Hello, World

Hi. I’m Craig. I have long had two goals in life: to get smarter, and to make things.

To be sure, I have others. I want to be a good husband and father. I’d like to exercise more. But when I’m given a weekend to myself, you can be sure I’m going to spend it substantially on thinking and making.

I figured it might be fun to share some of what I learn and what I make with other people. We have a Slack channel at work (I work at Kevel as a software engineer, and it’s awesome), and I’ve enjoyed sharing some of my learnings and creations there, but I thought it might be fun to share them a bit more broadly, and in a bit more structured way.

What sorts of things might you see here? Well, could be lots of different stuff. I’m currently interested in woodworking, including woodturning (the bowl you see above was turned from a tree that grew in my yard), metalworking, 3D printing, popular psychology, resin casting, metal casting, flight simulation, and about twenty other things I have in mind to try. But probably mostly fabrication in various materials – primarily metal, wood, resin.

My wife asked me, “Why in that order? Why get smarter and make stuff, and not make stuff and get smarter?” Well, for one because I had to choose a domain name. 🙂 But for another, the phrasing “get smarter and make stuff” is closer to the ideal I have that the two are at least somewhat independent. When I hear “make stuff and get smarter” it just sounds more to me like the point is to make stuff in order to get smarter. But that’s not it at all. For me, sometimes just learning something is the point. And sometimes I just like making something that looks cool or serves a purpose, even if I already knew how to do it.

But of course it’s best when I get a twofer. When I make something, and in the process, learn something. To get smarter in order to make things in order to get smarter in order to make things. A virtuous cycle.

Anyway, we’ll see where this goes. Maybe nowhere. Maybe somewhere weird. I might have other people contribute. I might not. I’m pretty sure that no matter what else happens, I will get a little smarter and make some stuff. Hopefully a few of you will be educated, entertained, or both along the way.