Mellow
10-27-2007, 06:59 AM
http://www.st-owners.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=24694&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1193485919Mark has been on the site for a while and has helped out in many ways, most of which are behind the scenes, in recognition of that and his participation on the site, please congratulate him for making the
October 2007
Member Of The Month.
From Mark himself:
First and foremost, I'd like to thank the Academy for honoring a little project that turned into a really fine motion picture.
No, wait... Wrong speech. :rolleyes:
For those who don't know much about me, greetings. My name's Mark, but for some reason people around here call me Blrfl (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showpost.php?p=49216&postcount=86). I was born a very small child and have spent most of my life living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the east coast, specifically in the suburbs of Washington, DC. I'm a computer weenie by trade, and I've had a really interesting career building everything from little systems embedded in traffic volume recorders to a very-large-scale system for managing one of the largest backbones that make up the Internet.
This is my tenth year on two wheels. In 1998, I got the bug (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/bug.html), bought a bike (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/about.html), took the MSF class (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/learning.html) and got on the road.
I found myself intrigued by the sport-touring genre but decided that a large-displacement bike with a lot of plastic was probably not the thing to be riding as a rank beginner. Despite having a liking for the Concours and the ST1100, I figured that a heavy, large-displacement bike with lots of plastic was probably not the right thing for a rank beginner to do, so I bought a used Vulcan 750. It wasn't a bad bike to start on, is pretty quick as cruisers go and is as close as you're going to get to a standard bike in the cruiser format. Unfortunately it developed some problems with the electrical system and (I think) a bad starter clutch that made it hard to start, which wasn't a lot of fun when I had to be somewhere.
When Honda showed the X-Wing during the 2000 bike show season, one of my co-workers pointed it out to me and said he thought it might hold some clues to a replacement for the ST1100. Darn if he wasn't right. I watched the introduction of the 2002s to Europe and the 2003s to the US with great interest. As it happened, I changed jobs in late 2003, got a nice raise out of it and decided that it was time for an ST. After an aborted attempt to buy a used 2003 at a nearby Honda dealer (their sales staff completely blew me off), I put down a deposit on a 2004 at another dealer and waited. My bike was to arrive in April while I was doing a lot of travel, so I told the dealer he could sell the April bike to the next guy in line if I could have one of the June bikes after I got back. So I took delivery on June 11th, rode it home in the rain and have enjoyed 27,000 miles on it ever since.
Near the end of the year, I took notice of some site called ST-Owners, didn't see a whole lot there and put it on the back burner. In August of 2005, I got around to checking it out again and decided to join up. The rest, as they say, is history. I've met a lot of great people here, learned a bunch and hopefully given something back.
Joe asked that I mention some of the things I've done for or with the group, and gathering up the list has proved interesting. So here, in no particular order, is my ST-Owners resume with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that (http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml):
Post Ho Extraordinaire - Despite Joe's best efforts, I still know how to look at the membership list sorted by number of posts. These days I find myself in the position of being the fifth-most-posting member, way up from about 20th last time I looked. That's not braggadocio, but it's indicative of of just how damned scary the amount of time I spend on this site is. That, in turn, is a reflection of just how great a place this is to hang out. I've been around the Internet for 20 years, and have never run across a group like this one. Yes, I read parts of ST.N and AdvRider and on rare occasions post there, but ST-O is the place I participate. Vigorously.
STWiki (http://stwiki.notonthe.net/twiki/bin/view/ST13/WebHome) - A collaborative repository for all of the odd little bits of ST knowledge and wisdom I've collected from various sources.
The Chat Server (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/chat.php) - The server that hosts our Wednesday night chats and generates the "Who's In Chat" block on the front page. I'm also the legal guardian of one of its denizens, who I'm sure some of you have had the pleasure of meeting.
The GMRS Radio Project (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22281) - An effort to convert commercial handheld radios for use with Autocom intercoms in a compact, inexpensive package.
The Unnamed Project - Marshal Mercer and I have been working on a project for the last couple of months that we'll be revealing in the next couple of weeks.
I'm not usually real big on awards, recognitions and tooting my own horn, so all of this is a bit out of character for me. (The length of this post, however, is not.) So I'll end it by directing your attention toward some others: Thanks to everyone who's made me feel welcome, given me lots to think about and discuss and to whoever nominated me to be this month's MOTM.
