Whiskey, Guns, & Everything Else…

Here at Virginia Toolworks, woodworking and vintage hand tools are clearly the priority. But the fact is, my passions are varied and eclectic, and I tend to go off on tangents every now and then.  To that end, wood is not the only material I like to work.

For those of you who follow this blog, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been a little quiet lately.   Silence, however, does not equate to inactivity.  As soon as the summer temperatures moderated back in early September, I dove back into a built-in desk project that I started in the spring.  For a variety of reasons, my woodworking projects are typically executed during the spring and fall, so I plan accordingly.  The winter months are primarily dedicated to tool related projects, restoration and sales.  I use the summer months for research, writing, and other pursuits (hence the title of this post).

The built-in desk is part of an ongoing renovation of my home office.  Completed in late September, I then needed to address another problem that has been looming since November of 2010.  It was at the end of that month, almost two years ago, that my main computer blew a silicon gasket and suffered an unrecoverable death.

Now, in addition to my obsession with woodworking and vintage tools, I’m a computer geek.  Yes, I see the irony of this.  Despite this seemingly unabashed dichotomy, the two worlds do co-exist peacefully.  But I digress.

So, for the last two years I’ve worked off of the “family” computer – the one shared by the wife and kids.  I suppose I could have replaced my office desktop PC at any point along the way, but I preferred to wait until the desk was completed.   I’m not much of a laptop kind of guy, at least not for a primary computer.  I also don’t like buying off the shelf models.  I like building my own.  And that’s exactly what I did in late October.

The new machine is up and running without a hitch, and found a happy home within the new desk cabinetry.  It’s flat out screaming fast with enough horsepower and memory to last 5 or 6 years before needing an upgrade.  As you can see I went with a blue back-lit lighting theme.  Kind of squirrelly, especially for a guy my age, but I like it.

The new Virginia Toolworks Technology Command Center

Now that the desk and computer are built and installed, I can get back to work on the backlog of hand planes and other tools that I will have available for sale starting in January.   I can also get back to dedicating more time to this website.  I have a wealth of reference material that still needs to be added.

As the post title indicates, I’m starting a new category (W. G. & E.) for off topic meandering.  Ramblings might include anything from whiskey to black rifles, or topics not specifically related to vintage tools.  I reckon W. G. & E. sounds better than ‘Misc.’

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