For as long as I can remember, we’ve had a train around the tree. Growing up, it was my dad’s Märklin set. Turnouts. Signals. Fully automated. Now I’ve got my …

Building a mountain railroad means building bridges. A lot of them. I haven’t counted recently, but there are over 20 on my layout. Each one different. The biggest is Summit …

I’m always finding new ways to practice art daily, and it helps to find things that I can finish in under 30 minutes. One material that’s easy to cut and …

I got to be tourist in my home town today. Hadn’t been to Pier 39 since before the pandemic. It’s crowded as ever. Plus I got to ride my favorite …

I never thought I’d be selling my art. But there I was in September, standing behind a table at a local community art fair. My friend, one of those amazing …

I’m really enjoying the Made by Minimal theme that powers this website. It is ideal for artists like me who create a bazillion things and want a clean presentation but …

There are so many ways that ChatGPT and LLMs (Large Language Models) can aid creativity, and I found one more way. I’ve been wanting to recreate Southern Pacific’s club lounge …

I went to the Rusty Ladle again today. It’s my go-to spot on cold San Francisco days. There’s something special about claiming a seat at their penny-topped counter, literally made …

Do you use mind mapping? I love it, especially for getting past creative blocks. I keep it simple. I grab a pen and paper – that’s all I need. No …

The constant pull between focus and exploration. That’s my daily dance. Like Tigger, I bounce between fascinations. Railroads one day, kinetic art the next. A perpetual motion machine of curiosity. …

I hailed a Waymo yesterday for the second time. All I can say is Wow! We had it drive us home from Molinari’s in North Beach and it took us …

I don’t like the phrase Find your tribe. I also don’t like the term like-minded. We have too much tribalism in the world today. I prefer to surround myself with …

I love miniatures and I wanted to try painting a waterlily in the style of Claude Monet. I found out that you can get gold-colored dollhouse picture frames, so that …

I discovered the spark for Ask Karl The Fog buried in a book of kinetic art. There it was: an old fortune teller with pull cords that revealed answers. You …

Yesterday I had the joy of having friends over for a tree making party. My railroad, the Redwoods and Pacific, needs lots of trees so over the years I’ve had …

Have you noticed that every app you install, whether on your Mac or iPad or phone, defaults to sending you notifications so they can steal your attention? Yuck! I hate …

One of my favorite memories as a kid was to go to the Exploratorium.  The exhibit that I always wanted to see the most was the Enchanted Tree. It was …

I added a new project page called Diorama. I have a fascination for small scenes inside boxes, jars, and small containers. I think this is an outgrowth of my model …

As a consultant, I’m fortunate to have a lot of control over the projects I work on and the timelines I follow. For the most part, my work is pretty …

I’m having a lot of fun with this website. It’s powered by a theme called Made by Minimal. In particular, I can have project pages that I sub-pages of other …

You’ll notice that I sort the navigation on my site visually by the length of the words. But I also want the home page to be the very first link …

About a year ago I was interviewed by my friend Parul on her podcast and YouTube channel Monday Posivitea. It was a wonderful chance to reflect on how being highly …

I print my own railroad backdrops from images that I google. Here I show roughly how I do it. My railroad is based on scenery in Northern California, so I …

I was thrilled to be interviewed for The MultiPod Podcast at the Everything Conference in Minneapolis this past August. The conference was an amazing experience where I got to meet …

Back in the late 1970’s I inherited a Super 8 film camera from my granddad. He used it for home movies and I ended up making a few with it …