Who are you? What do you do?

How long have you been boating?


  • Total voters
    250
Husband to one - Father to two girls - Master to dog & cat the only ones who do as I comand:lol:. Started boating 44yrs ago, at age 6 I had to put shoes on so my feet would not slip out of the ski boots. My wife and I loved to go windsurfing. After the girls were born I convinced my wife to buy a small boat and vacation by the water, 4 SeaRays later, boating has been a family affair ever since. Thus the boat name...'NoRegrets'
I own a 140 yr old cemetery memorial business that I purchassed from my father serving most of Michigan. R.I.P.
 
I got my first boat (rowboat) at age 5 on Saginaw Bay/Lake Huron. Got a 7.5hp Evinrude for it at age 7, got a Sailfish at 11. That was my start in boating. After high school I started college, joined the USAF just one step ahead of the army draft enforcement team, spent 7.5 years working on airborne electronics (Inertial Nav, Doppler radar, etc.). Got out in 1976, got a job as a cop. Did that thru 1990 and quit due to serious burn out. During the time as a cop I was a firearms instructor, armorer, hostage negotiator, detective, you name it. I also shot PPC pistol competition and achieved High Master and Distinguished. After I quit chasing bad guys I took a job as Business Manager at a fairly large corporation (my college was all in Bus Admin). Did that for 10+ years and changed to become a Financial Advisor. Did that for 11 years and now I'm retired and enjoying the fruits of my labors.

Somewhere along in all that I bought a 20' Reinell bow rider that I kept for 11 years. Sold it and bought a 330 Sundancer. It got totaled by a drunk boater in 2002 so I bought another just like it. I traded the second 330 in on the boat we now have. Future plans include an extended cruise down the Columbia, up the coast of WA and a summer cruising Canadian waters and Puget Sound.

Got married 3.5 years ago to a great lady who loves boating almost as much as I do. Each of us has three grown kids (each has 2 boys and a girl) and we each have a grand child. Both of them are 16 months old, born a week apart. They are now a major focus in our lives.
 
I'm a retired truck driver & internet troll. :smt024 . :lol:
 
I'm a 45 year boating veteran, a lifelong entrepreneur which included starting a trucking company at age 18 which I ran for 22 years. I've also owned a gas station, an auto service center, 3 night clubs, 2 restaurants an underwater salvage business on Lake George, N.Y. and all of this in tandem with being a professional touring rock musician during the 70's & 80's. However, I've had more failures than successes in my life. I've learned that success is easy and it rarely offers an education. For me all the lessons came from the failures.

I'm now a published author of 2 books on success after failure and positive attitude development and I became a national motivational speaker. I also got back into music performing in 2008 playing strictly solo. In 2009 I released my first solo album "Full Circle" which is a compilation of songs I wrote about the many heartbreaks, failures and lessons I've learned along my crazy path of life. www.dustyfrank.com
 
Wow guys this has been great... I have enjoyed very much reading all of your stories! Thanks for sharing...
 
"I'm a retired truck driver & internet troll. :smt024 . :lol:"

Are you also a retired internet troll? Besides being CSR's greatest lover, what is your latest mission in life Wayne?
 
Gofirstclass....like your USAF story. A friend of mine got drafted for the Army and joined the USAF the next day. He was an electrical engineer and figured he could sleep on clean sheets in the AF. He helped design the LCD display for the F4 Phantom and guess what?....they did not work at alltitude when they got cold! Good thing the analog guages were still in place. When they told him he was going to work on a new fighter jet....they showed him the F4 and he said it looked more like a small bomber! Still one of my favorite aircraft other than the F18 Hornet, Mike.
 
Got two jobs one intentional the other by accident. My intended job is that of an Optical Engineer for the Flexographic industry. Not very exciting as a matter of fact at parties when people ask me what I do after a couple minutes explaining my job I see their eyes begin to glaze over an start nodding off. To avoid the long boring explanation sometimes I simply tell people I drive up and down the NJ turnpike and change the urinal cakes at all the rest stops.:grin:
My other job is I own Don's Showboards www.donsshowboards.com which is much more interesting. Being a car enthusiast, amateur photographer, and self proclaimed Photoshop Expert I began making car showboards which are used mainly at car shows. You can see quite of mine a few if you have ever watched Barrett Jackson.
 
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Retired from the education field after thirty seven years, been married ALL my life (44 1/2 years). Told my wife she has one more year to straighten up. Been boating almost fifty years, still love it.
 
I'm a prairie born flatlander who's first boat was one that had not been winterized properly. That was 15 years, one Larson and two Sea Rays ago.
34+ years with Manitoba Hydro (hence the name of our boat), over 24 years in the transmission line maintenance section with 31+ years serving under same Admiral.
Retirement around the corner where I hope to keep the hour meters SPINNING on Hydro Therapy.
 
Native Hoosier but spent some time in FL and WY
autoshop manager for a national repair chain ..CarX
 
I have been boating for 30+ years, a USCG licensed Master, and still learning everyday. I sell for a living, 22 years in the telecom world and the last 5 in the Energy sector. Specifically I sell natural gas futures to businesses and municipalities in New England. My passion was to be a pile it until I read this thread, now I want that cake job!! Very funny
 
My first summer on the boat - 1967. LONG time.
You all can figure out what I do.
kidboat2.jpg
 
Rick,

I thought you operated a product development site for Mercruiser 8.1 engines......................guess it didn't pay enough, huh?

You're close Cap'n Frank.

At one time I was in Product Development and working as a Test Driver for the Mercruiser 7.4 reman engine. However, after a year or so, we used up every spare engine in the United States and the project ended. I had to go back to computers.
 
Rick is an engineer for Merc. He last assignment was to run 7.4s at extreme conditions to calculate their breaking point. He was very successful...several times.
 

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