Get to know your fellow addict

[quirky]

As I read the posts I am gleaning a little about each of you. But this is one forum where I feel I can truly be myself - thanks to you wonderful people. So I thought it might be time to get to know one another a little better. (eh- that line is a little creepy)

My name is Suzette. I am from Colorado, USA. I am 41, married and have one child (boy aged 10).
I have been a smoker for about 25 years. Recently I became an e-smoking convert. I cant ever go back to cigarettes. If this little baby gets banned or too hard to buy - I will quit all together.

Any way, I am an administrative assistant by day. Fiber artist and paranormal researcher by night.
I am also a bit of a geek. History, paleontology, geology, archeology and anthropology (thats a lot of ologies) are favorite subjects. My other favorite subjects are my son and my pets (9 at last count).

Tell me about YOU.

[dnakr]

Hi Suzette,

This might be fun....

paranormal researcher by night

First off, this is so cool.

As many of you already know, I'm Rachel. I am from Virginia, USA. I am 44, married and have three (3) children. A son (24), and 2 daughters (18) and (15).

I have been a smoker since I was 13 years old and have now been e-smoking for 5 1/2 months.

I am a legal assistant during the week and a motorcycle safety instructor on the weekends. I enjoy trying to find out as much as possible about life after death and love reading about parnormal findings. Weird huh.

Oh yeah, and karenwest1961 is my sister-in-law.

[VP2008]

My name is Leslie and I work full time at home teaching university classes online -- graduate communications in a masters of nursing program and undergraduate communications, professional writing, and criminal justice. Been married 32 years (yesterday) and we have two grown sons, one daughter-in-law, and two dogs. We live in central VA and have a 32ft fifth wheel RV parked year round at a campground in Williamsburg (where my hubby likes to play golf and I like peace and quiet!!).

Let's see, what else? For five years I worked as a private investigator for insurance companies and the juvenile court system and I also worked for a few years as a radio DJ.

This is a great idea -- looking forward to meeting everyone!

[NerdyCinderella]

Originally Posted by quirky

As I read the posts I am gleaning a little about each of you. But this is one forum where I feel I can truly be myself - thanks to you wonderful people. So I thought it might be time to get to know one another a little better. (eh- that line is a little creepy).........
Tell me about YOU.

I agree with you quirky re: the nature of this forum.
But I need to get some courage up to share "about me."
I'll get back to you all.
Now let's hear from you guys!

[TropicalBob]

I'm not telling my age. You'll think I'm a geezer. I'm not.

In college, I was a sophomore nobody who began a weekly humor column in the campus newspaper. It became very popular and widely read. I was instantly somebody and was elected to student government. I switched my major to journalism then and never looked back.

I spent most of my career as a writer/editor with the St. Petersburg Times and The Tampa Tribune. I also launched the Road Runner online service in Tampa Bay for Time-Warner, being content editor for that service. Tropical Bob was the creation of my last editor (it IS me) and was the name of a thrice-weekly humor feature I produced that was animated on the paper's Web site (I did the voice and animation) and printed in the paper.

I created an award-winning Web site in 1995, called The Car Place, and it was named a Forbes Best of the Web in 2002. I sold it right after that and left Web site creation. I have reviewed cars since 1989; I get a new car every week without fail, never buy gas, never pay insurance on them, and have driven almost every vehicle for sale in North America. My reviews appear in Sarasota and Naples (Fla.) magazines.

I was a television critic for five years and did personal interviews with almost everyone on TV at the time. Great fun, to be sure. I partyed with the stars, back when money was no object for the TV networks.

I've written two published books (one, a text on photography how-to, and the other on muscle car history) and was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 (lost to the Washington Post's critic).

My most recent newspaper hit the economic skids and cut loose its veterans. That meant me. I was "bought out." I continue to write the magazine articles, but am in a funk at being bought out when I still have so much to offer. I'm a highly skilled writer and photographer, a skilled videographer and video editor, skilled in audio editing; I create animation, do layout using QuarkXPress, and write HTML code from my head as I learned it in 1994 as the Internet was barely taking off. In those "old days," I also wrote nine commercial computer programs using the BASIC language for Commodore 64 computers (my first computer love). From that computer, I made the first electronic story transmission to Popular Photography magazine (I wrote an article on using the then-primitive home videotape units). I own all of my own photography, video and audio equipment -- a small fortune sitting on the floor next to me now.

