This is a great family!

As most of you know, I work with video surveillance systems, shipping to the Caribbean Islands. Not all of my clients are tech wizards. I have a client in Barbados that just doesn't get it, cannot figure out server settings. He had talked to factory tech support, but still no success. Wifey said "You have a friend on your forum that lives there, try him". Well, I PMd Gameboy rmh, and he immediately volunteered to help. WOW! We have such an incredible depth of knowledge her, it just blows me away!! Kudos to Gameboy!!

Heh. You haven't gotten his bill yet.

Wait, Gameboy has a baller gaming collection AND lives in the Carribbean? Can I trade lives?

Yup.....I've asked (or seen asked) some pretty weird stuff here - CNC machine programming, where to get sheep blood, men's wedding rings - an there are always some intelligent responses.

And we even have guys building vintage cars using old washing machines. Where else will you find this depth of knowledge?

...or insanity

Said it before and I'll say it again... I love you guys and I'm so glad I found this forum. Where yave you guys been all my life?! LOL

This is like Linkedin for car guys in a way. I always like these GRM community stories. Nicely done Gameboy and cwh.

JoeyM wrote: ...or insanity

Eh, by the time you finish it, you'll have earned the right to brag about it. Rock on, sir.

Dude! If you need to send someone to the Caribbean, I can learn that stuff!

This place is an incredible resource. We have someone in nearly every field that I can tell, and we have quite a few people that call other continents home. Whenever I go somewhere car related, I wear a GRM shirt hoping to meet someone new from here and grab a beer with them.

As a matter of fact, when we bought our Saturn, I test drove it wearing a GRM shirt. The salesman had SCCA trophies in his cube and asked if I'd ever dropped in the GRM offices.

Derick Freese wrote: Whenever I go somewhere car related, I wear a GRM shirt hoping to meet someone new from here and grab a beer with them.

Interesting idea for an ongoing thread (probably not big enough for a sub forum) but a GRM-Travels thread where folks can post upcoming trips they are making and if there's someone in that area to meet up with plans can happen.

Gameboy, is your yard (if you have one) open for tenting?

I left a stuffed Penguin in Barbados 3 years back, I wonder if Gameboy has seen it?

I still wonder why more people have not discovered this forum... aside from the occasional spammer

CRH, I ant quitn' you.

I work with most of the Caribbean Islands, and Barbados is the "nicest". Very low crime, strong economy, very nice people, honest business people. Have only been through the airport, but a lot of contact. Very nice place. A bit more expensive than other islands, but worth it.

What I can't figure out is why you would have a computer or a car on a Caribean island. I'm sure my liver and I would be in no shape to drive, or type.

Yep, between the depth of knowledge and the Google ninjas, there's really nothing this forum cannot do...hmmm...world domination anyone

Wally wrote: What I can't figure out is why you would have a computer or a car on a Caribean island. I'm sure my liver and I would be in no shape to drive, or type.

If you're into drinking then this is your mecca. You need the car to get between the bars (the AC will serve you well), the cops won't bother you because it's impossible to tell the drunk drivers from the sober ones (if they could be bothered), and you won't get a chance to go fast enough on the street to cause a serious accident anyways

All you guys saying you're jealous...maybe you should be, maybe you shouldn't. I'm not into the hard drinking and partying which are the national pasttimes around here (hence the videogames and cars).

You have to make A LOT of money to live comfortably here due to the high cost of shipping things in and duties & import restrictions, and that is bloody hard to do - the saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is much more true here than most places, and it's hard to find good IT jobs around here - not much demand for anything but sysadmins/helpdesk & managers. I'm ashamed to hint at how little I make but it would make your jaws drop. I've actually been wanting to move back to frosty Canada. Not kidding. I do think this would be a nice place to retire, but to make a living here as a young person, the local lifestyle has to be worth a lot to you.

Owning cars is very difficult and expensive here but there's a decent motorsports scene - very big offroad scene especially, I recently came to understand why rich folks keep their offroad rigs on an island you can drive across in an hour, it does make a lot of sense.

I don't charge for the occasional low-work favor to help someone out of a jam so just be judicious with how many you ask for

Want to live in a pretty tropical island? Bring your money with you. Unless you are a petrochemical engineer, then you can make big bucks in Trinidad. Troof!

even the "local" beer in the Bahamas is expensive! we paid 65-70 bucks a case for Kalik at Chub Cay, was even more at Great Harbour Cay.