So... Once Upon a Time...

[bykfixer]

Once upon a time on a big project, it was announced that there was going to be a big ole shin-dig for the community when the first half of a new bridge was opened. The original half was going to be closed as the community were going to be invited to party on the old bridge for two days. At 5pm on a Friday the new bridge would be opened and the old bridge closed.

It was an invitation only affair. All the bosses were bragging about going. Us pee-on's had not been invited. So I get a phone call from a twirp boss guy saying I was tapped to park cars that Sunday (with a forecast of over 100). "What?!? No ******** way I'm doing that ********." He says "ok" and hangs up. My supervisor calls me up and asks why I wouldn't park cars. LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU SO N SO, NO ******* WAY!!! I QUIT". He says "are you seriously quitting?" "Yup". He says "now?" "Yup, right ******* now you *********". He says "well we wanted you to park a few cars today when the mayor and the press arrive to cut the ribbon at 10:00am". I said "well I'll do that but I aint doing it Sunday". He says "Sunday? What are you talking about?" I say "you guys drove me in the ground day after day, month after month while you set in a climate controlled ivory tower and now won't even invite me to your stupid little party? Screw you man". He says "Sunday? No, nobody says anything about you working Sunday". "What party?" "I need you to park the mayor in 15 minutes". "Are you quitting or not?"

I say "so you don't need me to come out here on Sunday?"
He repeats "Sunday? What in Heavens name are you talking about? Sunday?" I said "uh, boss can I take back everything I just said?"

Turns out the twirp boss was tapped to park cars on Sunday and tried to shirk it off on me. While wearing an old dirty vest and hard hat, I parked the mayor, local big shots and the press then walked up to the ribbon cutting ceremony with my SLR camera in hand. The mayor was giving a speech when I walked up and he stopped. He says to the press "make a hole for that guy" (talking about me) "he helped build this dam thing" (thinking I was one of the workers I suppose due to the safety gear I was wearing). I politely took a photo as he posed for the cameras and stepped back in the crowd.

I'd forgotten that one Mono until you told your "oops" story. lol.

 

[Monocrom]

I'm glad things ended on a good note for you. I just honestly wish my situation was the same. The meeting did indeed turn out to be nonsense. I, and the senior Security Officer/Fire Marshall were the only ones who attended the mandatory meeting a few days later. None of the other guys suffered any consequences for not being there. It was literally a refresher course on Fire Safety. Something my Fire Guard qualifications had covered more in-depth. And certainly didn't require a refresher.

Everyone else simply got the same stapled stack of papers the two of us did, later on. With a sheet to sign saying they got the "workbook" and had read the darn thing. Obviously everyone else just simply signed. Again, nonsense. The client's representative wasn't even at that meeting. Only reason I didn't quit on the spot is because that site is, by comparison, the least headache-inducing out of all the client sites I ever worked at. Also, it's not in Manhattan. Meaning I can drive there. Not having to share a subway train with the dregs of Society. And honestly, that's putting it mildly with an objective look at the NYC subway system. So I stayed.

 

[bykfixer]

Sometimes the job becomes work. Other times it's a pleasure. I figure it like this as I get older and the toilet paper roll called life nears its ending, having fun or not time flies unless you're being tortured.


Some once upon a time flashlight stuff on a Fathers Day morning:

Once upon a time I was adding electrical circuits to an automobile. The transmission lines were already taxed by incan light bulbs. So just splicing in another receptacle was out. I began researching LED lighting in automobiles. Not long before that I needed a bright light at work and my minimag was not cutting the mustard. A coworker rolls up with a 300 lumen LED light the size of my forearm. Think 2D Maglite. Only this thing was rechargeable and very bright. I did not know that the novelty thing called an LED was capable of such awesomeness. 300 lumens from an LED? Seriously? It was 2014 or so. Yes I was stuck in a time warp.

Ok, so between that night and searching for LED sockets for that car I researched online and this Candle Power place kept popping up. One night at 2am I'm bored at work, so why not pop in and say hello? Once I got past the roadblock of the initial three posts I thought it was easy. The "what's this" thingy kept showing me stuff I did not understand. I'd hit send and get "WRONG, TRY AGAIN". Post 4 was probably my favorite post here. I'm in, I'm official....

