My wife has more ideas than any human being on the planet. She is a veritable fountain of ideas. In fact, I've often told her that we should set up a website called ideas-R-us. Then people who have no ideas could log on and for a small fee, she could provide them with more ideas than they will ever need.

What got me thinking about this was a recent post on a woodworking forum in which the poster asked: Where do you get your ideas? It may sound like a joke but it's really not. Ideas are not always easy to come by, even for very creative people.

Recently, I had occasion to be standing under an oak tree when a gall fell and landed at my feet. It might just as easily have bonked me on the head. But it was almost perfectly round and, being the kind of guy who thinks in an off the wall way from time to time, I thought, "hey, wonder if I can turn this?" I was able to get it held on my lathe in a vacuum chuck and hollowed it out. Then I mounted it on a delicate turned stem. Everyone keeps saying how brilliant this was. But I know the truth. It literally hit me!

D.D.