Having now purchased items from two list members, and promising one a month
ago I'd post a bio, here it is, finally.

According to a message to the list back in December, I'm currently the same
age that Keith Bond was when Patrick Olguin serenaded him via the telephone,
i.e. early(?) middle age.  I'm an electrical engineer with Big Blue,
specifically with Microelectronics Division in Vermont working as an interface
between us and one of our subsidiaries in San Diego.  Married with one
daughter, 5, who is a galoot-in-training.

My father was an architect who could never leave one of our homes in the same
shape he bought it, even if it was new.  So there was always some sort of
woodwork going on, entailing handsaws, a brace-and-bit, etc.  I got my first
work bench and hand tools when I was 7.  When I was 10, we moved East from the
Mid-west and ended up in a townhouse with no basement or work area so my
workbench, etc. did not make the move.  End of my first life as a woodworker.

Fast-forward mumblety-mumble years.  Now married and living in a house.  Plenty
of work to do.  Second life as a woodworker began using tailed apprentices to
maintain/improve the house.  Had a Stanley 9 1/2 block plane I bought new
to trim doors.  Never could get the darn thing to work right.  One day SWMBO
adds a couple of items to the honeydew list.  One is a desk-top book stand
for her office, the second is a cabinet by the front door for holding shoes,
drawers for gloves, and coat hooks.  I ask her what color she wants them
painted, because with my current skills there is going to be a lot of wood
putty involved.

She likes natural wood, so somehow I manage to talk her into a tablesaw.
That leads me to studying up on woodworking.  I build a couple of small
projects out of pine.  Now it's time for the bookstand.  Ask her what kind
of wood.  She points to a picture of some mahogany.  A trip to the lumber yard
nets 6 boardfeet of genuine mahogany; $30 for the rough wood, and another
$50 to make it S4S.  Ouch.  I start thinking about being able to surface it
myself.  Price out some jointers and planers.  Double ouch.  SWMBO won't buy
the cost/benefit analysis.  Start looking at handplanes.  The price is right,
but I recall my lack of success with the block plane.  Then, a friend brings
in a plane he got from his grandfather.  I show him the website for dating
them.  We id it as a Stanley #5, type 11.  He lets me take it home to
experiment.  I attempt tuning it up based on what I read in books and learned
on the web.  Finally take a pass.  Awful.  Then I adjust the blade to take
a smaller bite and check to make sure I planing with the grain.  Much better.
Pretty soon, I'm actually enjoying it.  Apply those same lessons to the
block plane.  It works!  Finally take my buddy's plane back to him and get my
own planes, from a source I found through the Electronic Neanderthal.  Maybe
it's just me, but after a stressful day at work, nothing seems to put me in
a good mood like creating a bunch of shavings.

Comes time to build the shoe cabinet.  I think dovetail joints would look
good for the cabinet joints.  I bypass the router sitting there and buy a
dovetail saw.  After cutting a few practice dovetails I cut the ones for the
cabinet.  Not too bad.  And very enjoyable.  Now I find myself reaching for
the Disston crosscut saw much more often then suiting up in respirator and
hearing protection to use the table saw or circular saw.  The current
project calls for a bunch of mortises.  I find myself not even looking at
router bits or drill presses, but going shopping for mortising chisels.
Heck, today I even ordered a Millers Falls smoothing plane because I didn't
have a Millers Falls plane (only a bunch of Stanleys, a couple of Japanese
planes, and a Dunlap I inherited from Mom - she used it to trim doors - that
has only sentimental value).