To all who feel affected, I owe a giant apology. I built the 5th cue. I apologize mostly to the other cuemakers and hope they can understand my position & purpose.
Toward the end of the logistical planning, several of the builders "suddenly" decided they couldn't send cues. One even just quit communicating instead of offering a reason. This left Shawn standing with his pants down, showing his ass to the world. He had put in a ton of time & effort to make it happen, even giving several time extensions to the builders. I felt bad for him & I tried helping him in the only way I know how. I began looking for cuemakers. Only one cuemaker agreed, which was Wes Hunter, but he only agreed on the condition that I would as well. I was kind in a tough spot & chose the lesser of two evils. I would help Shawn, a friend, even if it meant taking some heat for it myself. Wes & I literally had days to build our cues & we each did the best we could given the time we had to prepare. I don't want to speak for Wes, but given as much time as the rest, i'm sure each of us could have provided something better for everybody. I thank him for helping me. It essencially was me asking a friend for help to help another friend. He wasn't happy about the short notice & only did so because I pulled the friend card on him. Thank you again, Wes.
Most regretably, I was supposed to stay out of it. I was only supposed to referee & assign numbers. I am very much sorry to everybody for getting involved. I did the duty I said i'd do and I did it with absolutely no bias. If anything, I tried to be sure my cue had no extra frills anywhere of any kind that would pursuade bias. I wanted to remain anonymous because I had nothing to gain nor lose. I didn't want anybody wanting to order a cue from me because they liked the tester, and me have to tell them no. That kinda defeats the purpose. So I thought it would be best to remain anonymous to avoid any hurt feelings or misled testers. As I see now, my fears of having to speak up have become apparent. I knew i'd take some heat, but it's worth it to me in trade for helping a friend. What i'm not ok with is Shawn taking heat for me. He never knew until testing was completed. He wasn't happy about me remaining anonymous & didn't see anything wrong with me building a cue, but honored my wishes. Him taking heat for this is why I am posting this now. He was simply covering my ass the way I tried covering his ass. It's what friends do. So again, I offer my most sincere apology. I hope you all understand. If not, well I guess it's ok to hate me.
As for my cue, give it to Manny Perez. He's the son of 9ball, Hector Perez, an AZ member. The kid is an aspiring player and I have agreed to give him a cue, but wasn't fast enough to get it to him before his BEF tourney. He gave all of his saved up tourney winnings to Ashley Nandrasy so she could go compete in the WPBA Open next week. So i'd like for the cue to either go directly to him, or sell the cue in an auction or raffle & give 100% proceeds to him & i'll continue building his cue. Either is fine by me. That kid is deserving. Manny, hopefully you get to the big show
One last time, i'm sorry to anybody who feels affected. I hope I never offended anybody.
