Hi Everyone,
re-confirming that my shop will re-open next Tuesday (November 16th).
After much weirdness, from all kinds of directions, social, political and medical, I can thankfully re-open my shop and get back to normal.
I would ask you all to follow the Government Health Directives regarding masks and vaccinations, not for their own sake but to protect the health of my wife Lisa, who is seriously immunocompromised.
I trust that all of you will respect this.
I'm looking forward to re-opening and seeing you all again!
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
my shop is closed temporarily. Sorry about this,
But my wife Lisa has been seriously ill, and has been released from hospital on the proviso that there is someone at home to look after her (ie: me). She is also immuno-compromised. I simply can't risk exposing her to ANY bug, let alone the big one.
I will re-open when her recovery allows, and after I have had my second dose of the covid vaccine.
Meanwhile, for those of you who have a completed repair with me, I am happy to arrange an appointment for payment and collection. I trust that you will be able to comply with the government health orders.
New repairs will have to be postponed for a few weeks. Thanks for your patience.
Strange days indeed.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
the lockdown has been lifted. Woo-hoo!
My little shop will re-open regular hours this week. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 1.00pm - 5.00pm.
The deputy whatever he's called, has stated that they will reinstate the lockdown if even a single "case" appears in our "region". I'm not sure specifically what any of that means, but if you have a guitar currently with me I urge you to come and get it ASAP!!
I am obliged to open the shop according to government protocols regarding check-in and mask-wearing. I know that some of you think that's a bit daft, but I can be fined a lot of money if you don't comply. If you can't comply, then please send in some one who can.
If you have read some of the previous posts to this journal you should be able to figure out why I ask this. Lisa is seriously immuno-compromised, and if a skeptic or non-believer brings the bug into my shop then that could be a disaster.
What can I say? Let's follow the rules so that sooner rather than later we can be rid of them.
I have SO many completed repairs. The lockdown has been a godsend in this respect. Pretty-well every repair that I could complete is done. The exceptions are a few that I haven't been able to get parts for, and a few that I need to have a serious chat with the owners.
If you DO have a repair with me, then please either come into the shop or contact me via email. I suspect that the "shop" is going to be SO busy that I'll barely get a chance to answer the 'phone.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
as I'm sure most of you know, as of 6.00pm Monday 9th August, Lismore and the surrounding areas have been placed under Lockdown.
And as much as we'd all like my little shop to be classified as "essential", I'm afraid that I don't qualify. But as soon as the government health-orders are lifted you can be assured that I will re-open right away.
If you read this, and want to contact me via email, that would be fine. Clearly though, completed repairs can't be collected, and new repairs can't be accepted, as I am required to have the shop closed.
It's been an interesting few months.
I chose to close the shop temporarily in May, to catch up on the large backlog of repairs. I made good progress. I re-opened in June and actually booked in more new work than the number of completed jobs that were collected. Then came July, and Lisa's illness.
As Lisa's recovery continued I was able to re-open the shop at the end of July. Two weeks later I have to close again by government directive.
The only good thing about this is that I should be able to catch up even further!! Yay!!
Income? Yikes. But as Bob Dylan said, "Everything is temporary".
This thing is obviously dragging on beyond the seven days that they initially imposed, so we will have to contact the "authorities" to see if some kind of "Plan B" is acceptable regarding collection of completed repairs. Friends...I am not holding my breath!
Stay at home, stay safe, and stay positive.
Soon this journal will feature guitar stuff again, rather than public health orders...
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
Lisa is recovering and doesn't need me to be around all the time any more. She is still far from fully recovered, but things are looking positive.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read the previous entry in this journal.
So the plan is to re-open the shop next week (from Tuesday 27th July).
I have a shop full of completed repairs (!) and will be calling people next week to advise that their guitars are ready to collect.
If you read this, and you are thinking about bringing some guitars in for me to fix, could I please ask you to hold off for a week or so - I was in the shop this morning and, to be honest, it's full! It will take me a week or so to ship out the completed repairs before I can ship in some new ones. Thanks for this.
My plan is for the shop, and all incoming and outgoing repairs, to be back to normal (or what passes for "normal" in a busy repair shop) next week, or at the latest the following week.
This has been a particularly weird and trying time for Lisa and me, and it's still ongoing until she is fully recovered. I'm sure that you will respect this.
To all of you who expected me to be there to fix your guitars as I always have, I thank you for your patience and understanding. I know that rocking up to a shop and finding a "closed" sign is never a happy meal.
