The Edge [of all] Journeys

There are at least 2 meanings behind this post’s title. Ah…. where to begin? Maybe a brief and astounding recap of what the last several months have contained to catch the record up to the present:

• Spent a mild and blessed winter in Winnipegosis, MB
• Appreciated all the fellowship we had with our close friends in that area between Thursday night guy’s group, Friday night Bible Studies / games nights, and Sabbath / Festival celebrations
• Were delayed by several months from our original plans to depart in April after Passover
• Zach, Renee, and Bennah had birthdays
• Reayah pulled off her first entrepreneurial enterprise with a bake sale that turned a profit and was quite a success
• I went to Winnipeg in early June to shoot the last Outdoor Adventure exam race, which turned out epic in so many ways
• Resigned from Clvr
• Found out we were pregnant with #7 !!!
• Discovered the Quarry House is indeed for real on the market and started trying to figure out how YHWH might provide for us to land there
• Managed the overwhelming task of moving back into the trailer after 8 months of adjusting to house life having spread out again…

Last week was pretty intense – building up the momentum and wrapping as many loose ends as possible to once again have enough propulsion to break orbit and launch back into the crazy storm of life on The Road.

Never Settle means primarily two things to me right now. Our lives are presently characterized by disruption (in and intense but also positive and scary but exciting way). Being pregnant again. Technically jobless (though Father is providing projects and income). And a host of other potential stress-storms. We’re travelling again, and so I feel like we’re Never Settling… I thought I would never be ready to settle. Roughly 2 months before Renee got pregnant again (funny wording, I know, as if that just somehow mysteriously happens) I was reflecting on my restlessness to be traveling again and getting frustrated with the financially induced delays (which Father used for other purposes of course). And I distinctly remember asking myself, “is there anything that would make me want to settle down and plant some roots,” and the only thing I could think of at the time was, “well, another child would probably do it,” but like that was ever going to happen. Well, it did. And so there’s part of be that will Never Settle – life is about never settling – staying in motion, constantly growing, learning, adapting, becoming… if we settle and fight that and stagnate we die. We might be alive but we’re dead. Then again – never settling can also be a form of settling. If I were to insist on traveling after that season is over I would be settling for a craving whose time has past.

When I got back to Winnipegosis after a few days in Winnipeg shooting the Race, it felt like I was arriving home, and it was more than just the fact that my family was there… It was a very bizarre emotion because I don’t recall ever feeling like a particular place was home. My nomadic spirit has always felt like home was a state of being not a geographical location. It was very peculiar. Trippy even. More so because I know that ultimately Home is Israel – the land promised by the Creator to His people. And perhaps this is a stronger reason for my typical aversion to associations of Home with any physical place I might temporarily inhabit. Even this sensation I felt for Winnipegosis – it felt more like Home than I recall any other place feeling – but I must acknowledge that that too is only a temporary condition even if it lasts for years.

So here we are on what will likely be our last major tour. That in itself is laden with quite a bit of surreal strangeness because over a year ago we thought we were arriving in Winnipegosis to build and settle. But I guess we hadn’t been made ready quite yet and there are shaping adventures that must be chased yet. We are delighted in the joys and familiarity of travel life once again and have been in Winnipeg for almost a week now. Of course, with the delights there are also the stresses, which are compounded by the things that make it difficult to pretend we’re just in vacation mode. House life is so much simpler. The differences are stark and fascinating with the vantage point to compare them acutely. Although some things are simplified, there’s also a whole other layer of logistics that comes with the territory.

Never Settle also embodies the core DNA we want to imprint on our next company. We? Well, it’s a really long story. But I and two of the other three principal owners / members of Clvr resigned. Some dust is still settling, but my time there is completely done. It was really an odd and unexpected plot twist in my life story, but the Author has His reasons. I’m excited to discover them. It still feels weird to be done with something that I never anticipated ending this way and poured an immense amount of myself into for 2.5 years.

We leave Winnipeg tomorrow with a spontaneous shift in the original plan to stay here at the Welcomestop campground until Monday. Instead, we’re headed further south in Manitoba to spend the weekend with dear friends and catch up as much as possible before we leave Canada.

On the horizon – the adventures that already peak around the corner, staring at us even now:

• Heading to Denver, CO primarily for some amazing wedding events and to spend some summer time in the mountains with our dear family and friends there.
• Building a new company. It might even be called something like Never Settle. And it will be very different from Clvr or any other company for that matter.
• Perhaps a fall east coast tour with destinations along the way of getting there (?)
• Huge decisions to make like where to have this next baby, where to spend winter, how soon to return to Canada…
• Immigration processes to research and apply for my permanent resident status in Canada.
• Finding Home: Winnipegosis? Quarry House? The Edge? Somewhere else?

