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256888 Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> 2015‑11‑06 Claudio in Waterloo Bio
Mr Elf suggested I contribute a bio...so here goes:
Hello everyone- I am going to over-share...
My name is Claudio de Lorenzi, and this is my bio.
I'm a 58 yo plastic surgeon in aesthetic private practice in
Kitchener-Waterloo, about 45 minutes from Toronto Pearson Airport  (I
primarily do facial, breast, and abdominal aesthetic surgery).  I've has
been involved with various medical research and development projects over
the years, including facial fillers and non surgical technologies of
various sorts.   I'm  past president of the Canadian Society of Aesthetic
Plastic Surgery as well as Past President of the Canadian Laser Aesthetic
Surgery Society.   I was also the Surgeon in Chief at our local hospital
system about 25 years ago (holy crap, that long ago?!)  I've been actively
involved in various plastic surgery societies both in Canada and the USA,
and I've been active on various boards, committees, including the National
Board of Medical Examiners in the US, and I was a travelling professor with
American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.  I am currently on the
Editorial Board of the Aesthetic Journal and a reviewer for a half dozen
plus other journals blah blah run on sentences are a specialty of mine.  I
trained in Toronto and London and before I did medicine,  I started off in
Engineering.  I loved school.  I took a self directed quantum physics
course two years ago in my spare time.  I still love school.  I am married
for over 30 years to Paula, an accountant with her own business.  I have
two grown children.  My son has his own internet start up and has been very
successful (he has dozens of employees now), and my daughter bounced back
home after graduating with an Honors English degree.  She worked at menial
jobs for a couple of years (having discovered that society places little
value on expertise in Shakespeare and Byron), and she is now back in school
to train as a vet tech.  I hope she decides to eventually pursue her dream
of becoming a writer, despite the risk that entails.

  My father was an upholsterer, and my mom cleaned houses for a living.
They both worked hard as immigrants to our great country of Canada.  It was
a golden time in the 1950's, when it was still possible to come here, work
hard,  buy a home, raise children,  and make a living.  I used to help my
dad in the shop, taking out billions and billions of tacks and staples and
whatever from wooden frames of couches, divans, sofas, chairs, etc etc.  He
taught me how to fix frames, mortise and tenon, stub tenon, haunched
tenons, dados, yada yada.  Eventually  he trusted me enough to work on the
outsides- he  had me repairing/refinishing the exposed wooden parts.  I
liked the wood working part of the job, and that is how I got started in my
life long love affair with wood and the tools for working it.  We did not
have any power tools, everything was done by hand, and my dad did not even
own a simple electric drill until about 1967, and he finally broke down and
got a compressor in the mid 1970's and from then on,  he no longer had to
have a mouth full of razor sharp tacks(BTW, that is how they used to use
 those magnetic tipped upholstery hammers- I still remember, thwip-tap,
thwip-tap, thwip-tap).  I like woodturning, cabinet making, and tool
collecting for its own sake.  I have a pretty extensive collection that is
not focused on anything.  Eventually, I will divest myself of much of it
and focus on something particular, but meanwhile I go around to flea
markets, antique places etc and if I see something I like, I buy it.  I
like old British tools the best (but I own lots of old American and
Canadian made tools also), Marples and many other old Sheffield names are
particular favorites, and I never met a backsaw I did not like.  I honestly
do not know how many planes I have, but it is in the hundreds.  Handsaws
are not even sorted in crates- I have an embarrassing number of those too.
Ditto for chisels, I love chisels, particularly old British ones-  so many
names- wonderful old carbon steel.  I love the old London pattern handles
particularly in boxwood, and I have gotten pretty good at making new ones
out of other sustainable woods.  I made entire sets of screw drivers with
Walnut London pattern handles as Christmas gifts.  My brother in law put
his on display, rather than using them as intended.  I am also interested
in metal work, and a few years ago I spent some days with a local
blacksmith.  I found it enjoyable and now I have been planning on building
a small smithing studio in the backyard.  Next year, I hope to spend some
time with master turners and have some quality one on one time.

I am pretty busy with my day job(s)- I have a private practice and I run my
private surgical center.  I also work for two drug companies and I also
 have some teaching responsibilities, so I don't get as much shop time as I
would like.   I go to way too many medical meetings- like every few weeks.
I'm often a speaker at these meetings, and I travel quite a bit to attend.
I've been all over the world for work- in the last month or so I've been to
Dublin- Ireland, Cannes-France, Miami- Florida, this weekend I'm in
Toronto, and next weekend I'm back in the US- Las Vegas. It's basically
been like that for the past 10 years or so, and I'm getting pretty sick of
airports! On the other hand, I have seen the world, and I can now feel
comfortable in saying that the best place to live on earth is your own home.
  I have always been interested in photography, astronomy and several other
hobbies, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Politically, I am a fiscal conservative, and a policy liberal.  I dislike
that we have sold our birthright.  I hate the fact that we have allowed
almost all of our local manufacturing jobs to go to other countries.  I
rage that our young people have basically zero hope of ever finding a
non-cashier,  non barista job here, unless they are smart enough and lucky
enough to work for themselves.  We used to make things, manufacture things,
many of these things were good.  Things that were good, fit for purpose,
and lasted a long time.   I'm angry with our society, for ever pushing for
cheaper and cheaper goods (where cost is more important than function), and
I rage that it is basically almost impossible to buy anything good anymore.
I rage that our hardware stores are full to the brim with cheap crap that
doesn't work when you buy it, breaks easily, and is usually a heartbeat
away from landfill at the point of purchase.  Tools we manufactured here
used to last for a lifetime, or at least decades. Now, apart from Veritas,
and LN, and maybe a few small boutique guys making a living on premium
items, almost everything is junk.

 I am disappointed that manual skills training and apprentice positions are
almost a rarity now- instead, Governments use that to help bail out banks
that were gambling with our money.  I am disappointed that our media chase
stories of nipple slips rather than substantive issues that matter to our
very survival on this planet.  But they are only providing what people
want.  I'm disappointed that our system produces politicians who have to be
skilled in obfuscation and not saying ...anything.  The only people who go
into politics now could not even run a convenience store, but we are
getting what we deserve, I suppose.  The only good political debates are on
NPR or the CBC, who need to do this on ever decreasing budgets.  Everyone
is afraid of taking a position, or saying anything, because the media will
basically work to devastate anyone that says or does anything, since there
is a rage industry that is outraged about ...everything.    Myself, I feel
like one of the two old Muppets on the balcony, complaining about
everything!
  Hopefully, we are heading towards a time of a new Renaissance, when we
finally realize the importance of sustainability, not pooping where we eat,
and planning for the future of our civilization.  My greatest fear is that
we are heading towards a new Dark Ages, when stupidity, greed, and
Idiocracy overtakes us all.

 I don't know what is going to happen, but young people are inheriting a
real mess, and I will just have to trust that they will figure out what to
do like young people always have.

 I do go and putter in the shop, but hope to do much more of that when I
retire. OK, maybe I have already over-shared enough, and I suppose that
anyone who has read this far is pretty much bored by this point, so I'll
end it here, job done!  Just like everything else, I over do it.   But,
 I'm happy to do an AMA or whatever at some point, meanwhile I'm happy to
participate in this group and enjoy the discussions about old tools and how
to use them.
Cheers,
Claudio in Waterloo

Recent Bios FAQ