A Week of Lapidary Learning

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I attend a week-long lapidary class at the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts in Young Harris, GA.

It all started when I watched a YouTube video about lapidary intarsia. I thought the resulting cabochons were very cool and had the potential to help my take my jewelry work to the next level.

Some definitions might be in order before I go on:

  • Lapidary is the process of shaping and polishing stones into decorative items such as cabochons, engraved gems (such as cameos), and faceted designs. Read more on Wikipedia.
  • Intarsia is a method of seamlessly combining stones, normally to make cabochons, but possibly as part of an inlaying process. (The Wikipedia entry discusses wood intarsia; stone intarsia is similar but with stone.)
  • Inlay is similar to intarsia but the stones are cut to fit precisely into a pre-made metal frame. (I’m also interested in learning how to do inlays.)

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50 Days with My RAV4 Plugin Hybrid

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A look at the things I like and don’t like about my new car.

Earlier this month, I blogged about buying my new Toyota RAV4 Plugin Hybrid. It was a (typically) long post that covered a lot of my thinking about buying a new car and, specifically, a plugin hybrid, to eventually replace two of the vehicles in my “fleet.”

The Decision

To recap the decision making process, I was interested in four things:
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Buying My New Car

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I buy a new car a lot sooner than I expect to because — well, why not?

For a single person living alone with no kids, I have a lot of cars. I occasionally refer to them as my fleet.

  • I have my 1999 Jeep Wrangler, which I bought brand new, beat the crap out of, and use as my local around-town vehicle. It’s in decent shape but wouldn’t win any awards at a car show, despite it’s age. A trailer hitch on the front makes it the perfect vehicle for shuffling around trailers in the garage or driveway.

    • Jeep Wrangler
    My Jeep in its younger days, crawling over rocks in Sedona AZ. It’s on its third soft top now.

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Writing Tips: Just Write!

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I add a new post to my old Writing Tips series of posts. This one focuses on simple tools to get the job done.

When I sat down to write this post this morning, I thought I was starting a new series. But then I looked at my list of about 3,100 blog posts here and realized I already had a series it could fit into: Writing Tips. So with a little bit of editing, I wrangled what I’d written today to fit that series. I do, however, want to start with a new introduction.

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I’m Back

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I’m done neglecting this blog, at least for a while.

Shame on me. After blogging regularly here since 2003, I stepped away for more than 3 months. I can feel the air of neglect here.

Understand that my blog has always been a place where I share my thoughts, opinions, and ideas, as well as providing an account of what I’m up to. It’s not as if I have nothing to write about. I do. I’ve been keeping crazy busy this summer, with plenty to blog about: boat trips, new client jobs, writing for hire, exploring artistic endeavors in my studio, and even an unexpected road trip. I’ve been keeping very busy. But what I haven’t been doing is making time to blog about any of it. And that’s a failure on my part.

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