A thought on safety

Tools
are like guns
and are ideally treated as such.

Now I'm talking about guns used in a certain way, like by a gun collector or a hunter. I'm not a big fan of guns, but if there must exist guns, I'd prefer they all get treated the way these guys treat their guns.
And I'm talking about tools like a plasma cutter, an oxy-acetylene torch, that kinda real powerful high-energy kinda tool. Well, all tools, but those especially.

That kinda tool can mess you up right good and real quick, if you don't handle it right. You could die because of being just a little bit wrong.
On the other hand, you treat the tool with respect, you take care of it, you can go your life using it every day and be just fine. In fact, there's lots of people doing it.

And--big bonus compared to guns--it's a lot less likely someone is going to pick up a plasma cutter and threaten your life with it. You control these tools your own damn self. Any problems, you usually got just yourself to blame.

This is scary to a lot of people. It's a big responsibility. It takes courage to know that this thing in your hand could hurt you real bad, and then to go ahead and use it anyways.

Occupational reconsideration. Or: Shoe shopping

More often than not I find bloggable moments happening in the insomniac quietude of 3am.

--

Here's how it goes.
I get into a thing.
Waiting tables.
Photography.
Building bikes.
I do the thing for a while.
I start to think about what it would be like to do this thing forever.
I try to envision all the good parts, the bad parts, the dull moments in between those parts.
I try it on like I'm trying on a pair of shoes.
I walk around in it for a while.

And then something happens.
The shoes aren't quite right.
The fit isn't there.
The color doesn't work with my wardrobe.
So I take off the shoes, put them back in the box, and look for the next pair.

Right now I'm unlacing a pair that I thought was gonna work.
It's sad.
But I relish the process, as all-consuming and pitfall-fraught as it is.
I get better at it every go-round.

It's harder every time though.
Every time I think: No, I finally got it right this time.
But I'm always wrong about that.

--

I see myself prototyping. It has its own subtle art. It's in demand, it's interdisciplinary, it's challenging, it means using a lot of the stuff I know a little too much about.

Great blurb from Diego Rodriguez about prototyping (more here):

As you make a prototype, assume you are right and everyone else is wrong.
When you share your prototype, assume you are wrong and everyone else is right.

What I've been doing, what I am doing, is prototyping a career for myself. And prototyping is a long, complicated, expensive, failure-ridden process.

Que haces alli en AIDG?

Soy hombre de taller
Soy technico
Soy soldador
Soy disenador
Soy maquinista
Soy metalista
Soy mechanico

--

What do you do at AIDG?

I'm a man of the shop
I'm a technologist
I'm a welder
I'm a designer
I'm a machinist
I'm a metalworker
I'm a mechanic

...but, these days, the Spanish words seem to convey more meaning