UptownMaker

No, not that first time (well, not exclusively). Think about the first time you did something that scared the hell out of you.  For me, the best example is the first time I set out to ride a rollercoaster and actually enjoy it.  Before, the tiny number of times I'd been on coasters were all profanity-laced panic-attack-like attempts to assert my masculinity.  This time, however, I decided to seize my fear and enjoy the ride.  It worked- that summer, and the two years thereafter, I bought a season pass to the local theme park and racked up literally hundreds of out-and-back trips, and I made a couple of special trips to other theme parks to hit THEIR coasters, too.  Something that had been previously unimaginable became a source of tremendous enjoyment to me. What about the first time you used a tool you'd never used before?  I was terrified of the vertical milling machine until the first project I used it for; now I can't imagine NOT having access to it...

I've long suffered from notebook envy.  Not envy of any particular notebook; I just always wished I could be one of those people that carries a notebook around and jots down notes on everything - stuff they want to look up, buy, make, write about, talk about, whatever. I never HAVE been one of those people, for a number of reasons.  I'm scatterbrained, so even if I did have a pen and notebook, they'd have to be pocket-sized so I can not have to carry them around, or I'll lose them.  I hate writing (I actually have a mild learning disability which affects my ability articulate ideas with a pen and paper), so I'm not likely to be writing draft blog posts or a novel in my notebook.  I can't draw for crap, either, and I don't have much interest in developing that skill.  I also never found a notebook I really liked- they're too big, or too rigid, or the paper is too thin, or they are lined/gridded wrong.  I'm very Goldilocks on this. I like the Maker...

Whenever you put a project out there in the community, be it on your blog, a community board, or as an article in another venue (or if it gets picked up by say, Hackaday or Make), you're bound to get some comments that are, shall we say, worth less than the calories they took to type.  Worse still are the times you get these comments from someone to whom you are explaining (in meatspace) your current pet project- those times can be a SERIOUS buzz kill and I've lost the will to finish a couple of projects after comments like this. "You know, Target sells something that [does that]/[does almost exactly that]."  This is more common in meatspace than on the web, I think, because the web audience self-selects for people who understand that the joy is in the making, not the having.  And, frequently, the "almost" is where the bugaboo lies- I want EXACTLY that, not ALMOST exactly that. "Arduino is for losers."  Or some variation thereon.  Arduino, as a p...