High everyone, my name is Terry Spencer and I survive in Austin, Texas.   
Thanks for letting me join you on the porch.  Not much to tell, except  
I'm definitely a GIT.  To put food on the table and clothes on the back  
of SWMBO (not to mention a daughter in med school), I work as an  
electrical engineer for that gargantuan computer company in Central  
Texas.  

My father was extremely mechanically inclined so I grew up working on  
cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers, or just about anything that used gasoline  
and made a lot of noise.  I've always been reasonably good at working  
with my hands and actually made a living as a goldsmith in my younger  
years.  However, creating something functional from wood (let alone  
pleasing to the eye) didn't capture my interest until I liberated a  
broken bench top table saw from a neighbors trash pile.  

After sawing and nailing together a couple of bookshelves I was hooked  
and quickly started amassing every tailed beast I could cram into my  
garage.  It wasn't until a couple of years later during a trip to  
Colonial Williamsburg that hand tools first caught my eye.  What those  
guys did with hand planes and a treadle lathe was nothing short of  
amazing.  The following summer we went to Plymouth Plantation and that  
sealed my fate as a hand tool junkie.  As soon as we returned home I  
enrolled in a one week "Developing Hand Tool Techniques" class.  Shortly  
thereafter, I acquired my first hand plane, a Bedrock 605 =BD (heavy  
jack, Jeff), and have been scouring yard-sales and flea-markets ever  
since.

Thanks for allowing me on the porch.  At 49, I might be a little old to  
learn many new tricks, but I plan on giving it my best shot.  Who knows,  
from time-to-time, even I might be able to impart a little wisdom.

Terry Spencer
Dell Storage Engineering
CSD RAID Engineer
terry_spencer@d...
Office: 512.725.2575
Lab:    512.725.0080

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