It's always fun to hear about someone coming to the States and making a trip to visit a Rockler store. We discovered this post and picture on Woodworking Australia's Woodwork Forums, a popular woodworking site down under. Poster Michael writes:

Thanks to some careful planning on our current holiday I was able to make the subway trip out one cold morning in Boston to Rockler Hardware. Dressed in two beanies, long johns, merino shirt, wind proof jumper, scarf, leather and merino gloves and it was still cold!

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Reading the recent Buzz Saw blog post by Barbara Howell got me thinking about how I got started as a woodworker. Having read Barbara's book ''Splinters'', I knew that she got her start out of necessity, having to learn the craft to take over the family business as her husband fell ill. My start was a bit less dramatic.

My father always had a small workshop as I was growing up, but he was so busy supporting our family, that he rarely got the time he wished to spend in the shop. My brother and I were always getting into trouble, sneaking into the shop for our own ends. A large nail, pounded into the top of a pair of 2 x 4 cutoffs became ''walkie-talkies'' for our neighborhood war games, or his wrenches and hammers were drafted to fix and modify our bikes. Invariably, we left tools out, frustrating our father quite a lot.

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Staff Sergeant Frank Hendrickson, a Marine currently based in Afghanistan, has come up with some new uses for Rockler's Bench Cookies - in the metal shop and in the composite shop!

SSgt. Hendrickson wrote us saying, "I think that your Bench Cookies, although made for woodworking, would work on our composites that we work on. It would definitely take away the need for a second pair of hands to hold the piece of gear while the other grinds away at it."

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In Ralph's post last week on his woodworking resolutions for the New Year, we invited you, our readers, to tell us your own goals for the coming year. There were many great responses, and we've chosen our "top ten" to share with you (in no particular order). Some of the resolutions are uber-ambitious; some are quite simple. They're all interesting, and might give you some ideas for your own woodworking goals in 2010. You can read all of the comments here).

This list is the ten most common themes from our readers' woodworking resolutions.

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Yes, it is yet another list of resolutions. Not terribly original I know, but it is that time of year. So I sat down and began thinking of things I wanted to accomplish during the coming year. Some are meant to be funny, but as we all know, the truth is the basis for humor. So, with tongue firmly in cheek, here are my resolutions for 2010:

• I resolve to begin making Christmas gifts TOMORROW! No more waiting until Mid-December to begin making my list and checking it twice. This year I will have the time each project deserves, and I won't be stressing or cutting corners.
• I resolve to finally figure out what color my shop floor really is! It is high time to

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Many years ago, I was in Pittsburgh going to school for model making. As the holidays approached I simply could not get into the spirit of the season. I was in a new city with few contacts, 600 miles from home. One of the instructors announced that the woodshop would be open for a couple of days so that any volunteers who wanted could help produce a bunch of wooden toys to be given to Toys for Tots. A number of us showed up, building toys for less fortunate kids, singing "We are Santa's Elves", from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and really enjoying the season.

And why not? Christmas and woodworking have always gone together.

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There are a lot of really cool woodworking blogs out there. Some are inspiring, some are instructive, some funny, and some great combinations of the three. As you know, Buzz Saw has started a blogroll to highlight some of these woodworking bloggers, and maybe get them in front of a larger audience.

Most of the people who do these woodworking blogs are not making a living off them – they're doing it for the love of the craft and the pleasure derived (without trying to be sappy here...) from helping other people. Most of these bloggers have fulltime "day jobs," families, and other responsibilities, but find a way to squeeze in their blogs (or podcasts, or webisodes) anyway.

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Picking the woodworking blogs you like, and putting them together in a reader* (so that new posts are immediately visible to you) is fun. It's almost like putting together your own personalized woodworking magazine. Or more like your own woodworking newspaper, because with a bunch of different blogs, you might be getting new content every day.

I like different blogs for different reasons. I read some just because they're very informative. I enjoy others because they're funny, and some even just because I've become interested in the blogger and enjoy following his or her woodworking projects.

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April is National Woodworking Month, and to celebrate, we'll be spending the month revamping our blog! We want the blog to be all about woodworkers and the joys of woodworking. Changes will be gradual throughout April, but you'll be seeing things like interviews, polls, games and contests, featured woodworkers, and all the latest "buzz" on our favorite hobby: Woodworking!

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