And now it is time for me to do my little reveal.
My GB has been built upon some lies.
It was never about the Alps, and it was never about me.
So why did I do it?
...to make the best Christmas present ever.
So here is how the con went down. It was the middle of August when I was trying to stay on top of the game. I was racking my brain, trying to figure out a great Christmas gift idea for the girlfriend. You see, last year she got me a Tom Baker scarf. Never heard of it? There is a whole
website dedicated to researching the colors and lengths used to replicate this iconic bit of knit extravagance. And she didn't just go on Etsy and pay a few hundred $$$ for some subpar knockoff. No, she hand-knit the entire thing. She had secretly knit every day for months on the bus, between work, at home, this 18 foot monstrosity. It was genius. I refused to be outdone.
So I decided to give her this gift.
In the middle of August, I put feelers out to a few select individuals about making this happen. The next day, the IC was up. After a month of dickering over the details, the GB went live on Sept. 23rd. At the end of that month, I realized I would need stabilizers to complete my goal, so I started a SECOND IC/GB to raise interest. By the 5th of October, I was shutting down the entries. I had a deadline to make, and I didn't have time to let stragglers hold me back. I started the ordering process before I had all of the invoices paid, risking my own cash to front the bill and keep things moving full steam. Things started rolling in during the last half of November. By December, I didn't have any room left in my living room. I spent hours getting everything sorted and taken care of before finally building my boards.
Some folks politely suggested when I first started running this that I was overstepping my bounds by making a catch-all GB for first time. I quietly assured them that I was competent, not revealing my true motives. I had to get all of the parts built for my boards by December. I couldn't wait for someone else to run a plate buy while someone else ran the PCB buy, leaving me hoping that everything turned out ok. I had to take fate into my own hands. I had to be the collected resource.
I spent a lot of time doing the extracurricular projects for this GB. I made cute little photoshopped headers to advertise the sale. I sculpted and produced a limited run of caps from scratch so people could get excited about a little contest to encourage them to participate. I made sure to answer as many questions as possible as soon as possible, so much that my advisor started getting frustrated by the time I was spending on this, rather than my research. I had to have the support of the participants. I needed to draw you in.
The girlfriend knew I was working on this. I couldn't hide it from her. I was spending hours of my time making sure everything went smoothly. But she never knew. I placated her with lies about how I was doing this for selfish keyboard greed. I told her about every move I made save the most critical ones. She never saw it coming. I told her I was making the board blue because it was related to my screenname, not that I made them blue because it is her favorite color. I got a little Cherry switch tester early on and had her tell me about which switch she liked most. I used that information to choose to make an Alps board. She didn't know that they were a thing, and she didn't know that she was describing qualities about the switches she liked which happened to match the Alps peculiarities.
I took more time than I expected when etching the cases. Each hand scrawled engraving needed to have something personal to connect each board, his and hers, to each other. A half-heart outlined as yin on one side; a half-heart shaded in as yang on the other. Names. A cat snuggling a tufted titmouse, myself and my ornithologist respectively. Little symbols that have meaning only to us. For her I doodled and practiced to get them just the way I wanted.
The reveal to her when she unwrapped it was worth it all. The box contained her keyboard, but not her gift.
"The keyboard wasn't her gift?", you ask yourself.
No.
Like Helen of Troy, her gift was something more than a golden apple trinket.
I raised an army for her.
So there you have it. My big reveal. All of you were pawns in my game all along. I can look back and say this now, because I took pains to make sure the only thing I gained from this was the support of my minions. I took no profit. I took no easy path. I hope no one feels too betrayed by this. I may not be the Alps crusader you assumed or the GB messiah I strove to be, but I still hope you enjoyed the ride.
I'm typing on my half of the whole now. I really do like it. I get a special sort of joy every time I use it. I have even been writing more because I enjoy the board so much.
To all of you, thanks for helping me achieve my goal.
And any time somebody gives you shit for a nerdy hobby, you can look to this answer to the age old question: can keyboards get you laid?
.
