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LHookins

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About LHookins

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  • Birthday 09/08/1949

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  1. When I was 21 years old I had a Honda CB450 as my sole transportation. I rode it on the highway, off road, did some hill climbing. My girlfriend, who became my wife, weighed 84 pounds and was 4'11" tall and was the perfect rider. Couldn't tell she was even there. She accompanied me off road and climbing hills. 😄 The first argument we ever had was when I sold the bike. A few decades later I got a BMW, forget the model. This was not a particularly nice motorcycle. A half hour of riding and my hands were numb from the vibration. I eventually rode it into the back of a car stopped at a green light when I glanced at my instruments. I flew over the car and the worst part of it was being on the Texas summer asphalt... don't wanna cook to death. My best friend and I were at the bike shop a few days later when he exclaimed "OMG, come check this out!" He had a Honda Goldwing up on the center stand with his hand on the seat. I'm tellin' ya, there was absolutely NO vibration in the seat. I bought the Goldwing the next day, about $1000 or a bit more and never regretted it. It might have been the perfect bike. This was my sole transportation for several months (it's more practical than you'd think, I did grocery shopping and even went on a job interview in my $1500 interview suit in the driving rain with a Marine rain suit) and loved it. My daily commute was 80 miles each way, no problem. Almost entirely highway with only two stop signs and two red lights. One day I was within a mile of work with extremely heavy dew on the roads, going around a corner at about 2 mph when my front wheel slid out from under me and I landed on my wallet. I claimed that if it weren't for my "sound financial buffer" I'd have "lost my a$$". Had to retire the pants. No damage to the bike. I decided I was getting to an age where I could break something that might not heal, and sold the bike to my best friend (mentioned above) who took it from Texas to California, up Highway 1 to Vancouver, and back through Yellowstone. I envy him that trip. Me? I found a good used Mercedes 300D (with air conditioning!) for about $7500 and drove the wheels off it. There was an old Honda ad that claimed, "Sometimes just knowing it's there is enough" which certainly applied to my 450. Also, "You'll never see a motorcycle in front of a psychiatrist's office." (The doctor usually parks in back 😄 ) These days my son has several bikes and he might even ride them once in a while. My riding days ended with the Goldwing. Hook
  2. I had a quick look through that and it looks really good. I wish we'd had those hair regs when I was in the Army. Certainly better than the unionized Dutch army at the time. 😄 Not to mention their 5 liters of beer ration per day. I met a US Army guy who was assigned to a Dutch army bartender unit. His beer ration was somewhat smaller. We had one guy who slicked his hair down on duty, but off duty had the most beautiful head of hair you can imagine. I guess you can get away with anything if your commander doesn't mind. When I first got to my unit and met the First Sergeant, he was wearing his cap indoors. He had no hair whatsoever below the cap. My first thought was, "I hope this isn't the haircut policy!" even though I was bald on top by this time. It turned out he'd had rheumatic fever (I think it was) as a kid and had no hair anywhere on his body. I occasionally got called, Top Junior. ("Top", slang for Top Sergeant) What surprised me the most from the new regs was pregnancy uniforms (hopefully only for women). In the mid 70s in the Army it was a civilian blouse with a nametag. "Um, Chris? Isn't that the standard pregnancy uniform?" "Yup." "Oh. Ok." This guys *eyebrows* couldn't have passed muster. I saw a video of him with his son once, and the son had the same eyebrows. 🙂 They commented on it. Hook
  3. "I just flew in from Kennedy and BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED!" Hook
  4. "With your remaining eye, do NOT look back into the laser." Hook
  5. https://xkcd.com/2898 Be sure to read the mouse-over text as well. Hook
  6. Wretched graphics, cubes and pyramids as obstacles to fly around, and some of the best and smoothest flying you can imagine. For a while that was my favorite flight sim. I figured out that you couldn't take off in the SR-71 unless you lowered the flaps or you'd shred the tires. 😄 These flight sims might have been primitive (even for the time) but each one had its own good points. Hook
  7. I had the original Bruce Artwick flight simulator for the Apple ][ on cassette tape. If there was any kind of problem loading the tape, the plane would take off but as soon as you were in the air you'd get a "Stolen Aircraft!" banner and the game would freeze. Later someone was able to create a disk version that was a lot faster and more robust to load. I bought the first Microsoft Flight Simulator before I even had a computer to run it on. I played it at work. At lunch, or after work, of course. 😄 I had a surprising number of the flight sims shown, and it was exciting to see the box art again. I still have most of them packed away. Got lots of stories to tell, too, but that's for another day. Hook
  8. At one million dollars per dose. Most of us won't have to worry about getting the treatment. This might make for an interesting science fiction story, where "normal" people work hard their entire lives to make enough to get the treatment, only to find out in a twist ending that it has to be repeated every year. Hook
  9. The problem wasn't the place or the situation, it was Mr. Valentine. Heaven and hell are identical. The difference is our reaction to them. Mr. Valentine wouldn't have been happy in "Heaven" either. Hook
  10. Immortality doesn't mean perfection in every little thing. Tolkein's elves were effectively immortal, but could die of a broken heart or be killed in battle. The one thing they couldn't do, that I don't recall being mentioned in the books, is have lots of children. Correct me if I'm wrong. I remember being taught early in school that if everyone were perfect, life would be incredibly boring. I was pretty sure, even at that young age, that this was bovine excrement. I'm pretty sure I could find infinite ways to amuse myself no matter how "perfect" life was. There is plenty of challenge in simply learning new things and discovering new things, and there are almost infinite "new things" to learn and discover. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "All men lead lives of quiet desperation." This includes the rich and famous, or as they put it, the well off and well known. Their lives only look perfect. She might not find that as perfect as you would. 🙂 Hook
  11. That might be the most interesting part of this thread! I remember seeing the kind of teething ring you describe, but I don't remember having one. Hook
  12. LHookins

