Where did all the oldtimers go.

[Lips]

Had to be a great story there! Reality is stranger than fiction sometimes.

Mystery - Drama - Intrigue

Founder leaving without any post notifications about himself leaving or formal procedure for transfering ownership and control of CPF. Kinda mysterious. His last few post give no clues to his leaving and his very last post was about an approaching Hurricane, then silence.

Where has the oldtimer DavidW(#5) gone off to. Anyone talked to David or heard how he is doing.


I guess the same kinds of things happen all over the world with typical businesses all the time. Gotta take care of business. Kuddos to the new Entrepreneur!

Here's an old thread about user #1 and how CPF started: How Did This All Begin?

A bit more history: Happy 2nd CPF Anniversery Sasha

And more recent: DavidW, where are you?

Have fun catching up. Hope this helps.
-LT

 

[nekomane]

Here's an old thread about user #1 and how CPF started: How Did This All Begin?

Phew... reading my post there now is quite embarassing, though I have not lost the enthusiasm and am still as much a newbie as I was back then

 

[Icebreak]

Where did all the oldtimers go?

They are forever bound to the universe of flashlights. Many of them are residing just above the stratosphere of torches where the good photons pass by. As these oldtimers locomote on their appointed ways, occasionally an unusual glimmer from below catches their attention.

They may give a nod or a word.

-----------

- Jeff

 

[PhotonWrangler]

That's a nice thought, Jeff.

 

[tvodrd]

They have transcended. (If you're a SG1 fan.)

Larry

 

[js]

I wasn't going to post to this thread since I am not, by any definition, a CPF old-timer or veteran. My member number is like 4751 or something!

However, recently (past few months) I have noticed that I am not jumping into the fray quite as much, and will let most threads just pass by. So much of it is just a repeat! I bet there are two dozen threads asking what the life of a P60 lamp assembly is! And at least a dozen asking what the difference bewteen xenon and halogen is, and so on. Lots and lots of the same discussions and arguments, and a person can just get tired of it. So the torch gets passed to a new generation of uppity and vocal CPFers. :devil:

But I suspect that a LOT of the "old timers" are still around, checking in on a regular basis. A month ago I was doing some hard-core searching of CPF--and I mean real searching! Not just relying on the search function to do it all for you. I was going back to the pages in the forums when the first A2's were available and reading all the info on the A2--manually. And I was pleasantly surprised to see green dots next to a lot of names. Brock was online, pk was on line (although maybe he's not an old-timer?), dano was on-line, and so on.

The old timers are largely here I bet, like the collective unconsious wisdom, which will come to the fore when needed.

I can certainly empathize with a desire to back away from lots of active posting, and ease into more of a low-key role. I really hope to be able to dig myself out from underneath all of this modding work and just relax and hang out on CPF sometime in the next several months. (fingers crossed).

 

[The_LED_Museum]

They have transcended. (If you're a SG1 fan.)

Larry

Indeed. {Spoken like Teal'c}

 

[greenLED]

However, recently (past few months) I have noticed that I am not jumping into the fray quite as much, and will let most threads just pass by. So much of it is just a repeat! I bet there are two dozen threads asking what the life of a P60 lamp assembly is! And at least a dozen asking what the difference bewteen xenon and halogen is, and so on. Lots and lots of the same discussions and arguments, and a person can just get tired of it. So the torch gets passed to a new generation of uppity and vocal CPFers. :devil:

It certainly feels that way. I'm trying to do more of my own stuff nowdays, but I just can't ignore the repeat questions (especially when the search function is dead). I've done the "manual search", and it's fun, but... :green:

 

[Quickbeam]

I guess I qualify as one of the "Old Timers"... I was introduced to LEDs for illumination by CPF and originally started my site to show off some of my very simple mods... Then I started doing reviews... The rest is history.

