Member Biography/Profile thread

[Airframes]

Hey Scooter, I agree with everything the guys ( and girl!) have said. And you did the right thing at the right time!
Like most of us, I've seen my fair share of s**t in my time, but I have a saying that always seems to help. Perhaps you can adopt it.
"It's mind over matter." "I don't mind, and they don't matter!"
Keep your chin up mate, you seem do be doing well so far.
Terry.

 

[Watanbe]

I thought I would give you my bio. Before I get started Scooter mate, I hate the fact that people get bullied in school. It truly is unfair. While I didn't get harassed in school, so probably don't entirely understand, iI have had mates in your situation. If you need anyone to talk to, you can add me on msn and I'm sure many of the forum members are the same.

Anyway my bio.

My name is Anthony Butler I was born in a country town on Nov 1st 1989. My Dad is a VERY VERY hard working country doctor and my mum has had a few jobs in her time. Both my parents came from nothing and have worked hard to give me a very easy childhood, certainly in comparison to some of you. I moved to Adelaide (decent sized city) when I was 12 years old and I live there now. I started at the local public school for my primary education (junior) then I moved to an all boys private school to finish my schooling. Was a bit daunting at the start for a boy who grew up in the country, but I quickly adjusted and ended up having a great time and made some good mates.

I am a sports nut and have tried just about any sport you can name. My favourite sport is Aussie Rules football. I became pretty good at footy and generally played at the higher levels available to me, i.e juniors at state level clubs. I always knew I wasn't going to go far with my sport...so I now just play socially for my University club, which is an absolute riot. I don't think I've ever had so much fun in my life. My other passion in live besides WW2 history, is cars, especially Japanese Imports. My car a 1993 Toyota Soarer TT is my most prized posession and I love it.

I'm currently studying Law and Commerce at Adelaide University although I find it very very boring and difficult. As a result im planning on swapping to studying Law and Arts with the aim of becoming a history teacher further down the track. I have a very active social life and love nothing more than hitting the town with my good mates. and my friends are important to me and I have a large group of close mates who id do almost anything for.

I think that basically covers it!

 

[Njaco]

If this world needs anything, its good teachers. Good luck, Tony!

 

[Catch22]

Good luck!

 

[Watanbe]

the way I am heading at the moment, I need it.

 

[Airframes]

Keep at it mate, you'll get there.

 

[Watanbe]

well im not leaving uni until I have a degree

 

[109ROAMING]

Nice ,thats the attitude!

 

[RabidAlien]

You go, Tony!

 

[Watanbe]

Thanks guys!

 

[Sweb]

There's some movie scripts in these posts. I wonder if any producers ever happen across boards like this.

I was born in 1955 the second of 5 kids and first son. Tough being the first son. Expectations run high from the father. That much I tempered when my son was born. My Pop was a career Air Force pilot and mother was a check out clerk he met at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, MS, in 1951. After a stint in Korea flying RF-51s he came back and they got married.

I worn born in Landstuhl, W. Germany (then) near Sembach AB where my pop was stationed flying RF-80s. Left there when I was 15 months old and went to Sumpter, SC. There 15 months and on the Wichita, KS. There for 15 months and on to Portsmouth, NH. There for 3 years and on to Biloxi, MS. There for 3 years and on to Westerville, OH. There for 1.5 years and on to Huntington Beach, CA. There for 3 years and on to Schaumburg, IL. 3 years later I joined the Air Force and became a crew chief on KC-135A tankers. Stayed 3 years, 10 months, 18 days and a wake up. Got out early under Palace Chase and went back to Schaumburg, IL. Stayed there 1 year and moved with the company I worked for to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I had to transfer into the Navy to finish my reserve commitment but by that time my military bearing had all but rusted. Fortunately the Navy reserve detachment in Coral Gable let me slip into inactive reserve to finish my time because of my active duty time being longer than their minimum 1st term requirements. I couldn't tell you anything about the Navy except their Honorable Discharge certificate beats the hell out of the Air Force's. Stayed with the company almost 4 years and quit go to school to get my BS in aviation maintenance management from Lewis University in Romeoville, IL. In 85 rejoined the world and became a technician performing overhauls of commercial aircraft parts at a company in Miami, FL. Stayed there for 4 years and started my own company doing the same thing. The events of 911 blew that all to hell so in May, 2003 I surrendered my FAA Repair Station certificate to the FAA, sold my company assets and went to work doing the same thing in Shelbyville, KY, as a general manager of a company there. Left that in 3/2006 and joined another company doing the same thing (yet again) for a company in Orlando, FL, as their chief airworthiness inspector, among other things.

