After several weeks lurking I've decided to introduce myself to those on 
the Porch.  I'm a 26 year old born and raised Minnesotan.  I have a 
great wife of 3+ years that lets me take up the whole 3/4 car garage 
with my "stuff".  We have one GIT, Dylan, who will be 2 in May.  Its 
hard to keep him away from the tools.  Looks darn cute in his little 
tool belt filled with plastic tools.  I can't wait to actually work with 
him.  We are expecting our second GIT, sonographer is 99% sure it'll be 
Dalton, at the end of April.

I am an embedded software engineer working on medical devices by trade.  
While getting the lights to blink and motors to spin is far better than 
writing the next great banking-middleware-database-bore-me-to-death 
software, when I get home at the end of the day I really want to DO 
something.  I have any number of hobbies that I rotate through including 
but not limited to:  woodworking, astronomy (including telescope 
making), metal casting (still just collecting stuff and reading lots), 
metal working, etc etc.

I wouldn't say that I came from a long line of handy folks.  I guess my 
Dad can be fairly handy when he wants to and does own a decent 
collection of *l*ctr*n killers that I have used for most of my 
woodworking.  My grandfather on my mothers side was definitely handy.  
My mother tells me that she was 20 something when she first realized 
that he couldn't fix everything and I believe her.  He passed away a 
year and a half ago and we miss him every day (even more when I'm 
digging through his tools and wonder "what the heck is this?").

In any case.  I'm a recent convert to galootism.  We haven't got the 
spare fortune or the space (hey there will be four of us in this 2 
bedroom town home this spring) for a collection of tailed tools.  
Besides, I usually get gara... err shop time after everyone else is in 
bed.  I can't be waking the whole block up.  To that end I recently 
purchased my first plane (that 9 dollar block plane shaped thing from 
the local mega store probably shouldn't count).  The owner of Beaumont's 
Quality Tool and I pieced together a nice usable (with some cleaning and 
tuning) #5 (uh Jack Plane, Jeff?).  It was a great experience purchasing 
a tool from a knowledgeable sales person.  In the coming years I hope to 
build a good set of users and the skills to use them to produce some 
quality heirloom furniture for myself and my family.

But enough about me.  I'm going to continue to lurk and learn and maybe 
speak up with a question or two now and then.  And thanks to the list 
moms for providing such a warm and hospitable place to talk old tools.

Ben

ps.  If anyone wants to share other good rust hunting locations in the 
Twin Cities area with me I'm all ears.
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