I missed this place....

Robocop

Mammoth Killer
Joined
Nov 13, 2003
Messages
2,645
Location
Birmingham Al.
I am not sure where to post this as it is simply a re-introduction of sorts from an old member. I thought about the "looking for member" thread however this did not seem to fit there. I started to use the new member thread (as it has been a very long time) yet again it just did not seem appropriate there either. I chose the cafe however if this is incorrect feel free to move it anywhere proper.

I must apologize first as I have been away for a long time and have to re-learn my way around here. Although it looks very different it seems the old CPF spirit is alive and well. I am not sure of how many old heads remain here however perhaps I can reconnect with a few old friends and make some new ones as well.

For those that remember me I was here back in 2003 and man what a great time it was to be a flashaholic back then. I was very active for the first ten years then a series of events (family sickness) just kind of took most of my time. I remained mildly active however over time just had to focus on other things. I remained on night shift as a beat cop for 22 years and finally retired from Birmingham Police Dept. I was off for one weekend then started as an officer for a much smaller Department. I left a dept of 1100 officers and have now settled in at my new dept of 25 officers.

What a nice change of pace as the crime rate where I am at now is very different. It almost feels like a vacation that I get paid to do. I have been here 7 years now and after 3 more I will retire again (for good). Although I was away for some time I still could not resist buying every new light that came along. I have literally hundreds of new lights as well as some heavy hitters from back in the day. I am by no means as educated on todays lights as I was back then however I will need somewhere to spend my time as I get closer to retirement.

Sounds crazy but I honestly am planning a through hike of the Appalachian Trail when I retire. I have been on night shift for almost 30 years and the doc says it will take me months to adjust to days. He said being outside will naturally regulate my system and no better way than 6 months of walking through the country. Big talk for now however I am still in good shape for my age (55yrs) so we shall see how it works out. I will need some good lights for that trip so I have some serious research to do here.

For now again I apologize for the long absence and bear with me as I learn my way around. I work 6pm to 6am on rotating off days and I keep my same hours on my days off. As such most of my activity will be very late however I hope to slowly start poking around here again. To my old friends hello and to my new ones I look forward to meeting you all.
 
Thank you knucklegary and it is nice to be back. Many of the older threads are not showing up for me however I think I will spend a little time looking through the newer stuff anyway. Man it blows my mind how much lights have changed. I still work most of my shift in the dark and as such have many newer lights I use often.

As an older officer I remember the days of incandescent only and actually thought the whole "LED" thing was never going to catch on. Man was I ever wrong on that. I have a single 21700 light on my vest that puts out triple the light of my first duty light and does so in a much smaller package.

So it seems as if the biggest change is simply a new owner and lots of new members. I was reading through some of the announcement and support threads trying to figure out if there was anything serious I needed to know. I read one thread where members were talking about old moderation (some good and some bad) and also about how there is little to no moderation here now. Is there still mods here just not as many or is it all held in place by the new owner?

Not really important to me as I am simply curious. I never really did much drama here as I was simply happy to just talk lights and all the other gadgets we love. Regardless thanks again for the welcome and nice to be back snooping around.
 
Welcome back :) . I've been lurking here at CPF since about 2012. It has changed a bit!

For your retirement hike how about a Pak-Lite? They were designed to last a 2600 mile walk on the Pacific Crest Trail using a single 9v battery. My walks are rarely longer than 6-10 miles so I usually just take a surefire 6p with m61L led in an evening. I find the Pak-Lites are useful when the power goes out though.
 
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Hiya Robocop, I remember chatting about cycling/biking with you :cool:

..as for reference purposes (or purchase.) you can get one of these for $74 with coupon 1LumenNEW

SPERAS bike light / mount included
 
Welcome back! I remember you a little from my early days here. Sadly many of the old threads have been lost to the dark corners of the internet. I mostly blame photobucket for killing them because the images that were useful are now gone.

Hopefully your moderator privilege's are still valid, they wont be needed much but we still get the odd trouble maker and spam bot that likes to post links that will eventually require deletion. Although some of those threads offer the best results. There was a thread about Russian mail order brides that turned out to be great fun when we asked about the return policy. It went on for days before finally being deleted. The biggest change you will likely see is Surefire is no longer the top dog. The mod-ability is now gone. Unlike the old days you can now say bad things about them without getting banned. I'm not totally up to speed on what happened but my understanding is they launched several lawsuits and fell out of favour with the CP crowd. Pretty much the forum regulates itself and much more is tolerated now unlike the old days.
 
