Chris M.
Flashlight Enthusiast
Hard to believe it but today, right at this very moment (when I prod the Add Topic button), Candlepower Forums member 171 joins the (currently) presigious Thousand-Plus Posts Club. And I thought (as well as a welcomed nudge from mr Projects our moderator) it`d be a good idea to sit back and reminisce a bit. I`ll probably just waffle on and on about who knows what, but hey- it`s a special occasion, isn`t it?
Towards the end of 2000 I re-discovered the LED Museum, after first finding it when researching for a Uni project. I followed a link on there to a new discussion board all about torches, looked round a bit....and went on my way! See, although I`d always had a liking for torches ever since I was little, I never really thought about them seriously. Being a slightly overweight University student living in streetlight-land, I didn`t have a serious need for them. I was contented with my 4D Maglite and a collection of light bulbs. I was young and foolish.
But.....as time went on, I kept thinking about that place I found, and somehow was drawn back. Well...the rest as they say, is history. Armed only with a couple Photon 2s and a handful of mediocre lights I`d picked up in previous years, I joined Candlepower Forums in Febuary 2001 and made my first ever post, complete with picture, in a topic about converting a Solitaire with a 12 volt battery and LED. Funny really, as that`s about the only "mod" I`ve done to date asides fitting a load of orange TLOH180Ps into an Energizer 2D thing.
As the first weeks passed I began to feel really at home here. Finally, others who`re just as much geeks as I am! Er, I mean, others who appreciate electrical things that glow as much as I do!
Anyway, as the time went on, as I found out more about the new and exciting world of LED torches, I began adding to my "collection". Then one day, and I can`t remember why, I decided I wanted to be a Reviewer. Probably I was inspired by the LED Museum, and wanted an excuse to buy more and more lights too! Oh yeah, and give something back to this community that welcomed me in. Yeah, that was it.
It was around this time that a newcomer by the name of Peter Gransee announced himself and his new product that was soon to be launched. Well after a bit of discussion he agreed to send me out one of the samples of this new light, and that was the beginning if it. Now, as I`m sure you`re aware, to this date I have only published two finished reviews and a load of introductions that are nowhere near what anyone could call a Review. This is because I soon hit onto a little problem. No time! I had no idea how much preparation it would take, and how much time was needed after that, to build and maintain a review site. I rushed things a bit to get the Arc page up, as a result, my "format" never really got finalised, and my reviews went vitrually nowhere. Increased pressure at Uni and increased working hours meant less free time, so it stands today very much as it stood last summer. Sorry
Towards the end of last year, I began work on a new improved Review Site, aiming to carry on from where I never really even got started. And that one still isn`t finished either. But it will be, soon, fingers crossed. And it`ll be fairly good. Unless you hate orange or brown.
Oh, where was I? No idea.
When I joined this place just over a year ago, it was a version 5-point-whatever UBB (anyone remember the custom text some members had under their screen-names? Some blinked, some scrolled, one member had the name "Flashaholic", and now we all do!) and there were only 170 members. Arc Flashlight was known only to a handful of folks in Arizona, no-one knew what a Luxeon Star was, and the Turtlelite-1 was a good light. Everyone made a fuss over the LED forum getting the first thousand posts! Today, we have over 1500 members (I`ll go back and check that in a moment), Arc lights are plentiful and Luxeon Stars turned out to be a bit of a disapointment. The LED board has over 10000 posts and let`s not talk about the Turtlelite-1, well let`s face it, no-one does any more.
The Candlepower Forums have grown beyond anyone`s expectations, and has become the internet`s largest flashlight discussion site. It`s become a truly international community of friends united by a common love for portable illumination devices. We`ve even helped guide the development of new products- without us, the Arc LS probably wouldn`t have happened and there`d be no dark blue Arc-AAAs currently travelling all over the land to their new homes.
So, here`s to the future, and the continued exponential growth of this site. Who knows what new and exciting things are just around the corner? I don`t know. Or at least, I`m not allowed to tell.
