Sidewalk Chalk Stand

Today I made a sidewalk chalk stand out of a set of old shelves and a dowel rod. Several of these are screenshots from the stream that I'm trying out. The quality isn't great on those, partially because my lighting setup is no good for streaming. Hopefully it gets better over the next few.

I like the idea of encouraging people to make sidewalk chalk sketches and notes. I love sidewalk chalk games and things that make the urban environment a little more playful. I put a layer of chalkboard paint on this, but I didn't want ...

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I did a thing! Table refinishing

Jane and I moved into a new place. The previous owners left some furniture that we're slowly cleaning and refinishing. It's fantastic stuff that's been neglected for a few decades.



I started off with the dining table turned garage table and now returned to a dining table.

There were stains that went all the way through the veneer in some places. Judicious sanding and a nice dark finish hid most of them really well.

The hardware and slides are absolutely fantastic. I didn't realize it was veneer until I had...sanded all the way through the veneer in one spot ...

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"You write like a programmer"

I was working for a startup about four years ago. By necessity and interest I got recruited into technical and product marketing.


I was working hard to distill complicated technical topics regarding our product to a non-technical audience.


I sent a "whitepaper" out to a technical reviewer. If you’re not familiar, a whitepaper is a form of technical writing only non-technical people read. Actual technical work gets called a “paper”. It may or may not be published in a technical journal (e.g. “The Raft paper”)


Anyway, I had hoped for a technical review. I had hoped that I ...

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Make Plans

About 6 months ago Gabe asked if I wanted to give a talk at the Adventure Design Group. I was honored, humbled, and a little reluctant, because I didn't exactly know what I had to give this audience. Eventually I settled on the guts of a topic. I had a ton of fun preparing for and giving this talk, and I think I'd like to give it again a few more times; there's so much I left out. If you're interested in doing big creative things...I've got some stuff to say. If you watch it let me know ...

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Issac Kelly