[offtopic] etching and aging

I've always wanted to have a tool or two engraved by Katherine Kennedy. When my daughter, Kestrel, was born, I contacted Katherine to see what it would take to get a Kestrel put onto my smoothing plane as an heirloom. I do not think she asks too much, but the timing was not right for my wallet. Someday, I hope.

Anyway, today I received a gift from my wife who has recently joined the team at Daily Bird Pottery. 

I haven't had reason to mention it here, but aside from my woodworking, I also kindof love entomology, and am especially fascinated by order Mantodea. So I was pretty stoked to come home to this:

I would love to hear from anyone else who has a mug combining handplanes with insects.

The mug was a birthday gift, I just turned 40. It was a nice touch to get carded buying a bottle of wine last night. Being Port Townsend, the cashier then informed me that Virgo has its new moon coming, or something, and that this is a great time to decide what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of. I said "I will get rid of it all!". Except the mug.

This has been a great week in that helping out with Christopher Schwarz's class at the school has been a total blast. Witnessing skills bump up on an hourly basis is such a delight, it makes every difficult step in my journey to learn and share what I have learned worth it many times over. Christopher is an excellent instructor, has an infectious sense of humor, and is deeply generous. Also, he knows stuff about tools and how to use them. With admitted bias, I highly recommend seeing him speak or taking classes with him. On that note, if you are at all local and live under a rock, you have a chance to see him this weekend at the Wooden Boat Festival. You can also stop by the school tomorrow to see the utterly glorious spectacle of 11 "Anarchist's Tool Chests" in their final stages of assembly. I suspect around 7pm tomorrow, there will be a palpable dip in the global beer supply as some tired students rinse the sawdust from their mouths.