Intro, new to the fam

[Fredward]

Hello everyone. My name is fred. Just wanted to introduce myself. I am 33 and I work as a travel nurse. So I drive around the country with my wife to fill in at hospitals that need help, contracts are 3 months but I usually sign a second, so I move about twice a year usually. Because of that I had to leave a lot of hobbies behind at home. I’m from st louis Missouri. And my big two hobbies I had to leave were drifting/working on/building cars, and kayaking(just don’t have the room to tote a 12.5” kayak around with me). I’ve always enjoyed cooking at home and worked food service my whole life before nursing. I never knew high end Japanese knives and sharpening were so obtainable until recently I was getting pestered by many Facebook ads for Japanese style Chinese knives. I knew they weren’t quality and wanted something hand forged, with some artisanship. I loves the forged in fire series and wanted a taste. Anyway I just impulse ordered a 8” gyuto from forge to table after watching a YouTube video on cheap but good Japanese knives then went down the rabbit hole of sharpening and got some stones then i found cktg, and holy cow I wanted so many knives. So I just ordered a nashida white 1 Nakiri and will get pictures up when it comes.

Ps. Sorry that was such a long post. If you read this far then congrats

[mauichef]

Welcome to the forum Fred. Lots of laughs and general craziness. Oh and a few knife stories too. You will love it

[Kalaeb]

Great intro, glad to have you. I think you'll find we're a pretty fun and knowledgeable group. Our demographics span everything from doctor to dishwasher

[Jeff B]

Welcome Fred and great intro. I think you will find this forum's personality and knowledge can be as addicting as the knives!

[salemj]

Welcome! And trust me: that was not a long post. Several of us are guilty of posting far longer posts (and far too often!).

I also wanted to mention that I know what you mean: one thing I like about my knives is that they are easy to travel with. I moved a lot for a period of roughly 15 years, and like you, many of my hobbies and activities had to shift. But knives are much easier to move with, and they have a place in any home that has a kitchen - no matter how small! - which means they are a hobby that never feels superfluous. Glad you're on to it!

[ronnie_suburban]

Welcome aboard. Please, don't apologize for the length of your post. If I wanted short, I'd be on social media! If you find this community half as wonderful as I do, you'll be very happy here.

[ken123]

Welcome aboard! You'll find a lot of like minded people here. Long posts are fine. Beyond 10 pages might be excessive I have interests in medicine, kayaking, slalom racing and of course knives.
Regards,
Ken

[Radar53]

Hi Fred and welcome to the forum. First bit of advice is put a padlock on your wallet!!!! I find the forum a very helpful and I really enjoy it as I'm sure you will.

Similar interests as you. I've raced motorbikes, had a rally car for a while, was a competitive white water kayaker and now knives as well.

[cedarhouse]

Good to meet you Fred.

Travel nurse!? Life must be interesting in your profession right now. Are you caught up in work related to the pandemic at all?

[Fredward]

Good to meet you Fred.

Travel nurse!? Life must be interesting in your profession right now. Are you caught up in work related to the pandemic at all?

Oh yeah. I was just in Sacramento for 5 months and it wasn’t really that bad there, but now I’m in San Diego, working in Chula Vista and the icu’s are pretty much all covid positive patients. Lucky the icu I am at has good amounts of ppe and we’re staffed accordingly so it’s not a war zone but I have friends in Yuma Az right now that have 4 patients per nurse when we are supposed to be capped at 2 in icu. It’s for sure unsafe over there right now.

[cedarhouse]

I got a friend here in Austin. He is a paramedic in an ER. He says they are seeing Covid all day everyday. He didn't mention his patient load, he did say PPE supply is good but they have them holding onto things like N95s I guess as reserves for future needs.

Stay safe. Thanks for being there and hopefully none of us will be needing your services

[d_rap]

Welcome Fred. Reading your first post, well, you came to the right place.

My closest friend is an ER nurse in the Bronx, and he keeps telling me he's seen more in the past three months than he has in a career. Thank you for the lifesaving work you are doing.

[stevem627]

Welcome to the forums. If you want a place to go for knowledge and fun this is a great place to visit. If you have disposable funds...kiss them good bye. You’ll enjoy every minute of it the more you see how complicated it is to just pick a knife.

[Altadan]

Haha, so many nice welcomes already, I wanted to add mine;

I'm 33 and I too fell down this hole in search of stones... Didn't take long before I sold my big-store Japanese knife on the "classified" page, and started reading anything I could find useful on the "knife recommendation," "customer product reviews," and the "passaround" pages.... Oh, forgot to mention the "sharpening questions"

Over two years later and about a dozen knives tried and passed-around or sold, I still find this forum to offer lots of reading material for the road, break time, pottie time, night time and morning time, to be sure.
Trust you'll enjoy that nishida, and hope you don't get paralysis by analysis later on!

In short,
Welcome

[ChefKnivesToGo]

Great intro, glad to have you. I think you'll find we're a pretty fun and knowledgeable group. Our demographics span everything from doctor to dishwasher

I’m the dishwasher. It was my first job and I got fired from it.

[Cutuu]

What up Fred!