    Taste test.

    There is something extremely pleasant about having a cat lay next to you in bed on a cold night. And purring. This is one of the ways your aloof cat lets you know you're loved in return. Dogs do the same, but you know they love you by default. Hook
  13. LHookins

    Gunsmoke

    I hate to admit how old I was when I first asked, "Wait... what kind of woman owns a saloon?" They hid this *very* well. I heard about an early episode when Chester is questioning why Miss Kitty knows so much about men. "Mister Dillon" responds, "Chester, Kitty knows a LOT of men." Apparently this happened twice in this episode. I didn't see this one myself so someone else will have to verify it. Hook
  14. Heh! The next part is, have you ever been back to a place later in life that you'd visited as a very young child? When my mother died and we went to the funeral home in Pennsylvania, we walked into the office and I remembered everything perfectly from when my grandfather died when I was about 5. I'd never been back as we moved to Texas shortly after that. Pictures of wild animals on the wall with actual cage bars in front, a few rubber toys on the "window" sill under the animal pics ("They're to look at, not to play with.") and a roll-top desk. When I was in the Army stationed in Washington DC in 1976, a group of friends had arranged a coal powered steam train excursion to Philadelphia. When we got there, the friends got an antique wooden streetcar out of the museum and we took it for a spin around the city. We attracted a lot of attention next to the modern streetcars. These guys apparently worked for the railroad and were licensed to run both the steam engine and the streetcars. I didn't understand why everything on the streetcar looked so familiar. It was a very odd feeling. Some years later I ran across a picture in my grandmother's photo album of her in a streetcar conductor's uniform in exactly the same kind of streetcar. My first memories of her were as an elevator operator. The kid in the original story may or may not remember his "hike" up to base camp, but if he makes the trip again as an adult he's likely to have some odd memories. 😄 Hook Edit: PS. I just looked it up. Apparently the town where we lived (Oil City PA) had trolly lines. H.
  15. I haven't been in Germany since 1975 (stationed in the US Army in Bamberg for three years, in Bavaria), but that German accent sounded weird to me. Bruneck is in Austria south of Innsbruck. Hook
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