Yeah, I know I introduced myself earlier but after a few recent threads, I thought I might elaborate on my past and myself, OK?
I am a 53 year old disabled veteran of the US Navy. My initial service connected injury was to my left knee. Over the years, the loss of the proper use of that knee led to some real severe back issues and I now have to use a wheelchair when I go out and I am unemployed and unemployable.
Outside of cyberspace, I am known as "Speedy". I have been "Speedy" since I was born as I was born 9 months and 2 days after my parents were married! At the age of 9 I was racing motorcycles, at 15 it was Modified Dirt Trackers, at 25 I was heavily involved with the S.C.C.A. and won the Regional Championship in the H Stock Solo II class here in the Shreveport area. I also won the "Think, Don't Drink & Drive" college challenge at Louisiana Tech and went on to place dead in the middle of the top 40 collage drivers in the nation. I was in my 30's at the time as I started college late.
I grew up knowing I was going to be a mechanic from an early age. At 12, I was mowing yards using an old lawnmower I bought from my father which I rebuilt and maintained. Before I was 15 I had already bought, rebuilt and sold my first car, a 1966 Ford e-100 Econoline Van. I was already working out of the house as a mechanic tuning up the older kids cars at Lafayette High where I was enrolled. My mother died of cancer when I was 13 and as my father was a traveling salesman for Howard Griffin out of Monroe, LA, I pretty much raised myself after that.
At 18 I left home and joined the US Navy right at the end of Nam when we were just pulling out. I signed on to be a Diesel Engineman or Diesel Mechanic and took my boot in Florida and my C school in Detroit. My first real duty station was aboard the USS Tringa, ASR-16, a Submarine Rescue and Salvage ship based out of the Nuclear Sub base in Groton, CT. From there, I went to the Navigational Aids And Support Unit stationed at the Fort Story Army base outside of Virginia Beach, VA. While stationed there I severely injured my left knee and spent most of the rest of my active duty recovering from that. I was released to the Active Reserve and from there I was released from the Navy with an Honorable Medical Discharge.
I returned to Louisiana and went to work with my half-brother Tommy at his Frame & Front End shop in Shreveport as a mechanic and learned the Front End Alignment biz and how to straighten frames and do chassis work. I was working on some of the finest cars in Shreveport ranging from Vettes to Rolls Royces and Porsche with Lotus and Shelby cars thrown along with others. I designed and built roll cages and chassis for Dirt Trackers and Road Racers and the Solo II (Auto-X) crowd and built a good name for myself before my back began to cause me real issues. It got so bad, I simply couldn't mechanic any more.
I talked to my wife's aunt and learned I had plenty of unused VA assistance available to me so I went downtown to see what was what. Long story short, The VA sent me to college to be whatever I wanted to be as my test scores were good enough for that. I aimed high and started out for a Mechanical Engineering Degree. I wound up with 90 college credit hours with a major in Technical Writing and a minor in Computer Science and in between I became a huge computer geek and a full-time Scientific Instrumentation Technician at Louisiana Tech University. While at Tech, I put the colleges of Civil & Chemical Engineering onto this new Internet thingy. While there I ran the networks and did a LOT of the wiring and hardware work bringing us from BNC cable through 10 base-T to Fiber. I also maintained the computer labs and configured the PCs and handled Network security.
During all this, I had my own side business building computers, maintaining networks and setting up sites and installing software for several lawyers and a few judges in the Ruston and Monroe areas. I was maxed out in my position at LA Tech and getting bored there when I got a call out of the blue from a friend of a friend who met me through Tech and the Louisiana Tech Modem Users Association where I was the SYSOP back in the day of the BBS. That call led me to a job as a Network Tech and Hardware Tech for a large Monroe Engineering firm at twice what I was making at Tech so off I went!
Over the next many years I worked my way up through a few companies to being a Senior Programmer/Analyst and wrote programs that interfaced business system database data with the Internet as well as the programs needed to input and maintain that data. This is where my career ends. December 17, 2009, I lost my Job, my home, my SUV, my livelihood, my healthcare... I lost damned near everything I owned and had worked to gain over my life. My health had gotten to the point I simply couldn't do my job and I had been slipping down for a good year fast and hard and no matter how much my company liked me, they simply couldn't support me any more and they were right to let me go but let's skip over this for now and go back to what I did when I wasn't working up to this point!
