Official Luthiers Forum!

Hmm, not where I was going but I guess I can see where that came from. Maybe better to tape the banana to the fretboard?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

We are in a high-cost area, with some of the highest median incomes (by county) in the country, paid primarily to government workers and their apparatchiks, as well as very high aggregate tax rates (DC, MD. and VA), and very high insurance rates due to the higher crime rates, auto accident rates, etc. The area is also dramatically under-served in terms of competent repair people, so at least for now, a near-perfect environment in which to operate - little competition, large pool of potential customers, and enough interesting work to allow us to turn down what we really do not wish to do.

After my 100 minute commute, during which I have to run the gauntlet of Maryland's 'revenue enhancement' schemes (endless speed and red-light cameras, with school zones active 24/7/365), as well as deal with a collection of drivers apparently pulled from the shallow ends of the Earth's various gene pools, I would be happy to be billing closer to half our shop rate in some quiet corner of the country.

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We have become a civilization that elevates idiots, prostitutes, and clowns. Am I still to defend it? Yes, for its principles. Yes, for what it was. Yes, for what it still may be.

-Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel)

Hey Woodie,
You could move to what Uncle Donald once referred to as the "S**thole of Maryland - the Eastern shore.
His beloved Baltimore seems to fit that epithet much better these days.
The Rockville area was a tough commute 45 years ago when I was a young buck attending the U of Md. at College Park, so I can't imagine what it is today. Even the hinterlands of Cecil county (which most Marylanders believe is part of Delaware or Pennsyltucky, the point at which the Runaway Slave could first breathe free) has felt the effects of Urbanization. Many of the byways a man could have given a horse it's head are now impeded with stop signs and traffic signals - sometimes as thick as 1 per mile! Someday the entire East coast will be one giant globally warmed Ratpocalypse. Hopefully I will be with my namesake by then.
Money is only worth so much aggravation. Y'all need to have a satellite shop in the Greenridge, maybe Thurmont or one of the bedroom communities, and then maybe only commute in once a week or so to pick up work.