What have you done in your life that is interesting or different?

[Keim]

I forgot a big one: I was, tangentially, witness to a murder. 4 killed, 3 wounded. I say tangentially because it happened in my neighborhood, and I heard every shot. Saw police response, but wasn't ever personally in the line of fire.

 

[check6]

When I was in Cub Scouts, won the Pinewood Derby.

 

[Ally]

I forgot a big one: I was, tangentially, witness to a murder. 4 killed, 3 wounded. I say tangentially because it happened in my neighborhood, and I heard every shot. Saw police response, but wasn't ever personally in the line of fire.

This reminded me of something. When I was a divorced mom, I occasionally had a friend babysit my children for a couple of hours in the evening. He was the head of the gifted and talented program for our schools and had won many awards.

About 3 years after I last saw him, ( my kids were old enough to be alone for short periods), I came home from the store. My son told me that this guy had killed his new wife and cut off her head! It was on the news. I was horrified. It turns out that he was an alcoholic and had started drinking again. During a drunken weekend, this happened. He was still teaching at the time. I guess you just never know about people, but I figured that as much as the schools trusted him and various mutual friend, that he was ok.

 

[Koolau]

Maybe not so interesting or different - I've been married to the same woman for over 40 years. Maybe more interesting, I have been friends with her for 60 years. You be the judge because YMMV.

 

[BillNOVA]

so far, I think winning a pony, as a kid, is number one

 

[KMyer]

Built a trebuchet with our sons to throw an 8lb pumpkin over the length of a football field. Felt pretty proud of myself until I attended

Punkin Chunkin

and saw that my accomplishment was not very significant.

From a professional perspective, received the 2nd highest score on the CPA exam in my state when I took the test over 25 years ago.

From a hobby farm perspective, we have over 200 people join us on an annual basis to make apple butter and apple cider with our antique 160 year old cider press.

 

[Silver]

Throughout the 1980's my sister and her partner were members of the Romance Writers Guild and wrote many Harlequin Romance Novels that were published. (People might be surprised how many romance novels are written by people who are gay in real life, both men and women.)

Anyway...one novel they wrote is dedicated to me because the plot is largely based on a romantic situation I found myself in during that time. It was complicated, a mess, and nothing I'm proud of....but there it is romanticized for all to read. I'm happy they made some money from it.

And no.....I am not telling you the title.

 

[ejman]

Lived in a construction camp in the Venezuelan Jungle near Brazil with my family for 3 years. Lived in Tehran, Iran with my family during the start of the revolution that brought the Shah down.

 

[braumeister]

I guess I forgot about this, but it might qualify.
During my first permanent assignment in the Air Force, my office was actually inside a computer. AFAIK, it was the largest (physical size) computer ever built, with a boatload of vacuum tubes and a crew of over 60 technicians who spent a lot of their time changing burnt-out tubes.

The machine, affectionately known by those who worked with it as "Clyde", probably didn't have as much computing power as the phone in your pocket, but was pretty awesome in its day.

I worked in an office that was physically in the computer (massive banks of electronic racks filled with plug-in modules), on the second floor of a SAGE blockhouse, for nearly three years. There was an auxiliary building with six of the biggest generators you've ever seen that was solely to run the air conditioning system to cool the building down from the heat of all the vacuum tubes in the computer.

Lots of stories from those days.

IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[anethum]

When I was 25 years old, I quit my job and went on a 14 month bicycle trip on 3 continents.

 

[REWahoo]

When I was in college I saw a girl in the cafeteria line and told my buddy that I was going to marry a girl like that some day. He knew her, introduced us, and year and a half later I did.

 

[Avalon]

My brother and I discovered a large limestone cavern many years ago. Google earth shows that it's entrance is now filled by a bank of washed in sand. It appears to remain undisturbed, even though there are scattered houses near it now. It's location is roughly 8 miles north of a forum member here.