At that point I thought "man, there aint nuthin' better than these Coast lights". I kept seeing SureFire this and SureFire that. "What kind of stupid name is that for a flashlight?" I thought. "Now Energizer Hard Case"...thatz a cool name for a flashlight. And why would somebody name a flashlight after a Russian flu bug? Malkoff?

One day I tried one of those SureFire numbers. Still believing any flashlight more than $35 was a waste of money I plunked down $55 for a G2x Pro. "This this better be good. Heck it doesn't even zoom".... Welp that sucker opened the flood gates to a full blown case of flashaholic disease with a Malkoff fever.

I worked a lot of nights then and figured an onset of fatigue was due to a sarcadian rhythm issue. When I returned to days it got worse. I abandoned the car project due to lack of interest and lack of energy. Instead I spent a lot of time between naps reading and learning about flashlights. By this time I probably owned about 50 flashlights. Before joining here I already had a slew of $6 work type niche lights with telescoping ends or magnetic base. But now I owned a slew that were fed off old SLR camera batteries.

Along the way I began meeting people online who were involved in flashlight repairs, designs or the industry in general. A friendly bunch of chaps. "Us weirdos gotta stick together" I figured. I began collecting antique lights and restoring them since the car project was out. I could restore a flashlight between naps while sitting on my sofa. One day I received a PM from a long time member asking if I'd mail a couple of Maglites to him across the planet. "Gladly". Then one night I'm reading about a famous SureFire engineer had left SureFire and started his own gig. Being a consumer of flashlight know how I read all kinds of old threads about this "PK" fellow and became a fan. Now at that time I was accumulating a plethora of lights from the old days while adding some SLR camera fed LED lights to a collection. Mostly Streamlight back then. But I tried one of the lights by this PK chap and that was that. My holy grail. Yet the masses were not thrilled by them for a variety of reasons.

Being a fan of the underdog I spoke favorably here and often. Meanwhile another not-so-famous flashlight guru Bill Utely had sent me an autographed copy of his book. An encylopedia of flashlight history. The fellow who requested the Maglites had done a thread about his book long ago and I ordered one from Bill who was now advanced in years and focused his life taking care of an ailing wife. Famous collector Steve Gitterman had shown me a host of tricks to get old non working lights going and old dull working ones to shine brightly again.

The fellow who requested the Maglites member Lightlover put me in touch with PK. Holy smokes. They had become friends in early (pre-Greta) CPF days and apparently PK had done a lot to help CPF stay afloat at one point. I received word that Bill Utely's wife had passed on to her reward about that time. And another light collector David White and I were communicating about details of old flashlight history.

Communicating with PK led to some great stories at 2am Monday my time, 2pm Tuesday his time. He was learning how to live in a foreign land while launching his own flashlight company. He did not strike me as an eccentric at all, but was a very down to earth, very generous person who happened to understand the physics of lighting technology. Some he invented, some he learned from other great minds of the time. Meanwhile another member here (Poppy) had started a popular thread to show flashlights while travelling. Me, I never went anywhere but my wife did. So she'd carry one or two of my lights and show it with something cool in the background.

I started a small business selling PK's new lights. Being they were not very well received by the masses, and the target market was folks whose jobs are largely done in secret, I was not getting rich by any means. Yet again I was meeting people and sharing stories. Unsung heroes who are like good plumbers...when they do it right nobody knows they were there. PK decided to go back to his roots from SureFire days and focus on pure tactical lights for military and specialized law enforcement. Bill Utely has disappeared into his own world where he is still writing history down, but not flashlight related. Poppy pops in here from time to time and Lightlover is somewhere across the big pond in obscurity.
Meanwhile the lethargy thing was solved with a couple of old guy pills where worn out body parts just need a hand from the Pheizer corparation.

So today I figured why not share some of my favorite photos of flashlights.

A few PK related;

An ad for his new company.
I took a photo of my car keys and he doctored it up the PK way.

He sent me some prototypes.

Lightlover said "make it tailstand".
An early PR-1 with prototype tail stand tailcap next to his personal favorite invention the E1.

