Finally home...
After going through two airports, a bumpy ride on a CRJ200 (the Corolla of airliners, no joke), and one FANTASTIC fun-filled weekend. Ross, Roger, Nate, and Nate & Melissa, I can't thank you all enough for inviting us into your homes and letting us play with your machines. Everything turned out perfectly, and the best part was that after Friday it stayed nice and enjoyable all weekend...the back of my neck shows it too, LOL! It was especially great seeing everyone again, and meeting new faces as well!
Now that most of you who attended found out about the little shipping disaster, I can say that the "surprise" was going to be one of the first Dyson DC21 canisters to hit the US market, serial number 36. I ordered it Wednesday and had it shipped UPS Next Day Air so we could play with it. It made it all the way to Tucson without any trouble, and then on the truck to Roger's house, something apparently fell on it and it was damaged. Greeeaaaaat, but worse things happen. I was mad, but UPS will be giving me a refund in full, and I'll just get another one. At least it was damaged and no one took it. That would have been worse. But there were still many fun machines to play with...namely the Hoover Convertible 65 and 67, Model 27, 28, 305, Eureka widetrack ESP self-propelled, Kirby 518, Eureka upright with the "touch-power" grip, and the most interesting of all, the Cordaway "canned ham" canister with the Vibra-Beat nozzle! I had never seen one of those before, so it was very interesting (and ineffective). It made an otherwise quiet machine put out one hell of a racket!
Thanks to Roger, I now have 4 excellent new additions to my vacuum collection. A Hoover model 634 (rare promotional version of the 63 in turquoise), 334 (the first lightweight commercial Convertible), 62 (unlike others, this one has chrome lettering on the hood), and a dual-voltage UK Powerplus. I also grabbed an older two-tone Quadraflex Powermatic nozzle, for experimentation with otherwise straight-suction machines. Now I just need to get another adapter cord for it!
I will hopefully be posting pictures and giving a more detailed synopsis of the washer-related festivities shortly. Right now I'm beat, and it's back to the daily routine starting tomorrow.
--Austin