Ahem---

I guess it's time for this lurker to come out from behind the screen door,
quit eavesdropping and put my own two cents worth in. As the price of
admission is my bio, here goes.

My name is Rick Kessler.

I left college in 197(mumble) after I saw a Newsweek cover with a guy in cap
and gown digging a ditch- no jobs for the educated. Went to Alaska for a few
years during the Pipeline project (now I've dated myself) and ended up in
L.A. as the Disco Decade eroded away. It's true about L.A, it's not what you
know-it's WHO you know, which is how I found myself building (project
managing) recording studios. If ever a person was UN-qualified for a job it
was I (me?) Very steep learning curve. I found, however, I really enjoyed
not only the challenge of building the most precise rooms in creation but
the process as well.

Fast forward a few years, burnt out on Los Angeles, I decided to take a year
and be a ski bum. Well, if your going to be a ski bum you might as well do
it right, so I went to Aspen, CO. Ended up staying twelve years. There is
where I really learned my trade. The first few years I pounded nails in the
summer(what's this hammer thing, where's the switch? Whaddya mean there's no
battery?), and tended bar in the winter(freeing up days for skiing, ya know.
As an aside, Aspen has more Master's degrees and PhD's than any other city
it's size and a disproportionate number of them are gin slingers.)
As the damage to my knees (from skiing) mounted, I gravitated away from
bartending (ok, ok, and damage to my liver too!) and went with construction
full time, specializing in high end trim work, Architectural details, and
custom furniture. If ever a mecca to conspicuous consumption existed, it's
Aspen, Colorado. Work was plentiful, and well paying. If you DIDN'T charge
an arm and a leg, clients figured your work was sub-par! (?)

And then, one day------ an epiphany------- we were on a job, trying to
accurately lay out a 12' radius trammel jig to route an arc into a Honduras
mahogany beam for the entrance into the living room of a 55,000 s.f.
week-end house, (yes, that is correct, fifty-five thousand square feet, I
told you it's consumption central.) when this carpenter comes up and says "
I think I can help you out here" and proceeds to pull out a Stanley #113.
When I saw that plane in action I was hooked!

This same fellow got me into the RMTC (past) and sold me my first old plane
( a #113)

Since those days I've moved home (Seattle), I still work high-end trim
 Bill Gates and assorted MSFT millionaires keep us carpenterial prima donnas
hopping) and I still collect antique tools, mostly users as I know if I
bought still-in-the-box tools I'd lower the value by using them.

The current project I'm working on is a modest 5700 s.f. home with exposed
clear redwood beams throughout. You ought to see the looks on the
apprentices' faces when my working partner Bubba (his real name) and I roll
out the chisels and planes to mill these beams to fit their brackets.

Thus endeth the bio (whew)

Duly submitted for comment or abuse this Seventh day of February MM

Now that THAT'S over with, hey kid, I told you I had bad knees, you gonna
let your elder stand here in pain or give up that rocker?

*****************************************************
"Seek not to follow in the old men's footsteps- seek what they sought"
Basho proverb
Rick - jrkessler@h...

At 08:34 PM 2/7/00 -0800, Rick Kessler wrote:

Most of bio snipped...
First, welcome! Here take my chair (they don't let me have a rocker yet)

>The current project I'm working on is a modest 5700 s.f. home with exposed
>clear redwood beams throughout. You ought to see the looks on the
>apprentices' faces when my working partner Bubba (his real name) and I roll
>out the chisels and planes to mill these beams to fit their brackets.

Are you really telling us you do it this way on-the-job, not-on-TV,
real-life, day-to-day?
If so, here, take PL's vacant rocker.  Maybe the two of us and Bubba could
get him to agree.  or not.

Back to chisels and planes...
It really is quicker and easier for that kind of situation, isn't it?

Gene

At 08:34 PM 2/7/00 -0800, Rick Kessler wrote:

Most of bubba's buddy Rick's bio snipped...

>The current project I'm working on is a modest 5700 s.f. home with exposed
>clear redwood beams throughout. You ought to see the looks on the
>apprentices' faces when my working partner Bubba (his real name) and I roll
>out the chisels and planes to mill these beams to fit their brackets.

Are you really telling us you do it this way on-the-job, not-on-TV,
real-life, day-to-day?

