Welcome Chuck. I believe being a Galoot is a state of mind, or lack of it. 
If there was a test to join it would be "So you want to be a Galoot? Yes? 
You're in."
Since you're familiar with slopes with a big drop at the end you'll get 
along fine here.  The drop is far less than 400 feet and I've yet to land so 
the fall must be slower here on the porch. Interesting variant on the space 
time continuum. In this part of the universe you can slide down multiple 
slopes at the same time. So far so good.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Chuck Ramsey
Subject: [OldTools] Bio

(Short Version) " Please allow me to introduce myself,"  I'm chuck.
(Longer Version)I'm a 1954 model.  Nineteen Illinois winters followed by a 
couple of German winters (courtesy of the US Army) and I found my home in 
the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.  I was born a desert rat.Since 1976 I've 
spent the most enjoyable, meaningful, and painful moments of my life hiking 
in the Grand Canyon. So I know things about slippery slopes (sometimes the 
slopes are 60 degrees of sandstone with ball bearing like granules poised 
above 400' sheer cliffs).I am too damn old to be a galoot-in-training (and 
getting too damn old to work the Grand Canyon cliffs also).  But I'm too new 
at this to be a galoot.  So I guess that makes me a galoot-wannabe.I've been 
reading (not lurking since my intentions have been entirely honorable, not 
evil) under the porch for a couple of years.  I have been and remain 
gobsmacked at the collective wisdom, experience, knowledge, and generosity 
of spirit of the porch dwellers.My woodworking skills are limited (I can 
push things with a stick.  Does that count?).  And I've had "...a fool for a 
master." in the sense of "A self taught man has...".  I am by nature and 
necessity a bottom feeder.  I usually feel foolish when I buy a new tool at 
the local H#&% D%!#@.  I've wandered the local yard sales, flea markets, and 
rust buckets for a while now.  I have amassed an assortment of rusty metal 
objects that I'm attempting to fettle into a full woodworking hand tool kit. 
I am also an second floor apartment dweller so hand powered tools help to 
make me a good neighbor.  Tho, I've been told not to chop mortises after 
10:00pm.  My workshop is a small patio opened to the sun.  My workbench is a 
salvaged (from a dumpster) 4X12 that was on top of a couple of 5-gallon 
buckets improved to the same on top of 4 H#&% D%!#@ plastic saw horses 
improved to the same on top of a frame bolted together from metal bed rails 
(also from local dumpsters).  Progress that I'm going to continue this next 
year.So...knowing all of that...will you have me?  Please?  I promise to try 
to be good.  I'll even try to be nice to those folks from Oz.  But I draw 
the line at flying monkeys.  No flying monkeys!  Okay?     chuck

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