Well, I applied for and got the go ahead to be a part of Pool Synergy which is a blog carnival all about pool and billiard themes.  Thanks for the opportunity.  I was not in time to get in on the What's in the Case edition but I am doing one retroactively because I think it's a natural fit to what I do.  I know you all are just DYING to know what's in the case maker's case right?

So I did a video blog for this one where I do a concise history of cases from the 70's until now to show just how we ended up even being able to do these What's in The Case segments for more than 30 seconds.   I will give you the summary in case you don't want to watch the video.

Pre-80s most players only carried one cue with them, sometimes with two shafts.  So the prevalent cases were slim tubes and sleeves that only held one butt and at most two shafts.  No pockets.  The most famous case of the 70's was the Fellini.  It inspired a bunch of imitators.  Most famous among the imitators was It's George.  It's George introduced the 2×4 and even the 3×6 Tour Edition.  With big pockets these cases inspired players to fill them up and they did.  Parallel to it's George we had Jay Flowers and Nora Van Horn making cases that were plumbing tubes covered with leather and those also had a pair of small pockets.  In the mid 80's Joe Porper came out with a molded foam core case in sizes all the way up to 3×6 with roomy pockets.

And so these three styles of case came to define the modern cue case as a place to carry around everything you need to play except for talent.  And the inventors in pooldom were only too happy to keep inventing more and more tools and gadgets to fill those case pockets.

Also three other factors played a big role in cases needing to get bigger, Texas Express One Foul Nine Ball Rules and the advent of break cues being used.  Under the Texas Express rules jump shots became more important than ever and so jump cues were invented.  Also the break became much more important and so players started breaking harder and not wanting to damage the tips they had carefully shaped they started carrying a dedicated cue just to use for the break.  And in the 90's we started to see a lot of specialty shaft companies  coming out with a lot of varieties of shafts and so players needed a place for all those extra shafts.

In the past three years I have made all sorts of cases of varying configurations with specialty pockets of all shapes and sizes.  I often wonder what all my customers keep in their cases.

I do have an interesting story along those lines.

In the beginning, way back in 1991, I made cases with all kinds of funky pockets and one customer asked me if I could do a hidden compartment.  I said sure and asked him how big it should be.  He said it should be about big enough for a kilo of sugar.  Really, he did.  So I made it and called it the 007 case.  I never did find out if he was really carrying sugar in that secret compartment.

So what's in my case?  Well being that I am in the business I am constantly being given tools and gadgets to evaluate.  So my gear rotates a lot but essentially I always like to have a Tip Pik, a burnisher for the tip, something to trim and sand the tip and something to condition the shaft.  So that's my core gear and everything else rotates with whatever the projects of the moment happen to be.

So check out the video below and see what's in my case right now. 

Ok, I admit it I am a Salt and Peppa fan.  I love their lyrics, smart and funny and the music rocks. 

But that's not why I am here.  I am here today to talk to you about choice.  When you order a "custom" thing then you usually have some choices in what you get to make your order yours.

Recently one of my customers who ordered this case which is called The Elements was asked why he didn't buy a case from a well known competitor of mine.

My customer does in fact already own a case from the well known case maker but his reply was that he didn't have the amount of choice with that case maker as with us. 

My customer wanted larger pockets, a zipper on the top of the lower pocket, a zipper around the upper pocket, a flip top lid, an extra pocket for the joint protectors and chalk, a design that flowed all around the case with very little use of rivets, a specific size, and more which are all choices that the competitor does not and will not offer.  So basically my customer could have ordered another case from the well known case maker but his choices were limited severely in contrast to what he wanted.

The way I feel about it is that I have a shop where we are able to do just about anything with leather.  I know that my competitors don't have the equipment or the extra hands like we do.  So I don't hold it against them that they have chosen to limit their choices to what they can do best.  I happen to be lucky to be in the position to own a shop that can offer nearly unlimited options when it comes to building a cue case.  Of course there are a few things we won't do like copy a competitor's product verbatim and I won't put silly metal bands around the bottom of our cases.  Sorry the metal bands are a joke and really do nothing except look dented and awful after a year or so unless one is careful. 

The thing is that now more than ever you have choices in cue cases.  You can choose to go with a particular maker that constrains their style to a particular look or you can go all the way to the other end of the spectrum and choose us where you have the freedom to go where you want to go. 

Either way the choice is yours.

I really need to look up where the whole on the wagon/off the wagon thing comes from when talking about addiction.  Ok well I did – thanks Ask Yahoo – here is the origin.  Now I fell off the wagon concerning my aforementioned obsessive behavior with the AZB forum.  Seems I am still popular there with not one but TWO threads about me going in the main forum.  It's gratifying to see that I seem to have a lot of people who want to see me go back.  And the usual antagonists posted up their usual drivel.  And I spent way too much time today checking those threads.

This time though I didn't rise to the bait – well not really but sort of.  I did use Karen's account to clear up a few misconceptions in private to the people who posted them.  And I called a few folks to clear the air which really felt good.

I don't plan to go back to posting on AZB.  Right now we are getting more cases done than ever.  I think I have responded to more emails this month and especially this week than I have all year.  Being committed to being "right" is a major time and energy drain.  It's actually a lot more fun to just get stuff done and feel relieved and peaceful instead of the getting the short adrenaline boost from telling someone off.

I am glad to know that some folks are reading the blog though even if they don't comprehend what they read and manage to take it out of context.  But for those folks I hope that they notice that comments are open on my blog now so they can say their piece to me if they disagree with something I write here.

Well I don't know if it's better to be infamous or famous but I will take my combined 14 pages of attention on AZ and enjoy it.  To those of you who like me – you rock!  To those of you who don't, suck it up.

When my "ban" is over I won't be back.  Karen will be there though and she can reach me if there is something that needs my attention.  Meanwhile AZ Billiards is a great place to be for billiards info if you can avoid the mini-trolls.  So don't hesitate to visit if you want to talk pool.

Oh and before I forget a big shout out to Justin at TAR.  They have a big PPV coming up that everyone should go an see.  With all the free promotion he is giving me and Karen I thought I would return the favor.  www.theactionreport.com