I missed this place....

Hello Robocop, good to see you;

Being partial to things out west; I would recommend the Pacific Crest Trail instead, lol.
Living not far from central Oregon, I would be happy to assist in a resupply here. ;-)

As far as flashlights go, the Boss 70 had set the bar to such a level that it has yet to be surpassed IMO.

For more reasonable budgets, the Sofirn D25L / H25L headlamp has been a game-changer for me; checking my purchase records, my last headlamp purchase was in 2015; the Sofirn was such an improvement & really forced me to upgrade.

FWIW, my purchase history over the past 10 years is certainly less than one flashlight per year, so it takes a lot to move the needle for me.

Best regards,
 
I'll second the suggestion to hike the PCT rather than the AT if you are cool with grizzlies rather than black bears.
 
Hey Robo! It is always good to see old handles pop back up. Many of us still lurk and post now and again when the something strikes our fancy. I think the biggest change is that most of the boutique and custom builders are doing most of their promotion and posting on various social media platforms, so we don't get to converse with them here like we did back in the day. That is the thing I miss most. And to answer your other question, yes, the owner is the sole Mod anymore. Kestrel and I and the others are retired. ;)
 
I do believe many of you are correct as far as the PCT being the better choice as it is longer however known to be a little less rugged that the AT. The funny part for me is I think the hardest part for me would be choosing what lights to carry from my collection. Lighting has most surely changed greatly since my active days here.

Even during my absence I continued to buy all kinds of lights with most of my purchases being smaller AAA / 18350 / 16340 / and even several of the very small 10180 cell keychain versions. I have also jumped on many single 21700 powered lights for work that I rotate out often.
I am mostly amazed by just what is available these days as compared to 20 years past. I have several cheaper brands such as Sofirn, Lumentop, Imalent, Sunwayman and many others that were all under 40 dollars. They all are built surprisingly well and as far as pure output is concerned they just put out a lot of light from a small affordable package.

If you are just a flashlight geek like most of us this is a great time to just be messing around with our hobby. Back in the day many of us would have paid crazy money to buy something like a quad emitter single cell 18350 light. Today you can just pull up Amazon and a simple search reveals tons of choices like this for very decent prices....just amazing to me. Most recently I purchased a Wurkkos TS-11 for 35 dollars. This dang light is a crazy thrower and has an 18350 body or 18650 adapter. It is small and just feels well built with a programmable UI and some other slick features. Man 20 years back we would have lined up to pay 200 dollars for something like this....35 dollars and delivered to my door in 3 days...crazy I say.

I have also never lost my interest in knives and have tons of pretty cool knives that I cant resist collecting. I am also lately getting into mechanical watches and although this can be a much more expensive hobby than lights there are all kinds of decent microbrands to choose from that are affordable. In all of my mixed hobbies I kept returning to flashlights and yes I still attempt the mild modding stuff at times. My soldering hand is still steady however my patience level is much less. I am now mostly enjoying reading through old threads and also sorting out some old lights that I had forgotten about. Fun stuff all over again and thank you all for the welcome.
 
Welcome back! Still not a bad place to hang out.

I remember them making you a mod, you were so active here. And you were taking up cycling.
 
Louie yes I simply loved all the modders here back then and still have every single modded light I ever bought. I learned a lot about cycling from several members here and actually became a very capable rider. I eventually found a group of riders that I rode with every week and it was just a good time. Then eventually over time two of those riders were hit by vehicles while riding. Both survived however neither one was able to ever ride again due to injuries.

It scared all of us and we quit riding on the public roads and began to use dedicated bike trails. These trails are not close by to me and as such it was much harder to ride each week. I still ride at times however not nearly as much as I once did. I am trying to plan a future trip to Ireland as my wife and I have always wanted to cycle through that countryside. I do wish the U.S. was set up like so many other countries where cycling is much more common.
 
