Kohai999
Second Degree Cutter
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2003
- Messages
- 12,554
After a SoCal special redeye that had me landing on Thursday morning, discovered I hate the HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International Airport. My plane was on the ground, at the gate for 20 minutes before they roused someone from their nap to let us off the plane. We hiked 2 miles to get to the car rental counter. On the good side, returning to SoCal on Monday morning, I had my bag checked and was through the security line in less than 25 minutes, and that is A-OK.
The Renaissance Waverly continues to be a fairly decent place to stay. The lobby area is attractive, staff relatively attentive, and the Medici restaurant offers decent quality food, at a fair price. Rooms are uninspired, utilitarian and the bathrooms are on the lower scale of functional. There is a $10.00 receiving fee for shipping a UPS package to the hotel which I did not know about, and they kindly waived. A bathroom fan would have been appreciated, especially with Joe Paranee as a roommate.
I met Joe face to face for the first time at this show, but we talk almost every day on the phone. He is about the same height as me, 20 lbs lighter, and way less fat. I have 15" biceps, Joe has got to be going at least 20", and when he flexes his traps it is like a cobra hood. Great guy, we had an awesome time hanging out at the show, never stopped laughing..... he is 1/2 retarded(NOT mentally handicapped....retarded
), and that provided for some amazingly boneheaded moves.
Woke a napping Joe up around 12:30 pm with three fingers of Woodford Reserve
, and we got to the showroom about 2:00 pm on Thursday, after getting a 4" Tanto from Wally Hayes....would personally call it more of a kozuka or kwaiken, but that is subjective. 1084 differentially hardened, cord wrap over black rayskin....probably one of the most value priced, high-quality customs at Blade 2010:thumbup:, and happy to have Wally give me the opportunity to purchase it. Shot around a bit, mostly visiting with friends, Amy-O from Busse was total sweetness this year, usually I get a hug, but she deigned to kiss me...on the lips, and it made me all tingly...that girl rocks a pair of black slacks like a betty 10 years younger.
Joe and I got thirsty and hungry and went to the hotel bar for some sustenance around 4:30 pm, and decided to head up to the CKCA banquet at Maggiano's Little Italy. We were fashionably late, but it was not by design, rather by inattention. The food was great, the company was better, and the feeling of community was a theme of the entire trip. We ALL are part of this community, we ALL can be change agents for the more positive, for the stronger, for the stand against mediocrity, indifference and unfairness. This was driven home for me by a number of very personal experiences, mostly good, a few very negative. Kevin Jones had asked me to say a few words introducing Dr. Darom's fantastic new book-The World of Art Knives, which I staggered through, and pulled Joe's name from the envelope for a donated copy that Dr. Darom generously tendered. I assure you, this was random chance.
Joe and I left early to set up a mini-show in our hotel room, featuring the works of Jason Knight. While Joe was on the potty, I score a kick-butt kiridashi from Jason with amber stag and damascus.....Joe was very sad.....you poo, you lose...Peter Gill was debating the purchase of Jason's damascus fighter with blackened bronze guard and blackwood handle...but passed, and I picked up that too.....then a whole bunch of people came up to the room, and we partied like rock stars....I vaguely remember cracking Jon Brand in the keister region with my 4' Victor Tella blacksnake ...and I passed out sometime around 3:00 am.
6:30 am Friday came way too quick....my body is going to shiite quicker and quicker each year, and agony has come along for the ride. We went down to meet Pappy Long for breakfast around 8:30, and he wanted to say a few words to Joseph and I ....intimating that we did something bad....what he said had me and Joe rolling, and that hurt....I almost crapped my pants. Paul Kessler and Jim Treacy joined us shortly afterwards, and we were able to look at and discuss Paul's award winning folder set....truly a magnificent accomplishment,even the curly maple display case was a treasure.
