. Joseph would have been well within his power in doing so, but instead he responds with this tremendous line that can be paraphrased as: "I'm not going to kill you because the very thing that you meant for harm, God meant for good."

God's plan is not always efficiency. This is frustrating. This is comforting.