One that never happened.
PK had begun a collaboration with Chris Kyle Frog Foundation but legal stuff stopped it from happening. Nothing wrong happened, just communications got cut between them and the idea for special edition CKFF lights never happened.

PK's first try at re-entering the weapon light realm.
Note the bullet on the right. His PRX being torture tested along with a new model of rifle for combat.

Now some antique stuff;

AA lights from the 1930's to 1970's.

A very early light bulb
From around 1912 this was for a 2aa pistol shaped number and it still works.

A couple restored
From about 1915 neither burned brightly but with tips from Steve Gitterman they look and act like new.

A depression era promo
If you had enough dough to buy flashlight batteries you also got a free flashlight in about 1934.

A search and rescue light
Back when the light bulb was king and more batteries meant more output, this giant head 7 cell number could easily light up to 500 feet. Big deal for the 1950's.

From the LED museum;

A wooden 2x AA light by Menards.
It turns out chain store mogul John Menard is a flashaholic. In about 2014 he sold these throwey wooden numbers for about $10 at Menards department stores.

The tiny light with big output.
An outfit called Pentagon entered the military lighting tool market briefly. The 1xAA "Molle" light was nearly as bright as it's 6 volt incan competitor the Pelican 2320.

The Timex of LED modules
The P60L took a beating and kept on working. It had been run over by a bulldozer.

One for the Poppy thread.

Somewhere in buyou country.
The pink elephant said "holy crap I drank so much I just saw a flashlight." The flashlight said "holy crap I drank so much I saw a pink elephant".

So once upon a time I needed a brighter flashlight. And the rest is history....

 

[Monocrom]

Fantastic story and photos.

It's unfortunate that SureFire sued PentagonLights out of existence, despite never having proved any of the allegations against them and never getting a judgement against PL. That was a great little angle-head light.

 

[bykfixer]

Eh, the whole thing was unfortunate.

 

[Monocrom]

Yes, very unfortunate. PL made some good lights.

 

[bykfixer]

Pentagon was competing with Streamlight, Pelican and SureFire.

Once upon a time the company entered into a contract that required 100% US made parts. This was before the "when available" clause.

Lots of misinformation swirled about. But it boiled down to a large investment had been made for the contract and they had to withdraw.

The SureFire story was unrelated.

Streamlight made a large booboo at one point and nearly met the fate of Pentagon suffered later. They managed to secure a big contract with their Scorpion which saved them. But Streamlight engineers had helped NASA during the Apollo days and had found favor in the US government hiarchy. SureFire, pre-SureFire had also helped the US government with the invention of two things. Pistol laser and the not widely known at the time fiber optic cable. Hence the name Laser Products early on.

Pelican was known for dive technology and waterproof containers. They entered the police light application but were not competing with the big boys on the big boys turf like Pentagon was.

Pentagon had some great ideas and built some pretty good stuff. But when they decided to compete with the big boys on the big boys turf, their war chest was nowhere large enough to survive and they had not gained the favor from beaurecrats. The SureFire thing was the straw that broke Pentagons back.

 

[bykfixer]

The other day at my work I received a text from our local IT guy saying he had a new computer for me. Cool. Usually he delivers but this time he asked me to go to him at his office a few zip codes away.

Day trip! The destination was Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. I used to go there for the outlet malls. Feeling pretty confident of the location I still looked at a google map for the particular address. Seeing familiar road names on the map it appeared all required was a right off the main drag then a quick left.

Travelling down the interstate, where's my exit? Exit 232 was gone. Eh, plenty more nearby. Travel an extra mile or two and take the next one. So far so good. Or so I thought. Travelling down another familiar road I noticed things had changed. The woods and farms were subdivisions and shopping malls. Where I thought a right was the correct way to go, that was now a bypass around the area I was looking for. Cities are cities. Squares always lead back to point A.

