Doing that commute for 14 years is very impressive!
I used to have a 70mi commute and considered biking it a number of times, but never did.
Tell me something about yourself that is Amazing, Unbelievable, Surprising or Odd. =)
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I used to have a 70mi commute and considered biking it a number of times, but never did.
NateB
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I was able to commute by bike to one employer years ago, but it was only about 5 miles each way. In the winter it was almost too short of a ride to warm up. I did enjoy the looks from drivers when I could trackstand and sip coffee at red lights.
Back when I used to bike a lot, I had a night job in an industrial factory part of town which I biked to. As I was getting ready to leave, the rest of the guys were leaving in one car (small Chevy economy car) and they left first.
I later biked quickly to the main part of the city and suddenly the guys in the car came up behind me in shock wondering how I beat them there lol
They asked and my reply was that what I had under my hood had more power than what they had.
I later biked quickly to the main part of the city and suddenly the guys in the car came up behind me in shock wondering how I beat them there lol
They asked and my reply was that what I had under my hood had more power than what they had.
NateB
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I once had a cop clock me at 35 mph in a 30 downtown on my bike. He got beside me at a light and yelled out his window that he was impressed. I was just trying to keep up with traffic and not be a hazard. I was breathing so I hard I couldn't talk to him and could only give him a thumbs up.
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I'm sure my life was more boring than I remember it. I hope the statute of limitations runs out before I do. I'm pretty sure if you shine a flashlight in my left ear, Pink Floyd would come out of the right one. If others have ADD, I'm pretty sure I have MINUS. Yeah, I'm gifted...found a woman who could put up with me for 45 years! I envy anyone with common sense. I like to think outside the box, because I've misplaced it or filled it with useless rocket crap. I read too much and do too little. My brain has the plasticity of Silly Putty. I don't write checks my body can't cash anymore, I use a debit card. I rarely entertain any more, except myself. My time is short, but some days are too long. Life can be so exciting, but then you need a nap. Then there was the time...nah, maybe some other time.
I am so stealing that line!
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I once regularly called in to a local FM station to perform impressions of celebrities and cartoon characters.
I grew up being able to do character voices including Donald Duck (ended up getting a LOT of requests for a cursing Donald lol).
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I have a collection the vintage uniforms from the former East Germany. Oh, and I cosplay a fox sometimes at renaissance fairs and living history events.
Awesome cuz!I have a collection the vintage uniforms from the former East Germany. Oh, and I cosplay a fox sometimes at renaissance fairs and living history events.View attachment 575987
Dave: We need to have a talk sometime. You're one of the more fascinating people I have encountered.
NateB
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Oh, I do want to meet up with you. Tell you what. Next time I fly with the Vegas Tripoli guys, I'll set aside time for a side trip and we can meet up. Don't know **** about cigars, but name your poison. Inside, outside, beer or whiskey. I can bring something interesting. Let's do this!
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That's going to be one heck of a side trip, unless hobie1dog is planning on moving!
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I thot he was close to Vegas, no? Pahrump, right? Home of BMS and FIREWORKS? I have stories....
Sooner Boomer
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A bit further East than that, N. Carolina. Swing by and pick me up on the way. I don't smoke, and don't normally drink, but we could sit around telling lies about rockets, women, and the other important things in life...
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Teepot's in Pahrump. But if you're going by BMS, I need a few things...
"I have stories..." I'll bet you do!
My BIL lives in Reno and we would love to go back out and see him again. we went out in 2015
You are always welcome if you want to launch with us on the east coast.
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Chuck, thx for the invite. I've told the story elsewhere that the rocket club we started in Warner Robins, Ga.in the 60's is still there and part of the STEM curriculum. It's the biggest tale of synchronicity in my life, bordering on spooky. If newspaper archives still exist, I can prove I held the alt record for " middle Georgia" for a heartbeat. Astron Skyhook, or rather what was left after I butchered it. AFAIK, three of us are still alive. Nobody else but me flies rockets as an adult. I can hardly wait for my second childhood, as the first one is still fun as hell. If you want the whole spooky story, pm me. No need to bore folks here with it. The butterfly effect is real.
Sounds like something "Amazing, Unbelievable, Surprising or Odd" to me and this is an appropriate place to post it!
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It's kinda long, but still gives me goosebumps. Two more votes and I'll turn the ghosts of the past loose.Sounds like something "Amazing, Unbelievable, Surprising or Odd" to me and this is an appropriate place to post it!
When I was a youngster I started experiencing so many occurances of ESP that at some point I had to question if I was making things happen. It was simply too much for my young mind to deal with and I instead decided to turn to logic and science to try to explain everything possible.
I still get really weird "beyond the odds" things happening in my life. I just see them as blessings and surprises that makes life not so boring.