But we seem to be drifting onto the sunny side of this particular dark alley.
Thank you all again for your good-wishes and understanding.
Strange days!
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
as many of you will know, my shop has been closed for the last two weeks. My answering service, and the sign on the door, advises that we’re closed for “Personal Family Reasons”.
My wife Lisa has been seriously ill in hospital and, after discussing things at length, we have decided to make public the reason for her hospitalisation.
Lisa has had a serious adverse reaction to the AstraZeneca Covid 19 vaccination.
She has developed, almost certainly directly from the vaccination, a condition called Guillain-Barré Syndrome. This is a serious immunological disease and is one of the established side-effects of certain vaccinations including the AstraZeneca vaccine.
She is recovering from the condition, but the recovery time is wide-open…it could be two weeks, it could be two months, or it could be two years.
But she is recovering.
The most common “side-effect” of this vaccine is the much-published “rare-blood-clot” syndrome that the media has latched on to, but it turns out that the blood-clot thing is only one of several known reactions, Guillain-Barré being one of them. I’m sure that many of you who read this will google “Guillain-Barré”, so I’ll leave that with you! There are a couple of other serious adverse reactions to AstraZeneca documented, including heart ailments, and another condition, just confirmed, called immune thrombocytopenia.
I am not a mathematician, but as a technician I am required to have a reasonable understanding of numbers and I DO have a decent grasp of percentages and statistics etc. And I also DO appreciate that the statistical chance of a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine is teeny-weeny (about 0.004% or something similar). Tiny.
But in our house it is 100%.
One vaccination, one serious adverse reaction.
Twenty years or so ago, my brother’s infant daughter developed Meningococcal Disease. A doctor told him that this was a “one-in-a-million” chance. Paul replied, “yes, and THIS is the one!”
Statistics are usually pretty meaningless, and completely so when you are the “one”.
I don’t usually do "politics" - and generally run away as fast as I can -
but I do think that our government may have fucked up a bit and ordered a huge load of a marginally-efficient and slightly-dodgy prototype vaccine (perhaps in a genuine attempt to seem to be ahead of the game). And now they’re trying to unload it on
anyone who is spooked enough to take it (whilst indemnifying the doctors that
recommend it – yikes!!).
Most of Europe has backed away from AstraZeneca, and the
United States FDA refused to approve it from the start. Our government
recommends it, but protects GPs from legal action should any adverse reaction
and illness entail. Take from that what you will.
Personally, I’m going to hang on until a better one is available to us all.
I DO know that the chance of BOTH Lisa and I having a bad reaction to the same vaccine is vanishingly small but, after what has happened, how can I now possibly say, "fine, give me a shot of that stuff too!".
I am certainly not an “anti-vaxxer” or any other kind of conspiracy theorist, but I do have concerns about the AZ vaccine. I’m not alone in this, and have the US Food and Drugs Administration and about half of the European Union in agreement. The AZ vaccine would seem to be almost, but not quite, right.
Most importantly, Lisa is recovering, but it will take some time. Hopefully she will recover 100%.
Regarding my shop and guitar-repairs etc. – Lisa is now home from hospital and I will have to spend some time at home looking after her as she recovers full mobility. My workshop is next to the house, so I will be able to catch up on the always-existent backlog of repairs while being there should she need me for anything.
I anticipate being able to re-open the shop in at least a part-time way in two to three weeks. That will allow those of you who have repairs currently with me to come in and collect them. And I should be able to start taking in new repairs as well. But I will be slower than usual at turning around jobs from book-in to completion until we all get back to where we were.
Any questions call or email. I will get back to you, but it may not be straight away.
Thank you all for your understanding and patience.
Andrew
Hi there my friends,
I have to close the shop for a while to deal with a very serious illness to one of my immediate family.
I will continue to do repairs between hospital visits, and may even be quicker without the banter and serious conversations that make up much of my "shop" time!
If you have an instrument already booked in with me, it will be finished according to what we discussed, but the time-frame may be a little longer.
Please contact me either via email or the shop 'phone. My replies may take a little longer than usual. Actually, they will take a lot longer than usual (mainly because Telstra has, for some reason, disconnected my "remote" connection to my message bank).
If, as I truly hope, the medical situation improves then I will be able to gradually re-open the shop for a limited time each week so that you can collect completed repairs.