 

[redduck]

When I was in college I saw a girl in the cafeteria line and told my buddy that I was going to marry a girl like that some day. He knew her, introduced us, and year and a half later I did.

...and a year and a half later I did (marry a girl like that)? So, do you know what ever happened to the girl in the cafeteria line who was your prototype?

 

[braumeister]

...and a year and a half later I did (marry a girl like that)? So, do you know what ever happened to the girl in the cafeteria line who was your prototype?

The remarkable thing is that she is now one of the regular posters here. Small world, isn't it?

 

[Bestwifeever]

The remarkable thing is that she is now one of the regular posters here. Small world, isn't it?

I heard she went to work for a dentist til she got fired.

 

[REWahoo]

So, do you know what ever happened to the girl in the cafeteria line who was your prototype?

Yes.

 

[pb4uski]

I forgot a big one: I was, tangentially, witness to a murder. 4 killed, 3 wounded. I say tangentially because it happened in my neighborhood, and I heard every shot. Saw police response, but wasn't ever personally in the line of fire.

Reminded me - I was an eyewitness to an attempted shooting. Interesting story actually.

The couple living in the apartment above us had separated and she was seeing another man. Early one morning I heard her scream LOUDLY and I thought someone had broken in to her apartment so I ran out the back door towards the outside stairs. As I opened the back door I saw a shadow on the stairs and a shotgun and I froze in my tracks - a second later a muzzle flash (not in my direction). I turned tail, locked the door, hit the floor and grabbed the phone and called 911. To make a long story short, the assailant ended up being her husband who had come home and found her in bed with another guy, went out to his truck and got his shotgun, went back up to their apartment, she screamed, her lover took off down the back stairs and the husband followed and took a pot-shot at the guy as he was fleeing the scene.

I was later interviewed by the ADA and the husband's defense attorney and a key thing was whether or not the husband had shouldered the gun. I told them there was no way he could have since the floor would have been in the way - he shot from the hip. We actually went down to the scene and I had to show them how it happened. The state then reduced the charge against the husband.

 

[Dawg52]

I went into work early one morning.

I worked late one day.

 

[av8er]

Since I've been in the military I've gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, crawled through the inside of the great pyramid of Giza, stared up at Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, walked along the Great Wall of China, parachuted out of airplanes, rappelled out of helicopters, lived and worked on several different continents, and flown thousands of hours behind the controls of rotary and fixed wing aircraft in various countries around the world...not too bad for a poor kid from the country.

 

[Nords]

Since I've been in the military I've gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, crawled through the inside of the great pyramid of Giza, stared up at Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, walked along the Great Wall of China, parachuted out of airplanes, rappelled out of helicopters, lived and worked on several different continents, and flown thousands of hours behind the controls of rotary and fixed wing aircraft in various countries around the world...not too bad for a poor kid from the country.

"... all this and a paycheck too!"

 

[rescueme]

What have you done in your life that is interesting or different?

Not a darn thing...

 

[Donzo]

I was chased by a moose in Yellowstone. I got close to take a pic of him and he started after me - it was terrifying! What saved me were trees that were growing close together. His antlers would not fit through easily and I got away/he lost interest. Now I use a telephoto lens......

 

[DerbyCity]

In 1974 I started going on a fishing trip to Sioux Lookout, Ontario - there was a core group of 6 guys. Although there have been some additions and some guys missing a year here and there (i.e. birth of a child), the same group of guys has gone every year through 2012 except for one year missed.

The countryside and fish pictures still look the same, but the guys in the group do NOT.

 

[av8er]

"... all this and a paycheck too!"

Quite a deal, indeed! Of course, there's also the matter of getting shot at multiple times during repeated deployments to some pretty crappy parts of the world...but the sightseeing has definitely been good!

 

[grumpy]

As a 17 year old I took a Greyhound bus from Philadelphia to Mexico City and lived with a Mexican family for two months.

I helped manage the Hubble Space Telescope Flight Systems & Servicing Project as the financial manager, leading up to the 2nd and 3rd servicing missions.