As I have mentioned before, our friends Bob and Pam hold an annual event known at Timpano Night. In the late winter or early spring (the date changes to ensure maximum participation), a number of us get together to collaboratively build something known as a Timpano – an Italian dish consisting of all kinds of goodies married together inside a rolled crust and baked until done to perfection.

The one down side about Timpano Night is that the dish is hardly what you would consider fast food. The baking alone takes a little more than an hour, and unless you want to eat some type of steamy Timpano soup, the final product has to rest for at least another hour to firm up.

But, leave it to Bob and Pam to come up with the ultimate solution to pass the time. Each year, they hire a magician to come to their house to perform some up-close magic tricks during the cooking and cooling phase of the dinner.

Kentastic isn’t just a magician – he has become an integral part of the entire event. And, while the kitchen crew toils away, Ken wows the crowd with his prestigidation.  Believe me, he’s good. And he is also a great showman, keeping the table in stitches as he goes from trick to trick.

There is one person, though, who sits very close to Ken while he is performing his feats, and she gets very involved in the act. Our friend peers closely at his hands, trying to find the secret of his act. She gets as many – if not more – laughs than Ken as she gives him grief and tries to figure out just how Ken does his thing.

There has been many times during my past 14 years as a woodworker where I have found myself looking at a piece of furniture or some other project and thought to myself, “Dang! How did this woodworker do that?”

Sometimes, it can be examining a challenging joint on a beautiful project. I have seen the famous joint that woodworking legend Sam Maloof used to connect the legs and backrest of his sculpted chairs to the seats. I have had woodworking notables such as Andy Chidwick, Kurt Rashke and Charles Brock explain – and SHOW me – the joint, and I still have trouble wrapping my mind around just how the joint works, and how to cut it.

I have seen beautiful inlaid dovetails cut with some router based jig and wondered just how the heck those babies were cut, when – with a little bit of prompting – I probably could figure out that the proper application of a dovetail router jig could bang those babies out lickety split.

And, more than once, I have wondered just how people work with tremendously large slabs of gorgeously figured woods to build dining tables that are both flat and smooth, yet allow the natural beauty of the wood to shine through.

You know what? As a woodworker who wants to stretch his abilities and try new things, I don’t think I could find anything as exciting as experiencing that feeling. That is what makes me happy – to try new things. To see techniques I have never tried before and to succeed – or to learn from the mistakes to become a more accomplished craftsman.

That, my friends, is why next week, we will be celebrating Get Woodworking Week. Let’s give that feeling to someone in our lives…let’s make them curious and want to find out just how it is built and how it goes together.

Ken and his wife Melissa always stay after the magic to eat with us, and it’s interesting asking him some questions about the art of magic. Sure, Ken will tell us that magic is all about practice and showmanship, but he always adds that it’s the fun he has learning new tricks and watching people like my friend try to figure out how those tricks work that really makes his job fun.

I don’t normally enjoy working late at work. While it is an essential part of the job, it usually means that there is a long meeting of the board of county commissioners, or there’s a hurricane in the area. That’s never good.

But, today, I have to work late, and it’s for one of the most interesting reasons.

Let’s go back to 1976. That year, Pinellas County established Heritage Village.This 21-acre living history park is a place where many of the county’s historical structures were relocated to, rather than to have a date with the wrecking ball. Over the years, 28 structures representing different eras and styles in the county’s history have been sited here, giving visitors a look back into some of the most interesting bits of county history.

Well, for the past 20 years, I have been driving past a building tucked away in an overgrown lot. Several of my coworkers have mentioned that they would love to see the building bought and restored, and it is a great looking old house. Well, it turns out that this building – known as the Turner Bungalow – was built in 1915, and was owned by one of the original families that settled Pinellas County, and that last year, an elderly granddaughter of the original owner passed away, and the family put the house an the lot on the market.

Knowing that the future of the property was pretty much assured to be demolished, the county stepped up and purchased the house with an eye on moving it to Heritage Village.

When the county volunteers and staff members went into the house, they were amazed by the amount of stuff that had been accumulated in the building. Once many of the items were removed, three things became abundantly clear.

