Please share your experiences/resources with hard money lending

If you've used a HML in the past, I'm curious to know the following:

1. Where do you go to find hard money lenders?
2. How do you decide which lenders to pick from?
3. What did you use hard money for?
4. What were your other options before choosing hard money? Why did you choose hard money?
5. What was the overall process like?
6. What were the pros and cons?