As some of you know personally, I am always glad to meet up with the folks that swing by here out in the real world.

I’m sure some of you have been sorely disappointed at your misfortune after doing so too.

Several months ago a fellow got ahold of me saying he had some Taps that I might be interested in and that he had to drive from the coast up here to a neatby hospital once in a while for some kind of tests or something.

We played Tag for a while and it never quite worked out. It finally came to be that he didn’t have to drive the 2 1/2 hours over here and that was kind of that.

I had forgotten about it because I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday as CederQ can attest to.

Lo and behold, this fellow Steve had not only not forgotten, he saw that I was headed down into his neck of the woods to go fishing and got ahold of me again!

Come to find out, I was staying within just a few miles from him, like less than 5 or so.

So we arranged to meet up at a local General Store my brother had showed me and that Steve of course knew the location of.

Now I gotta say something here.

This has probably happened to everyone at least once in their lives.

Have you ever met someone that you knew you were going to like, the minute you met them?

That is EXACTLY what happened when I met Steve.

Dead serious, after we introduced ourselves, I don’t think he even finished his first sentence and I knew I liked this guy.

He talks kinda quiet, seems a bit shy even at first blush. I could tell right away that there probably wasn’t much that got by him though, he is pretty observant.

He reminds me of someone who has seen a lot of shit in his day and knows how to handle himself.

Wary.

He’s friendly and he’s wicked smart, with a very unique skill set.

What he did for a living is very, very niche and I would imagine very few people do it. I’m not going to go into detail but he was showing me some pictures and I was tripping over my jaw.

He worked on VERY BIG THINGS, let me put it that way.

Hard working guy even though he is retired.

He stays busy remodeling his place and taking care of business.

He had my jaw on the ground again when he showed me a video of a Bull Elk that was right in his front yard just as big as you please that pretty much had a trophy rack on it.

That is one very lucky Elk.

Very interesting guy and I bet I could have talked to him for HOURS.

As a matter of fact I know I could.

He is also EXTREMELY GENEROUS!

After we introduced ourselves he hauled a box out of the bed of his truck and when I peered in my jaw bounced off the ground again.

Those Taps he was talking about?

Yeah, the SMALLEST one in the box was a 5/8’s X 11.

A couple of nice Pipe taps in there just for good measure and the biggest one is 1 1/4!

Holy Moly!

Oh but he was just getting started.

Next was a plastic tote with Drill Bits in it.

Good Lord are there Drill Bits in it!

MONSTER DRILL BITS!!

And he didn’t stop there either.

A set of Contour gauges, which I did not have any of.

A brand new, in the box , Yuasa Dial Indicator AND a matching Magnetic Base!

That was especially appreciated!

Another very generous soul donated one to me a little while back Thank goodness and it is still going strong but there are times when having more than one means I can just leave it next to a machine and not have to go hunting for it.

One for the Mini Lathe and one for the Smithy.

Then he handed me this, brand new and still in the box.

Holy Crap!

So that digital Horror Freight jobby I bought can go into the back of a drawer somewhere and stay there.

So while I might have gotten Skunked on the Fishing front, Steve absolutely went Above and Beyond!

There is a sad side to all of this though, most of this stuff it seems was his Father’s who passed away and he and his brother had a ridiculously short amount of time given to them to try and save what they could from his estate.

I won’t go into details out of respect.

I was greatly disappointed though, that I had to be in a bit of a hurry and didn’t get to talk to him for a whole bunch longer.

Trust me, I will find a reason to head back that way and I will be seeing about taking him out for a bite to eat or something so that we can sit down and relax and do some serious bullshitting.

He has some fascinating stories.

One Hell of a nice guy and interesting as all get out to talk to.

Thanks again Steve, from the bottom of my heart.

I will put this stuff to use ASAP.

UPDATE:

I almost forgot about another stroke of luck I had.

I scored an unopened 5 gallon pail of WAY OIL for my lathes that they were going to just dump out at work!

Can I use that my boss asks.

HELL YES I CAN USE THAT!

So am I disappointed that I didn’t catch any fish?

What fish?

I would trade ten damn fish for all this in a heart beat.

Besides, I got to ride around in a beautiful boat with gorgeous weather for two days as a bonus.