I must apologise to those of you who were expecting to collect their completed repairs this week, but I assure you that this illness was unexpected and very concerning and, that no matter how much I consider your guitar and their repairs to be of absolute prime value to you and my business, the medical situation that my family has be-fallen takes priority.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
back to "normal" now - the shop is back open usual hours (1.00pm - 5.00pm Tuesday, Thursday and Friday)
My month hiding away and catching up on the big jobs worked out well. Only the refinishing work didn't quite get completed (still a bit too humid to be confident spraying clear lacquer over sunbursts and tinted solid colours such as cherry). But we're close.
Still finding some parts supplies (especially binding materials for some reason) to be tricky, but generally things are back where they once were.
To anyone that was inconvenienced by my shop being closed for a few weeks - thanks for your patience. And to be honest, I wouldn't have gotten your guitars fixed during that time anyway.
So. I'm back to "regular" busy rather than "silly" busy.
And taking new work in as usual.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
as I have said here before, this last year has been the busiest of my career. An increase of about 35-40% according to the books.
That may seem rather modest, but it's a big jump in the amount of work received, given that I was always working at about capacity for years before Covid struck.
And it's enough to make me stressed about the long-term repairs and restorations that have taken a back-seat to the oncoming regular work.
Like most people, I have a certain number of hours each week that I allocate to work. My system has always been necessarily flexible, depending on the number of jobs I have promised to have finished, and dependent on the weather with relation to gluing and painting repairs.
I give priority to the week-by-week repairs, the set-ups and fret jobs and wiring etc. But I also always have a number of major projects in the workshop - restorations, re-builds, re-finishes etc. These bigger jobs necessarily have to fit between the day to day stuff, and during busy times tend to bank up in the dark corners of the workshop.
So I often work weekends to catch up.
But I DO have a limited number of hours each week to do the work, and a 30% increase means that I am over-loaded.
I have no intention of speeding up and doing quick-fixes, that is not my way, so I will continue to apply the same level of focus and care that I always do.
SO...
I will be closed during May. Lisa has booked a few days away for us to goof off and catch our breath (yay!), and then I will be in the workshop without interruptions catching up on about thirty long-term jobs that I've been losing touch with.
If you have a repair currently with me, I will call you when it's completed and arrange a time for you to collect it. If you have a repair with me, and you'd like to know if it is completed, then please call or email. Email is good.
I won't be taking on any new work before June.
Thanks for your ongoing trust and support.
Phew!
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
still very, very busy! I am trying to balance the new work that I'm booking in with the existing jobs that I'm working through. And balancing the short-term smaller jobs with the longer-term more complex ones.
I don't ever want to rush any jobs, big or small, or give any of them less than my full attention, so there is a chance that I will have to stop accepting new work for a few weeks at least.
I have some family commitments for a couple of weeks in May, so April will be crucial.
Thanks as always for your support and trust.
Just had some bad news: my old friend Doug Parkinson has died. The older among you will remember Doug from the '60s and '70s, and maybe even some of the younger folk will have heard of him. Plenty of obituaries and YouTube clips up there for you to follow. Look them up.
I only knew Doug for a year or two, when we were both working on the hit musical "Buddy!", but he was a warm and splendid chap, and during the show became a "buddy" of everyone in the cast and crew. I grew up listening to music from his generation (including some of his music!) and, along with the other cast and crew members who had grown up with that music, we'd have lots of after-show chats about the early days of Australian rock music and music and the world in general.
Great singer and a great professional. He played the role of J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) the singer who was killed in the same plane-crash as Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. His work ethic (let alone his voice!) was an inspiration to us all on the show.
I was privileged to know Doug for a while.
Sincere condolences to his family, but also massive condolences to the Australian Music Industry - we have lost a giant.
Andrew
Hi Everyone,
I'm back open again and as busy as always!
This year is a bit of a milestone as it marks 40 years since I started this career as a guitar-repairer. Almost impossible to believe that it's been that long. 40 years!!
Thankfully, it hasn't been wasted and I've learned quite a lot over that time. I'm pretty sure that I've also helped a lot of people play better and more in tune, and probably saved a few gigs along the way.
It's been fun.
I have no intention of stopping just yet (unless I win Powerball, and even then I'd use that to make a graceful and positive exit!).
I've been figuring out ways to pass my knowledge and experience on to the next generation, and I have a few ideas. Stay tuned!
Keep well, my friends, and stay safe and healthy during these weird times.
Strange days indeed!
Andrew