Hi! I’m Steve Summers, husband of Patti since 2015, father of Mike and Nick, and former Chief Architect (& Co-founder) of DRB Systems. I’ve been retired since 2017, and since then, I’ve been busier than I ever was while “employed”. Since I’m no longer focused on automating the carwash industry, I’ve had more (potentially!) great ideas than I’ll ever have time to pursue.
About my web site:
When I was a kid (around 11 or 12), my next-door neighbor, a retired guy in his early 70’s, gave me his old riding lawn-mower and access to his tools and garage, where I took the engine apart and put it back together and got it running again. I learned a lot and had a great time, and since then I’ve always wanted to have a workshop where the grandkids and their friends could learn to use tools and build stuff. Well, now I have one. I’m ready!
But the grandkids aren’t, and between COVID and their complicated schedules, they haven’t been around much. And besides, some of this stuff might be interesting to other people, possibly for their own kids or grandkids. Doing a blog is a great way to share project progress and photos, along with some of those other (potentially) great ideas, with a wider audience.
About the name “Blabatory”:
I didn’t want to call the website “Grandpa Steve’s Workshop”, because that would imply an emphasis on “work”. Being retired, I no longer have time for that! So I was going to call it my “laboratory”. (If they let Dexter and Jimmy (and even Grandpa Rick) have them, Why shouldn’t I?) But “laboratory” implies “labor”, and I don’t have time for that either! So I have (for now?) decided on “blabatory”. That’s like a laboratory, but with much more blabbing than laboring. 😉
Definitely an idea I can get behind, as you’ll see in the rest of this site.