When I asked for suggestions for new post ideas/improvements to make in the new year, a couple readers suggested doing more personal posts.  What makes me the reader I am today, my hobbies, interests, etc.  Well, here is the first of a few!

I’ve alluded to a second job that I’ve taken on in part to finance my (hopeful) trip to Book Expo America 2015.  This second job is actually building picnic tables*.  6′ and 8′ picnic tables, to be precise.  I work for an independently owned store that’s a lumber yard, hardware store and building company all rolled into one awesome package.  Unfortunately, we’ve had severe labour shortages (despite what people here in Canada say about there being ‘no jobs’) so we had to cut back on one thing the men in the yard would do all the time: make picnic tables.

It was quite a lucrative part of the business but it was time-consuming and now the few men in the lumber yard we do have are being put to better use.  So who would fill the gap in the market?  Three years after picnic table production ceased here I am, making picnic tables in my spare time.  I won’t pretend to be a gifted wood-worker but picnic tables are ridiculously simple when you get into the rhythm of things.  Having the right equipment and a more than generous staff discount on all lumber helps, I’ll admit.  But most of it is sheer stubbornness (and math).

*For those of you that were wondering: Yes, the one pictured above is one I built, not some random picture of a picnic table.