The first thing I did once on the show floor was head over to Strider/Starlingear for some silver beads. Jade had a nice selection, and there were a couple models that I wanted, as you know, they always sell out quickly. A tad on the spendy side, but Starlingear is the only company doing like they do, and that makes it must have if you have the itch. Been working on a paracord keychain dangle with silver beads for a year, and I needed these to finish it. After that started looking for handle materials, and found some of the most KILLER black lip pearl at Culpepper's....$225.00 and worth every penny...of course, also found some great white pearl, but the black is the hard-to-find stuff...the fire and figure is 3D and black all the way through.
Got a chance to walk the Guild/stock removal side of the room with Ed Schempp for a little while and we stopped an talked to Joe Kious. Joe is a heck of a nice guy and a great maker. He had a somewhat rough time of it at the show, as two major collections had recently come up for sale, thusly flooding the market. I moved on, and found Chuck Bybee and Alpha Knife Supply. Picked up a good sized block of curly koa, a real nice piece of amboyna burl, and a beautiful piece of fossil ivory artifact that I gifted to Phil Lobred. Visited with a few other folks and got dragged off the floor by Joe so we could have lunch at Jock and Jill's(very lumpy clam chowder which sucked, and fried shrimp, while tasty, I could only finish about 6 pieces of)....got to chat with Gray and Evelyn Taylor....they are some of the nicest people and after close to 47 years of marriage, were holding hands at lunch like high school kids, brings a smile to the face. We went back into the show room, and rolled around for a while, I picked up a pearl handled Q36 delivery from R.J. Martin, and completely misunderstood the Bose drawing at 3:30 pm and then I had to watch the CKCA booth for an hour at 5:00 pm.
After that Joe, me and Matt Diskin hung out for a while, and then had dinner at Medici in the hotel. We had the meat and cheese plate(excellent), I had a caprese salad(nice quality), the cauliflower pasta(superb) and the veal scallopini(overcooked and I sent it back). The Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon was wonderful. After dinner, we hung out in the pit, and I smoked an Arturo Fuente Opus Opus X that I picked up in Orlando two years ago. Very nice cigar.... prefer the corona gauges myself.....was leaving the floor and wound up having a nice conversation with Ken Onion...always nice seeing him....Ken provided some excellent advice a number of years ago when my wife was suffering from a blown out disc and attendant sciatica. Bedtime came around 2:30 pm.
Saturday morning wasn't half bad, we sort of slept in and got moving around 9:00 am. We went down to the breakfast buffet again('bout $20.00, seriously high priced) and I had an egg white scramble with fresh spinach, mozzarella, tomato and white onions, sausages and smoked salmon....protein centric is a good way to start the day....also water and cranberry juice to help the kidneys and get/stay hydrated.
First thing I did was look around the showroom for muskox horn. Jantz Supply had a nice piece, but it was $220.00. I heard that Mark from the Forums up in Alaska had a bunch, but I didn't stop by his table....Mark, if you read this, please send me a PM, I have some questions, as this is a visually arresting material, but I know NOTHING about working it. After that I found Tom Mayo who had two pieces to deliver to me, one AWESOME current pattern large wharncliffe, and an EDC. I visited with Dave Ellis for a little while, said hi to Burt Foster, and Kevin Cashen and his lovely wife and went over to Matt Diskin's booth, around 12:00 pm.
Joe was there too, and after watching Matt's near-comatose salesmanship, we kicked into gear and sold the living crap out of Volcan knives...I mean we crushed it....and were there for four hours, with a brief break for lunch around 2:45pm with Pappy Long. Now, the intention was just to help out a little bit, but once Joe got going with his boardwalk carny schtick, we started a little competition to see who could sell the most, and the time flew by. It was quite fun, and all Matt could do is step back in awe. Someday, we will get him to accept the proper way to collect and fold money, but baby steps, baby steps.
