Gary, I'm a fairly recent lurker, and ashamed to say that while I
live in the neighborhood so could have easily made it to
Galootapalooza, didn't realize the fun to be had and new friends to
be made there - thanks to you and Mike for sharing, and Slav for
hosting what sounds like a great time. I am looking forward to
getting in on the fun next year!

I'm also ashamed to say that LOML "dragged" me out to the meet - whose
location is only a few miles from my house. As she described the affair,
I supposed I was going to see some farm implements, and might get lucky
to see some battered, run of the mill hand tools. WELL - - WOW - - my
heart is still racing!! I've never been to a "real" tool meet before,
and although I was told that this was a light turnout due to the
weather, I saw tools that I never thought I'd see in person, and
actually be able to paw over. I must have lost my senses for a bit,
'cause next thing I knew, I had a bag full of goodies, and an empty
wallet - - In fact, in a dramatic effort to cure me of this sickness,
SWMBO made an ATM run to get more funds - - see, it goes like this:
Remember the tale of a parent catching jr. smoking, and in a misguided
effort to thwart the emerging habit, forced him to smoke the whole pack
at once in order to get him sick, and hence never smoke again - - - -
well... I don't recommend this approach when it comes to galooting, but
am quite happy that she tried so valiantly.

I do want to publicly add my thanks and appreciation to the MWTCA for
this wonderful event, and any of you on the porch that added to some
enjoyable conversation and rust hunting - - I was the guy walking around
with glazed over eyes Gordon Rubbing hands in glee just west of Chicago

-----Original Message----- From: gmaze@s... [mailto:gmaze@s...]Sent:
Monday, August 06, 2007 12:30 PM To: oldtools@r... Subject: [OldTools]
Galootapalooza 12! or The Manhattan Project review

Looks like Mike Duchaj beat me to the punch, but he didn't have the 6-
1/2 hour drive I had (thank you downtown Chicago traffic) and I am sure
he had a lot more sleep than me...

Saturday morning dawned bright and early and as always when I get
involved with one of Slav's schemes, I showed up way earlier than
expected (stupid Daylight Savings Time, we used to be the same time as
Chicago in the summer, now we're an hour ahead), so I am partly to blame
for the cleanliness of the shop...

The first wave arrived in the late morning and included Mike "The Rat"
Urness with the fixings for Sushi, Wes Groot, Mike Duchaj, Matt Mulka
and a cast of characters that I have since forgotten due to lack of
sleep and a bad memory, which is probably a welcome thing as not
everyone may have wanted to be identified due to outstanding warrants,
unpaid traffic tickets, terrorist profiling, etc. While Mr. Urness
created the sushi (AKA bait food, per Slav and Ralph Brendler), I
guarded the table from the very curious and apparently ravenously hungry
shop cats. While that was going on, there was lots of talking, drooling
over tools and wood, and the general unorganized chaos and laughter that
happens when a bunch of galoots get together.

About 5 PM the second shift arrived consisting of Ralph Brendler, Mark
Van Roojen and Russ Allen. They arrived with a Stickley rocking chair
that Mark had found at a flea market and would not let go of until
Ralph had bought it. There was quite a bit of visiting, show and tell,
BS'ing and an in-depth discussion of how to fix the loose tenon in
Ralph's chair, and what to do with the genuine original Stickley
bailing wire holding the bottom of said chair together. I always knew
that guys were capable of mentally undressing cute members of the
opposite sex, but I had never met guys that mentally disassembled
chairs before. The next day (after only 3-1/2 hours sleep) we loaded up
and headed to Garfield farms for tool pillaging. The day did not start
very auspiciously, since it was pouring down rain when I arrived. But
after some more BS'ing, visiting under the bottom porch of the main
house and breakfast, the rain finally broke and the field slowly
opened. For those of you who have never been to a sanctioned tool meet,
be prepared for some pretty serious sensory overload. I have been
training myself to listen carefully for the sound old iron makes when
it is moved around at garage sales, and I think my ears were seriously
overloaded that day. Because of the rain, the tools were slow to come
out, so the crowd was moving from one site to another all at the same
time as each dealer set up his stuff.

After about 2 hours of wandering around, Ralph, Wes, Russ and Mark
were kind enough to invite me to breakfast where we met up with
Mike Lindgren, and of course, more BSing, tool acquisition stories,
etc went on.

At the meet, I ended up getting a #191 rabbet plane, complete with
nicker and depth stop to help my #192 feel less lonely, and a complete
#71 to be a friend to the #71-1/2 I already own, not that I am
anthropomorphizing my tools at all....

Highlights -

Some great Mike Urness sushi.

Relieving Ralph Brendler of his old lathe (unfortunately SWMBO and the
neighbor that usually helps unload heavy stuff are both out of town so
the lathe table is still riding around with me in the back of the van).
Yes it is electron powered, but I bought a couple of other hand tools to
make up for it.

Seeing Mark Van Roojens' very gizmonic automatic door morticing machine.

Seeing Russ Allen's 50 cent perfect condition Stanley 79 from a
garage sale.

Seeing Ralph ID a piece of chipboard from across the room as quilted
maple (evidently beer goggles make wood look better, too)

Getting a personal tour of Peter Ambrose the abstract woodcarvers studio
next door to Slavs (Thanks, Wes!)

Watching Mark Van Roojen order crepes with "way more powdered sugar than
you would ever expect anyone to use" (direct quote to the waitress) for
them and then use most of it.

Seeing Slav play his role as file and wood pusher, by leaving files and
beutiful chunks of wood everywhere.

Getting to meet in person many of the list denizens that I had only
met on-line.

I have a few pictures, but they are locked up in the camera right now,
hopefully I will get some time in the next few days to post them to
Galoot Central.

Gary Maze

Looking forward to next year already

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