Introduce Yourselves

[Jennifer]

I have the special skill of finding a solid stance while wearing stilettos.

Where's our "This thread is useless without pictures" smiley?

You are absolutely right! I'll have to work on that.

[BadgerAZ]

Hello,

I'm a complete newbie to the forum, found it only a couple of days ago while running down a link from Instapundit. In browsing the forums what most got my attention was Chris Byrne's eulogy of Marty Mandall, a wonderful tribute to a truly unique individual. I knew Marty, though not well, and I'll miss him even more than I've missed the Mandall's "store experience" the last few years.

I live in Arizona, happily married 32 years with a couple of kids who are really no longer kids. We also have three dogs, two Belgian Shepherds (Malinois) and an Australian Shepherd who apparently does not speak Malinois, so always seems left out of the conversation.

I'm an astronomer by training and have spent many freezing nights under the stars and in unheated domes at silly altitudes, but other than serving as an Astronomy Board member at UofA and occasional personal observing I'm not that active in astronomy at present. My primary work is managing information security crises for a large computer company, but in "past lives" I've been a software engineer (I'm one of those silly people who still likes assembly language), managed large technology projects, and at one time a full-time writer. I've mostly written about some specialized uses of computers, aviation, astronomy, and for a time paid the bills writing user manuals for specialized research computer gear for infrared research in the SDI program. (There are narrower niches in which to make a living, but I can't think of one offhand.~)

I have a wandering curiosity and over the years have tried a bunch of things, some with more success than others. I was a freelance photographer for a time; found that I enjoyed photography but detested the photo business, so got out. For a few years my wife and I owned a small aviation-software company -- started the company, wrote the software, did the manuals and tech support while my wife did QA, order fulfillment, and accounting. But after a few years we came to our senses and in the mid-90's sold the company, though I'm happy to see some of the software titles are still around .

I'm a licensed pilot, Advanced-Class ham operator, and in less sane moments I think about going back to school for another graduate degree. At various times I've been a member of a search & rescue team, tracking instructor, worked at the Polar Research Laboratory, and worked on sea-based and space-borne research, data collection, and surveillance platforms, mostly for research on climate data. That experience, the data I saw coming from it, and my astronomy background led to me having some pretty strong views about anthropogenic climate change ("global warming"), and I strive manfully not to let myself get started on that topic. Let's just say that these days I approach the whole topic with a very smug grin .

In the weapons world I do a wee bit of shotgunning (mostly slug practice with an M2), some handgunning to maintain practical accuracy, but my first love is rifles, particularly smaller calibers -- .223, .22 Mag, .22 LR, .17 HMR, and yes, air rifles. I have a couple of "serious" hunting/target air rifles and the scuba tank that fills them, and have taken more critters (Columbia livia, to put it in non-Google-friendly terms) than with anything else in recent years. I have a few big boomers as well (.300 WinMag R1, .300 ShortMag BLR, .308 Wins, .270 T/C Pro, .460 Mag XVR, etc.) but those are purpose-use arms, not things I use for much plinking.

I'm also a big fan of knives, own too many of them, likewise with flashlights, watches, and other little trinkets that I should have outgrown in my teens. I'm a lifelong speed freak and over the years have spent way too much money on cars that go way too fast. Used to be the same way with sportbikes until a serious crash in 2004 on a BMW R1100R physically cured me of that for good.

That's me in a (rather large) nutshell. More a coco-de-mer than a walnut, I guess.~

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Avatar note: Nothing special about badgers except I find them interesting. They have some fine character qualities, if one chooses to anthropomorphise the critters.

[Combat Controller]

Welcome, I thought at first you were one of our stray members from the old Kim du Toit forums, but welcome nonetheless!

Seems lots of members of this forum are pilots, ham, motorbike, computer type folks. We have a few who do astronomy as well. We all love guns obviously.

We even have a couple of falconers, machinists, lawyers (pronounced lairs here in Texas to my continued delight and amazement), tons of reloaders, enough vets to start our own VFW chapter, several damn furriners, and even a few women, though God alone knows why.

[BadgerAZ]

...lawyers (pronounced lairs here in Texas...

The first time I drove through the Deep South I pulled into a gas station and the attendant asked me, "Look at the owl?" When I looked dumbfounded he started making hand motions about stabbing something. After a few seconds I realized he was miming the use of a dipstick, not the commission of a felony.

... several damn furriners ...

Yah, I are one a dem too~. Came here a refugee from Communism, and it's for that reason that it so troubles me to see what I see happening here right now. Much of it seems so familiar, as much the rhetoric as the substance.

My family and I (my parents, that is -- I was still young) came here to get away from a place where police could haul you away for failing to produce your "papers"; where masked agents with machine guns could bust down your door without warning, search your house, and shoot your for any sign of resistance; where criticizing the government could get you in trouble; where the government controlled the economy; and where there was no place or thing out of reach of the central government. Yet... here we are.

We're not (yet?) at the same place, but some of the landscape is looking eerily familiar.

If anyone is offended by that, please forgive me. My life experience makes me see things a little differently, I suppose.

[Jeffro]

We're not (yet?) at the same place, but some of the landscape is looking eerily familiar.

If anyone is offended by that, please forgive me. My life experience makes me see things a little differently, I suppose.

Hardly - we all pretty well feel the unease you are experiencing. We're a concerned bunch!

And welcome! Sure sounds like you have a lot to add!

[First Shirt]

Kinda getting that "deja vu all over again" feeling??? Sometimes I feel like I should go to each of the grandkids, and apologise for what we're leaving them.

On a happier note, welcome aboard!

[Bob K]

Welcome to the party. Beer is in the tub. Ice in the chest. Booze & mixers on the counter.

[blackeagle603]

just beware that some of us may, or may not, own tactical wheelbarrows and argue that 5.56 out an 11.5" barreled AR is more than sufficient for Brown Bear on Kodiak Island.

[BadgerAZ]

just beware that some of us may, or may not, own tactical wheelbarrows...

Well, I'd put up one of these against any mere tactical wheelbarrow. (And don't think I haven't actually thought about one. )

I do have a "tactical" off-road Segway. Loads of fun, if you don't mind being gawked at everywhere you go.

...and argue that 5.56 out an 11.5" barreled AR is more than sufficient for Brown Bear on Kodiak Island.

What, somebody thinks it isn't? Doesn't the "A" position on the safety mean "All bears"?

[Lokidude]

Badger, I get the feeling you'll fit in just fine around here.

Oh, and the TankChair? Revolutionizing Monday Night Football!