This posting is the start of our fourth year of blogging on the gear industry. When the idea was first presented to me I did not have a firm idea of what was worthy of conversation — and after more than 300 entries I am still not sure. As a result you will continue to get the “Madame LaFarge” treatment, i.e. — whatever happens to me in day-to-day life will be reflected in this space. How many of you have boxes full of stuff left in your home by your adult children? And young adults, how many of you have more than a “shoebox of life” taking up space at the old home place? One of my children has been very good about disposing of her “leftovers,” the other has not; so dear old dad has some heavy lifting to do to get the storage areas “ship shape.” Which reminds me of a gear-related story. One of my employers moved operations to a new building and the “attic” had to be cleaned out. It was full of thousands of items, including a Corvette someone intended to restore one day. While everyone agreed the car was worth saving, opinion was divided on all the other stuff. One man’s trash might be another man’s treasure, but how do you find that second guy, especially if you are in a hurry? As one of the older employees, I was asked to weigh in on what to save and what to toss. Unfortunately, the final decisions were made by people with little knowledge of the cycles our trade goes through. To them a cutting tool not used in the last twelve months was worthless and eight full pallets of hobs and shaper cutters were sent to the scrap dealer. I’ll pause so you old timers can properly curse this stupidity. OK, good tools were melted down long before their time. Useful fixtures and patterns were trashed, as were file cabinets full of irreplaceable drawings and product records. Cursing aside, who is to blame for this atrocity? Sadly, I think some of the blame must be assigned to those of us who could not bring ourselves to toss things when they were no longer needed. If we had only kept the “good stuff” and properly archived it, the value would have been more apparent. So if you have things you value, make sure you let others know it and have a plan in place to keep those things safe once you are no longer in a position to protect them. How many of us would be millionaires if Mom had not thrown out our comic books?  This posting is the start of our fourth year of blogging on the gear industry. When the idea was first presented to me I did not have a firm idea of what was worthy of conversation — and after more than 300 entries I am still not sure. As a result you will continue to get the “Madame LaFarge” treatment, i.e. — whatever happens to me in day-to-day life will be reflected in this space. How many of you have boxes full of stuff left in your home by your adult children? And young adults, how many of you have more than a “shoebox of life” taking up space at the old home place? One of my children has been very good about disposing of her “leftovers,” the other has not; so dear old dad has some heavy lifting to do to get the storage areas “ship shape.” Which reminds me of a gear-related story. One of my employers moved operations to a new building and the “attic” had to be cleaned out. It was full of thousands of items, including a Corvette someone intended to restore one day. While everyone agreed the car was worth saving, opinion was divided on all the other stuff. One man’s trash might be another man’s treasure, but how do you find that second guy, especially if you are in a hurry? As one of the older employees, I was asked to weigh in on what to save and what to toss. Unfortunately, the final decisions were made by people with little knowledge of the cycles our trade goes through. To them a cutting tool not used in the last twelve months was worthless and eight full pallets of hobs and shaper cutters were sent to the scrap dealer. I’ll pause so you old timers can properly curse this stupidity. OK, good tools were melted down long before their time. Useful fixtures and patterns were trashed, as were file cabinets full of irreplaceable drawings and product records. Cursing aside, who is to blame for this atrocity? Sadly, I think some of the blame must be assigned to those of us who could not bring ourselves to toss things when they were no longer needed. If we had only kept the “good stuff” and properly archived it, the value would have been more apparent. So if you have things you value, make sure you let others know it and have a plan in place to keep those things safe once you are no longer in a position to protect them. How many of us would be millionaires if Mom had not thrown out our comic books?