In my life there has been a lot of drama, ups, downs and expanses of extreme boredom. I got married at 30 years old and we waited 8 years before we had kids. We lived like rock stars. We were both open water divers and really enjoyed ourselves for those first 8 years. I now have 2 boys (15 and 10) and rather than brag on them I'll just say I don't deserve them. But, their mother does. Married 24 years and happy.

I enjoy the career I've chosen. My avocations include dabbling in fine art (oil on canvas), playing acoustic guitar, airplane modeling (both plastic and radio control scale), and making small holes in paper targets with a Springfield Model 1911 Mil-Spec. I have flown a lot in my life privately and with with my Pop and my brother, who is soon to be a retired Air Traffic Controller, but to be honest it just doesn't do anything for me. I actually went through flight training and certification but the only time it ever meant anything to me was when I dropped medical supplies to m.a.s.h. units and similar field units in various unheard of skirmishes in the armpits of the world. After a couple sabbaticals to do that a lucky AK round in my ass woke me to the reality of playing hero and I quit. Otherwise, I've admitted to myself flying isn't for me. As far as the glamor of everything aviation I never got that. Raised by a career military and then 2nd career civilian pilot one gets a pretty clear idea where to put the glamor. Romance with it? That'll never die.

 

[Matt308]

Cathartic. And and a great story. Thanks for sharing. Hope you stick around and get to know us more intimately. For the most part, we are a good bunch. Me excluded.

Thankyou for your service.

 

[RabidAlien]

Heaven forbid we ever argue with a moderator.

Welcome aboard, Sweb!

 

[Sweb]

Cathartic. And and a great story. Thanks for sharing. Hope you stick around and get to know us more intimately. For the most part, we are a good bunch. Me excluded.

Thankyou for your service.

Never exclude yourself. Just don't volunteer for anything. There's a difference. And, thanks back atcha.

Heaven forbid we ever argue with a moderator.

Welcome aboard, Sweb!

Thanks.

 

[Njaco]

and with that Rabid is banned.

Sweb, understand about the romance part. Never went into the AF, never learned to fly, but I love looking up at a prop job overhead and smiling. Welcome!

 

[renrich]

