Welcome to the junk drawer of my brain.

This is where I put the projects that make my neighbors and coworkers ask, "What is he working on now?" It’s a living record of my creative endeavors and wonders: cardboard builds, moped aesthetics, tabletop chaos, and whatever else I’ve decided to hack together this week.

This space is for the "Off-Theme" the stuff that's a bit messy, mostly experimental, and 100% handmade. If it involves extra tape, scavenged parts, or a "sure, why not?" attitude, it lives here.

Two Cards, One Tired Cutter

The baseline rule for Mother’s Day in a house with a designer/maker is simple:

Do not buy a card from the store.

It’s a matter of professional pride, domestic survival, and a great excuse to lock myself in the workshop with some high-grade paper stock.

This year required a double-feature: one card from me, and one from our daughter. Both needed to be handmade, but they needed entirely different energies.

Mother’s Day is the ultimate test of the handmade ethos. Anyone can buy a piece of glossy cardboard with a generic poem printed inside. But spending the evening picking tiny bits of paper scrap out of a laser bed just to show someone you're glad they're in your life? That's the good stuff.

FESTIVERSARY Post-Mortem

We built it, we hung it, and nobody got lost on the way to the food trucks. I’m calling that a massive win.

Following up on my last post, Friday was the absolute gauntlet of setup. We hauled, unboxed, and zip-tied a small cities worth of signage across the entire fest area. It’s one thing to look at a vector file on a 27-inch monitor; it’s an entirely different beast to try and set a massive directional sign while the wind is trying to turn it into a sail.

But by Saturday morning, everything was locked down, the gates opened, and the party officially commenced.

The "Off-Theme" Reflection: There is a unique exhaustion that comes with event design. It exists entirely in the physical world for about twelve hours, undergoes a massive stress test, and then gets packed up into crates at midnight. It’s transient, it’s chaotic, and it’s one of my absolute favorite puzzles to solve.

Huge shoutout to the crew who helped haul the heavy stuff. Now, if you need me, I’ll be scrubbing festival dirt out from under my fingernails and staring at a blank screen until the next weird idea hits.

Signage, and the Quest for Legibility

Signs. Signs. Signs.

For those who don’t know, Bent Paddle’s Festiversary is a massive undertaking, and this year I decided to stage a minor intervention on the signage. In years past, we leaned heavily into the "vibe," but maybe a little too far away from "actually being able to read the words."

I went with a completely new design theme this year—cleaner lines, better hierarchy, and a font choice that doesn't require a magnifying glass (or perfect sobriety) to decipher. It’s a design pivot aimed at making sure people actually find the beer they’re looking for without a struggle.

The Timeline:

Today: The "Prep Phase." Clearing floor space, checking counts, and staring at stacks of signs.
Friday: The "Muscle Phase." We setup the grounds to prep locations, zip-tie, and manifest the event into reality.
Saturday: The "Party Phase."

There is something incredibly satisfying about seeing your digital files turn into physical objects. This is the calm before the storm. More to come once we’re knee-deep in the setup.

Engineering a "Thank You"

There is a specific type of creative pressure that comes with making something for the people who look after your kid all day. You can’t just buy a card from the grocery store—not when there’s perfectly good paper and a idea rattling around in your head.

The prompt was simple: "Thanks for helping her grow." But instead of just printing that on a piece of cardstock and calling it a day, I decided it needed some structural integrity and added a bit of layerinf for integrity. I went with a soft palette of pinks and light greens and built out floating plant illustration. Scraps of corrugated plastic give a nice 1/8 inch lift.

It’s a bit of a departure from my usual "cardboard and chaos" builds, but it still fits the Off-Theme manifesto: if it can be cut, taped, or layered into something better than it started, I’m probably going to do it.

Moped Wake-Up Call

April in Minnesota means two things: the snow has finally decided to start to leave, and the things sitting in the shed need to come out of hibernation.

While everyone else was getting their road bikes ready, I dragged the 1978 Bombardier/Puch Maxi cafe cruiser build out of the shed. It’s been sitting in the corner quietly waiting, but it was time to make it spring-time ready.

The Spring Maintenance Checklist:

Handlebars & Grips: Out with the old, cracked rubber and in with a fresh set of grips. Aesthetically, it sharpens the profile. Mechanically, it just feels better on the hands.
Brake Cables: There is nothing more "exciting" than riding a vintage moped with mushy brakes. Swapped and tuned the cables for that crisp, reassuring stop.
Carb Service: Pulled the carburetor, gave it a thorough cleaning, and retuned the jet. It’s a delicate dance of air and fuel, but she fired up and settled into that beautiful gurgely idle.

There is a specific joy in wrenching on something analog. No dashboards, no engine control units—just a little bit of two-stroke oil under the fingernails. The cafe cruiser is officially ready to terrorize the Duluth bike lanes again.

The "Chronicle of Escalation"

The Cubicle Renovation Nobody Asked For

It started as a simple prank. A few pieces of cardboard, some tape, and the goal of making a coworker's desk slightly more... residential. But as anyone who knows me might expect, I didn't know where to stop.

What began as a basic box quickly spiraled into a multi-day construction project. By Tuesday, I was adding windows. By Wednesday, I was cutting out a functional door and sketching in structural details with a marker.

Then came the "contractor" phase. I started adding 3D accents— a sign, lights, a proper handle and a mail slot (for all the high-priority office memos, obviously). The best part? The project became sentient. Over the weekend, a mysterious "landscaper" (another coworker) showed up and added fake flowers to the exterior.

Yippee-Ki-Yay, Maintenance Day

If you’ve spent any time in the Bent Paddle taproom over the last few years and happened to look up at the exposed vents, you might have caught a glimpse of a very specific, very grimy action hero.

Several years ago, I installed a diorama of John McClane, specifically from the "Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs" scene in Die Hard, inside the ductwork. He’s been living there ever since, but after years of vigilante justice (and taproom dust), it was time for a refurb. This thing has gone viral on reddit at least 3 times.

While you were gone...

Rule number one of taking a week-long vacation at my office: Leave your locker unlocked at your own peril.

A coworker went out of town, leaving behind an empty, unsuspecting locker. I decided that instead of a normal prank, they deserved a fully immersive cinematic experience upon their return.

Specifically, the iconic trash compactor scene from Star Wars: A New Hope.

The Garbage Extraction Operation:

The Structural Engineering: The entire structural framing, the mechanical walls, and the rusty debris were hand-cut from recycled paperboard (the true, unsung hero of the prototyping world).
The Texturing: I printed out custom, grime-streaked metal textures and wrapped them over the paperboard frames to give it that authentic, moist, "Death Star garbage bin" sheen.
The Cast: I meticulously cut out paper silhouettes of Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewbacca looking thoroughly stressed out while trying to hold back the walls.
The Mood Lighting: You can’t have a trash compactor without the ominous emergency glow. I wired up a single, battery-operated red LED at the top of the locker to cast harsh, dramatic shadows across the whole scene.

The Return-To-Work Verdict: When they finally opened the locker door on Monday morning, they were greeted by a glowing, red, sci-fi garbage dump. It takes a second for your brain to process why there is a miniature intergalactic crisis happening next to your winter jacket, which is exactly the reaction I was aiming for.

Pranks should never just be annoying; they should be artistic. Why put sticky notes on a monitor when you can give a coworker the creeping dread of a Dianoga attack every time they reach for their office supplies?

The Post-Op Evaluation:

Materials: Three cereal boxes, two sheets of printed paper, and one scavenged LED.
Status: The diorama has permanently moved into the locker. They refuse to take it down, which means I've successfully claimed sovereign territory inside the office breakroom.

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