As I told you, I had my FFL, the standard gun dealer one, not the C&R one, and I kept it and my shop, albeit a tiny one, open until Komrad Klinton came around with his madness when I let it go back and bailed on the business side. I have been around guns all my life. My dad taught me gun safety and how to hunt at an early age. My first "gun" was the traditional Daisy repeating lever-action BB gun. It was followed by a Crossman .177 Pellet rifle. That was replaced with a Stevens single shot 410 and the last gun dad bought me was an Ithica 16 gage featherweight pump. Dad was an ex Marine and an expert Pistol Marksman and his sidearm was a 1911 .38 Super which he was amazingly accurate with. Before he died, he gave me his S&W Model 10-8 that I dearly cherish to this day. My dad and I were very close right up to his death 5 years ago which I am still not over. I have always enjoyed firearms and have been known to drive hundreds of miles to go shooting with friends. Years back a bunch of us idiot Largo collectors got together and formed the Sociedad Largo. We met a few times at one of the core members home near Little Rock, AR (RIP Ben) and had a ball! Now all that remains is fond memories and the Sociedad Largo Homepage at http://www.9mmlargo.com/ I already told you I had once had an FFL, I will also tell ya I have held CHPs in Louisiana, Virginia and New Hampshire. I had everything done for my Arkansas permit but to turn in the paperwork but never did go ahead and get it because, at the time, I was having to work like a slave and had no life at all! Believe it or not, I had the Louisiana State Concealed Carry permit BEFORE the Shall Issue permits were available! The requirements were many and not easy to meet but it COULD be done. I had to have sign-off by the Chief LEO so I went to the Sheriff and he sent me to his range officer who qualified his men and said I needed to have him sign off that I was safe to carry a gun. The officer had me take the same course of fire his men used to qualify and I had to qualify using the same standards as them and I had never done Close Quarters Combat drills and weak hand drills before this! He showed me what he wanted me to do at each station and off we went. I brought a range bag Full of pistols as I wasn't sure what he would require and I wanted to be prepared. He told me I needed a gun that had 2 magazines as a reload was required on this course several times so I used the only gun I had 2 magazines for... my $99.00 Norinco Tockerav! When the smoke cleared I had shot 95 out of 100 and he informed me that his officers would now have a higher qualification score if the course was easy enough for an untrained civilian with a $99 Chinese pistol to out score most of them!
Besides the guns and racing, I have always loved music. Up till I became completely disabled, I was a Blues/Funk/Rock drummer and I was also the DJ "Doctor Speed" on 50,000 watt LA 105 out of Monroe LA for a year doing 7 shows a week before I quit because they wanted me to work more and it was cutting into my day job that was paying the bills! As a DJ, I had great benefits but the pay SUCKED!. As a drummer I played mostly in the Ruston area with John Simoneaux out of The Sundown Tavern where I wound up being the drummer in the house band and also John's drummer in a gigging band for a few years before he took off for Austin, TX. I have played state fairs, blues festivals and gigs with as many as five thousand or more people in attendance and I've played my share of dives like the infamous "Willie's Wok N' Woll" in Waverly, Louisiana. These days I listen to my friends play and I might sit in on a song or two on Congas or doumbek as I just can't play a full kit anymore due to pain.
I mentioned that I had friends that were cops and a Sheriff in some posts and that is true. I met them from back when I had my FFL and my PC shop as I worked for several Lawyers and a few Judges and I custom made the software that the Ruston Police Department used in their Juvenile division to track juveniles as does Lincoln parish and a parish just outside of Baton Rouge. As far as I know, they are still using my software. I helped the DA in Ruston get elected by processing his mass mailing as well but I doubt he remembers me.
Some officers I know through my music. One of them Mr. Monte Russell who left the force to become a full time musician and is still on the road making his living at it.
Well folks, I think that's enough to give you an Idea of who I am and where I am coming from. Bayou Shooter is my new home now that I live back home in Louisiana although I can also be found on TFL, THR and RFC pretty much daily as I am retired (not by choice) and have way too much free time these days.
Later
(the story of how I became Hero Hog will have to wait for another day although it is REAL easy to Google...)
