I Need a Rotary I need a rotary to hold steel barrels for engraving—barrels are heavy, and most rotaries for laser engraving are cheap. The Creality Falcon 2 40W is all I have in this economy, but I am going to make it work. I’m a pessimistic-toned masochistic optimist: I can see all the ways I’ll probably fail, and I’ll still be back tomorrow wearing a dumb expression and asking for more. ⸻ More Than Machines This project—and everything I make—is more than machines, cutting

Clear vision doesn't exist without at least a little light. My fiancée is reminded of this every morning between 3–5AM when I wake up for my most productive part of the day: twilight to sunrise. She knows I can't help my restlessness—my dreams are too big to fit in my head, and they're usually scribbled on countless St. Jude notepads scattered throughout the house and shop. It's that restlessness and ambition for “better” that drives Dirt Farmer Industries more than any subst

It’s probably been about 14 years since I wrote my last blog entry. Some of you might remember the old blog I kept while living in Slovakia; it was an emotional, sometimes humorous, sometimes dark exploration of a recent college grad navigating the Great Recession living and volunteering in an unfamiliar world with unfamiliar words. It was a place to document and process the work I was doing, the mission I was called to, and the lessons in humility and grace I was learning al