First, and worst of all, the house had been savaged by termites. With little protection provided by the native woods used to build the house, the termites had a field day, eating significant portions of the structure, chewing up the heart pine floors and even damaging the decorative woodwork. The house had to be treated a few times to clear out the infestation, and the property will require a tremendous amount of work to be made presentable to the visitors.

The second thing that stood out was – wow – there is some incredible woodworking inside the house. The door trim was just impressive, made of clear heart pine boards. The panels were exquisitely done.

Decorative woodworking divided the front living room from the back of the house, helping to bring some scale to the very high ceilings. Fortunately, most of the decorative woodworking hadn’t been chewed up too badly, so that will be easy to restore for future generations.

Third, and most impressive, was the furniture that was uncovered. Wow. They sure built furniture well back in the day. And, yes, many of the pieces were original to the house.

This table had an interesting design, with bookshelves on both of the ends and the top made from pine. An elegant design that might be worth copying in a future build.

Another great piece was this grandfather clock that had been in the family for decades. Untouched by termites, it appeared to be made out of mahogany. From the turned finial on the top to the elegant bracket feet, this one is a beauty.

Fortunately, these pieces are being sent to Heritage Village to be cleaned and conserved. In future years, it is hoped that these pieces – along with the many others rescued from the home – will be reunited at Heritage Village when the house opens to visitors.

But, now, I’m going to be working late, working with the local media to cover this unique story.

So, as I write this article at 36,000 feet somewhere over southern Virginia, I realize that today’s post is late and that there was no quick poll yesterday. I have a really good excuse, though.

You see, my dad’s birthday is coming up in a few days, and with Dr. King weekend taking place, I had a three-day weekend with stuff to do around the house, but a pressing engagement to see my dad and stepmom. Added to that, my youngest son has never seen snow. At all. So, with dad living in northern New Jersey, it being cold, and the available time, Steven and I packed our bags and headed north for a brief whirlwind adventure.

And, what an adventure it was. The forecast for northern New Jersey was for nothing in the way of snow, but on Saturday morning, a brief but very intense band of snow blew through. It only added up to an inch or snow, but, judging by Steven’s reaction, it was as if we were about to get snowed in by a blizzard.

My dad also lives on Glen Wild Lake, a pretty large lake up in the woods, so the surface was totally frozen over. We had a lot of fun having a snowball fight on the lake, and hand crafting some pretty sturdy looking snowmen.

We walked in the woods. We ate really good food. Saw my elementary, middle and high schools. We grilled out in the crazy dark cold. We went inner tubing down the slopes at a ski resort.

We cleared the snow off the ice and made a skating rink. My son’s feet are about the same size as my dad’s so he was able to get some skating practice in. We watched neighbors do some ice fishing on the frozen lake (the ice was a good seven inches thick, plenty strong for walking.)

We even got to see the house that I grew up in, and where I got my first true woodworking experience.

But, what struck me the most was that I was at my dad’s house. If my dad hadn’t ever taken the time to redo our basement, I may not have ever gotten into woodworking. If I had never seen him working in our basement on his little benchtop table saw, would I have ever been bitten by the woodworking bug, or would I have just assumed I didn’t have the know-how and let the urge to get started just pass?

The other thing I noticed were all of the woodworking projects I had built and sent to him. The architectural clock. The little storage box. The wine rack. Both my dad and stepmom truly appreciated what I had built, and had those pieces on display.

And, I got to see my dad’s workshop. He is the lead maintenance guy at the lake community where he lives, and right next to the big clubhouse, her has a two-car garage where one half is where the fun happens. No, it’s not a dedicated workshop, but he has built many of the lake’s picnic tables, benches and other amenities right there on his workbench. It was way cool.

So, I let some stuff fly this weekend. There’s always time to work on painting and finishing the entertainment center. I know I have to catch up with some work at the St. Petersburg Woodcrafter’s Guild’s website. And, there will be a mountain of emails and assignments on my desk when I get to work tomorrow.

But, I wouldn’t have traded a minute of this weekend for anything. Three generations of Iovinos all together at once – what’s not to like?