The Wood Whisperer Yak Legacy

Hey everyone. Today in the chat the question about the TWW Yak came up. It's been brought up before and the story is a little long for the chat. So, to tell the story finally and offer up the lists that we came up with I figured I'd offer this post.

In the spring of 2008, the woodwhisperer chat room had one of it's first international visitors - a guy from Bosnia. Those of us on that day thought it was really cool that Marc's site was getting international attention. We also noted an opportunity to mess with Marc, so we toyed with the idea of logging in to a Wednesday night chat session as bogus international personalities. I came up with Chechu, the broken English speaking, woodworking sherpa from Nepal. Chechu was going to have a question about his yak powered lathe. Well, one thing led to another and the talk about the usefulness of a wood working yak started to take off. LordLQQK came up with a yak graphic that looked as if The Woodwhisperer logo was branded on a yak. The lists were next, and the rest has been history.

The Lists:

The Top Uses For a Wood Working Yak:

• Yak transport stationary tool easily
• Yak make methane to power shop
• Yak generate lots of heat to warm shop
• Yak tail make great strop for sharpening
• Yak horn make great slip stone to sharpen gouge
• Yak wool better than steel wool
• Yak tongue make great tack cloth
• Yak hoof powder make great buffing compound
• Yak eat wood scraps and make round MDF pieces for jigs
• Yak make great dist collector - yak collect dust from everything!

Top Ten Tricks to Play on your Drunken Yak:

• Play jump rope with yak's tail
• take naughty photos of yak and put on internet
• use yak beer farts to start bon fire
• put on matador hat and run around yelling "torro!"
• two words: yak love
• Get "made by powermatic" tatoo
• put "where's the beef" bumper sticker on yak's butt
• put sleeping yak in front of a tree and scream "Oh no! we're going to crash!"
• put yak in cab and tell driver "Yak knows the way"
• shave TWW logo on yak's side
  

So there you have it, the Wood Whisperer Yak legacy. In my sidebar you might notice a "Chechu and friends yak luv store" that offers yak tee shirts and such from cafe press. I offered these items at cost - I am not making any profit on them. Enjoy!

Mike

Ok, time to move on...

Sorry, my friends, for the melancholy tone I've taken recently. My step father passed away a week and a half ago, and now it's time to look forward. So, I figured I would update you all on what I've got planned ahead.

Spring is in the air, despite today's winter storm and winds. I've got a handful of projects to do for my father coming up in May. My wife and I will be refinishing his deck, and I have some storage projects to finish in his garage...finally. I also have a couple of projects to finish for my mother as well...finally. I need to rebuild the doors on a small garbage can shed I made for her from back when I thought pocket hole joinery was strong. She also has a couple of things around the house and a couple pieces of furniture that need to be repaired and refinished. As for me, I have a handful of simple home projects to get to...finally. We are also considering building a simple deck outside of our sun room...maybe. And then there's the shop. The assembly table, the workbench, the table saw/router table stand, the combo drill press/miter saw/planer stand, the computer hutch will all have to wait. In fact, I'm guessing that I won't be attacking the shop projects until the fall. Why? well, it is fishing season after all.

Along those lines I did start a new fishing blog that may cause some diversion from my woodworking, but fishing has always been my first love. Some who know me best might even think it was strange that the woodworking blog came before the fishing blog. I've recently made some concessions at work that have freed me from a number of obligations - obligations that hindered the progress of my to-do list for too long. I'm hoping this will be a summer of great success as well as great relaxation. I'm due.

If you're interested in my fishing blog, it's at: http://thewestcanadafreak.blogspot.com
I assure you, I know fly fishing much better than I know woodworking.

So that's it. It's doubtful I'll get to do any serious woodworking this year, but that's OK. Sometimes you have to tie up the loose ends before you can really concentrate on your work, and I've let those ends fray way too much already.

Mike