I pull into a fuel station to pee and check out the map again. It turned out I was close to the place I was looking for. Looking for road names on the map I was striking out. Huh? I'm two blocks away. Drive 5 blocks and no road by that name was seen. Nor were the landmarks shown on the google map. Where's the BP?, the fish house? The motel 6?……

I started hearing the Twilight Zone theme song in my head. I'll just call homee and get directions. Well, my iCloud had decided to free up memory and delete a ton of my contacts but hopefully not the IT guy. Not to be. I remembered a text chain we did a couple years back. So I found what appeared to be me chatting with a computer guy and called the number. It was him. He hadn't worked in that city very long so landmarks and road names he was used to were not what the map showed. I found my way to his office only to see building numbered out of sequence. No kidding. 417, 405, 403, 409, 407. I was looking for 407.

It turns out the filling station I stopped at used to be the BP I was supposed to turn at. The barbeque joint across the street was a CVS now and what was called Laffayette was now called Inbound. I was within a quarter mile from the place without knowing it.

So I arrive at the place and find the IT guys office was not that unlike being in the Bat cave. Computer screens galore, all displaying something different while he geeked out at warp speed. The guy was a machine. Instead of a chair he used a beach ball sized excersize ball for rolling back and forth his office in an almost Russian dance where the fellow is nearly squatted and kicking his legs forward. There was an aquarium and a dog too. When he saw the memory was nearly full on my old computer he went into a bit of a snit. "you know of the cloud, right? " he says. I replied "that's those things that make it rain, right?" Dude did not see the humor because a ten minute swap of data from old to new was going to be 70+ hours according to Windows. He sent all my old files to the cloud that is still loading from the cloud to my new laptop. I snagged a few folders onto a pocket drive to work with the next few days while the cloud does what it does.

By then what was supposed to be done by 10am was past noon. I left the place knowing cities are squares and soon after was on the interstate again. It was a strange morning, indeed. Funny thing was there was an entire city where what was a giant farm the last time I had visited Williamsburg only about 5 years ago. One of those land tracts that is about 5 miles by 5 miles was now an entire community made to look like Colonial Williamsburg. The only familiar site was an insane assylum built in the 1800's. So I knew I wasn't completely out of touch with reality. But there for a time I wondered if it was time to pop in that place for a quicker-picker-upper shock treatment or something.

I made it back to familiar sights and stopped at a Burger King for a quick bite of lunch and thought "you know, that was one of those things most people would not believe if I told them." I told my boss the next day who said he had the same thing happen to him and he said "I finally called the sumb1tch and told him to meet at at a Wendys".
Phew, I'm not crazy afterall.

 

[Monocrom]

Sad to hear that so much has changed. I visited that place decades ago as a young teen.

 

[bykfixer]

Williamsburg was a land time forgot until somebody decided to move northern Va there.

 

[greenpondmike]

I hope it's alright to jump in here like this. I've found this section and thread yesterday and I just got finished. Good stories from all of you and I enjoyed reading them. I have some true stories--some from my own life and a few that my dad told me. I have shared them on another forum a while back, so I don't know if it is proper to share here. Yall tell me because I don't know if what I shared is now the property of the other forum, but I'm also greenpondmike on that one also. I think yall might get a kick out of reading them. As far as my hometown goes...it has sure changed a lot since the late 60s when my family and I moved back here. The property and house has been in the family for 70+ years and the property even longer. Our place and our neighbors place are the only places in Green Pond that looks like old Green Pond, which was a woodsy country town where some people had a pulpwood truck as their 2nd vehicle. I could go across the road to hunt and if I wanted to go into the deep woods all I had to do was cross the tracks 175 yards on back. Plenty of places to hunt, fish, swim and just have a good time without anyone bothering you including the law. A person could find many different things to do all day and all night. It was freedom that I took for granted and as time went on before I knew it things had changed. New folks moved in and the woods across the road is now a subdivision and the deep woods across the tracks is a trailer park and the owner of the trailer park built his house right near the beaver pond. Nowadays I can't even walk down the road after midnight (when it's cooler and less traffic) without the law harrassing me or the ones cooking meth being paranoid about me. No good place to hunt or fish and if I want to do that I have to drive a ways now. The town seems to shut down and get quiet after 10:30 now. No gatherings unless you go out in the woods--less woods also. The town I work in is similar to old Green Pond and the people don't settle down till after 3am on a lot of weekends if they settle down then. There are some quiet weekends also when the county is prowling around. Guess I don't blame them--normal people have to sleep every now and then, so the law has it's place. I just wish there were more Andies and less Barney Fifes. I try to be an Andy like guard out there...the ones before me would tell people on their own hunting club property that they were trespassing lol. People out there call me the cool guard.

