pipemakersforum.com

Since Ernie's bored, I thought I'd post something. People have often mistaken me for Tyler, strangely enough, so I'm happy to step up.

Is there a pivotal phrase that you were once told (specific to you) that has stuck with you over the years?

I'll start.

When I was studying theatre in college, I struggled a bit as an actor. For years everyone thought that I had a lot of raw talent but I kept missing critical understandings of concepts or would zig when I should've zagged. It got better over time but something just remained out of reach.

One day during my advanced acting class, everyone who presented a scene together had a major breakthrough, including myself. The class was full of excitement and our professor sprung a surprise exercise on us: we were all to write one paragraph about each scene critiquing it and offering thoughts on how the scene could improve. I wrote a lot more than I was supposed to, but I figured, what the hell.

A week later we got those papers back during our mid-semester private meetings with the professor and when he pulled mine out he told me that he had been completely shocked by how incredibly precise and accurate I had been. He was impressed because he thought that I didn't understand, but the assignment had shown him otherwise.

He told me, "You can see it, you just can't do it."

As uninspiring as that phrase may seem, it lit a fire in me that's been burning ever since. A drive to prove him wrong.

My inner smart-ass wants to pitch in right about now...

I'm not sure about where I heard the phrase, but I do appreciate the words nonetheless, "fail spectacularly".

The Smoking Yeti wrote:My inner smart-ass wants to pitch in right about now...

Lol! Rereading that story, the parallels are not lost on me.

The Smoking Yeti wrote:I'm not sure about where I heard the phrase, but I do appreciate the words nonetheless, "fail spectacularly".

Nice one.

I have experienced a similar situation. When my family moved to Germany, I was 14 and didn't speak a word of German on my first day in German school. Six months later, I could at least understand a good portion of the conversation, though my teachers all had a lower expectation of me than they did of the rest of the students. Not being shy, my French teacher walked up to me at the beginning of class (with all the classmates watching) and told me that there was no way I would make it. The rest of my class was in second year French and I didn't know any, and barely knew German. I suggested to visit a first year French class during the English period instead. By the end of the year, I had a passing grade in second year French.

As much as it rubs me the wrong way when people don't believe in me, it does provide a powerful motivator. I just love proving people wrong.

d.huber wrote:People have often mistaken me for Tyler...

I find that hard to believe.

When I was sitting in a war zone for the first time at the critical age of 19, my Lt said to me

Seaman Gilliam, every loves a little ass but nobody likes a smart ass, so shut up

Stuck with me for years... David... When's the last time you were in a war zone .. Haha

LatakiaLover wrote:

d.huber wrote:People have often mistaken me for Tyler...

I find that hard to believe.

Lol! You mean you can tell the difference?

A few times I've been called "Tyler"on the forum. Not sure how the confusion happened. He's much more charming than I.

For life in general it is: "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react." I was told this about a year after my dad died. It was a teacher trying to light a fire under my ass while she helped pull me through that rough patch. I'll never forget this. Every time bad stuff comes up we all get to choose how we will react.

For all things pipe making and anything in the auto body shop: "It's not what your eyes see, it's what your hands feel." From my Grandpa Darold when I was about 5. I didn't really understand him them, but I sure do now.

Two years ago, I had to do 6 months of chemo because of a large tumor in my appendix.
Through the process, I wrote a blog as a way to keep family and friends updated so that my wife and I didn't have to make
a billion phone calls. I was overwhelmed by the comments that people left on the blog. One in particular:

After my first treatment, which went pretty smoothly, I titled a blog post "Float like butterfly, sting like a bee" and
wrote some blather about how this cancer thing wan't going to stop me, and having the nastiest of chemicals pumped into my body for 42 straight hours, every two weeks for 6 months was going to be cake.....

It wasn't.

As the treatments got worse and worse, I clung, with white knuckles, to a response from a guy that I had worked with almost 10 years earlier in a little creative dot-com and hadn't seen since:
"Hell no. Float like a butterfly, sting like a god damn T-rex! You will crush this."

Just typing that makes my throat tighten and my eyes flood.

seamonster wrote: "Hell no. Float like a butterfly, sting like a god damn T-rex!

Tenacity wins.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

Kind of kidding on that one. (Kind of).

It parallels something my grandfather purportedly used to say "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right".

Unfortunately I never got the chance to know my grandfather as he passed when I was 9 months old from lung cancer (cigarette smoker). He was a self-taught master craftsman and boat builder that had a passion for woodworking. He is a big reason why I became interested in woodworking myself. Though I never got the chance to work with him I have learned and been inspired by those thing he made when he was alive, including a model tobacco trading ship in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I even have his lathe tools, kind of cool getting to use them.

My uncle used to ask, "are farts lumpy?" after passing wind. Does that count?

He also used to tell me that women who smoke do it.

d.huber wrote:
A few times I've been called "Tyler"on the forum. Not sure how the confusion happened. He's much more charming than I.

Maybe it's because your signature says "Tyler Beard"


Ok, here's mine. " I don't think you're really that smart, you're just an over achiever". It pissed me off for a while but I came to realize it's true. 99% perspiration, 1% genius.

"There's one way to stay in this business (construction). Do what you say you're going to do. That's all. You don't have to be especially good at it even. Just show up when you say you will, do what you said you would."

LatakiaLover wrote:

seamonster wrote: "Hell no. Float like a butterfly, sting like a god damn T-rex!

Thanks George!
mind if I include that in the chest tattoo of that slogan I'm coming up?

jogilli wrote:Stuck with me for years... David... When's the last time you were in a war zone .. Haha

Other than in my own mind? Never and thank you for making that possible!