Professional:
Running:
Hobbies:
Projects:
Mansion Clock.
My pride and joy project, and the inspiration for everything that followed it. While I was in Vegas I wanted to add some subtle Disney Flare to the house. In thinking over some of my favorite rides, Mansion and Pirates, I decided that since I had always wanted a grandfather clock in the house, that the grandfather clock from the Haunted Mansion was the perfect answer. I scaled up the 13" tall Disney Parks Mansion Clock toy that was living on my entertainment center to match the scale of my parents' 85" tall grandfather clock. From that I built this massive 107lb, 82in tall working Grandfather Clock out of solid red oak for the house. I love this thing, and I love hearing the hourly chimes that play music and bells from the ride through a Raspberry Pi3 and computer speakers hidden in the base and head. This was a great project which took months to complete that I get to enjoy every day.I loved this one so much that I built it its own webpage where I documented every step of its build. MansionClock.com
Desk Box.
I found that when I got to my desk in the morning and got to work, I would often empty my pockets onto my desk, maybe take off my watch and set it on the desk, or a pad, or whatever I had on my desk that was soft so as to not scratch anything. This was pretty disorganized. Wallet and keys here, watch there, phone over there... and decided to design and build something that would fit nicely on my desk and store all of these things in a place where I would know where to find them all in one place. So I built this to accommodate four of my watches on the top (with a nice suede bottom for them to sit upon), with a drawer big enough to fit all of my EDC stuff and a couple more related things that I may need from time to time. (There are definitely a couple spots in these pictures that were a lot less apparent in person, that I really need to go back and sand down a bit. And maybe a couple more coats of clear oil poly to make it pop and shine a bit more.)
Chess Board.
I thought a Chess board would make a nice addition to the game room, and I'd wanted to try my hand at making one because 1) It seems fun, and 2) If you're going to have a really nice chess board, it's even nicer if you can say you made it yourself. Plus that way you get to dictate exactly what it looks like and what materials are used in it. This one was done in Walnut and Maple with a Cherry trim to set the borders apart from the board. I figured what better pieces for a chess board than some Alice (through the looking glass) pieces, so I scored those off of etsy.
Crokinole Board.
During the lockdowns of 2020 I was looking for projects to do and games to play. In browsing some fun two player games to play, I stumbled upon Crokinole. A two player shuffleboard-type game that can fit on a table (a pretty big table). I loved the look of the game and the idea of being able to play a shuffleboard type game in the house, so I went to look to buy one and once I saw the price, decided to build one as my next project. Its a really fun build, and looks great as a conversation piece on our loft/library table. Its a lot of fun. You should try it.
Shut The Box Game.
I wanted a simple little game to play alone or in a small group on the couch and also stumbled upon this one when I found out about Crokinole. This one is more like a Yahtzee type game where you roll the dice and you shut either the number of the sum of the dice, or the number on each die. Once you roll a number where you've already closed the sum and one or both of the single dice, you're done. Add up what's left open and that's your score. Lowest score wins!
Baseball Card Holders.
I had some baseball cards that have lived in the safe for the past thirty years and thought it'd be nice to display them somehow, especially since I had recently picked up a few more signatures. Everything on the market seemed to be frames, wall-hanging displays, things like that. I wanted something that could live on my desk and display them, something nice, that would catch your eye, but not overshadow the cards inside. I designed this 4-card spinning display that sits on my desk (with plans to build another for some more of the cards that I like) that I think displays them perfectly.