What does the Author have up His sleeve?

I’m writing this after a pretty tough week – not like, dramatic tough, just self-inflicted tough. I stressed myself out over a couple projects that really didn’t have any stress attached too them. And stress is not the right word either, but it’s the closest I can get to communicate the point. I don’t actually really ever get stressed out about much of anything if you can believe it. But I do have this condition where, once I sink my teeth into a project, it takes more than , a band of wild horses, an international crisis, and a New Kids on the Block song to pull me off of it. Unless of course I actually finish it. This week was not so perfect on finishing things. But in all the mundane chaos I did make  progress… with a few priority casualties along the way.

Traveling is so much better for writing-inspiration, actually. There’s not all that much to write about. This week and the week before it were pretty much the same pasty flavor: Work. Don’t get the wrong idea – I love my work. I love what I’m good at. I love solving, fixing, and fusing technologies. I’m just a little grumpy because I didn’t get much sleep this week or spend enough time with my family and that’s my own fault.

So, it all comes to a nice, relieving end with Sabbath and some time for reflecting. Next week will be different and that feels really good. I need some work on that incredibly elusive thing called Balance. I mean, that’s one of the major reasons we’re doing what we’re doing and what’s the point if I’m going to squander that and put myself in my own private rat race? Arg but it’s so comfortable there as bizarre as it sounds. I can imagine that most people (including me) – if asked – would say that they’d prefer to have a life that resembled a perpetual vacation. Seems like the ideal right? But I’ve had glimpses of what that is like at times along the way and it is not ultimately rewarding or peaceful. I’ve also experienced the opposite: moments where it feels like I have no choice but to work 25 hours a day, because otherwise where is the food-money going to come from?

And maybe this is just an Ecclesiastes moment, but really, that’s all quite meaningless. Especially because there is no joy or peace in either extreme. Especially because there is no success or reward or rest without Balance. And these things cannot be measured.

So. That basically sums up the past two weeks. My incredible wife has been amazing – patiently carrying way more than her share of the family side of things through it all. She’s supportive and knows the work I’ve been doing is really important. But I tend to set these unrealistic demands on myself and dare myself to meet them anyway. And I’ve got to learn how to let go more easily than a pit bull that has chomped down and fallen into a vat of wet cement that then immediately flash-hardens.

So, in the spirit of reflection, I am finally wrapping up one of those projects that I have had my mind on for a while without ever really sinking my teeth in. I am here, officially, kicking off our serial documentary (using the term more loosely than a weasel dipped in baby shampoo) “Journeys.” There will be more soon – I just have to combine all the clips, but here are the first few episodes (I am also playing with a new web toy I found this week):

…nevermind…

As destiny would have it my resolve to find Balance would be tested even before I published this post. I had 4 episodes of “Journeys” ready to post with this entry today (which I wrote last night while kicking off the uploads to YouTube before going to bed). To my horror, I awoke to discover that the audio tracks did not make it… should have remembered to AAC (mp4) encode them rather than mp3… grrrr… A second attempt was also thwarted when I re-encoded the audio tracks and re-uploaded only to discover that they were insufferably out of sync with the video now. Back to the editing table. But the show must go on! So I am publishing this sans videos… so much for having anything related to the title in this post.

But the Journeys episodes are coming! Some time! Whenever it is balanced to post them. And then you will see my new web toy too. Stay tuned. And have a fantastic day!

Two months or so ago I was out driving around near Denver with my 4 year old boy Zach. He was having a rare turn up in the front seat, and looking out through the windshield towards the mountains he suddenly piped up with an epiphany: “Dad!!! I know how to get to the end of nowhere!” he exclaimed rather passionately.

How else can a father reply? “Oh yeah?” I said – not at all sardonically. “How’s that?”

To which Zach confidently replied, “You just keep driving that way and don’t stop!” while pointing straight ahead out the window.

Well, today I made good on my promise to take him to the end of nowhere some time. We spent the afternoon on the furthest SE point of the United States to which one can drive – the southern end of Hwy 1 – the edge of Key West, FL. We have literally driven the entire length of Florida now, entering about a month ago on the far western tip of the panhandle and driving first east and then south along the coast, and then cutting over through alligator alley along the Everglades, and then down Hwy 1 across all the keys. WOW.

