Sunday, 10 June 2007
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Grizzly tools
posted at
02:36 PM
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I was not familiar with Grizzly tools, but a glance at their Web site indicated that they sell everything from hammers to industrial-grade machining tools. (They also have an unexpected sideline in luthier tools and kits, in keeping with the owner's hobby.) That sounds like fun, doesn't it? I mean, if you like tools and stuff. Dennis is, as noted, getting into welding, so he's always on the lookout for tools to enhance his enjoyment of this hobby.[1]
The catch was this: the sale started at 8:00 (am) on a Saturday. Dennis had investigated and found out that people are in line by 6:00. Wow, this must be a hell of a sale. We agreed therefore to go up the night before, enjoy the hospitality of Bellingham, and get up at some ungodly hour for to go stand in line.
Friday we went up with enough time to be able to get together with Zack and his girlfriend (who attend school at WWU in Bellingham) for dinner. After this we repaired to our hotel room, where Dennis said he was going to bed. It was, like, 8:30. He figured we had to get up at 5:00, so that was right for him. Dang. He did indeed crawl into bed, but said it wouldn't bother him if I watched TV or whatever. I turned on the Mariners game -- I actually prefer watching baseball with no sound -- and practiced guitar very, very quietly. My attempt to keep the noise down was however offset by the folks upstairs from us, who were apparently having a sumo match in their room or something.
At 5:00 on Saturday, sure enough, the alarm went off, and by golly, we got up. Some breakfast (at IHOP, where else?) and we headed to Grizzly. We arrived right at 6:00 and were waved into the parking lot by some Grizzly employees who had the parking thing sorted out, then we got in line. Since we had plenty of time, I wandered about and counted 65 people ahead of us in line. (That is, I counted 64 guys and one woman. I also inventoried the parking lot and found exactly two vehicles that were not pickup trucks.) As time passed, the line got longer, and we estimated that by 8:00 there were probably over 200 people in line. The people at the very front had apparently been there all night, and people more experienced than us had brought camp chairs and such.
The sale was set up in a tent to the side of the main building, with chain-link fence enclosing the whole thing. Over the two hours that we were waiting, a seemingly endless stream of employees was arriving and taking their various positions, and at one point, there was a parade of forklifts out of the main warehouse over to the tent.
At 7:45 the tent flaps were opened and there was a surge as people crowded toward the fence for a peek inside. And then at 8:00 ... bam! The gates were opened and people ran into the tent. Inside there were tables set up in long rows with all sorts of stuff, and toward the back were rows and rows of larger equipment -- band saws, jointers, drill presses, you name it.
When they said "Scratch-n-Dent sale," they weren't kidding. The stuff for sale was indeed scratched and dented -- what it looked like was that they put out tools that had been returned or maybe had fallen off a forklift. We had sort of imagined that it was a Scratch-n-Dent plus, you know, clearance sale, but not really. Each piece had a tag on it that indicated its state -- "motor missing," "does not start," "sloppy chuck," like that. Some were less obvious. I picked up a power drill that simply said "Used." Dennis was looking at some shop tools that said "Sample," which puzzled him. By the time he found someone to ask, tho (samples meant floor models), the tools he was looking at were gone.
The whole thing was over in about 15 minutes. Most anything that was in good shape and/or a bargain was probably gone by the time the last person in line got into the tent. I have never gone shopping at 6:00 AM on the day after Thanksgiving, but I imagine it's similar.
The many employees were well arranged with cash registers to be able to handle high volume. It was clear that they'd done this before and knew how to manage the entire process. There was one hiccup in the warehouse when the printer was down for 10 minutes and they couldn't pull orders. To assuage those of us waiting, they handed out free caps and soft drinks.
Conveniently enough, the retail store was also open and happened to be having a summer sale. The crowd moved from the tent to the store, and soon enough the line inside to pay was also very long. But again, orderly.
I got a few small things, but nothing big. Still, it was a lot of fun. Dennis made the comment that "By the time you figure the cost of the trip and the hotel ...". I quickly rejected that line of thinking, though -- "Dennis, you're not thinking like a guy here!" and no more was said about that. What it was was a little guy adventure, and hey, now we know all about Grizzly tools. By golly, next year we're going to get up at 4:00 AM and ...
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