Both apologies accepted! However, to assuage any remaining guilt, say four my fathers, three hail marys, take two aspirin and call me in the morning. 😜

Good to see ya' back, Robo!
 
gmt2330 I do have several of the PakLite models and they are fantastic for emergency lights. Orbital I still have that Lemond bike although it has many more miles on it today than it did back back then. I really do not remember much about the Surefire drama. I still have several old Surefire lights however the entire reason I found CPF was actually while looking for something less expensive than Surefire.

I started using the Wolf Eyes set up and way back then they had some fantastic Incans that were cheaper than SF and performed as well. Then ARC came along and many others on the LED craze. I still have every single light from those days and many are not made today. I just recently found some of the old AAA Camo pattern Arc lights in a box along with several D-speck Firefly and ORB Raw lights. I also have several of the old CMG Infiniti lights that CountyComm once sold.

I Started reading up on all my old favorites and was surprised to see they all are no longer made. Some are still valuable however. The choices today are simply crazy and lights have came a long way since I was last active. I am going to poke around the custom section and see if there is anything interesting to me there.
 
Welcome back Robocop. Congratulations on your "first" retirement. I remember your posts vividly. Especially the combat course you ran with an E1E! Best regards.
 
Welcome back, Robocop. I'm sorry top hear about the illness in your family and I hope that all is well these days. This is still a great place to hang out, even if LED technology has hit a plateau (well, except for LEPs). I've seen more of the 'in the weeds' kind of discussions recently surrounding drivers, battery technology, CRI, etc. Still a good place to learn things.
 
SGT I still remember defending that little EIE and thought this whole LED thing was never going to catch on. Then I found the KL4 conversion kit and just went down that rabbit hole. I fought for incans a long time yet in the end LEDs were just getting too good to ignore.

I was also one of the few who never agreed to the use of a strobe for anything other than traffic direction. The hours and hours of discussing strobe lights for tactical use was crazy. Lots of good info exchanged back then and it was a great time to be a flashlight person then. CPF was the only game in town then and it was just a fun crew
 
PhotonWrangler another old school member I actually remember. Good to see you here and I agree that it just seems to have stalled in general. As far as LEPs go the tech is interesting to me however I would have no real need for an LEP in my day to day use. As a novelty / fun toy I do like the smaller versions and am actually looking at an 18350 powered version at CountyComm now..
 
It's good to have you back again. Sorry to hear about your family's illness. Also, if you're going to hike that particular Trail, do yourself a big favor.... Hike South to North. Not the other way around.
 
Monocrom I was honestly thinking of starting in Maine and getting the worst areas over with first. If it works out I will be 59 yrs old and would much rather risk Maine in the summer and be down south for the winter ending part of the hike. I am still in good shape for my age however the years do make a difference.

After almost 30 years on night shift the doc says I have something called delayed phase sleep disorder. It is a fancy term for simply having my sleep rhythm reversed. He actually did say the best treatment was to be outside in nature and eventually my body would adjust. Something about the sun setting and rising I guess naturally triggers your body to fall in line. He said it should regulate in 5 to 6 months.

I thought how in the world can I pull this off. I cant just camp out in my back yard for a few months. Then I saw a show about through hikers and found the average completed hike is about 6 months. On paper it sounds easy and fun however in reality it takes lots of prep work to do correctly. Regardless lots of big talk from me now as it is 3 years away and may never actually happen.

My wife is all for it as we have no kids and are both fine being alone for months. Again on paper it sounds easy yet I know it is in reality not that simple. Anyway nice to chat with some old friends and I will keep in touch.
 
Sounds crazy but I honestly am planning a through hike of the Appalachian Trail when I retire. I have been on night shift for almost 30 years and the doc says it will take me months to adjust to days. He said being outside will naturally regulate my system and no better way than 6 months of walking through the country. Big talk for now however I am still in good shape for my age (55yrs) so we shall see how it works out.
I retired 11 years ago after 30 years of service, my 30 was on a rolling shift pattern so I basic had permanent jet lag, it took my body six to twelve months to get over it and get used to normal living hours. My advice would be to retire as early as you can financially, your retirement time will fly by a lot faster than your working years so do as much as you can while you can, none of us know whats around the next corner health wise.

Stay safe out there!
 
Most hikers who start in Maine find it overwhelming due to the Rugged Maine and New Hampshire mountains. If you come from the south you build up trail strength and it doesn't seem so bad of a hike. Just something to keep in mind.
 
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