I am a 53 year old disabled veteran of the US Navy. My initial service connected injury was to my left knee. Over the years, the loss of the proper use of that knee led to some real severe back issues and I now have to use a wheelchair when I go out and I am unemployed and unemployable.
Outside of cyberspace, I am known as "Speedy". I have been "Speedy" since I was born as I was born 9 months and 2 days after my parents were married! At the age of 9 I was racing motorcycles, at 15 it was Modified Dirt Trackers, at 25 I was heavily involved with the S.C.C.A. and won the Regional Championship in the H Stock Solo II class here in the Shreveport area. I also won the "Think, Don't Drink & Drive" college challenge at Louisiana Tech and went on to place dead in the middle of the top 40 collage drivers in the nation. I was in my 30's at the time as I started college late.
I grew up knowing I was going to be a mechanic from an early age. At 12, I was mowing yards using an old lawnmower I bought from my father which I rebuilt and maintained. Before I was 15 I had already bought, rebuilt and sold my first car, a 1966 Ford e-100 Econoline Van. I was already working out of the house as a mechanic tuning up the older kids cars at Lafayette High where I was enrolled. My mother died of cancer when I was 13 and as my father was a traveling salesman for Howard Griffin out of Monroe, LA, I pretty much raised myself after that.
At 18 I left home and joined the US Navy right at the end of Nam when we were just pulling out. I signed on to be a Diesel Engineman or Diesel Mechanic and took my boot in Florida and my C school in Detroit. My first real duty station was aboard the USS Tringa, ASR-16, a Submarine Rescue and Salvage ship based out of the Nuclear Sub base in Groton, CT. From there, I went to the Navigational Aids And Support Unit stationed at the Fort Story Army base outside of Virginia Beach, VA. While stationed there I severely injured my left knee and spent most of the rest of my active duty recovering from that. I was released to the Active Reserve and from there I was released from the Navy with an Honorable Medical Discharge.
I returned to Louisiana and went to work with my half-brother Tommy at his Frame & Front End shop in Shreveport as a mechanic and learned the Front End Alignment biz and how to straighten frames and do chassis work. I was working on some of the finest cars in Shreveport ranging from Vettes to Rolls Royces and Porsche with Lotus and Shelby cars thrown along with others. I designed and built roll cages and chassis for Dirt Trackers and Road Racers and the Solo II (Auto-X) crowd and built a good name for myself before my back began to cause me real issues. It got so bad, I simply couldn't mechanic any more.
I talked to my wife's aunt and learned I had plenty of unused VA assistance available to me so I went downtown to see what was what. Long story short, The VA sent me to college to be whatever I wanted to be as my test scores were good enough for that. I aimed high and started out for a Mechanical Engineering Degree. I wound up with 90 college credit hours with a major in Technical Writing and a minor in Computer Science and in between I became a huge computer geek and a full-time Scientific Instrumentation Technician at Louisiana Tech University. While at Tech, I put the colleges of Civil & Chemical Engineering onto this new Internet thingy. While there I ran the networks and did a LOT of the wiring and hardware work bringing us from BNC cable through 10 base-T to Fiber. I also maintained the computer labs and configured the PCs and handled Network security.
During all this, I had my own side business building computers, maintaining networks and setting up sites and installing software for several lawyers and a few judges in the Ruston and Monroe areas. I was maxed out in my position at LA Tech and getting bored there when I got a call out of the blue from a friend of a friend who met me through Tech and the Louisiana Tech Modem Users Association where I was the SYSOP back in the day of the BBS. That call led me to a job as a Network Tech and Hardware Tech for a large Monroe Engineering firm at twice what I was making at Tech so off I went!
Over the next many years I worked my way up through a few companies to being a Senior Programmer/Analyst and wrote programs that interfaced business system database data with the Internet as well as the programs needed to input and maintain that data. This is where my career ends. December 17, 2009, I lost my Job, my home, my SUV, my livelihood, my healthcare... I lost damned near everything I owned and had worked to gain over my life. My health had gotten to the point I simply couldn't do my job and I had been slipping down for a good year fast and hard and no matter how much my company liked me, they simply couldn't support me any more and they were right to let me go but let's skip over this for now and go back to what I did when I wasn't working up to this point!
