wileydd Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Well...it took a couple of hours to read all this...a really great thread. I haven't had either the urge or opportunity to shoot much lately, and a post here may regenerate some lost initiative.
Wow, where to start My story is quite different than most I have seen here.
I was born at the tail end of the Dust Bowl / Depression days in a little town in Texas. Was raised in small Texas towns such as "Circleback" (the road ended there and you had to circle back) as a little shaver and finished high school in the oil patch of West Texas.
Interrupted college to do a stint in the Marine Corps..too young for the Korean Conflict, too old for Vietnam...finished college classes and left for Alaska (graduated in absentia). Always wanted to live here (Wiley Post was my cousin by blood and an uncle by marriage (don't ask) and was killed in an accident at Barrow with Will Rogers). I had heard about Alaska during all my youth and it was my dream to live here and fly for a living. Been here since before the great Alaska Earthquake, and in all those years wore out a good many engines in various airplanes, but never flew for a living. I have about 6,000 hours Alaska flight time with land, sea, and ski ratings, most of it in a Cessna 180 or 185. I finally decided that the hourly cost of owning an airplane made it impractical (my last moose cost about $15.00 / lb to get to the table), and sold my last plane a few years ago.
Started out teaching in the public schools, but had to get out of it before I went to jail for doing physical damage to some youngster over their smart mouth. Ended up as an air traffic controller while running my own construction business "on the side "
I retired from the FAA in February, 2003, after 23 years as an active, working controller. Never had the desire to do any thing but control traffic, and because of breaks in govt service due to the construction business getting out of hand a couple of times , I was the oldest guy there. Most of the supervisors were less than half my age when I finally pulled the plug.
Shut down the construction business a couple of years before that. Now I spend my summers on the Homer Spit operating a little espresso stand and photographing eagles, gulls, orcas, sea lions and other wildlife when I get the chance. In the winters I try to get out of the snow and visit places like Bosque Del Apache with other FM 'rs such as Gary Steele. That may be curtailed somewhat in the near future, as I am going to teach air traffic control classes at the University of Alaska this fall, and maybe the spring of 2005 as well. Won't get anywhere near the Arizona time I had planned on.
Now to the photography stuff. I was always interested in photography. My first camera was a Honeywell SLR...yes, Honeywell. Also had Pentax and Chinon SLR's. The problem was, I was always too busy making a living and raising kids to spend much time with the camera, and was always disappointed with the results.
However, when I shut down the construction business I suddenly had all kinds of free time (relatively speaking). Bought a little Oly D460 to take pictures of a house that burned, and that got me started again. Now I am just trying to gain proficiency in my favorite pastime.
Cameras: EOS 3, EOS D30, EOS 1D
I have pretty well stocked my lens kit:
Canon 600 F 4.0 L
Canon 300 F 4.0 L IS
Canon 70/200 F2.8 L IS
Canon 100 F2.0
Canon 85 F1.2 L
Canon 28/70 F 2.8 L
Not much else to tell. If any of you ever get to Homer, AK in the summer, look me up at Homer HotShots. The coffee will be on the house for you folks at FM.
This is a great forum with a lot of great people, and it's been a pleasure taking part.
Wiley
Edited by wileydd on May 05, 2004 at 08:32 AM GMT
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