Jim, your drawing board setup looks really useful. Thanks for posting it.
I took a basic mechanical drawing class in high school. I wish I would have taken drafting. I didn't realize at the time how useful it would have been. I can't really draw freehand but I can layout a project with pencil and paper.
I like Sketchup quite a bit but paper still has some advantages. It may seem counter intuitive but it's sometimes easier to make changes on paper. Moreover, I can't sketch easily in Sketchup. Despite my dearth of drawing ability, I can still make rough pencil sketches and try out 4 different curves to see which looks best in 30 seconds. I can't easily or quickly do that on the computer.
-- Dan Rode
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle