Greatest Accomplishment

[Bang]

It's hard for me to not say "my son" because managing to take care of him by myself for so long while working construction, then eventually going to school and starting my current venture was hard work.

My ex ditched out on us when he wasn't two yet, and it was very much an uphill battle to try to make ends meet and try to better myself at the same time. I won't bore with details, but working construction as a single dad is no easy thing to do. I managed to save some money, then zi inherited a little, and used it to go to school.

Since then I've started my cartoons, and they are on the brink of making me some nice cash. I've finally got some backing behind them and the traffic we produce is getting some of the big money advertisers to sit up and take note. In terms of my son, now I work at home, and am there when he gets on the bus, and there when he gets off. In trms of personal achievemnt, I am very proud to have put myself in a position to be there for him and to try to avoid the cycles so many families face when they are not around to be a part of their kid's daily routine.

I guess my greatest personal achievement, that which makes me most proud of something I've done or made, is my cartoons. Literally milions of people have seen them over the last two years. People love them for the most part, and it's kind of daunting how many people there are that see them. Now people expect a certain level of me, and I'm glad thatI can provide it for the most part.

when I went to the raiders game, I wore a Bang t-shirt, and didn't get two steps from my car in the cash lot when a couple guys came up and wanted to know if i had anything to do with the cartoons,, when i told them i did, they got a big kick out of it and had me doing Bronco Billy voices before they'd let me go.

So with all that said, I haven't hit my greatest achievement yet. More to come.

~Bang

[Spaceman Spiff]

Was it cutco knives?

Yeah, it was. Did you sell, too?

[Thiebear]

CPR on a man in Seoul Korea that was hit by a van for 40 minutes, two of us. The guy I was with was an ER Tech and had the breather.. I did the chest.

Bought a foreclosed house from a man and his wife (she got a pacemaker at 37 that got recalled) Billed 120k and got it back due to the recall and the blood clots... It can happen very fast.

After renting it to them for 90 days both their families kicked in and they bought it back.... All of the money I used came from a 2nd mortgage on my house.. i did make 3500.00 and found out I don't have the stomach to do foreclosures.. to MAKE money I'll have to find a new way... I was then a pallbearer later even though I'd only met him and Vicky 5 or 6 times..

(my first civilian funeral at 37 years old)...

[iheartskins]

I've always felt that putting you butt on the line for other people is the greatest thing you can accomplish. My only regret is I didn't get the chance to be part of our military, but being a volunteer firefighter was the next best thing IMO.

I've always felt that way too Pete. In my first year of law school, I was very strongly considering joining the Marine Corps as a JAG officer. It would have been a tough road to walk, not only because in the USMC, unlike the other military divisions, you are an active in the entire Corps, not just as a member of the JAG. I was pretty close to signing up and falling in the line of my step-dad (who was a drill sargent between Korea and Vietnam and whose father rose from a private to a captain in Marine intelligence in WWII in the Pacific) when my mom basically begged me not to do it. After thinking about how much my Mom has given me, I realized I couldn't really betray her. Maybe I'll join the reserves or maybe I'll join the Civil Air Patrol. There's something I've always found alluring about serving in the military.

And Bang, you should be really proud of all you've accomplished. My dad was in a similar position to you, although he was divorced not walked-out on, and we had some long days when I was with him in the summer working out on a construction site on a rig. That's to say nothing of all you've done with the cartoons. That's pretty amazing in and of itself.

[jpillian]

Ha -- I don't know about you all -- but there's no better way of cooking up some personal humble pie, then to think about what you'd consider your "greatest accomplishment". Which, as I sit here eating my own extra large slice, makes me sort of sit back and further think: "You need to get off your duff -- you have done Jack with yourself lately!"

