Bagpipes
Playing bagpipes is my primary hobby! I play performances, for fun, and for competition.
I’m proud to play in the Wake and District Pipe Band in Raleigh, NC.
When I compete solo, I am at the grade 3 level. I have a list of contests that I have done.
I sometimes upload bagpipe videos to my youtube channel.
Woodworking
I like to do some woodworking in my small garage workshop. Specifically, I like to do the work with hand tools as much as possible. The biggest factors that first got me into hand tools were the dust and noise created by my table saw, router, and other machines. However, I love the intimate feeling of crafting the piece with my own two hands, even if it takes longer. Since this is all a hobby for me anyway, it’s really about the enjoyment of the time put into it, not about output.
I mainly use my Paul Sellers joinery bench, which I made out of construction yellow pine. I like this bench a lot, it is sturdy and has plenty of on board storage. It was also a great learning experience about various hand tool techniques.
Before I got into hand tool work, I built a modified Paulk Workbench. I think it is a great design because it collapses against the wall when I am not working on projects, to allow my car into the garage. I still use it when I need some extra table space, but I’ve modified the leg-sawhorses to allow me to put up the halves independently.
Keyboards
Currently my primary keyboard is a Prime_E.
I got into this hobby because I wanted to program my own layout, and add little tricks and shortcuts for the keys. That is really fun! I am able to have access to have all the keys on a full keyboard, but in a more compact space. To do this, I prefer to use the QMK open source firmware. It’s very easy, all you need to do is create files that specify the keycodes that will be sent when keys are pressed. The major advantage of this is that any computer you have attached the keyboard to doesn’t know it is a super keyboard with extra tricks, as the computer just receives standard key codes. You can see my layout files for each keyboard below.
I have separated my keymap configs from the main qmk repository, to make it easier to manage for myself.
I’ve found it much more convenient to have a small and light repository, and have some scripts to clone the main repo and make the builds for me.
You can find that script (makefile) in my keymap repository.
Essentially, I have a folder for each of my keyboards, and use git submodules to manage the rest of Qmk.
My first keyboard was a fully custom layout, hand wired. Most of the keyboards since then have been kits, and those are much easier. But by jumping in the deep end at the beginning, I learned a lot!