 

[bykfixer]

Good lead in Mike. I say lead in because you have painted a picture of a place that time has not forgotten.
I look forward to the further adventures of greenpondmike.

 

[greenpondmike]

Thanks bykfixer. I may have to edit this 10 times before it sounds right because my mind is tired--had a long day kind of and even drove way past my exit before I noticed. I guess I was in a cloudy haze driving home. It wasn't a work day but I sure worked. Can't wait to go back to work so I can rest lol. I left several things out because I didn't know if yall were interested. The name Green Pond came from a fellow with the last name of "Green" that had a pond. It was originally called Green's pond. I heard it kinda used to be a lake before the civil war, but what was left of it was drained and now the Green Pond baptist church sits there. Not much left of the swamp that fed it either. My town is just one of many small towns that were real close together. Green Pond, Caffee Junction, Grelee, Rino, Gothite, Bucksville, Tannehill, Lemon Town, Hickman, Giles and Gray Hill are all within a 5 mile radius. Woodstock is next door, but they incoporated and West Blocton and McCalla claimed most of these little towns. Most of it happened back in the mid 90s when they gave us our e911 adress and the people that did it (from Georgia) called everything McCalla except for the post office. McCalla was probably at least 5 miles away before that. Well, at least now we have an address whereas before we picked our mail up at the post office and for a long time just general delivery. The beaver pond used to be a good place to catch fish and even put a boat in. Someone ate the beavers and someone else poisoned the fish and after that it was just a small stump pond that was good to hunt around. I think my dad's only friend leased the land when most of that happened. I wasn't trying to paint a picture of heaven on earth here in my first post--I mean that people messed with you--people are the same everywhere, but no one much bothered to call the law to you or even fuss at you for your activities. You could fire a gun anytime of the day or night and no one was gunshy. You could cut up on the corner or even drag race and people minded their own business--probably just plugged their ears somehow lol. We could get our tires fixed at the all night truck stop the catered to cars or big trucks--that's gone. You could work on your car all night long and rev the engine and most folks wouldn't say a thing. One fellow fussed about me riding my honda xr80 up and down the road at 3 or 4 in the morning when I was a teen, but I couldn't get along with him if I tried--you know the kind and the cleanest word for him is arrogant grouch. He sure had some good looking daughters, but they acted kinda strange, so no conflict with him there. Crazy times.

 

[greenpondmike]

As tired as I was--lady from my job called and begged me to fill in on another post. I havn't slept yet, so I might be better off to wait till Monday when I'm off again. I just went into greater detail about this area I live in, but I don't want yall to think that post above was one of the stories I was gonna share. Be back when I'm rested.:sleepy:

 

[bykfixer]

Understood.

The other day while travelling on an interstate to another assignment it dawned on me I did not actually know what road I was on until I saw an exit sign that I recognized.

It was kinda like an old Bob Segar song where he said he wasn't quite sure what town he was in when he woke that morning.

 

[greenpondmike]

My dad worked with a man that was a coon hunter--for reference I'll call him Jim. Jim had a coworker that kept pestering him to take him coon hunting. Jim started out telling my dad about his "exprience" while hunting. There was something out there in a particular spot that would let out a noise--eeeEEEEEEEEeeee whoot, whoot, whoot every time he got near that area. Jim's dogs would be right at his feet with their tails tucked under them until they got past there. Jim said that he finally gave in and took that coworker hunting after he kept pestering him, but he took him hunting in the area that had that certain spot where the "thing" was. Well, Jim said that the coworker was way behind him until that "thing" did it's thing lol. He said his coworker's carbide headlight was just a bobing as he was catching up to him--which wasn't long at all. The coworker asked Jim "what was that?" Jim said "what was what?" The coworker said "that noise" and Jim said "what noise?" Jim told my dad that coworker NEVER asked to go coon hunting with him again.

