gone longer than I thought...

[Silvan]

It's ironic that I just got my long-awaited saw and I feel no urge to create anything from wood at the moment.

The new computer means I can finally get Jack working without 10,000 xruns. This means I can run FluidSynth, ZynAddSFX, Hydrogen and Rosegarden simultaneously, among other things.

I've been screwing with this stuff trying to get just enough of a feel for it to knock my new version of the tutorial out and get back to business as usual, but playing with all these things has gotten me very excited about making music again.

Now it's not my shop time standing in the way of finishing this documentation, but instead the sheer number of hours I've spent jubilantly farting around with all these cool new toys.

I'm gonna run with it. Musical inspiration doesn't strike very often, and my table saw will still be there when I get ready for it. If I actually make anything out of all these musical post-it notes, I could spend a month working on the docs and another month working on my music. It might be summer before I start in on my chess box.

I'll be in and out, but I'm not even going to try to keep up.

[Swingman]

It'll hit again before you know it. This typically happens to me about every three months or so on my own woodworking projects, particularly if I've logged a lot of shop time in the interim. If I am doing something for someone else, I can keep at it until I'm done.

AAMOF, I am going through the same thing myself. I have a bunch of mortises marked out, but just can't seem to get out there and get them cut. I completed two fairly large projects in the past couple of months, and I've got an out of town gig this weekend , so seem to be using those to justify the inertness this week.

Know how you feel about the music ... other than my kids, that has always been the most important thing in my life. Still trying to capture that feeling when, at 10 or so, I first strummed a five string banjo chord against a friend's guitar chord and heard, and felt, "that sound" ... it was a religious experience.

... and music in the shop is as important as the table saw or any other tool, IMO.

[mttt]

Think this is wise. Even if I'm midstream in a project, on those days I don't feel like 'dorking, I don't. On those days I do, I 'dork. Fortunately, this is a hobby. Would be a different story if it were my livelihood.

I think if you force it, you won't enjoy it (as much).

[dave in fairfax]

Naw, he's chasing a Muse. We all do, in our own ways, he's just doing it sequentially. Dave in Fairfax

[Silvan]

Maybe not as much as you think. I just went to HD and looked at their buildings. 20' x 20'... *pant pant pant*

I'd put my table saw here, and my workbench here...

I could never afford one of those things though. I figure $15,000 for the building and slab, and that doesn't even include electrical, insulation, sheetrock or HVAC.

I guess that's a dream that will have to wait until my kids are out of school and have moved out of my house at age 32. :)

I could probably do it much, much cheaper than that too, but only if I knew something about carpentry.

[Silvan]

I went out there about last July, and pretty much spent all daylight free time out there all through the fall and winter. I'm still scratching my head trying to figure myself out though. I was out there freezing my butt off. Now that the weather is more agreeable, I'm in the house playing on the computer. That's bassackwards for sure.

I'm weird. I guess that's no great revelation to anyone here though, is it? LOL!

I'm still a pathetic hack though, I'm afraid. I started playing flute in middle school band, way back when. I got my first guitar shortly after I got my first job. I was playing around with sequencing MIDI from sheet music back then, and I asked for the piano version of "The Wall" songbook. Mom got me the tab edition. So I had to buy a guitar to see if I could figure out how to play the tab. (I still have that thing too, and I play it every night. Best $130 I've *ever* spent. :)

I never have. I can play "Is There Anybody Out There?" badly, but I always screw it up. It's the only song in the whole book I even try to play. I'm no David Gilmour.

Oh well. I have fun. My fingers are too clumsy and my breath too short to be especially good at playing anything, but at least I can feel the groove and get into the music and lose myself. You don't have to be a shredder or a virtuoso to enjoy playing music.

In fact, with my clumsy fingers and generally plain level of technique, I think I'd make a *perfect* bass player. <G, D & R>

I have "Wish You Were Here" in the CD player out there at the moment. Good hand planing music. :)

[Upscale]

Ummm, no comment! I've seen some of the messages you've posted about your wife, so it's still no comment.

[Swingman]

LOL ... no doubt you have the qualifications down pat ... when we were kids it was always the guy who couldn't do anything else who got stuck on bass. Definitely, if you do it right, it can be boring to those who want to be hot shots, but I've never felt that way, particularly when working with a good drummer. AAMOF, I could care less who else is on stage when the drumming is right, as has been the case the past twenty years or so. For the past few years I have been playing primarily with a bunch of players

who truly love their music (Western Swing), and are damn good at it (one is in the steel guitar hall of fame and played with Bob Wills from '46 to '51, and still going strong) ... that has been more fun than the old, strictly mercenary days, of being on the road much of the time.

BTW, don't believe the BS about the bass player not getting laid ... it is a pure, jealousy driven rumor, started by wannabe lead guitarists and fiddle players ... well, it _used_ to be in any event. At my age, one of those 20 something cuties you see backstage would scare the crap out of me, though the foxy mature ones with a twinkle in their eye are as present as ever, and more appreciative to boot. :)

[skeezics]

have you checked into metal buildings? they can be had cheep if you pour your own slab and erect it yourself BUT they could be hard to cool in the summer and the electrical may need to be in conduit or BX cable. BTW don't even try to fight the addiction! and yes, it is an addiction! lol.....

skeez

[B a r r y]

A rumor well debunked in "This is Spinal Tap". <G>

Barry

[J T]

Wed, Apr 14, 2004, 5:24pm [e-mail] (Silvan) drools out: Maybe not as much as you think. I just went to HD and looked at their buildings. 20' x 20'... *pant pant pant* <snip>

HD, eh? I knew you had little taste, but didn't realize just how little.

