Danger Lane Workshop

I'm opening up a little woodworking shop on the farmage. I'm calling it "Danger Lane Workshop" because we have renamed our driveway "Danger Lane" in honor of my grandson, Jackson Danger Knight. Sounds much better than "Danger Driveway Workshop", don't you think?

Anyway, I'm opening up a woodworking shop and have started advertising for some help. In this neck of the woods, most of the advertisements for help are on hand-lettered signs tacked onto power poles. And there are many signs from people looking for "nail techs". So many people wanting to hire “nail techs” seems to indicate a shortage of people doing this type of work. To get a jump on the competition in hiring the best qualified person, I figured I better get advertisements up quick. I'm already one up on the competition because I know all about the internet and know how to post my advertisement in this blog:

Help wanted: NAIL TECH.
Job description: Successful applicant will straighten bent nails and sort to size.
Educational requirements: Arkansas GED, or equivalent USC-Berkeley PhD.
Other requirements: Successful applicant will own a hammer and know somewhat how to use it without inflicting serious injury to innocent by-standers.
Benefits: Free ObamaCare; opportunity to participate in "cash-for-clunkers" program after work hours; free automatic tax withholdings with each paycheck with possible partial refund at the end of the year; social security withheld automatically; plenty of other work if you get bored.
Equal opportunity employer: I'm willing to fire anybody for any reason at any time if you don't work.

This type of advertising alone should ensure I get hundreds if not thousands of applicants and I should have my pick of the cream of the crop.

Recently, Danger Lane Workshop produced some cabinets and tables for a couple of folks. I’ve found that doing work for others liberates me from doing all the work that Pam wants me to do for her. Not that I don’t like doing work for Pam, but I can get some money when I do work for others. Pam never pays me. She always said that I should do things for her because I love her and want to make her happy. She's always saying things like that - I don't know why. Don't get me wrong, I do love her and do want to make her happy, but it's real difficult for me to understand why she thinks I need to always show her. My very presence should be enough to make her happy, and me sticking around is plenty of evidence that I love her. I do all the little things that every husband should do. Just the other day I cut some of the grass around the property instead of making her do it all. And I always take one of the two trash containers down to the road, always leaving the lighter one for her to drag down. I always tell her the best places to go to get things for me and always let her know when her cooking needs improvement. I'm a typical guy, and I don't understand why us typical guys are always being told we need to do things for our wives when it's obvious to us every day that we constantly do things for our wives.

But, I digress.

The workshop is a place where I can relax and listen to music while I make copious amounts of sawdust. And I’ve progressed quite well in my woodworking skills. I think you can always tell the experience level of a person by the types and extent of the injuries he sustains. My woodworking skills have progressed to the point that I rarely hit my finger with a hammer. Only amateurs do that. And I don’t cut my self to the bone anymore with razor sharp chisels and finely tuned hand planes. Any self-inflicted injuries can generally be dealt with by the application of a few band-aids, a large supply of which is always in the shop.

But, an injury involving a table saw or a band saw is too horrendous for me to contemplate, and every time I turn on a saw I think of just how nice it is to have all my appendages. And this type of thinking keeps me safe. Hey, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose, especially if you don’t have any fingers.

Once, I was actually told that I must not be a very good woodworker because I still have all my fingers. This philosophy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For instance, I used to work with munitions, so I guess the logical extension of this belief is that I must not have been an experienced munitions specialist because I didn’t blow myself up.

No, I think that a good woodworker is a careful woodworker. Accidents do occur, but most if not all of the really serious accidents can be prevented through use of normal safety precautions.

I said, “normal safety precautions”. Sometimes, on a bad day, a “normal safety precaution” would involve shutting down the equipment, putting away the tools, and walking out of the shop while there is still blood in the arteries. Everybody has a bad day, but you really don’t want to perpetuate a bad day around things that can take your arm off.

I don’t drink and drive. I also don’t drink while woodworking. Well, that’s not quite true since I have been known to go out to the shop with a beer (or two), but under those circumstances I will limit my activities to the use of hand tools, no power equipment. The only thing mixing alcohol and power tools will do is numb the initial pain when an inadvertent amputation occurs.

Working with a lathe is fun and interesting and relaxing - that is, once you get past the realization that you are pressing a razor sharp chisel against the surface of a 10-pound piece of wood spinning at 1500 plus rpms. I have not been injured using the lathe (yet), but I think that is only because of my paranoid use of proper safety equipment such as a full-face shield, a dust mask, a good turning smock, an athletic cup, and a rabbit’s foot from a particularly lucky rabbit.

Anyway, Danger Lane Workshop is open for business, and the business right now is waiting for the customer who wants to pay me a million dollars for building a table.

Hey, if ya gonna dream, dream BIG.