I vote YES. Let the spookies commence.
I'll toss in the second!
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Traveling right now. Lemme land and decompress. spookiest later 2 nite.
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Okay,buckle up, buttercup. This goes back a bit to the Great Pandemic Lockdown.
We all have those childhood friends when growing up that formed the nucleus of our Glory Days. Most of us had those in high school and some in college. My story starts out of the blue, with no names, but I know them all. Love or hate, Facebook and the Internet have made the world smaller and a whole lot more searchable. So, one day out of sheer boredom. I ask my wife if she can find one of my first friends I made on my return to America. I'm a military brat. You learn to move on and not look back. Found him! OMG! We all got old. His brother had just died. I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Blast from the past number one. But I'm ahead of myself. Dad was in SAC during the height of the cold war. Uncle Sam tried to keep families together, but often he went in harm's way where we couldn't go. As an active pilot (he flew for all 26 years in USAF, which I guess is unusual. He gets assigned to Britain as a NATO nuclear weapons safety officer. We moved to Aurora, Co for 6 months while he did training (?-never knew) but he was a big hobbiest to help relax after the day. He allowed me to go to the hobby shop a few times. There was the first model rocket I'd ever seen that really flew! Yup, got one! Flew it once in the meadow at the end of the street and lost it in the forest. D'oh! Went to England about 3rd grade. All I could get were Guy Faulkes rockets, you know, the disposable kind. Once a frickin' year in November. Fast forward to the 9th grade. Dad had been a squadron commander at diff bases in Britain and now was reassigned to the European Air Material support base for Europe (duh) in Georgia. Still in base housing, but my first civilian school. In the rural south. So much for big city and bright lights. I had an accent (still do when drunk) and was way different than the rest of the kids. It wasn't easy. Water finds it's own level and the first summer, I was a prostitute wholly owned by Estes and Centuri. I had a news paper route, washed cars and dogs and windows, collected bottles and mowed lawns. I learned at my father's elbow how to use an exacto, tissue and dope balsa stick planes and learned a lot about aerodynamics as my dad had a degree from Cal Poly. This translated right into rockets. My first order to Estes was $300.00. They even called to make sure I hadn't forged my dad's check I traded him cash for! Being an outsider and bit of a loner anyways, it suited me just fine to hole up in the hobby room during the oppressive heat in the ac and build rockets. Come time to fly, of course, I got a peanut gallery. 4 other chaps on base housing got the bug and we were thick as thieves. 4 other kids in school kinda accepted me as the harmless oddball and so the germ was planted. We begged the Driver's Ed teacher to let us start a rocket club at this little podunk hick school in Georgia. Fast forward, Dad retired, we finished our grades in Georgia, and moved to California to be with all the in-laws and outlaws. Cali not rocket friendly to underage teens. Hit pause. Turned 18 but too many people, not enuff open spaces. Turned 21, went thru the exploratory stage of who am I and what do I do? Fast forward again and it's high power in the desert. By now I'm a manufacturing engineer on the Atlas/Centaurs. Never thought of the guys back in Georgia. When you grow up military, it's a coping mechanism. Fast forward. My buddy, who had become a geophysicist, kept the base phone book all the years. He tracked me down thru death notices of my parents and a lot of excellent sleuthing. OMG! We all traded pics and stories and it was all cool. Blast from the past number two. I retire from GenDynamics when they sold out and moved to Denver. Went to see my best bud from the old rocket days in Georgia whose living in Colorado Springs. Ugghh, town grew up, Denver got smoggy and my idyllic hood was a ghetto. Nope, not going with the company. Fast forward, and here's where I creeped out. Now I'm a manager at an Indian Casino. I interview a chap for a job and all goes well, except I have no openings at the time. This was a favour to HR for some reason. I walk him back to Security and while he being processed out, I overhear him talking to his buddy. He talks about his high school in Georgia. Yup, same little podunk school! I fell over. I asked him if the rocket club still existed. Yup, part of the Stem track for college. 55 dam years ago! Blast from the past number three. What are the freaking odds of that? You tell me. Getting ready to retire again after 24 years of not being an engineer. My boss (the VP) loves me. I think he likes to tell his golf buddies he has a "rocket scientist" in his back pocket. Hah, I'm dumber to than a box of rocks. There are some really wizard chaps here on TRF. He knows I fly and let's me get away with murder for my schedule. Still good times at the launch rod. An off road wheel chair and pretty young nurse to get me out to the pad, I'm good for another decade! As long as it's not spooky.
Edit: dropped the ball. Forgot to mention at the top the buddy my wife found and whose brother died? Yeah, both founding members of our little rocket club. The geophysicist did not know them. Sorry, kinda the start of the spooky for me. Wife calls it synchronicity. I call it wierd.