 

[bykfixer]

Keep 'em coming greenpond. Good stuff.

 

[greenpondmike]

On the story above, I don't know where it took place, but my dad worked in Birmingham at the time at a particular corporation that employed lots of people from all around including a lot from my area. Most of the stories around here--at least the best ones are from long ago. Back in the old days there was no law that required a person to fence in their cattle. There was this big bull that terrorized the people of Green Pond. Sure they could have shot it, but then they would of had to pay for it. I don't know if he actually hurt anyone--I guess people ran faster in the old days- probably the 30s or 40s, but it might of been in the late 1920s. That bull thought he was bad to the bone- one day he even bowed up at the train. Probably everyone within a mile radius was relieved. There was a lot of cattle around here and the reason Tannehill parkway is so curvy is because it was originally a cattle trail and they just decided to follow that when they put the road in. You might can say that the cattle designed the road.

 

[greenpondmike]

Keep 'em coming greenpond. Good stuff.

Thank you bykfixer

 

[greenpondmike]

One time my dad borrowed my gold duster and made a nessasary trip out of the state. The neighbors blamed him for my trip lines in our woods and tried to give him legal trouble when I was laid up in the hospital from an accidental gunshot to my leg. When I got out and got to walking fair I was still off of work, so I was bored and there sat one of dad's cars- a 1963 belair with a 283 with power pack heads and a 3 on the tree. It had been setting up for at least 4 years and I forget how much trouble it was to get running. Back then we didn't have a law requiring insurance and I think I borrowed the tag off my truck to kind of legalize things as long as I wasn't pulled over. Well, I got it running and I drove it around town and finally I was coming off that hill on co road 12 just before the stop sign. I didn't have a muffler and it sounded loud and mean. I saw a group of people I knew gathered around on the corner and figured I'd show out for them. I held back and didn't pop the clutch even though the chain holding the motor mount probably would have held up, but all I did was goose the gas a little in first and then I saw who was in the middle of all those folks. The local deputy and his trainee was out there shooting the bull with the local heads and known drunks that could obviouly get away with more than I could. I sheepishly waved and the hit 2nd and looked in my mirror. They had their backs turned while getting in their car as I hit 3rd. I did a 90 degree turn at ? into a grown up road that they never knew about across from where I lived that led to a secret hang out spot. I can't believe I pulled that one off and they never got me although mom was out in the yard and witnessed it all and was angry at me because she lied for me when asked where I went. She let me have it about an hour later when I idled across the road. I swapped the tag and got gone through a road in the woods to a friend's house and layed low till 11pm. Years before that, that particular friend and I were sitting out there in that spot across from my house just hanging out. I was the Green Pond taxie back then and my friend wanted to drink and not be bothered. It was around 10pm-midnight and he was drinking and I was sober, bored and trying to find something good on the AM radio. All of the sudden he's in a panic--he done seen something out the back window that was big. I was like "what? What? What's going on? What did you see?" He wouldn't tell me and if I didn't get the truck cranked and get to moving that 350 pound fellow was going to jump out of the truck and probably outrun it if what he saw didn't get him first lol. I never saw him act that way- there was a look of terror in his eyes that he didn't even have when the law showed up to our water baloon thing we had going on at halloween years earlier where he did a dance on those baloons--destroying the evidence and then running (because he was on probation). Anyhow, when we got away from there and he calmed down he told me that he saw someone tall run across an area behind us and dart behind a blackberry bush. A little later on he said calmly it was probably this tall fellow we knew and he was just checking on his plants. To be honest, I think he saw something that doesn't supposed to exist and if I remotely bring up the subject of certain cryptids not even related to that incident he mocks and makes fun of me. Yeah, uh ha, he saw it and for his own piece of mind is blocking it out, but cryptids never scared me that bad even when I had my class a,b and c encounters, but they did rattle my cage a little. As far as class "a" is concerned- that is like uh, eyewitness. Maybe it was a tall man in a black wet suit running across the ridge, but that thought would make less since than I actually saw a cryptid. Come to think of it I had 2 class "A" encounters.