I`ll end now (everyone breathes a sigh of relief) with the CPF official motto:
Get them both
or was that Stay away from Botach? I can`t remember
(edit)
Here for postherity, a small chunk of this page showing that magical number of posts.
Towards the end of 2000 I re-discovered the LED Museum, after first finding it when researching for a Uni project. I followed a link on there to a new discussion board all about torches, looked round a bit....and went on my way! See, although I`d always had a liking for torches ever since I was little, I never really thought about them seriously. Being a slightly overweight University student living in streetlight-land, I didn`t have a serious need for them. I was contented with my 4D Maglite and a collection of light bulbs. I was young and foolish.
But.....as time went on, I kept thinking about that place I found, and somehow was drawn back. Well...the rest as they say, is history. Armed only with a couple Photon 2s and a handful of mediocre lights I`d picked up in previous years, I joined Candlepower Forums in Febuary 2001 and made my first ever post, complete with picture, in a topic about converting a Solitaire with a 12 volt battery and LED. Funny really, as that`s about the only "mod" I`ve done to date asides fitting a load of orange TLOH180Ps into an Energizer 2D thing.
As the first weeks passed I began to feel really at home here. Finally, others who`re just as much geeks as I am! Er, I mean, others who appreciate electrical things that glow as much as I do!
Anyway, as the time went on, as I found out more about the new and exciting world of LED torches, I began adding to my "collection". Then one day, and I can`t remember why, I decided I wanted to be a Reviewer. Probably I was inspired by the LED Museum, and wanted an excuse to buy more and more lights too! Oh yeah, and give something back to this community that welcomed me in. Yeah, that was it.
It was around this time that a newcomer by the name of Peter Gransee announced himself and his new product that was soon to be launched. Well after a bit of discussion he agreed to send me out one of the samples of this new light, and that was the beginning if it. Now, as I`m sure you`re aware, to this date I have only published two finished reviews and a load of introductions that are nowhere near what anyone could call a Review. This is because I soon hit onto a little problem. No time! I had no idea how much preparation it would take, and how much time was needed after that, to build and maintain a review site. I rushed things a bit to get the Arc page up, as a result, my "format" never really got finalised, and my reviews went vitrually nowhere. Increased pressure at Uni and increased working hours meant less free time, so it stands today very much as it stood last summer. Sorry
Towards the end of last year, I began work on a new improved Review Site, aiming to carry on from where I never really even got started. And that one still isn`t finished either. But it will be, soon, fingers crossed. And it`ll be fairly good. Unless you hate orange or brown.
Oh, where was I? No idea.
When I joined this place just over a year ago, it was a version 5-point-whatever UBB (anyone remember the custom text some members had under their screen-names? Some blinked, some scrolled, one member had the name "Flashaholic", and now we all do!) and there were only 170 members. Arc Flashlight was known only to a handful of folks in Arizona, no-one knew what a Luxeon Star was, and the Turtlelite-1 was a good light. Everyone made a fuss over the LED forum getting the first thousand posts! Today, we have over 1500 members (I`ll go back and check that in a moment), Arc lights are plentiful and Luxeon Stars turned out to be a bit of a disapointment. The LED board has over 10000 posts and let`s not talk about the Turtlelite-1, well let`s face it, no-one does any more.
The Candlepower Forums have grown beyond anyone`s expectations, and has become the internet`s largest flashlight discussion site. It`s become a truly international community of friends united by a common love for portable illumination devices. We`ve even helped guide the development of new products- without us, the Arc LS probably wouldn`t have happened and there`d be no dark blue Arc-AAAs currently travelling all over the land to their new homes.
So, here`s to the future, and the continued exponential growth of this site. Who knows what new and exciting things are just around the corner? I don`t know. Or at least, I`m not allowed to tell.
I`ll end now (everyone breathes a sigh of relief) with the CPF official motto:
Get them both
or was that Stay away from Botach? I can`t remember
(edit)
Here for postherity, a small chunk of this page showing that magical number of posts.
