Like a Ton of Bricks

This morning I read an article about why women live longer than men. I didn’t get very far into the article when I read this passage “Women can still expect to live more than five years longer than men — the life expectancy at birth for females in 2023 was 81.1 years, compared with 75.8 years for males — but the gap has been closing.” I was skimming and I just saw the 75.8 years for men and I did the math, I was born in 1950 and turned 75 in March so I’m 75.6 years old, only 0.2 years left. Wow! My heart sunk! I went back and reread the paragraph and it said that 75.8 was the life expectancy for males born in 2023, I was born in 1950. When I looked that up I found out that the life expectancy for males born in 1950 was 68.14. I’ve already outlived the life expectancy of the class of 1950 by 7.5 years so I’m not worried about the next two months anymore, I’m already on borrowed time. I’ve decided to shoot for 100 just to screw up the actuarial tables. I never finished the article so I still have no idea why women live longer.

I’m very lucky to be physically able to work in my woodshop every day. I still work 7 days a week until 5 PM but I rest more during the day (including a 1 hour nap after lunch). My inventory of finished bowls is back up to 156 with prices ranging from $39.00 to $2,000.00.

I still have 100 or so dry bowls to finish turn from last year. They are cherry, walnut, poplar, maple, bradford pear and river birch. I have a whole room full of figured lumber to make hundreds of smaller bowls under 12”.

So now you see why I have to live to 100 years old, I’ll never get all of these bowls turned unless I do.

Here’s a new shape I made yesterday:

I’m sure this shape has a name and a function. I’ve seen pictures of 2 or 3 similar to this but I don’t know where the inspiration came from. I know it’s very smooth and feels very nice in your hands. It’s more like a sculpture than a bowl but it is functional. It has a food safe, natural, oil finish.

https://sanderswoodworking.com/bowls/p/2648-fiddleback-claro-walnut-sculptural-form-9-x-2 $229.00