I thought this subject deserved a new thread as the old problem is now gone, and, as we move on, new stories, thoughts and ideas are more appropriate here.
To recap quickly for those who may not know the story. I won a gift card at the 2019 Williamasport PA COG national rally donated by Seth Laam for $400 of work to be done by him. I could not for the life of me locate my original C-10 seat, he offered though to rebuild my Russell Day Long seat as he worked at one time for RDL and my seat was secondhand and wasn't a perfect fit. This was March 10th,2020, yes, 4 years ago, mere days before the balloon went up over the covid nonsense. I knew it would be just a bit to get my seat back as he was in CA, think about what was going on there then.
6 months later I called for a sitrep. The heat, the covid nonsense, his inability to get supplies, maybe a bad day for us both and I got an earful from him about a lot of things. I had to look up some street terms I never heard before that he used. Every 3 or 4 months after, I would call and it was not good. Some things were said by both of us that maybe weren't the best, however, I would have said them to his face. My last contact was March of 2022 where I almost hopped on the bike and rode to CA to visit him. It was bad.
To clarify, he never once said he would not send my seat back, he refused all offers of extra money from me to finish the job. He is proud of his work, does good work and wanted it right when it came back to me. He is a strong personality to deal with and may come across as arrogant and childish, this is common with people who are very good at what they do, I call it confidence. I'm not defending him I'm merely stating my opinions and what I observed, I'm still disappointed it took 4 years for this thread to be made, I don't ride my C-10 anymore, certainly not the distances where the RDL would come into play, it didn't have to be like this, but, the fact I'm writing this is a good thing.
He called me at home last month and told me to call him. My wife said it was an ambush.:LOL: She's Russian, go figure. He told me he moved and was not far away and that I needed to come down and talk and pick my seat up.......We talked and he got a little defensive of his sometimes unusual behavior of the past, and, without going into detail, I can understand it but I reminded him that I was not part of why he was mad at a particular group. He gave me his home address and made an appointment for me to ride in and talk.......My wife said it was an ambush and to not go and if I did to never go in the house. She offered to ride down the night before and set up an observation post prior:LOL:. She's Russian, go figure.
To summarize, he lives 5 miles off a 2 lane up in the hills of WV on a dirt road. I met him, we talked, the Seth I thought was going to be there was not there. He was gracious to a fault, offered beverages, invited me back for his BBQ, showed me his shop and my seat, we talked about a lot of things and he reminded me a lot of some of the guys I worked with, confident in life, sure of his convictions and does not settle for inferior work. My seat looks and feels great! He told me he saved all our conversations about what I wanted in the seat and that it was in his car when he drove from CA to WV.
BTW, my wife said for me to call when I cleared his mailbox, did a 360 recon, looked for secondary targets after getting eyes on him and have an exit route other than the driveway, I tried to call, "no cell phone service", dang, no air support. I joke :LOL: , but, she is Russian.
We cleared the air and we started over and yesterday was day one of knowing Seth Laam as the past was wiped.