After lunch, I visited with Coop, Mrs. Coop, and HTMD for a while in the lair where the magic happens.....and then did my tour at the CKCA booth. Started giving this fella with his feet on my chair a ration of crap and got one big slice of humble pie. This fella is Micah, young man from Vegas who is going through the toughest fight of his life against lung cancer. This was one personal conversation, as I just had a chest x-ray last Wednesday, and was awaiting the results(all clear, but you know how it goes)....my big pep talk for Micah was that he should get through this and find out that life just doesn't get any easier...the struggle continues, and I don't have any answer as to why we keep on going...but we do.
After taking leave of the CKCA booth, went back to the room to get ready for dinner at Bones with the Coop's, Buddy T, Joe Paranee, Paul Long, Sandy Morrissey, Kevin Jones, Robert Kaufmann from Germany, Sarah McCleod, Mike Ruth Jr, Henry Torres and Steven Rapp.
Put on a nice suit....figured, I organized the dinner, and don't want to look like a clown, telling the wait staff what to do with boat shoes on. Hadn't worked out the transpo to a "T", but Mike Ruth Jr came through like flying aces with a Suburban/Tahoe/Land Beast...and we all piled in. The private room they put us in was like Grandma's dining room circa 1974. The company was GREAT, the vibe was GREAT, the service was pretty good, the food was a 6 on a scale of 10....but they got sneaky with the charges piling up, and I will never eat there again. I will say that Kevin Rathbun Steakhouse in Atlanta when we were there in 2008 rocked the food, but the room we had at Bones was better for what we were trying to do. Mike Ruth Jr. got the Peck award that day, and Steven Rapp go an award for Best Fixed Blade....with the best sheath maker alive(Paul Long), and one of the best knife photographers(Coop), we had a serious representation of the community at that table....and didn't talk about knives that much at all. It just felt good to be a person having a nice meal with friends for that time, and everyone else seemed to feel the same way....or it might just have been the 3 bottles of '05 Silver Oak that we consumed.
We got back to The Pit about 10:00 pm and things were in full swing. Shot the breeze with Steve Dunn and Harvey Dean for a bit. Had been carrying around a Cubano Romeo y Julieta gifted by a Canadian friend, and went up to the room to fetch Mike Talanian an American Cohiba....chattted and smoked with both Todd and Tanya Begg until that puppy was toast, and went inside. Even at 10:00 pm, it was over 80 degrees F, and muggy. Once inside the cool air conditioning soothed, and entered a brief but animated conversation with Mary Emerson....good stuff. Carried on with Michael Burch and Jody(Amish) Muller, and then got into a nice discussion with Tommie and Thomas of Kershaw and R.J. Martin that lasted much of the rest of the night, finally wound up hanging with the NY/NJ boys around Aldo Bruno, and crashed at 2:00 am.
My unwanted friend Agony woke me up at 6:00 am, again, and I thought there was a trip to the hospital this fine day, but had enough various medications left over to walk..and give Joe a small tattoo..must have had 2 liters of water before some small semblance of feeling normal appeared. Joseph had breakfast about 9:00 am, but I just walked around in circles in The Pit. Made the rounds at the show until 10:00 am, and did the Loveless Tour. Thanks again to Dave Ellis, John Denton, Rhett Stidham and Lou DeSantis. After the tour, Joe Paranee wanted to hang out for a while because he was leaving at 1:00 pm. We hung up in the room, squared up some paperwork, and put his sorry ass in a cab....hope you can make it out to Vegas, Joe.
On the way back, I dropped of a box of knives to ship home, and returned to Matt's booth to help out for a while, and walked around the corner to the ACE booth-a collaborative effort spearheaded by the scruffy genius that is Tom Ferry(if you have never handled one of Tom's folding tanto, you are missing out), featuring Jon Christensen, Dave Lisch and Mike Vagnino. I was struck by Dave Lisch's work in particular, it has superb steel and unique styling that makes it stand out and above from many other makers. Quite something, considering the short time that Dave has been making knives...look for great things in the future. Back to Matt's booth, and time to break down. After a short while, I went to help my friend Thomas break down the Kershaw booth.
