I really have to agree with St rider that is the biggest thing I miss and also the chance just to get the hell away from the wife and get out of the house all night
Amen. Good times at the shop every time I visited, and even a chance at some pizza, which was often ordered after I left just to piss me off. And how much fun it was to hook up stuff in parallel to try to blow up a victim amp.
Anywho, I will go out on a limb here and give you my take. The man is getting better slowly, there is no mystery - he hurt his Achilles heel while moving a gun safe, and while recovering from that he hurt the knee on his other good leg (a common problem when you depend on one leg after using two for a bunch of years) so now he is getting *that* fixed. Eventually he will be back, that is my bet (if you want a number I will say 1 year). I don't think he will continue the same business model when he does return, but he will return, IMO (I do not foresee Tom repairing electronics the way he did before, I speculate it will be more about upgrading/refurbishing and reselling).
The one thing that will not change is that the pizza will be ordered after I leave the geek meeting, just to piss me off.
OBG