We all have those childhood friends when growing up that formed the nucleus of our Glory Days. Most of us had those in high school and some in college. My story starts out of the blue, with no names, but I know them all. Love or hate, Facebook and the Internet have made the world smaller and a whole lot more searchable. So, one day out of sheer boredom. I ask my wife if she can find one of my first friends I made on my return to America. I'm a military brat. You learn to move on and not look back. Found him! OMG! We all got old. His brother had just died. I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Blast from the past number one. But I'm ahead of myself. Dad was in SAC during the height of the cold war. Uncle Sam tried to keep families together, but often he went in harm's way where we couldn't go. As an active pilot (he flew for all 26 years in USAF, which I guess is unusual. He gets assigned to Britain as a NATO nuclear weapons safety officer. We moved to Aurora, Co for 6 months while he did training (?-never knew) but he was a big hobbiest to help relax after the day. He allowed me to go to the hobby shop a few times. There was the first model rocket I'd ever seen that really flew! Yup, got one! Flew it once in the meadow at the end of the street and lost it in the forest. D'oh! Went to England about 3rd grade. All I could get were Guy Faulkes rockets, you know, the disposable kind. Once a frickin' year in November. Fast forward to the 9th grade. Dad had been a squadron commander at diff bases in Britain and now was reassigned to the European Air Material support base for Europe (duh) in Georgia. Still in base housing, but my first civilian school. In the rural south. So much for big city and bright lights. I had an accent (still do when drunk) and was way different than the rest of the kids. It wasn't easy. Water finds it's own level and the first summer, I was a prostitute wholly owned by Estes and Centuri. I had a news paper route, washed cars and dogs and windows, collected bottles and mowed lawns. I learned at my father's elbow how to use an exacto, tissue and dope balsa stick planes and learned a lot about aerodynamics as my dad had a degree from Cal Poly. This translated right into rockets. My first order to Estes was $300.00. They even called to make sure I hadn't forged my dad's check I traded him cash for! Being an outsider and bit of a loner anyways, it suited me just fine to hole up in the hobby room during the oppressive heat in the ac and build rockets. Come time to fly, of course, I got a peanut gallery. 4 other chaps on base housing got the bug and we were thick as thieves. 4 other kids in school kinda accepted me as the harmless oddball and so the germ was planted. We begged the Driver's Ed teacher to let us start a rocket club at this little podunk hick school in Georgia. Fast forward, Dad retired, we finished our grades in Georgia, and moved to California to be with all the in-laws and outlaws. Cali not rocket friendly to underage teens. Hit pause. Turned 18 but too many people, not enuff open spaces. Turned 21, went thru the exploratory stage of who am I and what do I do? Fast forward again and it's high power in the desert. By now I'm a manufacturing engineer on the Atlas/Centaurs. Never thought of the guys back in Georgia. When you grow up military, it's a coping mechanism. Fast forward. My buddy, who had become a geophysicist, kept the base phone book all the years. He tracked me down thru death notices of my parents and a lot of excellent sleuthing. OMG! We all traded pics and stories and it was all cool. Blast from the past number two. I retire from GenDynamics when they sold out and moved to Denver. Went to see my best bud from the old rocket days in Georgia whose living in Colorado Springs. Ugghh, town grew up, Denver got smoggy and my idyllic hood was a ghetto. Nope, not going with the company. Fast forward, and here's where I creeped out. Now I'm a manager at an Indian Casino. I interview a chap for a job and all goes well, except I have no openings at the time. This was a favour to HR for some reason. I walk him back to Security and while he being processed out, I overhear him talking to his buddy. He talks about his high school in Georgia. Yup, same little podunk school! I fell over. I asked him if the rocket club still existed. Yup, part of the Stem track for college. 55 dam years ago! Blast from the past number three. What are the freaking odds of that? You tell me. Getting ready to retire again after 24 years of not being an engineer. My boss (the VP) loves me. I think he likes to tell his golf buddies he has a "rocket scientist" in his back pocket. Hah, I'm dumber to than a box of rocks. There are some really wizard chaps here on TRF. He knows I fly and let's me get away with murder for my schedule. Still good times at the launch rod. An off road wheel chair and pretty young nurse to get me out to the pad, I'm good for another decade! As long as it's not spooky.
Edit: dropped the ball. Forgot to mention at the top the buddy my wife found and whose brother died? Yeah, both founding members of our little rocket club. The geophysicist did not know them. Sorry, kinda the start of the spooky for me. Wife calls it synchronicity. I call it wierd.
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awesome background info. got a picture of the off-road powerchair?
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Hobie, not in one yet, but the tread is wearing off the OEM issued equipment and the shocks are going bad.