Went to dinner with Matt and our good friend Dave Mirabile, and returned to the hotel to tattoo another friend. Broke down my equipment, packed up the luggage, and got 4 hours of sleep, and back to SoCal...it was a great Blade, and if I didn't mention you, it doesn't mean that I wasn't glad to see you.
Finis.
Best Regards,
STeven Garsson
The Renaissance Waverly continues to be a fairly decent place to stay. The lobby area is attractive, staff relatively attentive, and the Medici restaurant offers decent quality food, at a fair price. Rooms are uninspired, utilitarian and the bathrooms are on the lower scale of functional. There is a $10.00 receiving fee for shipping a UPS package to the hotel which I did not know about, and they kindly waived. A bathroom fan would have been appreciated, especially with Joe Paranee as a roommate.
I met Joe face to face for the first time at this show, but we talk almost every day on the phone. He is about the same height as me, 20 lbs lighter, and way less fat. I have 15" biceps, Joe has got to be going at least 20", and when he flexes his traps it is like a cobra hood. Great guy, we had an awesome time hanging out at the show, never stopped laughing..... he is 1/2 retarded(NOT mentally handicapped....retarded
), and that provided for some amazingly boneheaded moves.Woke a napping Joe up around 12:30 pm with three fingers of Woodford Reserve
, and we got to the showroom about 2:00 pm on Thursday, after getting a 4" Tanto from Wally Hayes....would personally call it more of a kozuka or kwaiken, but that is subjective. 1084 differentially hardened, cord wrap over black rayskin....probably one of the most value priced, high-quality customs at Blade 2010:thumbup:, and happy to have Wally give me the opportunity to purchase it. Shot around a bit, mostly visiting with friends, Amy-O from Busse was total sweetness this year, usually I get a hug, but she deigned to kiss me...on the lips, and it made me all tingly...that girl rocks a pair of black slacks like a betty 10 years younger.Joe and I got thirsty and hungry and went to the hotel bar for some sustenance around 4:30 pm, and decided to head up to the CKCA banquet at Maggiano's Little Italy. We were fashionably late, but it was not by design, rather by inattention. The food was great, the company was better, and the feeling of community was a theme of the entire trip. We ALL are part of this community, we ALL can be change agents for the more positive, for the stronger, for the stand against mediocrity, indifference and unfairness. This was driven home for me by a number of very personal experiences, mostly good, a few very negative. Kevin Jones had asked me to say a few words introducing Dr. Darom's fantastic new book-The World of Art Knives, which I staggered through, and pulled Joe's name from the envelope for a donated copy that Dr. Darom generously tendered. I assure you, this was random chance.
Joe and I left early to set up a mini-show in our hotel room, featuring the works of Jason Knight. While Joe was on the potty, I score a kick-butt kiridashi from Jason with amber stag and damascus.....Joe was very sad.....you poo, you lose...Peter Gill was debating the purchase of Jason's damascus fighter with blackened bronze guard and blackwood handle...but passed, and I picked up that too.....then a whole bunch of people came up to the room, and we partied like rock stars....I vaguely remember cracking Jon Brand in the keister region with my 4' Victor Tella blacksnake ...and I passed out sometime around 3:00 am.
6:30 am Friday came way too quick....my body is going to shiite quicker and quicker each year, and agony has come along for the ride. We went down to meet Pappy Long for breakfast around 8:30, and he wanted to say a few words to Joseph and I ....intimating that we did something bad....what he said had me and Joe rolling, and that hurt....I almost crapped my pants. Paul Kessler and Jim Treacy joined us shortly afterwards, and we were able to look at and discuss Paul's award winning folder set....truly a magnificent accomplishment,even the curly maple display case was a treasure.
The first thing I did once on the show floor was head over to Strider/Starlingear for some silver beads. Jade had a nice selection, and there were a couple models that I wanted, as you know, they always sell out quickly. A tad on the spendy side, but Starlingear is the only company doing like they do, and that makes it must have if you have the itch. Been working on a paracord keychain dangle with silver beads for a year, and I needed these to finish it. After that started looking for handle materials, and found some of the most KILLER black lip pearl at Culpepper's....$225.00 and worth every penny...of course, also found some great white pearl, but the black is the hard-to-find stuff...the fire and figure is 3D and black all the way through.
