Welcome to The Workshop

When I introduced the new Wheelchair Dad, I talked about this being more than a name change or a new logo. As Jacob gets older, his story becomes increasingly his to tell, and that gives Wheelchair Dad room to evolve too.

I’m still a dad. I’m still a husband. I’m still a guy living with cerebral palsy. Those things aren’t separate parts of my life that I can neatly file into different folders. They overlap, collide, and occasionally create some pretty interesting stories.

But there’s another part of the equation I’ve probably never given enough room around here.

I’m also just Glenn. I’m not sure if thats a good thing!

I have projects I want to try, problems I want to solve, technology I want to play with, things I see that make absolutely no sense to me, and random thoughts that somehow appear while I’m driving and refuse to leave my brain.

I needed somewhere for all of that to go.

So…

Welcome to The Workshop.

Every Guy Has His Thing

I’ve noticed that most husbands eventually seem to develop a thing.

Some guys disappear into the garage and work on cars.

Some build beautiful things out of wood.

Some become so obsessed with their lawns that I’m reasonably certain individual blades of grass receive quarterly performance reviews.

Then there’s me.

Give me my brain, a computer, and a 3D printer, and apparently I’m good for the weekend.

I don’t need an engine hanging from a lift. Nobody should trust me with a table saw. And if you’re looking for perfectly striped grass, you’ve definitely come to the wrong house.

My workshop looks a little different.

And I like it that way.

It’s Not Really About the Tools

Calling this section The Workshop might make it sound like everything here is going to involve building something.

Some of it absolutely will.

I’ve fallen hard into 3D printing. I love taking an idea from my head, putting it on a computer, tinkering with it, and eventually holding the finished object in my hand.

There will be projects. There will be technology. There will be accessibility ideas. There will probably be things I design for my wheelchair, our house, Jacob, and whatever other problem happens to catch my attention.

There will also be failures.

Probably plenty of failures.

But that’s only half of The Workshop.

Sometimes the Thing I’m Working On Is an Idea

The other half doesn’t require filament, a screwdriver, or anything else you’d normally expect to find on a workbench.

Sometimes I see something and think:

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

Sometimes something happens to me and I don’t quite know what I think about it yet.

Sometimes I notice something about being a husband, being a dad, living with cerebral palsy, accessibility, technology, or just dealing with other human beings that gets stuck in my head.

And then there are the thoughts that show up while I’m driving.

Those may be the most dangerous ones.

I’ll be somewhere between home and wherever I’m headed when my brain suddenly decides, You know what we haven’t thought about nearly enough? This completely random thing.

By the time I get where I’m going, I’ve mentally written half a blog post about something I wasn’t even thinking about when I left the driveway.

That belongs in The Workshop too.

Because sometimes you work on an object.

Sometimes you work on a problem.

And sometimes you just need somewhere to process the stupid shit you see and experience in everyday life.

This is that somewhere.

I Don’t Need to Be the Expert

That’s another thing I want The Workshop to be.

I’m not interested in suddenly becoming the guy who pretends to be an expert on everything because he owns a website.

If I’m learning something, I’ll tell you I’m learning it.

If I try something and it doesn’t work, you may get to see that too.

If I have an opinion, I’ll tell you why I have it. You can decide whether you agree with me.

And if I start with one opinion and eventually realize I was wrong?

That’s allowed in here too.

A workshop isn’t where you display only the finished product.

It’s where you work things out.

I think ideas deserve the same freedom.

Some Things Will Fit. Some Won’t.

Not every Workshop post will be about disability.

Not every post will be about parenting.

Not every project will solve some important accessibility problem.

Sometimes I may make something simply because it’s cool.

Sometimes I may write about something simply because I can’t stop thinking about it.

That’s actually one of the reasons I’m excited about this new chapter of Wheelchair Dad.

For a long time, I would have an idea and immediately start trying to decide whether it was “Wheelchair Daddy enough.”

Where does it fit?

Is it parenting?

Is it disability?

Is it advocacy?

Is there enough of a connection to justify writing about it?

I’m done doing that.

If it comes from the intersection of being Glenn, a husband, a dad, and a guy rolling through life with cerebral palsy, it fits.

Welcome to the freedom of having your own workshop.

First Thing on the Workbench

Of course, we need something to officially open the place.

Fortunately, I have just the thing.

Over the last few months, I’ve developed what we will politely call a 3D-printing hobby.

“Obsession” feels unnecessarily judgmental.

What started as something Jacob and I could learn together has turned into me looking around our house wondering what I can design, organize, improve, adapt, or completely overcomplicate with a 3D printer.

I’ve also discovered something I didn’t expect.

3D printing gets particularly interesting when you’ve spent much of your life adapting to things that weren’t necessarily designed with you in mind.

Suddenly, instead of always figuring out how I can adapt to an object, I have another option.

Maybe I can make the object adapt to me.

That’s a rabbit hole worth exploring.

And we’re going down it Wednesday.

The Doors Are Open

On Wednesday, I’m kicking off a four-part series about my jump into 3D printing.

I’ll share how I got started, some of the things I’ve made, what I’ve learned, what hasn’t gone according to plan, and eventually I’ll put my Bambu Lab P2S under the microscope from two different perspectives.

First, as a regular consumer.

Then as someone who uses a wheelchair and lives with cerebral palsy.

But 3D printing isn’t what The Workshop is about.

It’s simply the first thing on the workbench.

Next month it could be another project. A piece of technology. An accessibility problem. Something about being a dad. Something I saw in a parking lot that irritated me. Or one of those random thoughts that hits somewhere around the third red light on the way home.

That’s the beauty of this space.

There are things to make.

Problems to solve.

Ideas to question.

Experiences to unpack.

And probably a little stupid shit to talk about along the way.

The Workshop is officially open.

Let’s see what happens.