Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking Magazine is looking for a managing editor to fill the spot recently vacated by Rodney Wilson, who did a heck of a job before moving up in the world.
I joined Popular Woodworking in 1996 as the managing editor, and it is the most challenging and rewarding job I’ve ever had. You have to be hyper-organized because the managing editor has to make sure the trains run on time. That the authors get paid. That the manuscripts arrive on time. And that corrections get made.
On the flipside, you have access to a dream shop of workbenches, hand tools and power equipment, including a 12” jointer and 20” planer. Whenever your head is too full of adverbial nouns, you can walk to the shop and clear your brain by cutting dovetails for an hour.
Megan is a demanding boss, but that’s the best and only kind in modern publishing. Magazines with lesser editors have all closed their doors.
Best of all, the job is open-ended. After I mastered my paperwork and manuscript duties (that took about a year) I was encouraged to become a better woodworker, write articles, begin blogging, travel to visit authors and work on tool reviews. All that led to being able start my own publishing company with John.
If you love woodworking and want to live and breathe it, this is the job.
Take look at the job description here. Yes, you have to live in Cincinnati.
There are a lot of great places to eat in Cincinnati and Covington, and I’m not talking about chili parlors. In fact, the only thing I’m going to say about chili parlors is this: They are the only place you can order a “child’s three-way” and not get arrested.
To make this list manageable, I’m going to focus only on establishments that are in Covington and downtown Cincinnati. If I covered other neighborhoods, it would be a book.
Covington Otto’s: This is one of my favorite places for lunch, dinner and brunch. It has a small menu of Southern food, but everything is outstanding. Get the tomato pie for lunch. Otto’s is also one of my contenders for best burger in the city.
Bouquet: Great wine bar and good food made with local ingredients. I love the trout.
Frida 602: A bustling Mexican place that specializes in mezcal and tacos. Get the queso. You’ll thank me.
Cock & Bull: The best fish and chips in town and a draft beer list that is insane (Delirium Tremens on draft – dang).
Goodfella’s Pizza and the Wiseguy Lounge: Downstairs is a small pizzeria with New York style pizza (yes, you can order a slice) and beer. Upstairs is one of the best bourbon bars in the state and a great place to relax.
Commonwealth Bistro: A new Southern food restaurant on Main Street. I’ve only been once but I was blown away by the fried rabbit and biscuit.
Crafts & Vines: One of the friendliest bars in the city. Wine on draft (you read that right). Plus an inventive beer selection.
Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar: The bartenders know me by name here. An astonishing bourbon selection. The patio out back is one of my favorite places to hang out with a crackling fire and a bourbon.
Covington Coffee: Super-friendly family-run place. Great pastries and the best bagels (Lil’s) in the city.
Crepe Cafe: A relatively new shop on Pike Street. A cozy family-run place with really good sweet and savory crepes, plus espresso. One of my favorite places for lunch – it’s two blocks from our shop.
Point Perk: My other favorite coffee shop in town. The hours are limited, but the espresso and chai drinks are fantastic.
Coppin’s in the Hotel Covington: Open less than a year, this hotel is the jewel of the city. It’s less than a block from Braxton Brewing. The restaurant and bar are highly recommended for breakfast, lunch, dinner and brunch. Get the corn fritters, the 16 Bricks bread and… oh just get everything.
Inspirado: Around the corner from Braxton. Eclectic menu. Osso buco and street tacos? Yes please. A very friendly place – lunch, dinner and brunch.
Pork ho fun at Kung Food.
Amerasia Kung Food: Don’t be fooled by the appearance of this divey-looking Chinese place. People come from all over the city for lunch and dinner. It also has one of the best selections of beer in the city. If you like noodles, get the pork ho fun (and ask them to make it a little extra crispy).
Riverside Korean: Authentic Korean. A karaoke room (yes, we’ve done it). Riverside never disappoints.
House of Grill: Tasty Persian food served up by the friendliest family in the restaurant business.
Keystone Grill: Family-friendly place for lunch, dinner or brunch. The mac and cheese varieties are great.
The Gruff: A pizza place in the shadow of the Roebling bridge. Fantastic pizzas (try the Italian meat pizza or the Margarita) plus local craft beer and one of the most inspiring views in the city.
Whew, Now Cincinnati I’m going to keep this brief. This blog entry is turning into an opus already. All of these restaurants are less than a mile from the river. I’m also skipping places that are so popular (The Eagle, Bakersfield, Taft Ale House) that you can’t easily get in.