As I told you, I had my FFL, the standard gun dealer one, not the C&R one, and I kept it and my shop, albeit a tiny one, open until Komrad Klinton came around with his madness when I let it go back and bailed on the business side. I have been around guns all my life. My dad taught me gun safety and how to hunt at an early age. My first "gun" was the traditional Daisy repeating lever-action BB gun. It was followed by a Crossman .177 Pellet rifle. That was replaced with a Stevens single shot 410 and the last gun dad bought me was an Ithica 16 gage featherweight pump. Dad was an ex Marine and an expert Pistol Marksman and his sidearm was a 1911 .38 Super which he was amazingly accurate with. Before he died, he gave me his S&W Model 10-8 that I dearly cherish to this day. My dad and I were very close right up to his death 5 years ago which I am still not over. I have always enjoyed firearms and have been known to drive hundreds of miles to go shooting with friends. Years back a bunch of us idiot Largo collectors got together and formed the Sociedad Largo. We met a few times at one of the core members home near Little Rock, AR (RIP Ben) and had a ball! Now all that remains is fond memories and the Sociedad Largo Homepage at http://www.9mmlargo.com/ I already told you I had once had an FFL, I will also tell ya I have held CHPs in Louisiana, Virginia and New Hampshire. I had everything done for my Arkansas permit but to turn in the paperwork but never did go ahead and get it because, at the time, I was having to work like a slave and had no life at all! Believe it or not, I had the Louisiana State Concealed Carry permit BEFORE the Shall Issue permits were available! The requirements were many and not easy to meet but it COULD be done. I had to have sign-off by the Chief LEO so I went to the Sheriff and he sent me to his range officer who qualified his men and said I needed to have him sign off that I was safe to carry a gun. The officer had me take the same course of fire his men used to qualify and I had to qualify using the same standards as them and I had never done Close Quarters Combat drills and weak hand drills before this! He showed me what he wanted me to do at each station and off we went. I brought a range bag Full of pistols as I wasn't sure what he would require and I wanted to be prepared. He told me I needed a gun that had 2 magazines as a reload was required on this course several times so I used the only gun I had 2 magazines for... my $99.00 Norinco Tockerav! When the smoke cleared I had shot 95 out of 100 and he informed me that his officers would now have a higher qualification score if the course was easy enough for an untrained civilian with a $99 Chinese pistol to out score most of them!
Besides the guns and racing, I have always loved music. Up till I became completely disabled, I was a Blues/Funk/Rock drummer and I was also the DJ "Doctor Speed" on 50,000 watt LA 105 out of Monroe LA for a year doing 7 shows a week before I quit because they wanted me to work more and it was cutting into my day job that was paying the bills! As a DJ, I had great benefits but the pay SUCKED!. As a drummer I played mostly in the Ruston area with John Simoneaux out of The Sundown Tavern where I wound up being the drummer in the house band and also John's drummer in a gigging band for a few years before he took off for Austin, TX. I have played state fairs, blues festivals and gigs with as many as five thousand or more people in attendance and I've played my share of dives like the infamous "Willie's Wok N' Woll" in Waverly, Louisiana. These days I listen to my friends play and I might sit in on a song or two on Congas or doumbek as I just can't play a full kit anymore due to pain.
I mentioned that I had friends that were cops and a Sheriff in some posts and that is true. I met them from back when I had my FFL and my PC shop as I worked for several Lawyers and a few Judges and I custom made the software that the Ruston Police Department used in their Juvenile division to track juveniles as does Lincoln parish and a parish just outside of Baton Rouge. As far as I know, they are still using my software. I helped the DA in Ruston get elected by processing his mass mailing as well but I doubt he remembers me.
Some officers I know through my music. One of them Mr. Monte Russell who left the force to become a full time musician and is still on the road making his living at it.Well folks, I think that's enough to give you an Idea of who I am and where I am coming from. Bayou Shooter is my new home now that I live back home in Louisiana although I can also be found on TFL, THR and RFC pretty much daily as I am retired (not by choice) and have way too much free time these days.
Later
(the story of how I became Hero Hog will have to wait for another day although it is REAL easy to Google...)
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now, that is an intro 
