woodworking

I saw a video today of Randy Pausch's last lecture. He talked about achieving his childhood goals and the importance of inspiring the next generation to dream of doing great things in the future as well. One of the things I would like to do is take my time and learn how use wood in the building of useful things, nice things like furniture, like Roy Underhill or Norm Abram makes. I enrolled in a woodworking class in junior high school (a sort of right of passage in America) and didn't really take it seriously. There is a lot to learn, but I only want to learn as much as I need to do what I want. The first thing I'd like to build is a nice aquarium stand for a few aquariums. I looked up do-it-yourself articles on how to make one, and they range from the extremely simple stack of cinder blocks approach through to the use of some joinery methods. I might use commercially available stand construction as a guide. The cost of building versus buying pre-made might be interesting to find out. I could take my time and make something nice. The key it seems is to use good materials, like straight wood, and measure accurately for each cut. Now that I think about it, there are actually at least 12 things I would like to make... this could take a while. To the drawing board!