Sadly Sunwayman is on Life support as far as flashlight brands go.
Having dove head-first into the wonderful world of watches just over a decade ago, couple of things to help you on your journey. Ceramic bezels are a con-job! I got heavy into watches just before that idiotic craze hit, and sadly never left. Getting a scratch on an aluminum bezel is one thing, having a ceramic bezel shatter; quite another. And if it's an older, discontinued model, good luck finding replacement parts!

Micro-brands? Best not to get too heavy into those. Being smaller, they can't stock replacement parts as easily. Something breaks on one of their watches that you bought less than 5 years ago? You might realistically be stuck with a watch-shaped tiny paperweight. Something that happened to Steinhart watches a few years back. Their loyal customers were not too happy.

Also, forget saving money; save your sanity! Best to avoid the Luxury (and Near-Luxury) watch segment. Anything over $1K and up, especially considerably up from that price. Those collectors are lunatics! And, I don't mean the friendly kind like you find on CPF regarding lights. They'll talk about having scored a brand new _______ for only $90,000 and then brag what an absolute bargain it is compared to something else. And, they don't like it when you point out some BS that their favorite brand engaged in to cheat customers. Such as several years ago when Panerai intentionally tried to cheat their customers with a cheap crap movement in a newly released model. Thought their customers would be too stupid to notice.

Oh! They noticed. Panerai replaced all of those movements with better ones, but you still have die-hard lunatics supporting the brand. Even had one of them ask if the now screw-job watches might become rare collectors items if the movement was left unreplaced by a customer who got cheated. Yes, THAT level of lunacy.

Outside of the Luxury watch segment, lots of friendly, down to earth folks on the various watch forums out there. By the way, my comments don't apply to non-collectors with one or two luxury time-pieces.
 
I have a few grail watches I am holding out for and none of them are crazy expensive. I really want a SINN U1 tegmented diver that can be had for about 2500 dollars. I also like a brand called Damasko that are also in the 2k dollar range. Of course I want an Omega some day however may save that as a retirement gift to myself in a few years.

I have just recently made my own SINN homage by using parts sourced online. I used a Seiko host with automatic movement and bought the dial, hands, chapter ring and sapphire glass from an online modding source (namoki mods). I built it myself and honestly it looks pretty close to a genuine Sinn. I have about 350 dollars in the entire build and it runs at about 2 seconds per day and has fantastic lume. It was fun to tinker around with and over time I have built 3 custom watches.

I tried a few watch forums starting out and just mostly stayed to myself while lurking in the shadows. Although I did learn from the watch forums I found many there collecting at a level way above my head. Nothing about me screams Rolex as I look more like that Seiko type of man...ha.
 
I am enjoying my return to CPF while speaking with old friends and meeting new ones. I am headed to the mountains (Gatlinburg Tn.) for vacation and may not post for a few days. I have not missed a sick day in over 27 years and take vacation once yearly. It is always in October and always in the mountains of Tennessee as this is the place where we were married.

I have of course a few special lights packed away for the trip and have a cabin rented for 6 nights. I am looking forward to this trip and will catch up with you all when I return. There is the worlds largest knife shop there and they also have a pretty cool selection of lights. I always return with a few new toys. Catch up with you all soon
 
My wife and I have made several trips to Gatlinburg and have lots of fond memories there. I've also enjoyed walking around SMKW just to handle a few knives I have only ever seen online. Really enjoyed hiking to the top of Mount Le Conte on our last visit. October is a beautiful time to visit the area, I hope you both have a great time!
 
AMD64Brunette thanks for the welcome and as usual I have been blasting through old threads and finding all sorts of stuff that just brings back some great memories. Holy smoke we had some excellent discussions back then and everything was growing so quickly. I very vividly remember a thread that we kept going for months and it was when the Li/Ion 123 cells were being developed. Imagine a time when there were no rechargeable 123 cells....it all happened here and was much fun to be involved with.

I have been lurking on the for sale threads and holy smoke that place stays busy. CPF is feeling a little new to me again however at times it is almost like the old days for me. I see something I know nothing about and then start searching threads only to find several rabbit holes that pull me in. Regardless I do enjoy it again and thank you to all who remembered me and welcomed me back.
 
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