The Conference

I've been so impressed by how well the Woodworking in America conference has been run.  It's quite a feat to deal with 500 woodworkers, multiple sessions going on at once and a marketplace area all in the span of a couple of days.  The Popular Woodworking staff has been tremendous. 

It's been great fun to meet several other bloggers, including Matt Vanderlist from Matt's Basement Workshop, Kari Hultman of The Village Carpenter and Al Navas of Sandal Woods.  There are a few other bloggers that I hope to meet soon.  Everyone has been nice and fun and you can tell how much they love woodworking.  

You'll probably see footage of this on the Interblogs somewhere, but the keynote speaker at dinner tonight was woodworking legend Roy Underhill from the PBS series The Woodwright's Shop.  Suffice it to say, this guy might just be the most enthusiastic person on the planet!  (I got to have a beer with him last night.  How cool is that?!?  Nerd Alert!)  Anyway, he gave an incredible speech that ranged from Odysseus, to the Jamestown Settlement, to the Ice Age, to Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and beyond -- all directly related to woodworking.  He was tripping on woodworking acid.  He brought down the house with a good-natured ribbing of Norm by saying that the only thing in his shop without electricity is his personality.  Snap!  

Geez, I'm tired.  I'll post more tomorrow.  I'll be making many more posts in the days and weeks to come with photos and video from the conference.  I'll also be writing Tools I Love posts about some of the great stuff I got to see here.  Two more sessions tomorrow and then I'm driving home to Nashville.  Goodnight!