Wow Tony!
I have been out of touch for a while, so I didn't see this until today. You should have dropped us a line and visited Signal while you were in Portland. Your time with Carl is a lot like what I had planned earlier this spring. I had a conversation with Curt Goodrich about coming out to see his shop. Curt was very accepting of the idea and said the same thing, that I should share the experience. I arranged a place to stay and got a discount ticket from my mom who works for USAir. That is where our stories split. I got on the plane with sugarplums dancing in my head and god bumped off the flight in Phoenix. I spent the day, and some of the evening in the airport, found out that all the flights were overbooked for the weekend & realized that there was no way for me to make the trip happen. It was a real bummer, but I hope to get out there sometime in the future.

This kind of interaction is what I thought the potential of the framebuilders' collective could be. It's exciting to see. Thanks for making it happen, and thanks to Carl for being so generous.