Got a chance to walk the Guild/stock removal side of the room with Ed Schempp for a little while and we stopped an talked to Joe Kious. Joe is a heck of a nice guy and a great maker. He had a somewhat rough time of it at the show, as two major collections had recently come up for sale, thusly flooding the market. I moved on, and found Chuck Bybee and Alpha Knife Supply. Picked up a good sized block of curly koa, a real nice piece of amboyna burl, and a beautiful piece of fossil ivory artifact that I gifted to Phil Lobred. Visited with a few other folks and got dragged off the floor by Joe so we could have lunch at Jock and Jill's(very lumpy clam chowder which sucked, and fried shrimp, while tasty, I could only finish about 6 pieces of)....got to chat with Gray and Evelyn Taylor....they are some of the nicest people and after close to 47 years of marriage, were holding hands at lunch like high school kids, brings a smile to the face. We went back into the show room, and rolled around for a while, I picked up a pearl handled Q36 delivery from R.J. Martin, and completely misunderstood the Bose drawing at 3:30 pm and then I had to watch the CKCA booth for an hour at 5:00 pm.
After that Joe, me and Matt Diskin hung out for a while, and then had dinner at Medici in the hotel. We had the meat and cheese plate(excellent), I had a caprese salad(nice quality), the cauliflower pasta(superb) and the veal scallopini(overcooked and I sent it back). The Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon was wonderful. After dinner, we hung out in the pit, and I smoked an Arturo Fuente Opus Opus X that I picked up in Orlando two years ago. Very nice cigar.... prefer the corona gauges myself.....was leaving the floor and wound up having a nice conversation with Ken Onion...always nice seeing him....Ken provided some excellent advice a number of years ago when my wife was suffering from a blown out disc and attendant sciatica. Bedtime came around 2:30 pm.
Saturday morning wasn't half bad, we sort of slept in and got moving around 9:00 am. We went down to the breakfast buffet again('bout $20.00, seriously high priced) and I had an egg white scramble with fresh spinach, mozzarella, tomato and white onions, sausages and smoked salmon....protein centric is a good way to start the day....also water and cranberry juice to help the kidneys and get/stay hydrated.
First thing I did was look around the showroom for muskox horn. Jantz Supply had a nice piece, but it was $220.00. I heard that Mark from the Forums up in Alaska had a bunch, but I didn't stop by his table....Mark, if you read this, please send me a PM, I have some questions, as this is a visually arresting material, but I know NOTHING about working it. After that I found Tom Mayo who had two pieces to deliver to me, one AWESOME current pattern large wharncliffe, and an EDC. I visited with Dave Ellis for a little while, said hi to Burt Foster, and Kevin Cashen and his lovely wife and went over to Matt Diskin's booth, around 12:00 pm.
Joe was there too, and after watching Matt's near-comatose salesmanship, we kicked into gear and sold the living crap out of Volcan knives...I mean we crushed it....and were there for four hours, with a brief break for lunch around 2:45pm with Pappy Long. Now, the intention was just to help out a little bit, but once Joe got going with his boardwalk carny schtick, we started a little competition to see who could sell the most, and the time flew by. It was quite fun, and all Matt could do is step back in awe. Someday, we will get him to accept the proper way to collect and fold money, but baby steps, baby steps.
After lunch, I visited with Coop, Mrs. Coop, and HTMD for a while in the lair where the magic happens.....and then did my tour at the CKCA booth. Started giving this fella with his feet on my chair a ration of crap and got one big slice of humble pie. This fella is Micah, young man from Vegas who is going through the toughest fight of his life against lung cancer. This was one personal conversation, as I just had a chest x-ray last Wednesday, and was awaiting the results(all clear, but you know how it goes)....my big pep talk for Micah was that he should get through this and find out that life just doesn't get any easier...the struggle continues, and I don't have any answer as to why we keep on going...but we do.