This is a good idea. Am enjoying reading about all. Kind of a cross section. Here goes me. Born in Dallas in 1935, right in the middle of the Depression and the Dust Bowl. My parents both were off of farms in South Texas. My father's father did not get married until he was 45 and had eleven children that lived. He was in the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers in 1882. His father and another of my grandfathers served in the Armies of the Confederacy. My great grandfather's(on my father's side) brother fought at the San Jacinto. My mother and my father had six brothers that served in WW2. My father lost his job in Dallas when I was only a year old and my mother was fixing to take me and head back to her parent's farm when the Katy RR called him and put him back on at $105 per month.
I got my first job and a SS# in around 1946-47 working Saturdays as a soda jerk, floor sweeper and prescription deliverer on my bicycle for the sum of $3 for a day. Funny, talking about torture. I went to Boy Scout Camp in about 1947 as a tenderfoot and the older boys did something which I only have a hazy memory of which was vaguely sexual but also ran us around in the bushes,naked, where I got poison ivy on 50% of the body. I promised myself that I would come back and haunt them when I grew up. We moved to San Antonio in 1948 and In 1952 as a senior I was starting on the football team of one of the most powerful 4A schools in Texas and we played the team from Dallas which would have been my school if we had stayed in Dallas. I suppose the guys who worked me over were probably gone by then but I got a lot of satisfaction when we beat their butts.
I was fortunate to get a couple of offers to go to college on an athletic scholarship, one at Texas Tech, but really wanted to go to Annapolis but flunked the physical. I was color blind. Wound up playing a couple of years on scholarship and then transferred to SMU to try to get a degree and quit playing football. I was small but also slow.
During college I worked in the oil patch every summer. One summer in West Texas, I worked in a gang supporting Red Adair putting out an oil well fire near Sheffield, Texas. Worked offshore off the coast of La. and the last two summers out of Midland I was making about $2 per hour in the oil patch but had a night job at a honky tonk between Midland and Odessa as a floor bouncer making $5 a night. That was an interesting sociology study.
Finally graduated with a BS in Geology(crowded a four year course into six years) in 1959 and got married. We had UMT then so I talked to the Navy about going to OCS and because of my degree and my color blindness, they would put me in Naval Intelligence. There was a three year active duty obligation so in my infinite wisdom I chose to join the Texas Army Nat Guard and go to 6 months active duty with a 6 year obligation in the Guard. Went to basic at Fort Knox and then to Fort Sam Houston. I had volunteered for the medics as I knew they would send me to San Antonio where I had good friends. Got out after six months and no jobs domestically for geologists as oil was $3 a barrel and there was no drilling in the US. Took a job with YMCA teaching swimming, scuba, survival aquatics and running a football camp.
1961 came around, the Berlin Wall went up and two National Guard divisions were called up. One was the 49th Armored and I got to go to Fort Polk for a year. Was a Spec 4 and made $138 per month. When I got out, I took a job as a cub superintendent building project houses. I thought I would like to be a homebuilder and I was making $50 per week. Those houses were 900 SF and sold for $9000. By 1964, I was making $112.50 per week and a $25 per month car allowance and was running four projects in South Dallas. I was at one of those projects the day that Kennedy was shot.
I took a leave of absence in 1964 to build a spec house and a duplex on my own. I never went back. The first year in business I made $1400 but the second year I made $5000 and the third, $9100 and I was in tall cotton. I was building houses and doing some land development and doing good until 1973 when my wife decided she wanted to move to Colorado. She took half the money and our two daughters and moved to the mountains and married a rancher. Like to have broken my heart when she took those two girls. I found me a new woman(in Dallas they were plentiful) and married again and set out to start doing good again.
Was in tall cotton again until the recession of the late 80s came along. Once again with my infinite wisdom I got a divorce(my idea this time) in the middle of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Almost every bank and S&L went under in Texas and of the 1600 builders in the DFW area, only 600 were left. My former wife got the mine and I got the shaft and after 30 years as a builder and developer in Dallas, I pulled stakes and went to live with one of my daughters in Colorado, dead broke.
Got a job working for a ski resort in real estate development and began to do pretty good again. Learned about operating a ski resort(know I don't want to own one) and met a lot of great people all over the Western US and Canada. Left there in 2002 and went to the Texas Hill Country to build some houses at a golf resort. Busted my ass again and moved back to the mountains to get cool.
When I was growing up, we had no air conditioning, no TV, no FM radio and not much money. I finally got my first car when I was a junior in college. Paid $495 for a 1950 Buick that had 60000 miles on it and was plumb wore out. When I got out of college I had borrowed money from a student aid fund(that money I earned in the oil patch always seemed to not last a year) and paid it back at $17.50 a month. Also had a job at SMU during the school year with the intramural sports department. Put in about 25-30 hours per week and made $50 a month. Later, after making some money, I bought a third interest in a 172 and learned to fly(not well) One of my partners in the 172 was later killed in his Beech Travelair, right after I finished building he and his wife a big house. I used to love hunting and did a lot of handloading. Did my share of fishing and took up golf when I was 35. I now live in Durango, have a job as a real estate broker with all outgo and no income and am still trying to find a golf swing. Looking back, I had wanted to be a football coach and had always loved the Navy but I was looking for big money so I became a builder developer. Sometimes think a career in the Navy or as a football coach(there are still football coaches coaching at age 73) might have been a better choice.
What I would say now to you young folks who might read this is life is not a sprint for most of us but a marathon. Figure out what your dream is and follow it. Your instincts are usually pretty good guides. Always do the right thing and you won't look back with any regrets. I discovered the secret of financial success long term, no matter how much money you make. Always spend less than you make and never, never, get a divorce. I always managed to avoid taking that advice.

 

[rochie]

great stories guy's

 

[lesofprimus]

Great stuff Rich, thanks for sharing...

 

[109ROAMING]

Bloody interesting stories guys

Thanks for sharing

 

[Marcel]

Here's to you Rich Thanks for the story.