I've done two things which I believe to be note worthy (and I sure hope neither are the pinnacle of my success):

In 1999, I graduated from West Point. Four years earlier, two weeks into Beast Barracks I remember tearfully calling my parents back home in Iowa, and confessing I'd made a big mistake going to "that awful place". They helped me to see through the stress and emotions of basic -- and as a result I ended up graduating from the damn place. At the time, I'd never in a million years have thought I had it in me. :laugh:

In April of 2003, as a Captain in the Army, I was the Executive Officer of the HQ for the 4th Infantry Division. Somehow, I managed to lead the deployment of that band of malcontents to Tikrit, Iraq -- with several "lost as hell" trips to Kuwait thrown in for good measure. I then proceded to drive around the length and breadth of central and northern Iraq as a liasion to the Coalition Provisional Authority (similarily lost as hell)-- coordinating the rebuilding of schools, water treatment plants, etc. -- in a bright white 2004 Chevy Suburban -- with a couple of Kurdish security guards. I consider getting my white, Iowa farmboy butt back to the States to be by FAR my greatest accomplishment (if I can take credit from within the Hand of Providence )

[CaseyJones7]

I deflowered the local preachers daughter when I was a freshman in HS.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I deflowered the local preachers daughter when I was a freshman in HS.

:laugh: :laugh:

[Raub]

Fighting for my country. Giving my children the comfortable, encouraging childhood I didn't get. Being married to the love of my life for 12 years, after only knowing each other for 2 months (and having everyone tell us we were fools.) Lots of things I'm proud of, but I don't think of them separately, I look at them as a whole.

Lots of great stories in this thread. You guys have plenty of reasons to be proud of yourselves! :applause:

[Cdowwe]

Yeah, it was. Did you sell, too?

I got the job, but never actually did it...some of my friends did though

[Skinhead]

I saved a little girl from drowning while her father was drunk as a skunk on the beach playing horse shoes. She was swept out by the under tow and was face down and unconscious when I got to her. I lifted her head up then smacked her on the back. She puked all over me but it was an awesome feeling when she started breathing.

The father was another story all he said to me when I brought her back to shore was "Wow this is embarassing I'm the paramedic"

[China]

This thread is depressing because I can't think of any impressive accomplishments (being as wife and son are excluded).

Eagle scout...nope, only made it to Life scout.

Masters degree...whoop-de-do lots of people have those.

Selling Cutco knives...well I did, but nowhere near $45,000 worth (wow!).

Hmmm...maybe I'll think of something, or maybe the best is yet to come.

[PleaseBlitz]

Quiting a nice comfy salaried job at 22 with no savings and practically fresh out of college to start my own biz and not starve. The saga continues......

[PleaseBlitz]

I skitched (pulled by a car by hangin on the bumper in the snow) about 3 miles before wiping out. Young and dumb part II.......................

Wow, i didnt know that had a name. Also, I thought I had invented it.

Off topic, but we used to use a water skiing rope tied to the roll bar on my jeep. Found that that way you could scan the road in front of you for non-icy spots. Suppossed to get some snow next week btw......

[unsonny]

lets see..........got a poem published in the 2004 Amaranth Anne Arundel Community College Lit. Mag.

[Pete]

This thread is depressing because I can't think of any impressive accomplishments (being as wife and son are excluded).

Eagle scout...nope, only made it to Life scout.

Masters degree...whoop-de-do lots of people have those.

Selling Cutco knives...well I did, but nowhere near $45,000 worth (wow!).

Hmmm...maybe I'll think of something, or maybe the best is yet to come.

Dude, don't be down on yourself. I would be thrilled to have a masters. Just because others have them, that doesn't mean it not a great accomplishment. In all honestly, I would be thrilled if I had graduated from my highschool. I blew out my shoulder, and missed just enough at the end of my senior year to fail a few classes I needed. I said screw it, and got a GED.

Wow, i didnt know that had a name. Also, I thought I had invented it.

Off topic, but we used to use a water skiing rope tied to the roll bar on my jeep. Found that that way you could scan the road in front of you for non-icy spots. Suppossed to get some snow next week btw......

