How many ways can you say 31st Avenue? Apparently a lot. On a short walk through the heart of the Sunset, you’ll find 31 ST,  31ST AVE, 31 ST AVE, …

As a kid, I watched The Dick Van Dyke Show. I was six or seven. At that age, my idea of career and work came from what I saw in …

Lego kits are made for specific models. Follow the instructions, and you get the exact design on the box. But the genius of Lego is in the parts. Interchangeable. Adaptable. …

We went shopping at Safeway yesterday for the weekend and saw something unusual. Two mallard ducks, a male and a female sitting on the asphalt on in a parking spot. …

We went fishing at Lafayette Reservoir yesterday. No bites. Not even a nibble. But we weren’t bored. Lafayette Reservoir is small but it packs in a lot of wildlife. Turkeys …

One Christmas, a friend gave us a gift. It was large and heavy. We couldn’t guess what it might be. We opened it. A coffee table book about San Francisco. …

January hits, and I start thinking about fishing. Happens every year. Sure, there’s winter fishing in the Bay Area. Stocked trout are a thing. But I’m a spring-and-summer kind of …

In the late ’80s, I painted a series of large backdrops using Bill Alexander’s wet-on-wet oil painting technique. I’d watched his PBS show in the late ’70s and still had …

Do you ever try to use your iPhone in a dream? Ever notice how it never works? No internet. No signal. Just a useless glass and aluminum rectangle mocking you. …

I’ve been running my creative life with a weekly sprint plan for years. It’s simple. It works. It’s built for my multipotentialite (and neurodivergent) brain that loves to explore everything …

There are a few things I wish I still had from my childhood. Or at least a picture of them. One of those is a series of drawings I did …

I’m stepping back from social media. Threads, Bluesky, Facebook—all of it. Why? The wildfires in LA brought out the worst. Vitriol. Anger. Endless outrage. Grace and empathy? Nowhere to be …

Weathering freight cars can be done in many ways. Some folks swear by spray paints. But I prefer pastel chalks in earth tones. Why? Gives more control. You can add …

I’m building an old west town for my model railroad. The inspiration? Virginia City. Unlike the high desert of Nevada, my town will sit in a ravine surrounded by pine …

I’ve been to enough small county museums around the West to know to look for their barbed wire collection. It’s usually a small board or shadow box with a variety …

A few years ago, Joyce and I restored the house at 623 32nd Avenue in San Francisco’s Richmond District. It wasn’t the real house—just a 1/12th scale dollhouse model. Completely …

A couple of years ago I gave live streaming a try. I used Switcher Studio. It’s a solid tool for live streams, but it’s pricey. What I liked: you can …

I’ve got a 10-car train of beet gondolas. The kind Southern Pacific used to haul sugar beets across the system, especially in California. HO scale beet cars are out there, …

During the spring and summer I fish for halibut at Crissy Field beach at least once a week. Over the years I’ve caught some nice fish there up to 12 …

This episode of You And I Make A Thing features Terry Karl, a creative explorer I met at the Everything Conference in Minneapolis. That conference is all about multipotentialites, people …

I’m actually kidding! Until a few days ago, I had never ridden Caltrain. OK, I did ride the Penisula rails twice, but both times were behind the venerable Southern Pacific …

Back in 1996 I built the website for the Golden Gate Railroad Museum (GGRM) and I just found one of the pages on Archive.org. It’s essentially all text, no design, …

This is my mantra. A reminder to just get moving. The “Don’t Think” part comes from Ray Bradbury. He said thinking kills creativity. I’m stuck on a new project. Happens …

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 …