I'm spending so much time just working on my site I generally don't have time to keep up with everything (anything?) going on at CPF except in the Reviews forum where I moderate. Heck, I didn't even know there was a CPF edition PeakLED light until I received one in the mail today!!! Yikes!

 

[BentHeadTX]

I started lurking in Jul/Aug 02 and joined in Sep 02... am I an oldtimer? My original number was 2420 so I suppose not. Arc AAA/LS series, Surefire L1 and the new Luxeon mods... a few months passed and the Luxeon sandwiches for minimags hit the scene. My original BB500 sandwiched minimag was the hook and BB400 Q3L and BB500 R2H lights followed.

I would say that the Luxeon LED is what drove CPF in the early days, the latest bins, electronics and optics were big news as the technology matured. It is amusing that the highest obtainable LuxeonI bin is still R after over two-and-a-half years! The rare early 2003 LuxeonV X bin is still rare allowing the manufactuers to intergrate them into flashlights. Luxeon progress paused for a few years and it slowed the pace of modding advancement.

Could it be that the wild west fun of the early Luxeon days is what drew the "old timers"? One way to find out is the upcoming K2 and the buzz it will bring. After a 3 year stall in Luxeon advancement, the upcoming K2 should rope some of the old timers back into the fold.

For 2006, I will be concentrating on the Mods section to see how the K2 plays out... time for some 3 or 4 K2 lithium-ion powered Mags to roll out.

40 month CPF geezer!

 

[BentHeadTX]

Hmmmm,
My CPF number changed from 2420 to 916 ...

 

[cave dave]

Member #230 checking in. I was probably always a lurker what with only 638 posts in over 4 yrs. Every now I check in, I got sucked back in this year with the Fenix and now the StenLight. The Fenix is really good. It blows away the original ARC LS, which I owned for a very brief period of time. It also led me to sell my Lambda Illuminator, one of ther very first LS Mods available to purchase through CPF. Whatever happend to Lambda, Is he still modding? Anybody remember that Alaskan guy who was making direct drive mods in late 2001 who got so pissed off at CPF that he deleted every single one of his posts? What was his user name?

Back when I joined about the only white LED lights were photons and Direct drives from CC Crane and a general rule of thumb was that they would cost about $10 per installed 5mm LED. Long plastic suckers that would set you back $80 for 8LED running on 3AAs.
Nowdays I don't even know what a K2 LED is. Haven't bothered looking it up. Maybe I'll check back in a couple months to see if there are any K2 light in production. I'm still waiting for a single AA headlamp to come out

A couple things that drive me away are:
1) The obsesion of the vocal minority posters with more power and thow and damn the runtime. I was always more interested in the practical lights.
2) The white wall hunters - enough said
3) Every time some newby asked for the best pocket, camping, hiking, etc light 9 out of 10 responders would say how the best light was a custom unobtanium pocket rocket that cost $270.

It was exciting back in the early days wasn't it, back when you could actually own every single decent LED light on the market. Now the market is just flooded and most lights aren't worth the trouble to even read the review.

PS I blame Peter G and the ARC AAA and the LS development for really getting me into the Forums. I read every Arc post back in those days. I still use an Arc AAA practically everyday, and really don't think its been topped for pure functionality. I think I got here from Brocks Site as well.

 

[Unicorn]

I guess I'm an old timer here. Joined in Sep. of 2000, member #27. Not a massive poster though, mostly 'cause my knowledge is not nearly as broad or as deep as many here.

 

[Klaus]

I once had #6xx and now got upgraded to #2xx - seems some housekeeping was doen when switching to the new BBS software.

I found CPF in summer of 2001 when I had multiple MiniMag bulbs blow out when doing some hobby level cave crawling in south france - my search for explanations found Craigs and Brocks site and then led to CCF - only to register a while later - then on to buy one of the first run ARC kits and built my first MiniMag Luxeon LED light using the basic ZLT+ driver design put together by Rene from Switzerland for me who is one other long lost early member.

