Very Memorable Experiences in your Life

RCF

RCF

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Can be fishing or non-fishing related...

I will start.

Fishing:

The 7 pound brown I caught in RC.

The 30" triploid I caught in the lake I live on. There was folklore about catfish. Then I a 22" catfish from the same lake. There is folklore is that there are 2 sturgeon in lake. Only time will tell...

The 50 pound salmon my dad and I caught at Rivers Inlet. According to locals, it started spawning and then came back to salt water. It was so fatty I could not cook it in a BBQ. I believe them..

As some of you are aware, I try to provide experiences to others. Remember HBMCC (Bruce) from the old site? I had him over and he caught the largest trout at 18" in his life. I said 'just wait'. A few moments later he netted a 24". An hour later he broke his 10 pound tippet on a fish. Let's just say his smiles were awesome!

Non-fishing:

Obviously, the marriage to my wonderful wife of 44 years and our adoption of our 2 children. Also the purchase of our first house. But there is more...

Several people involved in our adoption came to the US to see how the adopted kids were doing. My wife and I volunteered to have them them stay with us when they were in the PNW. They were the manager/owner of the adoption agency, the mayor of Guangdong, and a Chinese Communist Party official. They stayed at our house for 4 days. We had over 100 people come to our house from 7 different states and two countries for the celebration of their visit. Lets just say the interactions with US Government Security and corporate Security was 'interesting' before and after the visit due to my security clearance...

I was on a corporate defense program. We had a missile launch that needed some helium. Working with corporate Traffic, they pulled a government program priority rating that kicked 5 generals off the flight to Hawaii we needed to deliver it on time. At that time, people sent whiskey to others, personal costs on us of course. I received 2 bottles. :)

When refinancing our house I came across a national security issue. Called my company's Security. The next morning the blue suitors (FBI) showed up at the corporate offices and the branch we were conducting business with. Life got interesting for them...

I was on the corporate intranet and I saw a name I thought I knew from high school. Opened the link and an Excel file opened up and it contained all of the company's bank account names and numbers. That folder also contained form letters for transfer on money. Called corporate Security. Life got real interesting...

I was the lead and primary coder of an 'expert system' related to payments. The government (DCAA) used a different tool to evaluate them/us. I demonstrated to them their tool was inaccurate even after several updates. A letter from the government to Frank Shrontz, (my CEO) requesting access/utilization of it. The request eventually came to me. I suggested it was to our 'competitive advantage' and it's was eventually denied to the government.

Damn, life can get interesting... Glad I am no longer getting to experience stuff like that since I retired.

Care to share any of your memorable experiences?
 
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12 years old, freezing with no wetsuit at Kelly's Cove San Francisco beach, stood up on an old beater of a surfboard and got my first ride...hooked for life

Waking up in the hut my first morning in G-Land, Java, after 40 hours of travelling that included a long boat ride across the Java Strait in the dark, to see absolutely perfect waves spinning from the outside point all the way through the inside, grabbing my surfboard and sprinting for the water. Three weeks of epic surf.

Meeting the highly attractive and hella sweet blonde at the nursing station I ended up marrying

During the birth of my son by C section I was scrubbed and in the OR (being a former OR tech and a hipster delivery doc got me in), amazing rush watching him emerge from the incision, giving full voice as he met the world.

1977, had just started running gray whale watching trips out of Pillar Point Harbor, had on board 30 or so members of the Jacques Cousteau Society courtesy of a trip I put together with the SF Aquarium, trying to drum up business.
After a lot of trail and error I had established a method of getting up close and personal with gray whales, so we were dead in the water with a calf rubbing against the boat while mom kept an eye on us, when several hundred yards away an enormous shape emerged from the water heading skyward like a slow motion missile launch, reached it's apex and then fell to it's side in an enormous splash. Decades in those waters and it would be the only sighting of a Blue Whale emerging like that I would ever see. To say folks on board went apeshit would be an understatement.
Word got out and the following weekend one of the passengers was a journalist/photographer from the SF Chronicle who turned the trip into a Sunday article. Shortly after our whaling watching tours were fully booked every weekend.

And so many more...the special moments we live create the sum of our journey here.

