Your guess is as good as mine....i am awaiting an email reply even on orientation clarification...there does not seem to be any sticky on latest employees marks, which would have saved my asking....i have got through and read all the homepage stickies and downloaded the pdfs and most everything here is spread far and wide and much quite dated.....surely there is some net guru among all the fans of HI who could get this stuff organized and updated including the HI main site....mainly just updated and photos and bios and shop saga and employee turnover and now shop rebuild...and everything in between.....this is all history that is alive and should be carried forward and maintained before it is lost....if someone needs a writer, i certainly would volunteer to pull stories together....and am sure i would be one of many.....
Sorry for digression but in going through everything, so much that was an ongoing and exciting living narrative inviting participation has ossified into more a frozen time capsule from a decade back and earlier, and people are not drawn by mausoleums but by living breathing towns and faces...... and the story should be being continued on main site and here and not lost in a zillion separate forum posts which go POOF when a forum crashes or shuts down....... and meanwhile near impossible to find for new customers to draw them into something larger than just buying a knife or sharking for a DOTD
Put another way, when i first bought from Bill Martino, there was no forum but there was a story and a reason to get involved....and then the site with photos and the ongoing history and there was the guy who made your knife waving in a group photo and kami markings......and i could look and see my knife was made by Bura.....i come back 10yrs later and nothing has changed.....nothing.......and i have to wade through internet forum posts scattered all over and not even a clue as to who even works at the shop, much less, their marks, and it is like trying to read a yearbook where someone ripped away the last half.....and i must post a query when i should be able to send friend to site and him easily go to main HI site and read latest history and here is his kami and here are his marks and here is what happened last year or five years ago or....
This builds lasting faithful customers.....the faithful drawn in earlier are dwindling and it is a story and mission which needs to be passed on in its fullness.....and too important to be relegated and lost in only one of many subforums on some site...
Meanwhile apparently no fixed listing where i can send friend to even look at suggested bullhead mark....heck, i do not know where either, and how much digging and rooting will a prospective or new customer do before they get tired or short time or disgusted and maybe do not come back?...and totally disconnected from mission and not likely to stay a customer?.