For me the reason for my just sporadic visits in the last year or so are a) family b) job c) some CPF specific reasons partly mentioned in this thread already.

Its still great though and as time permits I drop in (or out)

Thx

Klaus

 

[Graham]

Harrumph.
See signature..

 

[SilverFox]

I came to CPF after reading many reviews on Craig's site (LED Museum).

Upon my arrival at CPF, I was warmly welcomed by Darell and Ryan (Saaby). Thank you for your warm welcome and I believe you set a standard concerning behavior and attitude. I have tried to conduct myself accordingly.

I came in search of better IR illumination... and ended up testing batteries - go figure...

When I grow up, I hope to aspire to being an old geezer, :nana: but for now, I am simply a teste...

Tom

 

[McGizmo]

Graham!!!!! :wave:

Where did all the old timers go? Well one just checked in!

I don't consider myself an oldtimer; just old and tired.

I used to make reference to groundhogs day (the Bill Murry movie) and the repetitive nature of the forum and how one is willing to type the same information only so many times.........

I was introduced to CPF by a couple members who prodded me into joining. CPF was my first and only foray into an online community and it felt real akward placing my first post. Thanks or blame to guys like Graham and Darell, I was welcomed to this group of goofballs and in the early days, I was wiping my keyboard off after spraying it with coffee through my nose quite often! :nana:

I saw JS's post on searching on the A2. I remember meeting PK for the first time and not long after, he let me mess around with a A2 well before they finally came out. I wrote a review that took a fair amount of key strokes and time and I doubt JS even found it!

"Been there, Done that; let the Newbie speak out and carry the baton forward". --- If this makes sense then I think this explains some of the absense in current posts by older or long time members.

CPF has grown considerably since I have been around and the size and volume of information is staggering!! The SSL industry is still an infant and technology will continue to bring new and better components to those of us interested in their use and applications.

CPF has grown to the extent that simple modding in the garage with hand tools has been overshadowed by small custom production runs of homebrewed ideas. The little town of CPF has become a big city with traffic congestion, billboards, heavy commerce and politics driven by ego and profit. Time marches on and the clock will not turn back. A footnote in my personal history on CPF is the fact that for quite a while, I was showing mods but not interested in selling them or making stuff to sell to others. My first sale was a part I had modded and to a certain, newbie at the time, fellow in Hawaii; proceeds to a benefit for CPF funding. There has been a lot of water as well as debris under the bridge since then! :green:

CPF has a firm foundation and incredible resources within. Tomorrow's CPF will have the appearance and look that the painters and builders active today choose to create and construct as the "latest" layer.

Rest assured, this thread like so many others will repeat itself but with a new vocal cast and a scattering of young as well as old members who choose to participate. In the good "old days" this thread would get hijacked late in the evening by Darrel and Graham and TexWest and take off on some spontaneous tangent! In the AM, one could check in and see where the night shift took the threads!

 

[B@rt]

Hi Graham!

Long time no see... :wow:

 

[grnamin]

Can I be considered an oldtimer based on my join date, not my "prolific" posting? (I'm a lurker, not a poster.) It is solely because of CPF that my flashlight-related purchases have equalled, if not exceeded, my knife and other gadget purchases combined. With CPF, there will never be a dark place in this world, well, at least not for long. :rock:

 

[Ginseng]

Well,

I only joined in 2003 so that doesn't make me an old timer. However, 4,000 some-odd posts suggests I might have been in the thick of things for a while. But like many of the folks here have already posted, interest in the bright seems to come in cycles. For me, with grad school and family, I found those cycles taking me ever further away from lights.

As for the other reason, I did an awful lot of fun work with incandescents in my time here. And as poor Jim Sexton has heard from me many a time, when one can look back on events of nigh a year ago with wistful nostalgia, maybe it's time to move on. I fulfilled dreams and made friendships here...and maybe that's good enough.

Wilkey