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I hiked into some pothole lakes above Skykomish with a buddy around 40 years or so ago and there was a bottle of Whiskey in an old stump near the campsite, found it while taking a leak...pretty old bottle, pretty cheap whiskey...but it still worked.
🤣
 
Mossback said:
I hiked into some pothole lakes above Skykomish with a buddy around 40 years or so ago and there was a bottle of Whiskey in an old stump near the campsite, found it while taking a leak...pretty old bottle, pretty cheap whiskey...but it still worked.
🤣
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“Cascade-aged in a high mountain stump” could be marketing genius!

And hey, in the high country, any pre-schlepped whiskey’ll do.



P.s. Sick weekend around here scuttled all plans fishing and otherwise so I’m posting too much.
 
20 foot seas, 40 knot winds on a broken down boat getting towed in from San Nicholas Island by a dilapidated pick up boat that was running out of fuel. We snapped several tow lines but finally made it back to Los Angeles harbor. It was truly terrifying. Then, a few hours later sitting at a bus stop with my buddy in downtown Los Angeles, just glad to be alive, looking up at the sky scrapers. I've been glad to be alive ever since that night.
 
Another: my first month at the lazy B as a buyer on a defense program.

I got a purchase request for a blender. It was legit because the engineers used it to destroy classified microfiche.

Then got a request for 500 bike spokes. Legit because the local natives on the island would steal the bikes to get the spokes to tie down thatch on their homes. The program manager held a special meeting with the local natives and gave them the spokes. No more stolen bikes.

Then a request for a case of red wine and white wine from Ste. Michelle. Legit because it was for the launch party and not with government money. I had to go and pick it and hand carry through Receiving. Wonders why...

What an introduction to the defense business.
 
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krusty said:
Good 'very memorable experiences' or very bad ones? I've found that both contributed heavily to the development of my personal perception of reality. No light without darkness.
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I completely agree with you. We focus on the positive and try to forget the negative. Both are important to use as it does affect our decisions.

We need to remember our bad experiences .

Case in point: I was driving a Datsun 2000 and a car pulled out from a side road. I slid the car into the vehicle sideways at 40 mph. It turned my car around and through a telephone pole. I could not work for 2 years. CT scans were not available at that time. Taking pain pills and muscle relaxers during that time got old. I have lived for almost 50 years in pain. I am now an inch shorter due to accident - collapsed vertebrae.

We need to take life experiences, both positive and negative, into our decisions.
 
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Not many will appreciate this but my greatest memory was a college math class. I sat next to the two prettiest girls in the class for my own purposes. After a few weeks they invited me to a friend's house for a get together one Wednesday night, BYOB. There I met Jesus and He changed my life. Michelle and Janette thank you.
 
The most memorable for me was a motorcycle accident on Chase Lane in Centerville, Ut in 1964 at the age of 17 . It nearly severed my right leg , they were able to save it when getting me in the operating room to amputate it . After looking at the injury , checking blood supply etc ,decided to give it a shot , me being young ,and healthy .

The crazy part about it is, on the way to the hospital in the ambulance , one of my first thoughts about it all, was I had a date with a very pretty girl that I been wanting for awhile . I knew that date was not going to happen that weekend .

Fortunately , the good memories out weigh the bad , we get a mixture for sure . Have caught some nice fish ,traveled to many places in the world . Scuba dived in many places . Seen the big 5 in Africa. Now just going to Montana for a good portion of the summer is the best, matter of fact leaving tomorrow to take the boat up to drop it off to have up there .
 
yea, some life experiences shape us in ways never expected.
While in the service at Travis AFB, I stopped for a beer after my usual off base bike ride following my shift, where a drunken bear of an airman recently transferred to our air cargo unit from Alaska sat down at my table and began rambling away almost incoherently.
The next day, disturbed by what I'd heard, I rode my bike over to the base police and asked to talk with the officer on duty. After hearing me out, I waited several hours for the summoned Special Investigators to arrive.
The SI's grilled me for several hours and then moved me to a holding cell while they began making calls to Alaska.
The next morning I was moved to secure base housing while the AP went to arrest the airman on his job, which turned into a full blown brawl. Once in interrogation, the only thing the airman had to say was he would find and kill me if it was the last thing he ever did.
Within the next month I had given filmed formal depositions, been honorably discharged, found a rental in a rural coastal canyon, and upon advice from the SI's had filed a court petition to legally change my last name.
The airman was convicted the following year in an Alaskan civilian court for the paid murders of a family of four, the father a crime boss in conflict with another crime syndicate. The murderer was given a life sentence.
I was 22 years old at the time.
 