After taking leave of the CKCA booth, went back to the room to get ready for dinner at Bones with the Coop's, Buddy T, Joe Paranee, Paul Long, Sandy Morrissey, Kevin Jones, Robert Kaufmann from Germany, Sarah McCleod, Mike Ruth Jr, Henry Torres and Steven Rapp.
Put on a nice suit....figured, I organized the dinner, and don't want to look like a clown, telling the wait staff what to do with boat shoes on. Hadn't worked out the transpo to a "T", but Mike Ruth Jr came through like flying aces with a Suburban/Tahoe/Land Beast...and we all piled in. The private room they put us in was like Grandma's dining room circa 1974. The company was GREAT, the vibe was GREAT, the service was pretty good, the food was a 6 on a scale of 10....but they got sneaky with the charges piling up, and I will never eat there again. I will say that Kevin Rathbun Steakhouse in Atlanta when we were there in 2008 rocked the food, but the room we had at Bones was better for what we were trying to do. Mike Ruth Jr. got the Peck award that day, and Steven Rapp go an award for Best Fixed Blade....with the best sheath maker alive(Paul Long), and one of the best knife photographers(Coop), we had a serious representation of the community at that table....and didn't talk about knives that much at all. It just felt good to be a person having a nice meal with friends for that time, and everyone else seemed to feel the same way....or it might just have been the 3 bottles of '05 Silver Oak that we consumed.
We got back to The Pit about 10:00 pm and things were in full swing. Shot the breeze with Steve Dunn and Harvey Dean for a bit. Had been carrying around a Cubano Romeo y Julieta gifted by a Canadian friend, and went up to the room to fetch Mike Talanian an American Cohiba....chattted and smoked with both Todd and Tanya Begg until that puppy was toast, and went inside. Even at 10:00 pm, it was over 80 degrees F, and muggy. Once inside the cool air conditioning soothed, and entered a brief but animated conversation with Mary Emerson....good stuff. Carried on with Michael Burch and Jody(Amish) Muller, and then got into a nice discussion with Tommie and Thomas of Kershaw and R.J. Martin that lasted much of the rest of the night, finally wound up hanging with the NY/NJ boys around Aldo Bruno, and crashed at 2:00 am.
My unwanted friend Agony woke me up at 6:00 am, again, and I thought there was a trip to the hospital this fine day, but had enough various medications left over to walk..and give Joe a small tattoo..must have had 2 liters of water before some small semblance of feeling normal appeared. Joseph had breakfast about 9:00 am, but I just walked around in circles in The Pit. Made the rounds at the show until 10:00 am, and did the Loveless Tour. Thanks again to Dave Ellis, John Denton, Rhett Stidham and Lou DeSantis. After the tour, Joe Paranee wanted to hang out for a while because he was leaving at 1:00 pm. We hung up in the room, squared up some paperwork, and put his sorry ass in a cab....hope you can make it out to Vegas, Joe.
On the way back, I dropped of a box of knives to ship home, and returned to Matt's booth to help out for a while, and walked around the corner to the ACE booth-a collaborative effort spearheaded by the scruffy genius that is Tom Ferry(if you have never handled one of Tom's folding tanto, you are missing out), featuring Jon Christensen, Dave Lisch and Mike Vagnino. I was struck by Dave Lisch's work in particular, it has superb steel and unique styling that makes it stand out and above from many other makers. Quite something, considering the short time that Dave has been making knives...look for great things in the future. Back to Matt's booth, and time to break down. After a short while, I went to help my friend Thomas break down the Kershaw booth.
Went to dinner with Matt and our good friend Dave Mirabile, and returned to the hotel to tattoo another friend. Broke down my equipment, packed up the luggage, and got 4 hours of sleep, and back to SoCal...it was a great Blade, and if I didn't mention you, it doesn't mean that I wasn't glad to see you.
Finis.
Best Regards,
STeven Garsson
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