I love my dog, a Springer Spaniel named Marty who should be called Velcro. I love Florida; was born in Fort Myers next to the Thomas Edison Winter Estate. My dad invented things .. and I inherited his mad mind for always seeing what's not there. I started smoking at 16. Wish I hadn't, but ..

I have a daughter and son, both married, and three grandchildren now. My son is a jouster (you know, charging horse, lances, pain) and UFO investigator. My daughter is a medical transcriptionist who works from home. My wife is assistant to a college president.

I'm a bum now who writes free for forums with nice people .. like this one. And I'm an e-smoker.

[quirky]

Gee Bob - geezer indeed. My mom's boyfriend (65) just took a river rafting guide course and then guided his own raft with 6 people down a class 4 river. For a week. He is a geezer His mom (age 92) still travels the world - alone.

My mom (age 62) and her sister (age 73) still backpack the mountains whenever possible. They carry their own gear, sleep on the ground and walk more miles a day than I do in a month. Geezers seem to have more "go" than the Mc Donalds generation.

[TropicalBob]

Geezer it is then. I learned not long ago that some of my favorite pipe tobaccos are called "codger tobaccos" because they've been popular since our grandfathers' days. And I did aspire to retire one day and start a newsletter called "Geezer Gazette," with stuff we geezers really care about. I might could finance it on Viagra ads alone.

[windblown]

There's no way I'm following TropicalBob! :o 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)

[NerdyCinderella]

Hey Windblown this should ease your transition from TropicalBob to yourself.

My name is Eileen. I retired early at 59.5 yrs from a Federal job because I couldn’t stand my job. I retired on a considered whim; didn’t even realize I was qualified to retire 6 months before I began my research.

However, I had a previous career of 20 years as a nurse (Thank God for my self-esteem after that Federal job!). I furthered my education with a Masters in Social Work, planning to be a psychoanalyst but didn’t complete that plan.

I was born and brought up in the Bronx, NY the youngest of six children and have been living in Manhattan for over 35 years. I spent 6 of my formative years 7th grade through High School in an all girls, all nuns boarding school in Maine.

Though I was educated in Catholic institutions until I completed my Bachelor’s Degree and developed an interest in studying all religions, I now consider myself an agnostic, atheist, humanist or whatever along those lines (I’ve stopped analyzing all that stuff as I have grown older).

I began smoking apx. in the 5th or 6th grade when myself and friends would go off to the Bronx Zoo to a secluded place, Monkey’s Island, On the way we would stop off at a White Castle to purchase a pack of Lucky Strikes from the automatic machines and adorning ourselves with lipstick.

I continued sneaking cigarettes in boarding school at the Grotto of the Virgin Mary, snuggled nicely at the edge of the woods. What else was there to do for some good fun trouble in an all girls boarding school!

I am single and have never married. I watched all my brothers and sisters marry, have children and figured I’d skip it. I didn’t prepare well emotionally for retirement and am struggling to find direction in my retirement. I did get myself in great shape after I retired and went online to join those internet dating services. I’m no longer interested in them anymore. I concluded that the men on these sites are either looking for eye candy or $$ to support their retirement.

One last comment about myself: I tend to be shy, kind, understanding and generous. However, if you can fathom this, at the same time my sense of humor is dry, very sharp, sarcastic and irreverent. I try my best to contain my sarcastic humor as I participate on the forums so forgive me if I fail to contain it and I accidently insult someone. My friends assure me my humor doesn’t hurt but that’s not always possible to convey on a forum.

And if TropicalBob can get away with not telling his age, I can also.
I’ll even send you my last best pic through a PM if someone wants - lol

[windblown]

Hey Cinderella, that's not exactly what I would call a "transition". I am wracking my brain to come up with some interesting accomplishment that I could share here, but basically I am just a beach bum at heart. Currently without a beach. I love ocean sailing, island hopping, scuba diving, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley, Margaritas, Pina Coladas, and relaxing with a good smoke. Oh yeah, make that an e-smoke.

My religion of choice would have to be Zen. Is that actually a religion? Well, whatever, it's as close as I am ever going to get.

I had my first-ever cigarette on the bus that was taking me a thousand miles away to my first college. I was excited, nervous, half-way scared, and a pack of cigarettes was just the thing to settle the nerves and to lend that certain "Je ne sais quois." :mrgreen: Duh!

So, I don't know that this qualifies for admission to the Fellow Addicts Club, but that's a start. We'll just call it an opening statement for now!

BTW, I saw that photo of TB next to a red Ford GT......gotta say I haven't seen any geezers like that in my neighborhood!