Cowtown Eric would like to add that the most reactionary trim carpenters
used to have to walk 10 miles to school, uphill

- both ways


I once had a client whose moniker was "bozo"-

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: confessions of a lurker (bio)


> At 08:34 PM 2/7/00 -0800, Rick Kessler wrote:
>
> Most of bio snipped...
> First, welcome! Here take my chair (they don't let me have a rocker yet)

No, No,  that's ok, I'll just stand here and suffer. But not silently.
>
> >The current project I'm working on is a modest 5700 s.f. home with
exposed
> >clear redwood beams throughout. You ought to see the looks on the
> >apprentices' faces when my working partner Bubba (his real name) and I
roll
> >out the chisels and planes to mill these beams to fit their brackets.
>
> Are you really telling us you do it this way on-the-job, not-on-TV,
> real-life, day-to-day?

Cowtown Eric asked the same question, word-for-word, (Hmmm? Do I have
something to learn here?) So with kind permission of the author (me,) I'll
answer word-for-word.

Well---- yeah, actually. I've been very fortunate in my career to work at
the highest end of the market, with the average residential project cost in
the mid seven figures (the highest was the mid eight figures, 2-1/2 years on
that one.) When your clients are willing to spend that kind of money, the
time is budgeted in to do things right.
Now, please don't let me give the impression that I don't use power tools, I
have a sizable chunk of change invested in new-fangled labor saving devices
and they do see use on the job site, but when you get down to the
nitty-gritty and want joints you can't slip a piece of tissue paper into, or
you need to remove planer marks, nothing beats a hand held tool with an edge
so sharp that when you breathe on it you can hear the microbes scream as
they fall either side of the blade .

> If so, here, take PL's vacant rocker.  Maybe the two of us and Bubba could
> get him to agree.  or not.
>
Oooh, a rocker. Cool. But wait a minute, who's PL? Is he gonna get pi**ed if
I take his seat? I mean Bubba's big enough to prob'ly convince him alone,
but what do I do when Bubba takes off for his weekly Rust Hunt? Maybe I'll
just sit on this railing for a while......

> Back to chisels and planes...
> It really is quicker and easier for that kind of situation, isn't it?
>
Well, not necessarily quicker or easier, but you can't argue with the
results.

There's an old saying in the construction industry that "There's never
enough time to do it right the first time, but there's always enough time to
do it a second time." (Also known as the "We do it right because we do it
twice" construction paradigm.)

Whenever I start a new project the first questions I *always* ask are,
"what's the criteria here? What's our timeframe?" The answer is usually
along the lines of "Take your time and do it right the first time." Joy to
my ears. That's when the hand tools come out.

There's another old saying, (which I made up a few years ago, and which is
*never* spoken around clients) which goes, " We may not be cheap, but we're
not fast." It probably sounds callous and flippant, but it is really just a
statement of reality when your goal (and the clients) is giving the client a
work of art to live in.

(Any remarks at this point about elephant dung on canvas being a work of art
and I'm doing a half-gainer off the railing into the rosebushes.)

Thanks for the welcome, I think I'm going to like this place. Is PL's room
for rent?
Rick

In article <007a01bf7451$640538a0$9c320018@s...> on Thu,
10 Feb 2000 21:32:30 -0800, "Rick & Teri Kessler" 
wrote:
<< There's another old saying, (which I made up a few years ago, and
which is *never* spoken around clients) which goes, " We may not be
cheap, but we're not fast." It probably sounds callous and flippant,
but it is really just a statement of reality when your goal (and the
clients) is giving the client a work of art to live in. >>

This sounds remarkably similar to the aerospace project mapping
triangle.  Draw a triangle, and label the vertices "Good", "Fast", and
"Cheap".  Your project will lie somewhere within this space.

Chuck Phillips
Too busy these days to do much more than lurk and fire the occasional
shot from the dark...

Chuck Phillips wrote:

>This sounds remarkably similar to the aerospace project mapping
>triangle.  Draw a triangle, and label the vertices "Good", "Fast", and
>"Cheap".  Your project will lie somewhere within this space.

The software analogue to this often given as:

  "On schedule, on budget, bug-free.  Pick two."

Nichael

OT-Content:  I write Lisp.

Yep. That right there is the oldtool descriptive sentence of the month!
- Curt in Illinois

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick & Teri Kessler

"... nothing beats a hand held tool with an edge
so sharp that when you breathe on it you can hear the microbes scream as
they fall either side of the blade ..."