Thread: Asheville NC meetup ; April 26-27th

42 takes me back to my cb days. Break channel. This here's 16 gauge.

#9 for me, thanks

Originally Posted by hidestoart

I will take # 37

An engineering number

what did "the accountant" guess... 36? lol priceless

Also, where did a bunch of you guys get those super awesome SRP t-shirts i saw on saturday? I must have one!

nevermind, I'm slow... found the link up top "SRP Goods"

The Asheville NC Straight Razor Meetup…WOW!

I still can’t believe what a great meetup this turned out to be. (Thank you to everyone who helped organize as well as everyone who attended the event! YOU are the reason it was successful!)

I’m an introvert by nature, so I needed a few days away from all the straight razor excitement to relax and recharge my social batteries before posting about this meetup. (Another 3-day convention starts tomorrow afternoon, but hey, it’s open bar all weekend. What can you do, right?) Now, I’m recharged and ready to tell you all about it. =)

OK, so it all starts on Saturday morning when Aaron (ScoutHikerDad) and I drive up to Asheville to help set up. (Kevin and crew did 98% of the setup work the night before, so I was forced to sit around and sip hot coffee and chat about razors and stuff. Oh, how demanding a Saturday morning can be!) We drove up to the gates and saw this ridiculously over-sized straight razor mounted on the back of Chris’ truck. “This must be the place.”

One by two, wet-shaving enthusiasts trickled in until the whole place (inside and out) was abuzz with straight-razor-this and badger-brush-that; it was an awesome busy sight. Old friends, new friends, and friends that I would never have even guessed would become a friend. How lucky am I! (I’m talking about you, Mister Moo.) More on that later…

So this was wet-shaving Mecca. Utopian and his ten thousand 8x3 bench stones at one end of the room, me and my tiny little barber hones at the other (feeling a bit inadequate; his stones are so much bigger than mine), Lynn the Honemeister in the middle giving his wildly popular honing demonstration and answering every single question thrown his way by the eager newbie and experienced honer alike, five bazillion straight razor fanatics laughing and chatting and asking and answering and sharing and laughing some more.

Kilts everywhere. Talk of a drink called scrumpy. (“Scrumpy…it’s got bits!”) Tons of tickets and prizes and generous donations. More laughter. Me telling a joke that no one got, resulting in blank stares and me feeling totally awkward in front of Joe Chandler.

Handshake after handshake. Quite a few fountain pens and their enthusiast owners drifting about. Demonstrations and more demonstrations. Drooling over custom razors and brushes. Charlie. Joe. Ray. (“I love his logo,” said EVERYONE.) What grit is this? What grit is that? Umm...I don't know (how to answer that question). “I’ve got a lovely Gilbert Brothers razor with genuine ivory scales if anyone wants to hone it up and give it away to a newbie.” (You did a great job honing it, PFries!) Simon the awesomely crazy Scotsman. Zip, zip, zip at the stropping station. (Sometimes CLANG!) Microscopes and bevels and bevels under microscopes and microscopic bevels. More and more laughter. More and more prizes. Friends and friends and friends.

And then it was over. =(

Unfortunately, I could only attend on Sunday morning for the first hour. But it was a nice, pleasant, pipe-smoking morning, nonetheless. (And cigar-smoking morning, Lynn.) Perhaps the best part of Sunday morning for me was seeing another pipe smoker filling up his Danish freehand (with a wonderful little Virginia flake which he was kind enough to share). This stranger was Mister Moo—a real treat for me, because I’d been following his posts on the pipe-smoking forums for a few years now, and I never would’ve imagined that I’d have the good fortune to meet him in real life. What a happy ending to a wonderful weekend!

So that was my weekend, my experience, my perspective. (YMMV) What a wonderful time! I love you, guys. All of you. Every single one. Old friends and new. And I can’t wait to see you all again next year. =)

Happy shaving!

My Best,
Christopher =)

PS: This pipe is for you, Moo. Thanks for the Veermaster. =)

For Simon we must say organise.

Originally Posted by rickboone

To be in pick a number 1-50 random generation will choose closest without going over. winner chooses one above

34............thank you donor

On a related note...

I was thinking to myself this week about kindness and generosity (because I saw a LOT of it at the meetup), and I wondered where I might stand on the spectrum of kindness/generosity. Naturally, I had to design the spectrum before I could theoretically stand upon it, so I thought to myself, "Hmm...who represents the low end, and who represents the high end of this spectrum of kindness/generosity?" Deciding on the low end (the "1") was easy; it's everyone's go-to icon of evil, Hitler. Surprisingly, deciding on the high end (the "10"), the icon of pure and graceful selflessness, was just as easy. Immediately, without a whisper of hesitation, I heard myself say, "Randy Tuttle."

True story.

Me

Those look really nice. Put me down for #7

They do look nice. I'll go with #19. Thanks!