In order to understand what is going to happen in the future, one must understand what has happened in the past.
I'm going to start with myself because I'm a narcissist.
I studied electrical engineering years ago as I dreamed of working in the flashlight industry. Once having a masters in that field, I went around to various companies looking for what would be the right fit for me. I met Henry, and we partnered up making lights and I suggested HDS have it's own subforum on CPF and I would run it....
OK. The above is complete and utter BS. Not a darn thing in there is true at all... except maybe the narcissist part.
I met Henry through Novatac, who I became involved with because I was an AZ POST firearms instructor who came up with a new way to use a light in conjunction with a semi-auto. Ended up with a second full-time job because... I can get things done. NOT because I have any electrical engineering knowledge at all beyond how to fire a Tazer.
I was on the forum, mostly making flashlight skits with blue Fun-Tack. Those were the good old days.
Henry and I became friends and I started selling his lights on my dead cow websight.
People knew I knew Henry (that sentence seems off), and I started organizing group buys for various emitters in HDS lights.
I started going to SHOT Show with Henry every year. One would think I would like SHOT Show being a gun-toting, tobacco smoking and chewing red-neck who chases his sister around (I don't have a sister. That was just creative license), but I hate crowds, so no. I pretty much hated it.
I bitched at Henry a lot about his production delays. I was a persistent bitcher. I was a nagging vicious nasty bitcher.
Henry had had enough. He was considering closing up shop. We discussed it, I hated the idea, and got roped into partnering with him to help him out.
After a few times of it being suggested HDS have it's own sub forum and I moderate it (not suggested by me, and me rejecting this idea whenever it came up), I woke up one morning to find HDS had its own sub-forum and I was a moderator. There was a super suit in my PM box I didn't know how to use, and truthfully, shouldn't have, and still don't know how to use. I am NOT the adult in the room. People should have known that the first time I put Fun-Tack on flashlights... but there you go.
Why is all this important? This shows I simply "fell" into all this. There was no planning on my part. I neither expected nor wanted any of this. I have only tried to be an advocate for folks on the forum... which has pretty much made me a very crotchety and cantankerous SOB (I was before, but I like to put the blame on others rather than be introspective and realize I am where I am at from poor life choices).
The future of HDS.
If I die, Henry is closing shop. He stated this on numerous occasions.
If Henry dies... I'm a copilot who can keep flying but who doesn't know how to land the plane. We can fly around until we run out of fuel... then we crash. With what and who I know, could probably keep the plane in the air for a decade.
Now, let's play the odds.
Me dying. It is going to happen. No getting around that. Happens to everyone (and usually not soon enough), and it is going to happen to me, thank God! When? No clue. I did it once already, and the next time, those *******s in the ER better leave me dead. My DNR tattoo doesn't stand for Department of Natural Resources.
I'm horribly healthy despite the terrible things I have done to myself. I am also an asshole, and as we all know, assholes tend to outlive good people by 10 to 1. My family has the annoying tendency to live well into their 90's. What a bunch of assholes!
Henry. Henry is older than me and I am no spring chicken, but he is a nutrition and fitness nut. He is also an asshole, but a closet asshole. I let mine shine while he mostly hides his. So there is that 10 to 1 thing again.
If I do die, it is going to be from a stroke while on the forum... I did go back on an exercise and diet routine last month.... I just got back from a 5 mile hike this morning... and have lost 17 pounds in the last month. My dietitian stated I could lose 10 pounds of ugly fat quickly and easily if I just went for decapitation surgery... I'm still considering it. I know a few people here that would chip in for the expenses. Has to be easier than climbing that damn mountain behind my house every morning at 0 dark-thirty at any rate.
