We’re stuck in the office today and tomorrow, which means no shop time for us.  We’re always down in the dumps when we don’t get our shop fix, so how ’bout sharing a bit of yours by posting some new pics to the photo pool?

We’d love to see an unboxing of your latest tool, some pics of your latest project, or even an artsy shot of the scrap metal piled out back.  Yep, we’re geeks that way.

Signing up for Flickr is free, as is joining the Toolmonger group.  We’ll be watching!

Toolmonger’s Photo Pool [Flickr]

PS: Ooh!  Someone send in another pic of your car stuffed full of lumber.  I swear I’ll post it.

Yesterday Jalopnik reported that Bob Nardelli — famous to Toolmongers as the guy who got rid of all the good help at your local Home Depot, replacing them with home-office-controlled automotons — was named the new CEO of Chrysler.

Is this a good thing?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe I’m just bitter because during Nardelli’s reign I had a hell of a time finding anyone at the ‘Depot who knew more than the average Joe about hardware.

[via]

We’re on the prowl for bloggers who have a passion for tools and all things Toolmonger.  If you’ve got what it takes to join the Toolmonger team, drop us a line at jobs (at) toolmonger.com with the subject line “Toolmonger Writer Search.”  In the body give us your name, your three favorite tools, and two original, unpublished posts of around 50 to 200 words in the Toolmonger style.

A few notes: We’ll delete all emails with attachments, so include all your text in the email body itself.  Not the world’s best writer?  If you’re the world’s best tool finder, we might be able to help.  Our biggest requirements are that you’re interested and that you’re committed.

Good luck!

Just a quick bit of Toolmonger news: over the weekend we installed some back-office upgrades to help Toolmonger handle the additional traffic we’ve received over the last few months.  So, if you’ve experienced slow loading or other such issues with Toolmonger recently, you should see an improvement.  Now back to the important stuff: tools!

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.

And if you haven’t voted in a while, you should start!  This is how we select the material for the Tool Talk podcast as well as posts we send out to a number of other blogs.  Let your opinions be heard!

For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

Some MIT students converted a formerly-old-and-uninteresting Porsche 914 into a full electric, garnering them some press from everything-blog BoingBoing and eco-friendly Treehugger – and the envy of Prius owners everywhere.  It turns out that the simple Volkswagen-like transaxle makes for a conversion so easy that numerous kits are available.

The most interesting note in this symphony of green is the fact that they used “lithium phosphate rechargable batteries.”  From what we hear, this is the technology that — once it gets cheap enough for Joe Everyman to afford — will let the big three deliver practical plug-in hybrids.

In the meantime, they claim the electrified German will top out at around 100 mph and travel 100 miles on a charge.  We’ll see.

(Thanks for the tip, nrChris!)

MIT Students Convert Porsche 914 To Electric [Treehugger]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

Monday morning we challenged our friends at This Old House magazines “The Hardware Aisle” blog to a challenge: we’d each post all the “patriotic gear” we could find over the next few days, then let you vote on your favorite item today, July 4th.

The winner receives… well, not much: a piece of autographed memorabilia and the pride of winning.  But no matter who wins, we had a great time posting some tools that we wouldn’t normally focus on, and the whole project really got us in the holiday mood.

So if you can, take a minute and vote for your favorite (click on the name to see the full post):

For those of you who’ve emailed to let us know you’re more interested in tools than flag-covered tools, don’t worry: while you’ll see a lot of July 4th-related gear today and tomorrow, you’ll note that we’re posting these items in addition to our normal load of normal, practical tools.

Don’t worry — we won’t forget about the good stuff!  And thanks for letting us know you’re reading.

Update: Thanks as well for the emails supporting our mini July 4th blitz.  We’re proud of our colors, too!

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

I’ll admit that I’m a total sucker for these kind of articles.  I actually keep a search out on Google to find them.  Why?  They remind me of why I got interested in making things in the first place.  Listen to Cadillac Michigan High School freshman Curtis Baum:

“I was looking at magazines and found a clock that looked cool, but it broke.  I tried it again and it broke,” he said.  “So I decided to make my own design.  I like fire and flames and thought if I liked it I would build it.”

