And speaking of Tom Silva and Connect....

[Bob Marino]

I know, I know, I posted this some years ago but figured now's another good time to repost.
Many, many moons ago, when I was about 15 pounds lighter and my hair a lot darker, I had the pleasure, along with Festool Managers Solius Tolikas and Jim Maner of introducing Tom Silva and his crew to Festool tools.

First demo was done at Dickie Silva's shop with Tom alone. One thing that Tom said and stuck with me when first using the Festool jigsaw (PS2E IIRC) was "this saw has b***s." Second demo a couple months later was with his crew.  Lucky me, lucky them and lucky Festool. A great and memorable time by all.

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[Holzhacker]

I have a lot more respect for Tom and his cohorts now than I did many years ago. I actually like that show where he was driving around with his pickup and trailer to help joe homeowner fix something.
Thought this might be an opportune time to share an old story.
Years ago when 'This Old House' started airing I was a full time young contractor. I and a fair amount of other contractors I knew hated that show. We used to sit around the lunch counter sometimes discussing ways we could accidentally kill Bob, Norm and the crew. It wasn't so much that we hated them but we really didn't like the impact they were having on our work lives.
There were times I would go to a prospective clients house to look at a job and it wouldn't go so well. The situation would always evolve the same. I'd look at the job, we'd discuss the job, etc. and then the homeowner would ask how long I thought the job was going to take. I would answer 1 week, 2, whatever. Then the husband and wife would look at each other and I knew something was wrong.
The first couple times this happened I didn't understand. After a handful of times I understood the look.
One of them would then ask me things like, 'do you only work alone or do you only work 1/2 days' or some other weird nonsense like that. I would then say 'well no I've been doing this a long time I have a crew, etc.
Then the inevitable response from them 'Well we don't understand the difference then, Norm and his crew did this kind of job in 2 days".
At this point I had the choice of trying to save the job by explaining the situation or of killing the job by asking 'You freakin' moron have you never heard of film editing'. I killed a number of jobs just because I was so annoyed at dick and jane yuppy.
I knew quite a few contractors this happened too. Nowadays the 'time factor' is still a bit of an issue with the new crop of shows. Not as much though. Clients seem to have had a come to Jesus moment and realize it always takes longer. Price is far more of an issue though. I seriously don't understand how some of these shows can justify the numbers they put out. Granted a lot of them avoid mentioning numbers but when they do they just aren't realistic.
The worst though seem to be the "GC's" that they have on the rehab shows. Almost everyone of them is pathetic and not worth their tool belt. The rookie mistakes and lack of disclosure they provide those homeowners is disgraceful. It has to just be for TV drama. I hate to think those guys are really that stupid.