What a beautiful place. 75 degrees F today and we played in the ocean in February. Crazy. I’d love to stay longer but it is Expensive with a capital E. Here are some shots from the day (keep reading below the gallery to get caught up on the rest of everything).

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Our next plan is to head up for Georgia where it’s still not all that cold, but away from the majority of migratory retirees which improves the campground rates; hunker down for maybe a month and knock out a ton of work that is looming. Which reminds me I still need to hit some of the highlights from the last month in my typical, inadequate bullet fashion. Here are the primary memories:

• Gabe and Heather’s wonderful southern hospitality and opening their home and land and lives to us for a couple weeks
• The kids playing endlessly together with nary an issue that needed adult mediation; from building robots out of a busted, rusted out 8-track player they found in the woods, to planning their treehouse, to whacking golf balls all over the yard, to jumping on the trampoline and playing in the dirt… it was country bliss like I grew up in
• Early morning hunting adventures
• Bennah’s first lesson on a real rifle
• Tinkering in the studio, recording the band’s first recording, writing a song on Gabe’s old guitar over the course of 2 weeks in the short 2-3 minute segments of time that I was in there each night to monitor my children during their pre-bedtime potty rituals
• Getting overloaded on baby girl cuteness in one place
• Shifting gears in the work arena when our project with La Vie Labs and Clairte did not work out like we had planned and hoped; and focusing all my energies on a new, exciting project
• Golfing in a cow pasture with Gabe and our two oldest boys (the “hole” was an old rusted out washing machine in the corner of the field)
• (And for those who have not noticed my not-so subtle title change on the blog yet) FINDING OUT WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY #6 probably some time in October. Blessings upon blessings (and a bit freaked out at first) but children are a gift from YHWH and He has filled our quiver to be sure.

And that was just northern FL. Then we headed south and landed in Bradenton for a couple days and were extremely well cared for by dear (new) friends – parents of friends that we had grown very close to in Colorado. In fact, if you love garlic, they grow a whole bunch up in Ohio every year and it is absolutely incomparable to what you can buy in the store: Charlie’s Gourmet Garlic! You can watch the video that I edited a while back to get an idea of what Charlie and his farm are like – it’s the 2nd one down on this page: http://doctorbeautiful.com/blog/?page_id=48 So, while we were with them, they gave us and helped us pickle about 2.5 quarts of garlic! In about 3 more weeks the heat will be gone, but all the yummy healthy goodness will be intact. Thanks again Charlie!!!

They also hang out in FL for a few months in the winter so we were parked in Bradenton near their home down there. The tricky thing was that it was just a parking lot designed for RV visitors, and fine for sleeping, but with no electric, water, or sewer not well suited for working or living very long. With some critical work that came up we had to relocate. Ironically, one of the absolute nicest campgrounds in the overall area was also the cheapest (although it wasn’t all that cheap). So, we headed back up north about 30 miles and ended up managing to stretch it out for a week at the Fort De Soto Park Campground. That’s where the last five photos from the previous post were taken. 5 of those days we had a beach-front site. Fabulous. During that time:

• I worked my tail off and got a lot accomplished on a new work project
• The kids got sandy and wet pretty much every day
• We had to fend off the raccoons
• We met two other amazing families who live in that area and are close friends of close friends. They also opened their home and lives to us and we had a wonderful time getting to know them and their children, hitting the hot tub, feasting and fellowshipping together. It never felt like we had only just met.
• We explored Fort De Soto and the beaches there; and I managed to get a few pictures in… still way under quota right now.

And I’m probably forgetting something else important, but then we headed down here on a mission to get to the End of Nowhere. And so here we are. Tomorrow we head north once again.

This was my typical atypical day – as many days are becoming more and more so lately.  I know this post is going to feel like it’s turning into a commercial here pretty quickly, but I can’t help it: that’s just the way my life is now.

I rolled out of bed at about 10:30am… I think. It might have been closer to 11:00am actually. My night had been interrupted by a couple hours of work from about midnight to 2am. But I actually had a nap before that for once. The new normal is that 2am is my routine bed time. Some times later. I have been entrenched in a project for two weeks now that is proving to be a total blast.

My partners and I at Garlic Media signed an agreement yesterday to provide full-blown marketing campaign services to La Vie Labs (http://www.lavielabs.com). Our efforts and initiatives span the entire spectrum: internet presence, SEO, web design, social media integration, networking, product placement, retail, wholesale, video production, media leveraging… the works.