I don't know who invented it, but I was doing it before you were born :laugh: I don't know where the name came from either, but my favorite place to do it was parking lots right after they plowed them.

I've been dying to try it in a wet parking lot, but if my wife found out, she would beat me with a frying pan :laugh:

[PCS]

I think Huly, that there can be nothing more challenging or frightening than to face your inner demons. They are formidable and tend to cause or at times actually be fear and loathing. Many of us run from them, ( which is why I did not pursue the medical profession after I left the service. I ran from one). Facing them down, and continuing to do so is indeed a wonderful accomplishment. Good luck to you as you continue to do so.

twa, helluva thing. Story please sir? tlk2rn, very nice. SonnyRules, awsome. qcraftsman, been there. Keep it going. chomerics, that is indeed an accomplishment. Bang, you entertained all of us with your cartoons. Not an easy thing to do. Something to indeed be proud of. Thiebear, CPR for 40 minutes. Well done. Pet as always, cool. Blue Talon, you served. 'Nuff said. Dk, nice. China, lot's of people don't. jpillian and Tarhog. Great stuff.

For me. Every drawing I finish. Serving my country.Being the best freind I can to those that I am close too no matter what. Physically, the 315lb bench for 5- 6 reps at 43, ( not tonight at the gym though. Nor tomorow). And of course, the lives I have saved. Those in the Air Force and afterwards. Though I will say that hesitantly, because there were others involved and helping and I think that it was the will of the people I and others helped that really saved them, ( and help from above as well). However, I am still proud to have been a part of that which saved them. Be they solo or as part of a team. Somewhat melodramatic maybe, but in looking back, I take pride in being a part of those times. All of them I remember and all of them I'm proud to have helped save, (They also help to put in perspective all the ones I watched die). And of course the 2 I have saved since being a construction worker,( and you've heard enough about those here I'm sure).

Actually, I think another, ( and sappy to a point) accomplishment I am proud of, is allowing myself to reach across the bandwidth and miles, and be able to not only share with some of you, but to be able to be close, ( very in a case or 2), to some of you as well. When you think about it, it's not that easy.

[chomerics]

Huly- congrads and mad props for facing your fears and allowing your feelings to surface. There are so many people that go through life and never let those feelings out. I have great admiration of you from afar, and it is a great accomplishment indeed.

Bang- Your cartoons are mad funny, and I have always thought that you should have a skit on SNL, great stuff and one day you will be a lot more famous then you are now keep up the good work.

To all the military Tarhog, JP, Talon, Raub- Great job guys. It really puts a LOT of Americans at ease to know people like you are the ones leading us into battle . . . and not Sarge or Navy Dave Just kidding Sarge & ND

tlk2rn- incredible story. I lent out my apartment to a Katrina survivor a few months ago. She stayed in it only for a few weeks until she found a place, but it made me feel really good inside. You must be absolutely gushing and holding your head up in the clouds after that act of great kindness. To know you have changed a mans life not only for the better, but completely turned it around speaks volumes.

Cdowwe- What the hell does that mean? I can't even pronounce it. . . did your cat walk across the keyboard when you signed up or something? :laugh:

Bear- Great story about CPR and saving the house for the couple

dks- I think I already told you this, but that was awsome to voulenteer yourself to help in a country like that. It must have taught you more in a few months then most people learn in a lifetime.

Skinhead- great job with the little girl. . .

Spiff- 45K :yikes: Remind me never to go house shopping with you :laugh:

Yes, great threat indeed.

[SUNSTONE]

I'm one of the best videogame players in the world.

Fighting, FPS, and Football games have been the ones I usually play.

MK2 + 3 (snes)

NFL 2k1 (dreamcast)

Soul Caliber (dreamcast)

Ghost Recon (xbox)

Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (xbox)

I won a championship in Island Thunder, and was ranked #1 for a short time in Ghost Recon.

