Today I am at Colonial Williamsburg. Which is a place that changed my life. Ok let me get here first.
I left about a week ago to head to Old Salem and MESDA. http://www.mesda.org Old Salem was good but not quite to the
level of some of the other historic communities I have visited over the
years. But MESDA now that is another
story. They have one of the greatest
collections of Secretaries and Book Cases I have ever seen. I was only able to visit 8 of the 30 rooms
they have. You have to make reservations
to see more of the collection. So I
think there is another trip in my future.
They also have a research center.
I was able to find numerous examples of cellarets, which I want to
build. Ok for the furniture challenged
it is a whiskey box. I was also able to
find some good examples of Canterbury, which is also in my future. Again for the challenged it is officially a
music stand or more commonly seen as a magazine rack.
I also attend the Woodworking Conference in America. It was interesting, got to talk with a lot of the
authors of books, magazine articles and bloggers. The speakers at several of the sessions were from MESDA and they did a great job.
One of the more interesting was by a black guy who talked about a free
black man furniture building in the early 1800’s. Even though he was black he owned about 30
slaves and was the richest men in North Carolina. Many of his works are in the
museum. The pieces are priceless. The attendees the conference,
well how am I going to put this were “less than cool groupies”, so it was an interesting crowd. It was an interesting thing to do but I doubt
I will do the conference again. Most of
the woodworking stuff is available on YouTube.
Today it was on to Williamsburg. The first time I was here was in the mid 80’s
for an ACEC conference. I had connived
to get myself on a committee so the company would have to send me to the annual
meetings. The senior partner supported
the organization but the other partners thought it was a waste of production
time to go to meetings.
It was a great trip.
We had a few days together thanks to Carole’s sister keeping the
boys. The weather was beautiful, crisp
fall days, leaves in full color. We
loved wandering up and down the streets of Williamsburg. Carole loved the history; I loved the
craftsmanship of the people working in the community. It immediately became one of our favorite
places to visit. We came back several
times afterwards. Once was at Christmas
to see all the decorations. There were
none! Christmas was a religious holiday
and they didn’t decorate. Oh well it was
still a great trip.
The conference had a trade show. Over in the corner was a guy with an Apple
Two running a CAD Program. CAD was new
technology and all the equipment was well over a $100,000. It was interesting that they could make it work
on an Apple. I talked with the guy and
he said it would be running on a PC sometime in the next few months. We exchanged phone numbers and address (long
time before email) and we talked many times over the next few months A year or so later I bought one of their
systems (serial number 144) and a few months after that started my own
business. Two years later I was making almost ten times as much as I was when
I left the previous firm. That one
meeting changed the course of my life. I
don’t know if I could have done what I have been able to do without that early
adoption of technology. It allowed me to
be at home when the boys were growing up.
It gave Carole and me more flexibility to enjoy our lives.
Sometimes just one conversation can change your life.
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