I am a 66 year year old retired telecom manager, living on Long Island New York. I have lived in the Metro NY area all my life, having been born in New York City. Aside from a few trips to strange places courtesy of Uncle Sam and the Marine Corps, this area has been my home.
I was always interested in history from as early as grammar school. I had a great interest in the American Civil War and ancient history. My dad was a WW2 veteran of the Pacific Theater, he didn' t talk much about his experiences, but I developed a keen interest in WW2 history, which led to building armored vehicle kits.
I really got involved in modeling in a serious way in the mid 70's. Tamiya kits were the premier 1/35 scale kits at the time, so I built many of them. As my life became more focused on raising a family and earning a living, modeling took a back seat, and most of my builds wound up destroyed by my young son.
I changed my energy focus into the martial arts and for the next 25 years I studied Shotokan Karate, reaching the rank of 2nd degree Black Belt. During a tournament I was kicked in the head and suffered two detached retinas, which required immediate laser repair and surgery in order to save my sight. The things that the medical community can accomplish today are wonderous. I lost a bit of peripheral vision in my right eye, and none at all in the left. Because of the surgery my close up vision got better, and now I need no glasses at all when working on my builds. I was always nearsighted from a young age so distance vision was a problem. One door closes and another opens. Now I have near perfect close-in sight, and it makes working on my kits a real joy. I was afraid I would never be able to work on kits again.
I have seen the excellent work accomplished by members of this site, along with the huge wealth of technical data available by just asking. I look forward to being a contributing member of this site.