Those two games I was the captian of two 15(ish) man teams. I designed all of the plans, ran all of the practices, and called all the shots.

[DjTj]

I just won $76 playing poker, so what immediately comes to mind is when I won $750 in a poker tournament this past September ... that was only a few weeks after I won almost $350 in my first trip to Atlantic City - so winning over $1,000 in a month is probably among my great (if frivolous) accomplishments ... although it's maybe not even my greatest poker accomplishment: about five years ago, I lost around $1,000 over my first 3 months of casino poker (a lot of money for a college student with an $8/hr. job), and I earned every dollar of that back through very disciplined play over the next 6 months. I can still remember the day I was able to record a positive number in my records ... but all that work definitely took a lot of the sex appeal out of the whole professional gambling thing, so of course poker is only a hobby now...

As far as more substantive accomplishments:

My greatest scientific/engineering accomplishment came in high school, when I spent a summer at NIST and helped a physicist measure the index of refraction for Calcium Fluoride ... having never even used a soldering iron before, I built the entire temperature control system for our experiment out of copper tubes, black plastic sheets, heating baths, pneumatic valves, and PID controllers. The information we gathered in 1999 is just now being implemented by the semiconductor manufacturing industry to create the next generation of computer chips. For my work, I was named a Semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, and the research definitely helped me get into MIT and Caltech.

My greatest online/political accomplishment came during the 2004 elections. Before I was a regular in the Tailgate, I posted a lot at Democratic Underground, in a time when moderate Democrats were far more welcome. I wrote two essays that were published on that site: John Edwards - Helping Others Share in the American Dream and 484 Reasons for Young Voters to Choose John Kerry. Both articles turned out to be wrong in their predictions, but I'm still proud that they were published and I still stand by all the things I said.

My greatest legal accomplishment came just this past year ... During the spring semester, I spent 30+ hours of my spare time conducting legal research for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and I wrote the first drafts for more than half of a manual called "Looking to the Future: Voluntary K-12 School Integration" published by the LDF just this fall: http://www.naacpldf.org/content.aspx?article=698

My single greatest accomplishment though, is the story of how a science nerd/gambling addict became a political junkie/law student. During my junior year of college, I ran for President of the student body, and I won. The election itself was an accomplishment but I am most proud of what I did after winning ...

I had no idea what I was getting into when I inherited a student body that was protesting in front of their dorms over budget cuts, a student government that spent more of its time feeding donuts to students than representing them, and a non-profit corporation with no accountant that had not filed its taxes in two years.

Over the course of my term as President, the university rolled back all of its student affairs budget cuts; the student government completed a web site with an online student photo directory, course evaluation system, newsgroups and discussion forums, and even a free movie rental service; two student-faculty conferences were held that reevaluated the requirements for every single undergraduate major; the university began providing the student government an accountant at no cost, the IRS attempted to fine the student government's non-profit corporation $5,000 but were convinced to drop the fine, a $50,000 surplus was placed into a long-term investment account for future students, and the co-founder of Intel agreed to donate $3 million as an endowment for student activities.

As a personal matter, my position helped get me an internship on Capitol Hill and admission into a top ten law school. The hard work I put into student government changed my outlook on life and I looked away from science and towards public service. Most importantly, I won one of four leadership awards given at graduation, so my parents were able to sit with the President of the University during the graduation banquet and in the very front row during the graduation ceremony - seeing their proud faces was one of the greatest moments of my life.

[Burgold]

Artistically, it's probably either the first play of mine that got produced up in New York or the first painting I sold. Although, the piece I'm actually proudest of has not yet been produced.

