Rob Johnstone

  • Yankee Heading to ‘Bama

    As I write this missive, those of us in the North Country have just weathered our first severe winter storm. Many inches of snow, winds exceeding 40 miles per hour, followed by below-zero temperatures. No big deal … just life on the tundra. And in truth, this sort of weather makes me feel invigorated. But at the same time, I just can’t help remembering my wife saying to me, “You know, there are places where the words snow and shovel are not combined to form a noun.”

  • A New Year of Woodworking

    Well it’s happening again — we are about to put an old year to bed and plunge into a new year full of hopes and expectations. I personally am looking forward to 2010 with a goal of making the most of every opportunity that comes my way. But before I move furiously into the future, please allow me to take just a few moments to thank all of you who regularly read the eZine (and the print magazine, too, for all to whom that applies).

  • Woodworking Past and Future

    Last Saturday I spent an enjoyable afternoon at The Wood Working Show held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. While these shows do not generate the level of excitement and attendance they did in the late 1990s, they still feel kind of like “home” to me.

  • A Peek Behind the Curtain

    Because I am a woodworking tool geek, one of the things I really like about my job is that I not only get to see the plethora of new woodworking products as they are launched, but I often get to see them firsthand and get a demonstration of how they work. (No tedious reading of the instruction manuals for me, no sir!)

  • Speeding to 2010

    For some reason, I am surprised that the last month of the year is here. For me, December always arrives with a mixed emotional impact. For example, on a personal level, I cannot get 2009 into my rearview mirror fast enough – it was a lousy year. On the other hand, December not only contains the regular run-of-the-mill holidays (which are great) – but also contains my birthday (December 11th, for those of you not yet my Facebook friends).

  • Turning Back to Old Friends

    Regardless of the situation, when the going gets tuff there is nothing like a tried and true friend to get you where you want to go.

  • Thankful for Woodworking

    Next week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., a holiday known mostly for its food, family and traditions. While I’m in favor of food traditions – even though my doctor says that some of them aren’t good for me – I’m even more in favor of some other traditions. Like the traditional craft of woodworking. Don’t get me wrong: I’m no Ian Kirby, and you won’t find me trading in all my power tools for a hand plane.

  • Are the Times A-Changing?

    Those of us of a certain age may have felt this sort of thing before. Chronicled in art and poetry and tie-dyed shirts, that which we knew and were comfortable with moved on, and a new and different era began. With the loss of Sam Maloof and James Krenov to the way of all flesh, there is no denying the warp and the weft of woodworking’s fabric has frayed. And the news that The New Yankee Workshop is in its last season somehow brings an additional focus to the feeling of transition.

  • Say it Ain’t So, Norm

    As many of you have likely heard, the New Yankee Workshop has just announced that the current season will be their last. I have to say, that is sad news to me.

  • Top Drawer T-Shirt Sloganry

    Often, I lament the erosion of language use in our society: Text messages that are a jibberish of letters and trinary code, politicians whose syntax is the worst tax proposal ever, email efforts that are an inscrutable sequence of sentence fragments and phrases. But then there are times when I feel that all is right with the world — word wise.