Today was a big day...a long day...a long day that's not over yet. The day started with me waking up on the wrong side of the time zone this morning. I was late. No biscuits and gravy for me, nope...just down to the hotel lobby for a bowl of Frosted Flakes and black coffee...back to the hotel room for some phone calls, then off to the Coliseum. I walked through the front doors of the show and took a beeline to Wild Bill's booth (a.k.a. Bill Niemczyk). Bill has old tools...good old tools. They're good because he fixes them up after he finds them, he shines up the metal and smoothes the handles. You pick up the tools and they seem kinda warm, like they've been in someone's hand. The handles are worn down in all the right spots. I bought 5 small hand tools: a saw-tooth tack puller, 2 peggin' awls, a sewing awl haft, and a rand file. They fit in my hand just right, I snagged everything with a small handle. (Can't do that on e-bay.) And then I think I spent the whole day talking...talking to everybody I knew...and everybody I didn't. I talked about boots all day long. I looked a lot like a bootmaker today... I had on a red name tag, some fancy foxing on the toes of my boots, and I was carrying around a cigar box with a bunch hand-me-down tools rattlin' around inside. I'm having fun alright.

Quote of the day: "Today, someone asked me if I e-mail...I told 'em I was lucky I had e-lectricity." (Mr. Walter Duncan of Kileen, TX)

I'm in Brownwood, Texas. I'm here for the Boot & Saddlemaker Round-Up 2000. The show starts tomorrow, today was the swapmeet. It wasn't in the Coliseum parking lot like it had been for the last two years...it was in a park on the other side of the highway. The park had big ol' trees (shade) and dirt (yippee!...no hot asphalt). Nothing like grabbin' up a pair of lasting pliers that've been sitting in the sun all day...YeeOUCH! I ended up buying some spools of thread from the Linn's, they're from Nocona,TX...Mr. Linn gave me a present, a pair of 15AA last, ones with real pointy toes. He had a pickup truck bed full of lasts. Mr. Linn told me he worked for Nocona Boots for 30 years. I think his swapmeet stuff is all that's left of the Nocona factory...now that they're just workin' outa El Paso.

The best part of the day is just wanderin' around talkin'. Bob Dellis was telling me about a "Florida" boot he tooled for Dave Little's shop. I ask him if he thought he might be the only man alive that's tooled a manatee...he shrugged and told me that tooling a manatee was easy...nothing to it. "Not like an armadillo, huh?" I asked. "Nah," he said ..."armadillos are harder."

I'm putting the finishing touches on my page update. It should be up by the weekend. It's quite a dilemma when you've got a web page growing mold, and a brand new sewing machine, and an in-box with 741 e-mail messages in it (...no...really, I'm not kidding, 741).

Well, I got my sewing machine. It's got everything...clunky old black sewing machine circa 1921, lightly-used formica table top, brand new lamp and thread rack, clean cork on the foot petal, mint 30w lightbulb, extra bobbins....everything that is, EXCEPT A ROLLER FOOT! This is a problem...my sewing machine guy is working on it, I'm working on it...and probably before the week is through, a few more bootmakers I know will have worked on it. More than likely the guy at Top Stitch Sewing Machine Co. has the right part...although right now his mechanic is a little baffled...he suggested I get the teflon foot that kinda looks like a couple of Barbie sized hula-hoops up on end. I told him that wouldn't work. I told him I need to see my stitches well enough to line up my rows. Meanwhile, I've ordered a manual from Singer...and Rice is sending me a color chart and some sample thread.

...oh yeah, and I've been working on an update for my web page.

...still waitin'. (...sigh.)

It's raining today, and I'm waitin' for the sewing machine fella to call...I get my sewing machine either today or tomorrow...waitin'...waitin'. I spent this morning trying to find a spool of thread. I read a post Lee Miller made about thread on the bootmaking forum. He mentioned a place called, Saderma. I called them, and they have a 1-800 number (1-800-843-8851) and a warehouse near me, in San Leandro. I took a trip over there this morning. I bought a 1 oz. spool of thread and a big horse-hair brush. The thread looks too heavy to me, but I got a spool just to goof around with....it was the first time anyone ever asked me for my resale number. Saderma had all the stuff I wouldn't want to pay shipping on....brushes, heel caps, and big cans of cement, that kind of stuff. They supply all the local shoe repair places, I guess.