Sotto: The best restaurant in the city. Period. The first time my daughter tried the short rib cappellacci she cried. No lie.
Boca: The big brother to Sotto. A bit fancy, but unforgettable in every respect.
Maplewood: The best breakfast in the city. No question.
Mita’s: Beautiful Spanish restaurant with achingly good paella.
Taste of Belgium: Fried chicken and waffles. Great breakfast. Belgian ale on tap.
Morelein Lager House: A local brewery with a restaurant – the view of the Roebling Bridge and Covington alone is worth the trip.
Sweet pea and bacon pizza at A Tavola.
A Tavola: My favorite pizza in the city. Neapolitan-style. Awesome wagyu-beef meatballs and bacon tapenade. Great wine, beer and cocktails.
Salazar: I vacillate between Salazar and Sotto as my favorite places in the city.
Pulled pork sandwich at Eli’s.
Findlay Market & Eli’s: A old open-air market and the pride of Cincinnati. On weekends we walk around, eat whatever smells good and buy sausages (Kroeger meat) for the week. Eli’s is adjacent and it’s my favorite barbecue joint.
OK, that should be enough to keep you fed for one weekend.
The Kiwi Coffin Club of Rotorua and the DIY Coffin Club for Hawkes Bay, both on the North Island of New Zealand, are featured in a short article in today’s World News section of The New York Times. You can read the article here.
The Kiwi Coffin Club
This quote from the DIY Coffin Club for Hawkes Bay website sums up what these clubs do and why: “The club is win-win time. It gives members a chance to plan ahead, talk about what is coming (even when hoping it is a long time arriving), socialise, help others, save money and personalise our final resting place.”
DIY Coffin Club for Hawkes Bay
Here are two links to get you started on your own underground furniture:
Last October Chris posted the Coffin Chapter from “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” You can read that here.
In the summer of 2014 Chris and several friends had a coffin-building party and you can read about that here.
John and I are quite particular about how our books are made and spend a lot of time and money on details that most readers don’t notice. We want our books to be able to survive floods, attacks by babies and dogs and – most of all – time.
There are an enormous number of manufacturing steps our books have to go through, especially compared to digital, print-on-demand (POD) publishing. While POD is good for some things, such as bind-ups of classroom material, it has a long way to go to compete with traditional printing and binding.
And so we stick with the time- and labor-intensive methods for our books.
In late September, John and I visited one of the plants where our color books are printed on sheet-fed presses. Our black-and-white books, in contrast, are printed on web press. The difference between the two is somewhat akin to the difference between paper being fed into a photocopier (sheet-fed) or printing out your book on an enormous roll of butcher’s paper or paper towels (web press).
The above is a short peek at the process a typical book goes through. Note that I’ve left a lot of steps out and simplified things (so if you are in the printing industry, forgive me). It took two full days to tour the plant, so 5 minutes of video is going to leave out some details.
Thanks to Jostens of Clarksville, Tenn., for opening their doors to us and allowing us to photograph anything we please. And thanks to Phil Nanzetta of Signature Book who purchases most of our printing for us and helped arrange the visit.
The Ma’agan Mikhael, a 5th-century BCE Cypriot merchantman, was found off the coast of Israel in 1985. The wreck was an important find in learning more about ancient shipbuilding techniques and trade practices. After excavation and preservation the reconstructed hull was placed in the Hecht Museum in Haifa.
Three wooden boxes were found in the wreck: one in a heart shape with a pivoting lid and two violin-shaped boxes. There is plenty of evidence in the archeological records that these boxes were of a type used for cosmetic pastes and creams.
In 2004 Yigal Sitry published, “Unique Wooden Artifacts: A Study of Typology and Technology” part of a series of research articles in “The Ma’agan Mikhael Ship – The Recovery of a 2,400 Year Old Merchantman” by Yaacov Kahanov and Elisha Linder.
In his article Sitry provides a full description of the heart-shaped box and outlines, with illustrations, “the order of operations” in the making of the box (and easy for a modern woodworker to follow).
The box, before conservation that caused uneven shrinkage, measured 110 mm x 109 mm x 34.5 mm (about 4.3″ x 4.3″ x 1.4″) and was made of oak. One note: the heart-shaped box has been renamed the ivy leaf box as that shape was more consistent with shapes found in contemporary pottery and art.
Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking Magazine is looking for a managing editor to fill the spot recently vacated by Rodney Wilson, who did a heck of a job before moving up in the world.
