What are three things you're glad you did in your life?

1.  Raced motorcycles

2. Had kids

3. Started Church 15 years ago.

Aside from a great wife, and kids, here goes.

- Riding motorcycles for over 50 years.

-Living way past 30 and being retired now. (My sibs didn't think I'd make it)

-Spending every cent I had at the time to take a 2 1/2 month tour of the states with my family.

1. Lived outside the USA

2. Formula SAE

3. Moved to California
 

Jim Pettengill said:

 

Retired to the mountains in southwestern Colorado.  Took us 20 years to get here, but we have found our true home.

Durango? Bayfield? Pagosa? I  love that area.

1)  Worked in Mexico for ~6 months

2)  Went skydiving

3)  Read books to my son every night before bed 

1.  Held my Dad's hand as he died

2.  Kept bicycling as an adult

3.  Formula SAE (which directly led to a pretty sweet career in the auto industry (25 years and counting)

1) Took a job on a farm at 11 years old. Taught me the importance of hard work and the value of money early on in life.

2) Was a computer nerd in the 80's and 90's before it was mainstream and being one was socially unacceptable. That has led to a successful career.

3) Traveled abroad as often as possible both for the enjoyment of it, but also to gain perspective.

I'm sure there are more than three things, but these are the first that came to mind.

1. Worked a crap job to put myself through college. Met a very diverse cross section of people which helped me figure out what I wanted/didn't want in my early 20s.

2. Got pretty good at making homemade spaghetti sauce

3. Lapped Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an Indycar (180mph), NASCAR (160mph), my racetruck (limited to 60mph), a tour bus (????mph), and on foot (6-ish mph)

Took a chance and drove two hours to meet up with that girl from French class several years previous. (Married and have a son now)

Got the hell away from my mother 

Worked hard to do motorsports, stuck with it. Best friendships in my life and a contact for a job that launched my career 

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Finally! A pic of house....cool

I’m sorry, I figured out how to post a while ago and thought I bored everyone to death with it.  If you want more I can start a separate  thread. 

frenchyd said:

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Finally! A pic of house....cool

I’m sorry, I figured out how to post a while ago and thought I bored everyone to death with it.  If you want more I can start a separate  thread. 

Would love to see some of the details

frenchyd said:

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Finally! A pic of house....cool

I’m sorry, I figured out how to post a while ago and thought I bored everyone to death with it.  If you want more I can start a separate  thread. 

Start a thread. I saw one driveway pic in a thread but that's all. Cool looking house.

In reply to wheelsmithy :

Ridgway/Ouray.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

In reply to SaltyDog :

Knock a zero off that jump and come back to me..

You jumped at 1200?

I pulled the cord at 2000 and thought that was cutting it close!

The suggestion was more mundane stuff, so here goes with 'midlevel experiences'

1. Got interested in / actively playing around with photography

2. Learned a favorite way to make bread

3. Started swimming on a regular basis (when life & location allows)

Joined Air Force.  Became instructor in aircraft inspections

Drove in an FIA 10 hr. endurance race.

Raced go karts.

Ice raced, hill climbs and track days. 

chief steward for an ice race series

 got married and raised a family.

crew chief on a dirt track modified

Bunch of other stuff

Loved some women that needed lovin’. 

Killed some men that needed killin’. 

Had a good Siamese cat. 

frenchyd said:

Ovid_and_Flem said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Finally! A pic of house....cool

I’m sorry, I figured out how to post a while ago and thought I bored everyone to death with it.  If you want more I can start a separate  thread. 

please do NOW!!!

1. Learning to fly.

2. Riding motorcycles.

3. Finding a girl that likes me for who I am, not what I am.

1. Stopped caring what the "Cool Kids" thought in middle school and decided to be my own person. 

2. Bought an RX-7 and drove the snot out of it for years

3. learned how to do home and car repairs.

 

1. Gave my life to Christ

2. Lasik 

3. Found autocross. Not that autocross is the greatest thing ever, but it has lead to many great things in my life such as finally finding something I’m really good at, a lot of memorable events, and meeting some of the greatest friends I’ve ever had. 

There are many things but here are the ones that stick in my mind. 

1. Come to the realization that you don't need to work 80 hours a week to advance your career. Work isn't important if you can't enjoy life and it hasn't effected my career trajectory. 

2. Restarted living a healthy life style about 6 years ago. Quit smoking and started running/biking regularly. I now live in Colorado and love being able to hike, bike, or run regularly without feeling like dying. 

3. Took a global job and traveled all over the globe. Learning all about different cultures and meeting all kinds of people was great. Wouldn't mine an ExPat if the opp was right.

Had my Daughter. 

Had my Son.

Found GRM.  I mean, married my wife.

Excluding marrying my wife if I had to pick three they would be:

1-Developing what one of my old bosses called "The illusion of Competence".  Starting with my father as a kid and continuing with several subsequent bosses it is basically a fancy name for being confident that you will figure out what to do and everything will turn out ok when faced with a problem or unusual situation.  It seems to mostly comes from running your own business on tight budgets where no one is there to help when things go south. I was well into my twenties before I realized there were people that did not think like this and waited for someone to come along to fix/help/give them instructions.  This has been very useful at work where I have wound up in some very chaotic situations where there was no guide to follow and no one wanted to make a decision.  Once someone steps up confidently others are usually happy to jump in and help and things have always gone well enough without anyone getting hurt.  

2-Quitting college to go racing.  I would never advise someone to not get an education, and there are a number of ways it's held me back, but overall it was a good idea.  I was spending a pile of money on an engineering degree I did not have the math skills or study habits to complete and I was volunteering with a NASCAR North car at night and weekends.  In January of '95 The owner/driver put a deal together to run the Busch race in Daytona. Instead of returning to class I took a train to Florida for testing and never went back. I had grown up wanting to be on a NASCAR team and while it was some of the most fun I'd ever had I also learned I did not have the skill or drive to go any further up the ladder.  

3-Traveling without a plan.  It irritates a lot of people I know but when we go on vacation we often just know a general direction we want to head in.  It works good for finding interesting things we would never find using guides or travel sites.  Now that she has health issues not having an itinerary means if she's having a bad day we don't have to push on to reach a reservation and on good days we might get further than expected. We love to see new places and things and if I didn't have bills to pay we'd likely be on a permanent road trip.  

1) Married my wife who has kept me around despite having every reason to kick my ass to the curb.

2) Took a chance on my current job.

3) Started traveling more.