Folks:
O'Deen requested bios, and I was tempted to post my CV, but I figured the
world is not yet ready for that level of insomnia cure. So here's the
short form:
By day: net.application developer whose primary interest happens to be
distribution of legal information, though I did stray into mass-market
Web browsers for a while.
By night: builder of mostly Shaker-style stuff and terminal tool-drooler;
in that hazy realm of user-going-collector where you can justify buying
almost anything (grin). But tools were meant to be used, dammit, and I
can't see owning something you don't know how to use. Tool collections
should be a form of honorable retirement for the tool...or something. My
philosophy on this ain't yet coherent, as you can tell -- I'm just amazed
at the ignorance of technique shown by some collectors. I have some
aspirations to doing a little minor dealing here and there, since I enjoy
pursuing the small iron, pursuit is fairly easy here in upstate NY, and
it might be fun to do full time someday when I retire from the
lawyer-baiting business.
By background: I spent several years working in showbiz (specifically
legit theater) where nothing is built to last (grin). I think in the
process of doing multiple hundreds of shows over a fifteen-year period I
saw hardwoods used twice, and only in situations where no passable fake
could be made -- specifically, a set of chairs in that lightweight
Cowboy-deco style, and I forget what the other was. It wasn't until I'd
been out of that business for several years and bought a house that I
realized how much I missed having a shop around -- and the rest is
history, or the expense side of the ledger sheet, depending on who you ask.
Not long after putting some builtin bookshelves into a room I was adding
I encountered the Evil Cult Leader Patrick Leach, and went from being a
spider dangling over the pit of Hell (as Cotton Mather would have it) to
being a Crispy Critter with a stack 'o' planes.
Ain't it grand?
Tb.
--
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| Thomas R. Bruce trb2@c... |
| Co-Director, Legal Information Institute |
| Cornell Law School Vox: 607-255-1221 |
| Myron Taylor Hall FAX: 607-255-7193 |
| Ithaca, NY 14853 |
| "Carving clowns with power tools? What could be more fun!" |
| -- _Woodwork_ magazine |
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