And let's not forget this guy:
http://mellow.smugmug.com/photos/58290338-M.jpg
Try and un-see that why dontcha?
October 2007
Member Of The Month.
From Mark himself:
First and foremost, I'd like to thank the Academy for honoring a little project that turned into a really fine motion picture.
No, wait... Wrong speech. :rolleyes:
For those who don't know much about me, greetings. My name's Mark, but for some reason people around here call me Blrfl (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showpost.php?p=49216&postcount=86). I was born a very small child and have spent most of my life living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the east coast, specifically in the suburbs of Washington, DC. I'm a computer weenie by trade, and I've had a really interesting career building everything from little systems embedded in traffic volume recorders to a very-large-scale system for managing one of the largest backbones that make up the Internet.
This is my tenth year on two wheels. In 1998, I got the bug (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/bug.html), bought a bike (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/about.html), took the MSF class (http://www.notonthe.net/mark/bike/learning.html) and got on the road.
I found myself intrigued by the sport-touring genre but decided that a large-displacement bike with a lot of plastic was probably not the thing to be riding as a rank beginner. Despite having a liking for the Concours and the ST1100, I figured that a heavy, large-displacement bike with lots of plastic was probably not the right thing for a rank beginner to do, so I bought a used Vulcan 750. It wasn't a bad bike to start on, is pretty quick as cruisers go and is as close as you're going to get to a standard bike in the cruiser format. Unfortunately it developed some problems with the electrical system and (I think) a bad starter clutch that made it hard to start, which wasn't a lot of fun when I had to be somewhere.
When Honda showed the X-Wing during the 2000 bike show season, one of my co-workers pointed it out to me and said he thought it might hold some clues to a replacement for the ST1100. Darn if he wasn't right. I watched the introduction of the 2002s to Europe and the 2003s to the US with great interest. As it happened, I changed jobs in late 2003, got a nice raise out of it and decided that it was time for an ST. After an aborted attempt to buy a used 2003 at a nearby Honda dealer (their sales staff completely blew me off), I put down a deposit on a 2004 at another dealer and waited. My bike was to arrive in April while I was doing a lot of travel, so I told the dealer he could sell the April bike to the next guy in line if I could have one of the June bikes after I got back. So I took delivery on June 11th, rode it home in the rain and have enjoyed 27,000 miles on it ever since.
Near the end of the year, I took notice of some site called ST-Owners, didn't see a whole lot there and put it on the back burner. In August of 2005, I got around to checking it out again and decided to join up. The rest, as they say, is history. I've met a lot of great people here, learned a bunch and hopefully given something back.
Joe asked that I mention some of the things I've done for or with the group, and gathering up the list has proved interesting. So here, in no particular order, is my ST-Owners resume with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that (http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/alices.shtml):
Post Ho Extraordinaire - Despite Joe's best efforts, I still know how to look at the membership list sorted by number of posts. These days I find myself in the position of being the fifth-most-posting member, way up from about 20th last time I looked. That's not braggadocio, but it's indicative of of just how damned scary the amount of time I spend on this site is. That, in turn, is a reflection of just how great a place this is to hang out. I've been around the Internet for 20 years, and have never run across a group like this one. Yes, I read parts of ST.N and AdvRider and on rare occasions post there, but ST-O is the place I participate. Vigorously.
STWiki (http://stwiki.notonthe.net/twiki/bin/view/ST13/WebHome) - A collaborative repository for all of the odd little bits of ST knowledge and wisdom I've collected from various sources.
The Chat Server (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/chat.php) - The server that hosts our Wednesday night chats and generates the "Who's In Chat" block on the front page. I'm also the legal guardian of one of its denizens, who I'm sure some of you have had the pleasure of meeting.
The GMRS Radio Project (http://www.st-owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22281) - An effort to convert commercial handheld radios for use with Autocom intercoms in a compact, inexpensive package.
The Unnamed Project - Marshal Mercer and I have been working on a project for the last couple of months that we'll be revealing in the next couple of weeks.
I'm not usually real big on awards, recognitions and tooting my own horn, so all of this is a bit out of character for me. (The length of this post, however, is not.) So I'll end it by directing your attention toward some others: Thanks to everyone who's made me feel welcome, given me lots to think about and discuss and to whoever nominated me to be this month's MOTM.
And let's not forget this guy:
http://mellow.smugmug.com/photos/58290338-M.jpg
Try and un-see that why dontcha?