Fellow techies, this is an Official First. For the first time in 15 years, since moving to WA state, I will NOT be going to the Bay Area this year.
Right, you can pick your jaws up off the floor now. ;-) Although I would have liked to go, as 2K8 looks like it would have been a most interesting year on the scrounge front, there were a couple of other things happening that dictated otherwise.
First and foremost is that my lady and I have been looking forward to a MAJOR vacation in Mexico. This will eat up 95% of my available annual leave time, which precludes using any for the scrounge trip. Second is that one of my closest friends and fellow scroungers is having medical issues this year, both with himself and his parents, and the rigors of daily scrounge runs are simply not in the cards at this time.
It's more than just the Bay Area run that got scuttled. It's looking very doubtful that I'll be able to go to Oregon (Portland/Beaverton area) this year, as I normally do to review the Oregon surplus spots. This is mostly because I had surgery this year to clear up a persistent problem of sleep apnea, and much of the time that I would normally have used to cover that run got eaten up with recovery.
There has been some bad news on the surplus front. It seems that Triangle Machinery and Tool mysteriously closed their doors in August. I have no idea what happened, but I will update their page when (if) I learn anything, so please stay tuned.
I fully expect to be back in session, scrounge-wise, in 2009. We're talking full-blown Bay Area run, visits to the local ham swaps AND another run to Oregon. Everything on the site will get updated at that time.
Happy travels.
Last updated 6-Sep-08 by Bruce Lane