Getting ready for a reboot.

So, the ideas are slowly emerging from the recesses of my head-cold addled brains...

JamesWatriss.com is off the air... for now. Mom did a good job of getting it up and maintaining it for me, and now I'm going to rebuild it from scratch.

This starts, of course, with domain hosting, which I'm trying to research now. Basically, I'm looking for a cheap, safe place to host a simple website, where I get to keep the domain name for myself, and hopefully not have to pay too much money to keep it up. Keeping ownership of the name is obviously a big thing, since it's my name. Feel free to offer comments and suggestions... I'm a total noob when it comes to actually putting up a website.

After that, I'm in the process of restructuring how I do business. I've been working on a new mission statement, and developing a new business plan, and marketing plan. And I'm developing a few ideas for the furniture I want to build. I'd love to do all commissions, all the time. But I think everyone wants that, and they all want to be the ebst and the brightest...

IF I can keep the ship steady, and IF I can make things work, I'll still work on custom work, probably involving reproduction. Very likely, it won't be on a commission basis, it'll be me working on the things I want to work on. I'll probably sell it.. but there are so many ifs involved right now that I really can't think much farther than "I'd really like to do this... I just don't know how yet."

There's a lot in the pipeline... it seems like there's a little more ever day that I have to get to. But I am getting to it.

Back to the drawing board

The past 6 months have been a very busy time. I was reminded of this the other night when I went to use my drafting table. It still had the drawing for the coffee table taped on, and the adhesive from the tape had been smeared in the summer heat. It took a while to get the tape off, and get the adhesive cleaned off, but finally I was ready to move on.

I've gotten started on the drawing for chair prototype number 3. Previous drawings were made on pieces of plywood, because it made a few things easier at the time. But now that I have a better handle on what's going on, (I think?) I think that a paper drawing will serve me better to help work out a few of the finer details I was having a hard time with while I improvised and free-handed my way through the first two. They're both functional chairs, and I think I like them for what they are, but neither is as comfortable as I would have liked, so the new design will be a little more flexible in terms of how the back is to be installed. I have a few other ideas in mind, too, that will let me play with the chair form a little more, but we'll see how those come together, or not.

Finally... I have some shop time. But it's COLD

Thank God the stupid holidays are over. Between a day job, a seasonal job, family obligations, putting in the time after slacking on family obligations while doing seasonal work, and dealing with wedding-related things... I finally am past it all and back into something resembling a regular schedule. Well, past most of it... wedding isn't for another 9 months.

So, this evening I had a planned wedding planning engagement, but it got canceled last minute.

Cool! I can run up to the shop!

I got up there, and I remembered very quickly just how cold it got last year! Holy crap! Last year I was smart enough to leave heavy, warm clothing to work in... and I took it all home over the summer.

I talked to Chris for a while, until he left. I hung out for about an hour after that, and left... it was just too damned cold to get anything done without heavier clothing on. I packed up the relevant notes and books, and headed home.

Last thought for the evening. One of the projects I've been trying to work out for the past several years is to finish writing a book on my experiences at North Bennet, and working in Woodworking retail. I think it's time I made a promise to myself that I'll write for at least an hour a night. The only way to keep up writing skills, after all, is to write.

Sorry to be away for so long. Talk to all of you soon.