Members Past & Present

Meat Grinder said:
Welcome aboard, Curt. I spent some time in San Antiono, way back in the 1980s.

"Environmental Scientist" sounds interesting. What, exactly, is that?
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The way I describe it to people is: I worked for an engineering consulting firm. For the first decade or so I did contamination assessments of plots of land and submitted my reports to the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection, then rather quickly was promoted into senior management, which sucked. The money was good but rather than managing projects I spent most of my time refereeing soap operas in the department and dealing with bean counters and was in the office 100% of the time. An opportunity came along when the contamination remediation work picked up and I volunteered to oversee the development of that. I called it "practicing hack engineering, hack geology and hack biology all at the same time". I was on the cutting edge of the development of the industry and had a profitable relationship with the FDEP, so new work was no porblemo and constant. Had to retire unexpectedly recently due to a serious health issue. C'est la vie...that's French.

Regarding your post below: I was a huge Tull freak. There's nothing like listening to Tull and playing SPI's USN or War in the Pacific [all 10 maps] or any of 'em. My favorite album was Benefit but Aqualung was an extremely close second [Up to Me...was a tune I loved]. I adored Aqualung [Ian Anderson's stage garb] and by happenstance, when I took over the remediation job at work I spent a lot of time on cleanup sites outdoors. Being a USAF brat [my Old Man always kept me and my 2 brothers shorn like jarheads] then into the USAF myself then into the corporate business, it was a real pleasure to finally wear what I wanted and look like I wanted. You can see from my pics that I decided on the Aqualung look [just quit shaving forever and let the Prairie Flower cut my hair whenever she felt like doing it]. It was a great dichotomy to see in the faces of contractors, regulators, client reps and so on, when they first visited my sites. They'd ask who was in charge and they would be directed to me. ..and too, when I was in the USAF, by noon it began to look like I hadn't shaved in the morning. A man's beard is like a woman's breasts...they were meant to be there.

Cheers and prost
 
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mTk said:
I went to basic @ Lackland in '67. All I remember is sand, cold and wind.
My dad was USAF too and as a kid I lived at Travis AFB twice. All I remember is heat and wind.
Looking back on it now, being an Air Force brat was quite the experience.
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What impressed me most at Travis was the fog. I never have seen such thick fog before or since
Whenever the fog rolled in we had to standby the aircraft navigational aids. In such fog they couldn't be down even for a few seconds.
When I drove to the outer markers the fog was so thick you couldn't see past your front bumper so I had to open the drivers door and look down at the lane dividing line and follow it at a snails pace. o_O
Had a grand time there though.
The co-eds at Berkely were heart throbs. ;)
 
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Gubi said:
The way I describe it to people is: I worked for an engineering consulting firm. For the first decade or so I did contamination assessments of plots of land and submitted my reports to the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection, then rather quickly was promoted into senior management, which sucked. The money was good but rather than managing projects I spent most of my time refereeing soap operas in the department and dealing with bean counters and was in the office 100% of the time. An opportunity came along when the contamination remediation work picked up and I volunteered to oversee the development of that. I called it "practicing hack engineering, hack geology and hack biology all at the same time". I was on the cutting edge of the development of the industry and had a profitable relationship with the FDEP, so new work was no porblemo and constant. Had to retire unexpectedly recently due to a serious health issue. C'est la vie...that's French.

Regarding your post below: I was a huge Tull freak. There's nothing like listening to Tull and playing SPI's USN or War in the Pcific [all 10 maps] or any of 'em. My favorite album was Benefit but Aqualung was an extremely close second [Up to Me...was a tune I loved]. I adored Aqualung [Ian Anderson's stage garb] and by happenstance, when I took over the remediation job at work I spent a lot of time on cleanup sites outdoors. Being a USAF brat [my Old Man always kept me and my 2 brothers shorn like jarheads] then into the USAF myself then into the corporate business, it was a real pleasure to finally wear what I wanted and look like I wanted. You can see from my pics that I decided on the Aqualung look [just quit shaving forever and let the Prairie Flower cut my hair whenever she felt like doing it]. It was a great dichotomy to see in the faces of contractors, regulators, client reps and so on, when they first visited my sites. They'd ask who was in charge and they would be directed to me. ..and too, when I was in the USAF, by noon it began to look like I hadn't shaved in the morning. A man's beard is like a woman's breasts...they were meant to be there.

Cheers and prost
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Well, that just won you my "favorite introductory post" award, despite your pics reminding me of the Aqualung album cover art. :)

I was also an air force brat, born on Eglin AFB. Dad retired from the USAF as, your nemesis, a bean counter. ;-) He was in finance and did audits.....a thankless job to be sure.

I did a little military as well in a reserve MASH unit. I still work in medical imaging to this day.

Oh, Jethro Tull is my favorite band. It breaks my heart that Ian has mostly lost his voice. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a favorite Tull album, I would have to go with Heavy Horses.

Welcome to FGM.
 
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