Fun With Mortises and Tenons

...mortises and a table saw to cut the tenons. Of course, a great deal of the time in the workshop was spent in idle chatter. My workshop is right on the public sidewalk and serves as a kind of conversational trap for every passing neighbor and dog walker. Kelly suspects that the exchange of neighborhood gossip is the real purpose of the “workshop.” I will neither confirm nor deny this. But back to the table. Mistakes were made. While routing out one...

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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Watch

...al media “influencers.” These watches begin not as a practical way to tell time but, rather, as a physical manifestation of social media interactions. Amidst the shifting winds of Alibaba sites, dropshipping networks, Shopify templates, Instagram accounts and someone somewhere concocting the details of “Our Story,” a watch was formed, like a sudden precipitate in an unstable cloud. And almost immediately after being produced, it is reviled, doomed...

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Pet Peeve: Texting at the Gym

The older I get the more time I seem to have to spend at the gym fixing dumb sports injuries. With that age also comes a crankiness about rude smartphone habits. Lately I’ve found my exercise routine lengthened by having to wait for people just sitting on equipment and texting. I know that this is a “first world problem” and I’ll acknowledge that I’ve probably been guilty of searching for just the right podcast episode between sets. But the gym s...

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How to Make Your Own DIY Instant Oatmeal

Long time readers will remember my trauma when I accidentally bought a box of “low-sugar” i.e. artificially sweetened instant oatmeal. I took it on a camping trip unawares, and ended up trapped in the woods with nothing to eat for breakfast except Splenda soaked packets of horror. Frankly, I’d rather be alone in the woods with rabid bears or hook wielding maniacs. At the time, some of you pointed out, “Umm…why aren’t you making your own darn inst...

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Leisure The Basis of Culture

...and rediscovered in hard work. Fr. Mark Kowalewski, who tipped me off to Pieper’s book, describes this state of leisure as “profoundly counter-cultural.” And yet I hear Gmail calling me. Time to update my Facebook profile and get out some tweets. How do you deal with life’s distractions? How do you carve out some time for true leisure?...

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