Not only did he build a flame clock, he entered it in the Michigan Industrial Technology Education Society regional show — and won second place.

So, Curtis, here’s a message from your (new) friends at Toolmonger: fire and flames rock, and so do you.

Cadillac Students Take Their Skills to the Industrial Art Level [Cadillac News]

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

This is just a reminder to everyone that we tablulate the weekly Top 5 votes tomorrow, so if you haven’t yet made your feelings known, now’s the time.  For latecomers (or those who’ve forgotten):

Help us choose this week’s Top 5!

We’d appreciate your help in choosing next week’s Top 5, which’ll be featured here, elsewhere, and in the podcast as well.  While you’re reading TM this week, look out for the “Interesting Post” button at the bottom of each article:

When you see an article that piques your interest, click the button once.  You’ll return to the same page, but TM’s software’ll score your click for future reference.  We’ll check in on the totals before selecting next week’s Top 5.

Even More Information for The Curious [Toolmonger]

PS: If you don’t already subscribe, be sure to check out our free Tool Talk podcast where you can hear Sean and me run down the top five in person.  We also bring in guests from time to time and answer any questions you call in.

We set up a Flickr group to give all you Toolmongers a chance to show off your favorite tools, your projects, and your shops.  We kicked things off by adding some additional photos of our Guitar Hero controller project from a while back, and we’ll try to hit the shop tonight and snag a few more photos for you.

But you’re the stars of this photo group.  We want to see what you’re working on and what tools you’re using to do it!  Got a favorite drill that’s taken a beating and still works?  You grandfather’s hand saw?  A new tool you bought yesterday and haven’t had a chance to use yet?  Shoot a quick picture and upload it. 

We’ll select some of our favorites from time to time and feature them in posts here on Toolmonger, but you can always see all — and comment on — all the photos in the Toolmonger Flickr pool.  And you’ll also see the five most recent photos in center column here on the blog.

Sharing your pictures with us via Flickr is easy.  If you’re already a Flickr member (it’s free) you simply join the Toolmonger group and you can add your photos at will.  If you’re not a Flickr member, you’ll need to sign up, but relax — they don’t ask for a lot of personal information and the service is easy to use.

If you have questions or concerns, just drop us a line and we’ll do what we can to help out.  In the meantime, we look forward to getting a look at your shop and tools!

From the Carroll County Times:

Tom Miley, technology education teacher and adviser of the woodworking club for the New Windsor Middle School Community Learning Center, said that rather than have the after-school students make another trinket, he wanted to offer a bigger project.

Apparently Mr. Miley’s “bigger projects” included two Adirondack-style chairs and three wooden wishing wells, which the New Windsor Middle School students built successfully over the last five weeks.  The students’ work will be auctioned at the New Windsor Fire Carnival starting June 4th to benefit the local volunteer fire department.  The auction ends June 8th, one day before the end of the carnival.

We always enjoy stories of the people who take time to introduce young people to the art of working with their hands, so if you’re in the New Windsor area, why not drop by and bid on the furniture?  You’d not only help a good cause, but you’d also help show some enterprising middle school students that woodworking is a skill that lasts a lifetime.

Students Make Furniture [Caroll County Times]

(Thanks to KiltBear for the great cc-licensed photo above, which isn’t one of the kids’ chairs, but is a great example of an Adirondack used as it should be.)

Make no bones about it: though we keep our advertising sales and editorial work entirely separate, it’s advertisers who pay our bills and make it possible for us to continue bringing you your daily tool fix.  So with that in mind, we’d like to say a special thank you to Harbor Freight who recently bought the ad you see in the right sidebar.

As you can see from previous posts, we were fans of Harbor Freight long before they bought an ad, and will continue to be fans long after they move on — though not too soon, we hope.  (And we know from Interesting Post clicks that you’re fans, too.)  Ad or no ad, we’ll keep posting the cool (and cheap) stuff we find there, ragging on them for selling rubber frogs and Suduku games, and buying too much stuff from them every time we visit the store.

Anyway, thanks again to Harbor Freight for paying some of the TM bills, and be sure to check out their weekly sales — which are handily linked to the ad.

Now back to your schedule Toolmonger programming…