La Vie Labs is an incredible company that has assembled the connections and resources necessary to  bring a breakthrough anti-aging, skin care product to market. What makes this facial serum called Clairte so special? There are a million anti-aging creams, serums, gels, lotions, and liquids already out on the beauty market today. However, unlike every other product in its class, Clairte is made from only 6 pure, natural, and concentrated ingredients. It’s primary potency is found in the immense nutritional essence extracted from placental stem cells through a proprietary process. Clairte represents the latest cutting-edge technology advancements in ethical stem cell research. There are still many misconceptions about stem cell research – I once held a lot of them myself. For instance, most research has now shifted away from embryonic stem cells, which are actually inferior in terms of nutrient potential compared to placental stem cells. Modern, ethical stem cell research is turning what were once essentially waste products – human placentas – into regenerative treatments and serums that have amazing properties.

If you (or someone you know) might be interested in trying Clairte to solve wrinkles, large pores, or any number of other skin-related issues please check out the web site for more information. And since you are gracious readers of my lengthy, rambling accounts – here is a coupon code for a FREE Travel Pack of Clairte ($39 value) to use at check-out: EDGEVIP1  – or, better yet, here’s a discount code for 33% (!!!) off your first bottle: EDGEVIP9 – Take advantage of these discount codes quickly, because they will expire in two weeks (on Dec 17th). Also, they are only valid for 1 use per person, but share them with your friends and family! Tell them to come read about our adventures here, and if they create their own account at La Vie Labs.com they can use the coupon codes above for themselves too!

So, after navigating through a torrential downpour of emails between 11:30am and 1:00pm (the results of a great meeting with La Vie Labs yesterday), we piled the kids in the truck as the snow was falling and headed for some lunch and a visit to the local indoor monkey gym (www.monkeybizness.com).

On the way I had to pull over and stop in a parking lot to somewhat concentrate because I got a call from Videography Magazine. I did an interview with them that Shutterstock facilitated based on an article I just wrote for them. My article was about stock footage and the challenge of finding a niche in a very competitive industry (click to open my article).  So, it looks like awesome folks at Videography Magazine are going to run an article about my adventures in filming for stock and traveling as a lifestyle – what a fantastic and thrilling blessing, to be sure. They will also be featuring this blog in the article! How COOL! I am having copious amounts of fun through all these opportunities! And no I am not making any of this up.

Finally at Monkey Bizness after that, the boys and I spent a couple hours getting most of our boy energy out for the day. Chasing them is hard work! Oh, and the girls had fun getting their energy out too. It was an official family afternoon. We all came home tuckered, but we managed to hold it together long enough for supper to be ready. Reading the next chapter to Bennah and Reayah from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (whom my uncle in New York knew personally) certainly helped pass the short minutes, which can seem long to tired-hungry-grumpy kids. Finally, we had some of my mom’s amazing home-made turkey soup and Renee’s super-yummy biscuits.

Then, the bed time rituals, and my work day began. I’m still hacking a buddy’s old seized up Blackberry to recover what I can of his 901 contacts. I’m up to 418 so far after 2 days of working on it… I will get the rest though! Then I had a Skype conference call to Thailand with several other participants here in the U.S. Ugghhh. The call kept dropping. Busy night on the Skype pipelines I guess. Or maybe it was all the Macs trying to stay on the call in an older version of the client. Then, back to work on La Vie Labs initiatives like transcribing an amazing testimonial video we are getting ready for the web site and many other things.

Then, I had to draft this. I should have gone to sleep a long time ago instead, but now this is one less thing I have to do later.

Thanks for all the comments by the way. We’re having fun in Colorado and learning and growing like Renee wrote. A huge part of that learning and stretching has come with the overall shift from more or less vacation mode to me working full time again. But it is still awesome to have so much flexibility in my schedule… I just have to remember to use it wisely and guard priorities. [published the following evening]

You can’t even imagine what I’ve been up to these last couple weeks… I can scarcely believe it myself. If only income was based on how “interesting” one’s life was, we’d be insanely wealthy by now. But our Creator continues to provide for us faithfully even as we stare down the bottom of the savings barrel. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Nor would I trade all the money in the world for a life even one bit less interesting.

I will work backwards and try to remember the most noteworthy details.

