Ok, here goes:

I’m a bit different than many of you, in that my drive to start woodworking started in wanting to furnish my home.  After bouncing around in the service for my first 9 years away from home and making due with inexpensive particle board furniture in all my temporary (less than a year) lodging and giving it away when it came time to deploy, move, etc  I really got tired of having flimsy, cheap looking furniture.  When it came time to get out of the military and settle down I wanted some quality, well built and sturdy furnishings, but realized that if I purchased the tools and drew on those almost forgotten lessons from my past, I could have better furniture AND a full set of tools for about the same cost or even less than purchasing it outright.  As I’ve assembled the shop I’ve changed directions a couple of times, going from log furniture designs to more traditional, and from power tools to hand tools.  Along the way I found that I hated the whine, dust, and constant hyperattention to danger that comes along with power tools, and found myself in need of instruction into using the hand tools to get professional looking results.  That’s how I ended up here, and so the goal is to develop the necessary skill to be able to take those furniture designs in my head and turn them into real objects that I’ll be able to use through the years with the satisfaction that I’ve made them myself.  Though I’m fairly young (26), I tend to turn to the old ways of doing most things in life, and find the greatest satisfaction that way.