<HTML>In a message dated 5/25/01 8:35:21 AM Central Daylight Time, tomtuner@mediaone.net (Tom Driscoll) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Group, Give me kimball a  spinet ,a leaf blower outside, bad coffee that I dump in the sink, and an appreciative client  anyday over this situation . Look it up in the dictionary under "no win" . </BLOCKQUOTE> I totally agree.  Although it is exhilarating and gratifying to tune for a great concert, it simply takes more time than a "floor tuning" would.  I vividly remember a stomping, ranting and raving Horacio Gutierrez who complained that the piano was not "brilliant" enough.  Even though I had served many other artists to their utmost delight, the director of that theater can only remember that Mr. Gutierrez was upset and dissatisfied with my "tuning" (in spite of Mr. G. making a point of saying the tuning was "fine"). I'll never forget that livid face and the Cuban accent, "Eef I hed thee gone, I wheel shoot you!" Yesterday, I got a whole lot more pleasure and satisfaction out of my work by tuning a square grand that no one else would touch (even though it is in perfectly fine, restored condition) and getting a double fee for doing so. I also did what Joe Garret has suggested along the lines of mentoring.  There is a 16 year old musical genius boy who has a Wurlitzer spinet which needed 3 jacks repinned, the rubber grommets replaced and a few strings in the high treble replaced.  The boy helped with the job and ended up cutting off all of the old grommets and slipping on the new ones while I was replacing the strings. I charged only my lowest "dealer" rates because I know that his hard working, single mother has little extra money to spend.  I've known the boy since he was small.  Even at the age of 8, he was playing the piano amazingly well without having ever had a single lesson.  His mother says "you just can't get him away from that piano".   He is now old enough to go get a summer job, so I intend to help him get an apprentice job in a piano rebuilder's shop.  He has also made a CD of electronic music that is downright amazing: fresh, contemporary sounding but not like all of the other crap being put out today.  I will also see if the local avant-garde composer, Roscoe Mitchell will take him for the summer to work on performance and composition. Remember you heard the name *Blake Gilmore* here first. To echo Tom D's remarks, I'd much rather have spent yesterday the way I did rather than experience the nightmare and disappointment that Dave R. talked about.  Along with the Walter console and Steinway M I tuned, I think I made more money than I would have at a concert hall anyway. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>