I keeps tellin'a ya. Getcha a used camper, gut it, and you have an instant, insulated, wired, and portable, shop. Sell the fixtures, and you could even wind up getting it free, or close to it. I've seen 20-30 footers going for less than $1,000, and 15-20 footers around $400, and that's with working furnace, and ofen working A/C. That's how I was gonna do it, but, of course, when I was ready to buy (meaning finally got some money), couldn't find a one. So, my 8X12' shop cost me $835, put up in one morning, by the guy I bougt it from. Case of, buy then, or piddle the money away, an no shop - ever. And, within a week after I got my shop, found several suitable (affordable) campers. No regrets, if I hadn't bought then, probably wouldn't have even that today.

JOAT I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as unqualified as some of the men who are already there.

- Maureen Reagan

[Reyd]

Do what I do, get a power cord, and longer cord for your modem, and that really comfortable old chair with a small table and drinks food and other essentials. then take the computer with ya out into the great outdoors.

[patriarch]

If you can figure out how to build a decent chess board, then the skill level required to build a shop that won't fall down is certainly not beyond your grasp.

Basic foundation and framing has been worked out, and set in code, such that it is pretty much follow the numbers. You can buy the kits if you want, but a guy with your reputation for doing things 'thrifty' need not spend that kind of scratch for some on else to gather the materials in one place.

Betcha there's a book or three in the library.

However, there's lotsa good stuff to do, now that spring has sprung.

Patriarch, whose shop is in the former garage, and built an 8x12 shed to house the displaced garden implements and supplies....

[Charlie Self]

Yuppified. That's ridiculous. You're in an area where ye ol' basic house goes for about $75 a SF finished, including land. Get fancy and you can bump $100. $37.50 is a touch high when there's none of the fancy floors, walls, ceilings, lighting fixtures and plumbing.

Yeah. My shop, 1200 SF, cost me roughly $11,000 to $12,000 bucks. It's not perfect and I'm not a great carpenter, and I was one helluva lot older than you before I got started on it, but my wife and I did 98% of the work ourselves, I scrounged for materials (old tools for windows, used rough, green lumber for much of the framing, etc.). That's with a plywood floor, all the wiring in (200 amp Square D with 40 holes), and a scrounged electric furnace. I popped a couple air conditioners in the windows this past weekend, but those were a couple we had in the house before we put in central air.

Major mistake: do NOT even think about putting up posts before you've got help and material on hand to gird the top. Twisted like a sumbitch and required some fancy stepping to get the thing close to square at the top edge afterwards. In fact, it's still several inches out.

Even scrounged the post holes: a friend down the road came up and drilled 'em with his post hole differ on his tractor.

Helps if you marry a farm girl. At least she will know what end of the shovel goes in the hole when it's time to make the holes a bit larger.

Charlie Self "If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Charles Darwin

[Charlie Self]

AAAARGH!

Change the "ff" to "gg".

Charlie Self "If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Charles Darwin

[Norman D. Crow]

'S' alright Charlie. Most of us understand what a post hole differ is.(snicker)

[David Hall]

Around here (Pittsburgh, PA) I fairly often see used portable classrooms for sale by schools. These are really double wide trailers with no internal walls. They usually have windows and a door on one wall and the remaining three walls are usable (may have chalkboards, whiteboards or tackboards on them). They are fully wired, fully insulated, have lots of flouresent lighting, and self-contained heating and airconditioning. They tend to be around 800 to 900 square feet. The cost is usually fairly nominal for the size (a couple thousand or so) but you pay to dismantle and move and then set up at your location and you usually are not given a lot of time to do so. I have often thought that if I ever have a home with the land space needed to place one of these I would keep my eyes open or if I ever buy that campsite on the river I would put one of these on it.

Dave Hall

[Dave Balderstone]

Charlie, I'm pretty sure Grampa kept his post hole differ in the shed next to his rat hole pounder (for pounding sand into rat holes, of course).

He always promised to teach me how to use the RHP when I was older. Bugger up and died before that happened, when I was only 42.

;-)

[Silvan]

Um... Yeah, I guess you're right, even now. That's about what it's going for now that the property values have been artificially inflated county-wide. Until last year, it used to be $37.50. At least tax-wise. About $40 in real life. So I guess that means it's about $80 in real life now, and I have a $160,000 house now. (No, actually, it means I'm just paying taxes out the ass, and I still have an $80,000 house.)

I'm a rock bottom dead crappy carpenter. I have no idea what I'm doing at all. That's kind of a down side.

I think I'd have to be a weenie and use a plan. Maybe even a kit.

The wiring is going to suck bigtime. I either go with separate meters and pay my electric bill twice, or I put a new panel in the house so I can feed out to the new panel in the shop. There's nothing in between. :(

Ugh.

It's a good friend who will let you borrow holes.

That's a big down side. SWMBO is absolutely 100% useless for this. I might get Mom to help. Mom's a farm girl by breeding if not by upbringing, but she's getting old, and she has back/knee/shoulder problems.

On the bright side, by the time I can *actually* afford this, my son will be old enough to help. Hell, he'll probably be as old as I am now by then. :(

[Silvan]

Have you *looked* at those things? Considering the POS I have for a shop now, I think I can be forgiven for some panting. They're a lot nicer than I would have imagined.

Just godawful expensive to buy from them.

I'm just not really interested in going that route. I want something that will look nice. Any camper I could get cheap/free would be some dilapidated piece of crap or else it wouldn't be cheap/free. I've invested a great deal of time, effort and more than a little money making my place look nice. I don't want some ugly piece of junk slapped in the middle of my yard. It just isn't going to happen.