1. I just started a course in the Ancient (pictograph-based) Hebrew language
2. Bennah slept outside in low 40 F weather by himself
3. I’m currently working on editing a training DVD from the footage a buddy and I shot of a seminar at a Filipino martial arts class
4. Renee and I became founding members of a company that offers every media service known to man (from video production to web sites to marketing to traditional print, writing, and editing, to technology consulting, and more).
5. I went dumpster diving with the boys to find materials for the airplane they are building to escape to Pennsylvania. I am not making this up. They are convinced they can pull it off.
6. I took Renee and the kids to visit the Air Force Academy (where I graduated in 1999)  and told them a few stories at the places where the adventures actually occurred.
7. I was on the video crew and manned the lead camera at a big Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) event in Denver.
8. I started submitting photos again to the stock agencies I’m with and also ramped up video submissions significantly.

I thought the list would be more fascinating without extra commentary, but here are some additional details about each item with resources and links for those with time for chasing fun bunny trails:

1. The course is offered on-line here:  http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/index.html – It turns out that the modern Hebrew characters represent at least 3 or 4 evolutionary transitions distant from the original pictographs that would have been inscribed on the tablets of the Commandments at Mt. Sinai and used in the original writings of Scripture. Not only this, but the original pictographs also restore the grounding of the language in its original, agricultural, cultural, concrete, and practical-every-day-life base. Not only does Hebrew (ancient and modern) read from right-to-left, but the original meanings and understandings are often completely opposite from our modern interpretations. For example, we think of the past as behind us and the future as in front of us. Not so in Hebrew thought where the past is in front of us (after all it is visible and completely known) and the future is behind us (for we cannot see it and do not know what it will be). How can we correctly interpret the Scriptures when we approach it with our backwards modern thinking and expect it’s meaning to conform to our cultural biases and preconceptions.
2. Actually, all the kids wanted to sleep outside the other night. They made a tarp “tent” in the back yard and bundled up in 10 layers of clothing each. One by one they all came in… except Bennah. He toughed out the whole night. I was so proud of him. I wanted to go out there and sleep through it with him, but I knew that he had to handle this one by himself – he had to know that he could do it without any help.
3. The instructor of the seminar was Rico Cortes of Filipino Combat Systems hosted by ColoradoFCS.com and TrainFightWinFitness.com. It was an awesome class. I’m looking forward to getting the DVD ready for sale and am seriously considering going back to the great folks at the gym there to continue my own training.
4. The name of the company is Garlic Media Group and we’re in the process of spinning up the website now. I know the name sounds a little funny, but it’s good for you! And it encapsulates our character and emphasis: we can offer a spectrum of media services and packages to any company, but our forte and mission lands squarely in the arena of health, wellness, and wholeness of body, mind, and spirit whether we’re generating marketing material for another business or creating entertainment for diverse audiences. There are 4 primary couples involved at this point and among the 8 of us we have: an award winning director / producer / editor / filmmaker; a published author / nutritionist; a chiropractic doctor; musicians; a programmer / technology consultant; a connector (marketing and PR genius); artists; a graphic designer; writers; editors; our own private think tank; several children; videographers; photographers; …and… someone who has worked at the White House… sorry, just had to throw that in, as it makes this COMPLETELY TRUE list even more outrageous. We’re excited to see where it goes.
5. That about speaks for itself… I actually interviewed my 8 yr old, 4 yr old, and 2 yr old boy and they told me all about their plans for the airplane. If I ever dig my way out of all the video I have to edit, maybe I’ll post some stuff from that project.
6. The Academy has and hasn’t changed much. The SMACKS still run on the strips at least. The cadets took the hill at noon meal formation as army helicopters flew over and dropped thousands of little “go Army beat AF” slips of paper (the two Academies were playing each other this weekend). You can still get pizza and watch movies in Arnold Hall. But now all the cadet areas are secured by gate-fences with keypads and there are new id badges. I’m guessing that all went into place after 9-11. The pay phones in the back of Arnold Hall – the ones I used every weekend as a freshman – are gone. And it seemed somehow much quieter from the outside looking in.
7. The MMA event was my first time shooting with high end equipment. I had to learn how to shoot with a shoulder-mount full manual camera, walk backwards, track the fighters making their grand entrances, and somehow not trip over the 250 feet of cable I was tethered to all that the same time. For starters. Then, after the fighters were in the cage, I was up on the platform mounted to one of the posts, shooting right down into it. Yes, these were cage matches. I was on one of three cameras and our director was switching between them live, giving us instructions and heads-up as necessary in our headsets; the feed was going to the massive screen for the event and streaming live over the internet. The 3 hour event evaporated in what felt like about 30 seconds of adrenaline.
8. Starting to have to get serious about every potential revenue stream… I had a pretty good couple months with my stock video work and wanted to invest a lot more time and energy in that since it was starting to pay off. But it’s a massive ship and slow to accelerate. Photo efforts have an immediate affect, but on a much smaller profit scale. So, it’s all a balancing act. And I’m still LEARNING what works and what doesn’t.

