*tap tap tap*
Hello I'm SD67 and I'm a dweeb.
I started out finishing up year twelve and going into the army as an apprentice. That was the start of a long series of mistakes. The Army and I parted company pretty quickly, I transferred my indentures to the local power company and as I completed my apprenticeship I did electrical engineering by correspondence. By the time I finished that I HATED it. I'd have been happy to never turn another screw behind a switchboard for as long as I lived, and apart from a couple of small exceptions, I've stuck to that sentiment.
After that I bummed about in Uni and picked up a B.A., a PPL single day VFR and I started swinging off spanners in a motorcycle shop. A friend of mine was selling up his motorcycle wrecking business and I bought up half his stock. I set up a nice little 1/2 and 1/2 motorcycle repair and spray painting work shop under the house my ex and I lived in.
I soon bought an old bus which I fitted out as a mobile home and we went on the road, during which time I worked in a junkyard as a yard foreman and a real estate salesman until I ran afoul of the local coppers doing 90mph in a 100 zone (60mph) on my old CB350/4 trying to bet back from work to see my new son who had just been born 2 days earlier. I'd just told the real estate company to stick it because they demanded I put them before my family.
right.... like THAT is gonna happen!
I then moved waaay down south and my first job there was driving a tow truck for a very dodgy auto repair shop. I quickly figured out what they were up to and told them to stuff it. My next job was as service manager for Nilfisk/Gerni where I picked up a certificate in hydraulic fitting, after that I drove a forklift working as a heat treatment operator in a foundry. My next business decision was a bad one, I took the chemistry knowledge I got from side courses I did at uni and began to do some work for various "businesses". Turns out I was damn good at it and my services became the centre for some very nasty behind the scenes plays. During this time my eldest daughter was born and my partner and I had separated after a bad situation with many causes, some of which were mine but primarily I was driven away by her greed ( This girl could shop like you would not believe, she once spent 25k in ONE FRICKIN DAY!
) I left with nothing but the clothes on my back. She burned most of what she couldn't sell out of spite. Even my Flight logs, my qualification certificates, my text books and anything else she could fit into the incinerator.
I hitchhiked the 2500 odd km back up to my parent's place and it was there I met Sarah (well we met online, but that's where I was when we met. We were married 7 months later and I picked up the spanners again, working as an Automobile club service patrol, requalifying as a Front End Specialist and now working at a GoodYear Service Centre making cars go straight. We now have a 2.5 yr old daughter and living in a very nice beachside town on the coast.
Next year I'm getting my PPL back. It's been a long time coming, I still get as much stick time with friends as I can. I'm also desperately trying to shoehorn time and money into building my KR2S.
http://krnet.org <= check 'em out, these things rock!
This is me trying one on for size last Easter.
This is some of my CAD work on it.
This is how I hope it will look.
