I started my woodworking in the basement of my parents' house in upstate New York. I mostly used hand tools and an all-aluminum Sears circular saw to build speaker cabinets and other small projects. Years later after getting married and moving to Boston, my wife and I needed furniture for the first floor of a house we were renting. After our first trip to a furniture store left us in shock as to price of low quality furniture, my wife and I decided we could build our own furniture and save some money. We began to visit hardwood lumber dealers and fell in love with all the beautiful hardwoods. My first shop consisted of a dark narrow basement in our rental house with a very steep and narrow basement stairs. We had a small 7-inch table saw which usually required two people to operate. One person fed the saw while the other person pushed the board backward as the saw stopped from feeding the board faster than 1 inch per minute. My wife bought me a new Sears radial arm saw for Christmas. We plugged it in and all the lights in the basement and probably the entire house went dim. I asked the landlord if I could wire the basement for 220 volts and to my astonishment he gave me permission. We built many pieces of furniture in that dark basement. We moved to California and rented a house with a two-car garage which was a wonderful place to work compared to that basement shop. I continued to receive wonderful, bigger and better tools at Christmas from my very generous wife and in return she received many new pieces of furniture. Two more moves and each time the two-car garage was slightly bigger. My wonderful wife who always helped me gluing up the large projects passed away suddenly. For a while I found gardening more enjoyable than woodworking. Last year, after getting re-married I moved again and after looking at many houses, we were unable to find a house with a larger garage that satisfied our house buying criteria. We compromised with a house that had a two-car garage that could be extended. When we came to look at our present house, my new wife decided that I should build a new shop instead of adding on to the garage. I must admit that I never considered this idea, but became very excited at the thought of building a shop completely designed for woodworking. A couple of weeks ago I began digging the footing by hand and this week the concrete was poured. It took four concrete trucks to pour the 22X36 foot slab and footings. I am excited about working in the new shop, but first a lot of work needs to be done. Many of you have similar stories. Most of us could never imagine the many changes in our lives that we have experienced over the years but we still continue to have a passion toward woodworking.