SurfnFish said:
yea, some life experiences shape us in ways never expected.
While in the service at Travis AFB, I stopped for a beer after my usual off base bike ride following my shift, where a drunken bear of an airman recently transferred to our air cargo unit from Alaska sat down at my table and began rambling away almost incoherently.
The next day, disturbed by what I'd heard, I rode my bike over to the base police and asked to talk with the officer on duty. After hearing me out, I waited several hours for the summoned Special Investigators to arrive.
The SI's grilled me for several hours and then moved me to a holding cell while they began making calls to Alaska.
The next morning I was moved to secure base housing while the AP went to arrest the airman on his job, which turned into a full blown brawl. Once in interrogation, the only thing the airman had to say was he would find and kill me if it was the last thing he ever did.
Within the next month I had given filmed formal depositions, been honorably discharged, found a rental in a rural coastal canyon, and upon advice from the SI's had filed a court petition to legally change my last name.
The airman was convicted the following year in an Alaskan civilian court for the paid murders of a family of four, the father a crime boss in conflict with another crime syndicate. The murderer was given a life sentence.
I was 22 years old at the time.
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I don't know if recounting such things is therapeutic or not. Perhaps.

Personally it dredges up decades of serious PTSD 'life and death' level stuff that never fully leaves my mind. I'm better off focusing on moving forward.

I'm a firm believer that mood follows action. Rumination about the past is a dead end.
 
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I don't think it was memorable, but definitely the most important day in my life.

I thought I wanted to be an astronomer, but in my freshman year in first quarter Calculus, that dream quickly fell apart.

I was talking to my college adviser and she said "you need to declare a new major". I didn't want to do it.

Then she said "Astronomers have observatories on top of mountains, foresters have lookouts". I thought that was the dumbest thing I had ever heard in my young life.

She then showed me the required course work for a forestry degree and I found it interesting as it had lots of science classes, but except for biology they didn't go pass two quarters. I said fine, at least I would not be bored in classes.

I wasn't an outdoors person at that point. Except for the first six years in rural Venezuela I always lived in cities.

And I did have to take two quarters of Calculus in my sophomore year, and got C's.

Something jelled, and it was the best decision of my life. BUT I still think her comment was the "dumbest thing" is had ever heard!!
 
krusty said:
I don't know if recounting such things is therapeutic or not. Perhaps.

Personally it dredges up decades of serious PTSD 'life and death' level stuff that never fully leaves my mind. I'm better off focusing on moving forward.

I'm a firm believer that mood follows action.
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our experiences, good and bad, planned or random, are one of the two strongest influences on our lives.
The other is how we respond, which is the only thing we can actually control.
 
From 1987 to 1988, I was working for the USFWS out of Gainesville, FL. A project I was hired to work on involved sampling the waters on Merritt Island and NASA. We were looking for Tilapia, but we also measured and tagged important recreational and commercial species of fish (tarpon, snook, redfish and mullet). The first one involved security. We had set a trammel net in public waters near NASA and as we were pulling in the net, I saw a couple of vehicles with lights flashing pull up to the water. Three men get out and two of them had M16s which were trained on us. The third gentleman had a megaphone and was instructing us to come to shore (he repeated himself a few times). Mind you we were in a marked boat. My co-worker yelled back and said we'll come in as soon as we are done pulling in this net. Fortunately things did not escalated and we motored to shore. We were told that although we were in public waters, we close to secured areas and that we were supposed to call in ahead of time and let them know we were going to be there. Not a great feeling having a M16 aimed at you and glad that the situation was easily resolved.

On another occasion we were pulling in a trammel net and a very large alligator decided he thought it could get a free meal. The alligator ended up getting so tangled in the net that it needed to be subdued. We contacted the refuge to have the alligator guy come meet so we could give him the gator. After dropping of the gator we went back to sampling. On the first net set, another gator approached the net, but fortunately it did not get tangled. Those were the only two gator incidents during my time.

It was neat driving on NASA property because we drove by the Vehicle Assembly Building, over the crawler tracks, and by the launch pads. I saw incredible wildlife as well.
 
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