Well, FabTech has come to a close.

It was a great event this year. I was able to meet Brent and his son for the first time and I was able to meet up with folks I haven't seen in a few years. It was like, well, maybe a family reunion of welder/welding geeks.

I lost my badge in the first hour or so. I went back to the booths I had visited, but to no avail. Final one young lady said, "I don't have your badge, but someone left theirs behind.” For the rest of the morning I was Ives from Louisiana. To make matters more interesting, I was looking for Brent.

My good friend Tim K. from Rhode Island was with me. He said, "You have no idea what this guy Brent looks like. He has no idea what you look like and to top it off you have someone else's name tag. How is he going to recognize you?"

I used my new cell phone as a homing beacon. Brent kept talking and I did the same until we bumped into each other. I guess you could call it an instrument landing using a homing beacon. "I'm next to the AWS booth."

"I can see the AWS banner."

"Keep walking toward it."

"I see you talking on the cell phone."

"Yup, that's me."

I got propositioned while I was on the floor looking at the exhibits. This gorgeous girl asked me, “Would you like to play?” She had this big beautiful smile and I thought I must not have heard her correctly, so I said, “What?”

Again, she said, “Would you like to play?”

I was in heaven for just a moment and the fact that I’m married shook me by my shoulder. My wife’s words haunted once again, “I don’t care where you are, if you screw around I will find out!” I once told her that before I died I wanted to make love to a woman with large breasts. She snapped back that if she caught me it would be the death of me. It is so nice to be loved. Back to the story: With the second repetition of “Do you want to play?” I shot back with, “Honey, I would love to play, but I’m already married.”

As it turned out, she wasn’t interested in me. She was asking me if I wanted to pull the lever on the robot to spin the wheels on the oversized slot machine. See I can’t even get lucky in Las Vegas.

I got even with her after she crushed my hopes and dreams. During the last few hours of the show, when most of the exhibitors were packing it in, I walked over to her booth expecting her to ask me if I wanted to play. She didn’t, so I stepped up to pull the lever. As she started to say, “Sir, the machine isn’t ……..” I pulled the lever, shook violently, and screamed. She thought I was getting electrocuted (as did everyone else within 30-feet of us). She screamed as I screamed and she immediately left the floor to put on a clean pair of undies.

I’m telling you, I had a great time at the show.

I stopped by a booth from China. They had replacement parts for torches and welding guns on display. I didn’t see any contact tips for the GMAW guns, so I asked her if they also made contact tips. She said no, but if I sent her sample, they could make as many copies exactly like the original in a couple of days. Can you say “Patent Violation”?

Committee work took up most of my time, but I did have enough time to see the welding side of the exhibits. I never did get to go over to see the fabrication side of the exhibits. Not that I plan on buying any equipment, but is always informative to see what is new.

I did just buy a new piece of equipment for a project I will be starting next year. It arrived on a flatbed trailer this morning.  It is a concrete buggy on steroids. It is the newest addition to my "construction fleet.” My neighbors must hate me when I crank everything up. I know my wife would rather spend the money on other “essentials” I can hear her words now, “But don’t you think it would be nice if we could replace the cement blocks and plank with a real couch?” or “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a car that we don’t have to start by rolling it down a hill?” Women, always looking for creature comforts.

I was thinking about building an articulated four wheeled mini-dumper when I came cross this mini-dumper while looking at a link someone listed here on the Forum. I thought it was exactly what I was going to build, except it was already built and cost a lot less than what I had planned to build and it already runs.

Next project: mounting a snow plow on the new old machine!

Best regard - Al