There’s more, but that will have to wrap it up for now… I have to get back to work editing video. Stay in touch!

This desk project has been such an ordeal that I’m tempted to write a book about it all unto itself: how the main design goal was to achieve practical, maximum productivity – to have a place where I could stash my computer, laptop, card reader, external hard drives, firewire for video connections, and so on all connected and ready for getting work done in whatever bite-sized chunks are available throughout the day; how the design constraints included fitting this all into a corner somewhere in such away that it didn’t unduly impose on the living space of our trailer while still being a comfortable and usable work area for programming, photo editing, and video production; how various ideas came and went, multiple trips to the local Lowes (30 minutes away), redesigning it on the fly in my head while shopping when certain parts weren’t available, trying workarounds only to realize they were impossible and finally breaking down and ordering what I should have just ordered online in the first place and then waiting for it to get delivered; and of course how all the little unanticipated implications and challenges cropped up and forced reckonings (usually later than my brain was completely up to the task, but my fingers were still willing to drill and screw things together anyway): the legs that had to be longer than the space that they had to fit inside, the shelf that wouldn’t fit because I didn’t factor in space lost from other pieces, the fact that it fit nice and snug against the wall empty but not so when the computer was mounted and bumping the power strip plug in the outlet, the way one leg initially blocked my sliding shelf from sliding and everything underneath had to be remounted an inch over (and the dern leg still sticks out under the edge a bit)… oh the list could go on.

It was definitely one of those projects that grabs you and doesn’t let go – it was fun and frustrating at the same time. I could have done without a couple of those 3/4am nights. And in the end I think I’m pretty much exactly 83.15% happy with the final outcome. I had to knock some points off for the following annoyances:

• It really is too high over all. I went with a prefab cabinet with shelves as a starting point since the width and the depth were almost identical to my original design ideas and I thought I could save time and money by getting most of the materials and hardware cheaper that way than buying everything separately and then having to cut stuff up etc . I thought the extra height would translate into extra storage space and that I could compensate by dropping the sliding shelf lower. I was sadly mistaken. Stupid geometry.
• It is extremely heavy. Every compensation for a particular limitation ended up resulting in more hardware. It added up fast. I need to reinforce the main door hinges with additional support hinges. It certainly adds more overall weight to the trailer. At one point I considered tearing off the main door and all the heavy stuff and just throwing everything in the cabinet and using my lap for part of the desk – after all, it already folds pretty well and I can take it wherever I go. But I think I’ll just take down all the bedroom doors in the trailer and toss those out instead.
• One leg pokes out a bit from underneath like I mentioned. Arg. Otherwise the shelf wouldn’t slide out.
• It’s too heavy.
• The external hard drives aren’t quite as accessible as I’d like them to be if I have to grab one and take it with me somewhere.
• Did I mention that it’s too heavy?
• I almost wrecked the legs adding the hinges to make my own expandable leg design since the holes in the hinges were to close to the edge of the wood and I started to split it… grrr. But so far it’s still standing.
• Oh, and it’s also too heavy.

Other than that, it’s PERFECT. Which is why I’m going to have to completely rebuild it from scratch at some point in the not too distant future. Here I am enjoying the prototype fruits of my labors:

Everything you see stays in the desk all the time. It all folds up into the corner and looks (from the outside) pretty much like the original ClosetMaid product:

ClosetMaid Cabinet

And here’s a gallery of the PROCESS and the DETAILS for the uber-curious. [There should be 24 photos there, but I’m having uploading issues on these silly wireless connections. Oh for the days of residential broadband… those days are gone. Anyway, keep checking. There are photos of the transformation stages in there too.]

Renee thinks I should fine-tune the design and start selling them to earn us a fortune. Sure, honey, I’ll just pull a few more weeks per day out of my back pocket and we’ll be in business 🙂 She’s so awesome. You should have tasted crock-pot roast she cooked up tonight, and seen the hard red winter wheat she vacuum sealed, and looked at the logos she drafted, and witnessed the dozen other things she juggled and got done today.