Athletically-- this Summer I was invited to play volleyball with a group that included a former gold medalist for the US team. Guy now works for Special Olympics. We managed to take a game from him and I managed to block a few (I think two of his shots) and once spike over him. Being a shortish person that added something to it. Our side lost the match, but just playing and not looking like a total fool against an olympic athlete was pretty cool.

personally, I think the time I was driving back from college and found this kid (about four or five) lying face down in the snow. All these cars were just passing by and he was lying in front of apartment buildings. I almost passed him by just like all the cars before me and the ones after, but I decided not to. He didn't move the first two times I touched him and I kind of freaked. I didn't think he was dead, but he was completely non responsive. It's amazing the things that go through your head at times like that. I tried to remember my three weeks of Boy Scout training. I worried that someone might think I was the one who did this to the kid or if I took him to my car to get him to the hospital I might be arrested for kidnapping. This was before cell phones and once there I wasn't going to leave him. I thought about how your not supposed to move an injured body, but then thought about that while lying face down in the snow he had to be moved, just to make sure he could breathe. I'm not sure how he actually came to, but it happened after I prayed. He just sprang up and seemed scared, but okay. I found his sister and they went off. I think the thing I'm proudest of is that I stopped. I'm still amazed by how many don't.

[twa]

PCS, We used to camp on the Guadalupe river by a place in the river named slumber falls. Besides the fun of running the rapids one of my favorite things was watching people wipe out and helping them out of the river and regain thier canoes,rafts,tubes ect. When the river flow is up it becomes more than sport with people who have no clue about the water. One older couple went through the falls and the raft got caught in the undertow and rolled, the man was able to swim out ,however his wife had tied herself to the raft and was hung up and constantly flipping. After a couple minutes of waiting for the raft to get thrown clear and hearing she was tied to it it was obvious trouble.

Having a knife and a lack of sense I swam below the falls{which is fairly easy} and came up under the raft and caught hold {imagine being caught in a large washing machine with a knife :laugh: ) and cut her loose and dove to the bottom which throws you out. Aside from being full of water and terrified she ended up fine,I was ok except I lost my trunks in the flow

Another was in the same area,a girl got drove into the root system of a tree and hung up underwater. With the help of a couple friends and a rope I was able to reach her and pull her free of the current.

The last ,let's just say I made a bad choice in friends and entertaiment choices,choice of saving someone or prison. Thank God I matured finaly.

[PCS]

Good story. Thanks.

[SonnyRules]

Changing jobs from being a lobsterman at 25 and going back to school. I graduated in 3 years and I was top in my class. I now have my dream job designing space telescopes

Now I now why you always seem so far out there. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Huly]

It looks like everyone has had amazing accomplishments! This is a great thread.

Thanks for the kind words guys! It is not an easy task but I am doing great with it. It is just day by day! The strange part is it all started by a member of ES. The shock that out of 40,000+ people on this board I contact the one person who knew my brother. I owe a lot of thanks to my ES family!

[SkinsNut73]

Wow...there are some really great stories in this thread!!!

I suppose if you had asked me this question several years ago I would have said owning my first home at the age of 24. That might not seem like a big deal, but when you grow up in a "low-income housing project" it is a big deal. As a kid I really had no idea we were poor....certainly there were a lot of folks who had it much worse than us. Mom and Dad were the best parents I could possibly ask for...they just ran into some bad luck in the early stages of marriage and never seemed to get out of that hole (until several years after they were divorced...and my brother and I were out on our own ). For someone like me, there was great security - in my mind - with owning your own home. So I worked my ass off, saved up a lot of money, and bought the house several months before I was married. That was a great day for me.

...but that's been surpassed recently. Over the course of the last 15 years or so I have found myself in situations where I was able to rescue someone in danger. It was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time - a little boy drowning in the ocean current (not my best idea since I am not a great swimmer by any means...fortunately we both lived)....pulling a family of 5 from their overturned camper which was fully engulfed in flames on the highway...and several other incidents. It's just a great feeling you get afterwards helping someone in their hour of need. That ignited a desire in me to do more to help others...

...so at the age of 34 I joined the local volunteer fire dept. Another big deal for me since I have known people who perished in house fires, and fire was one of my biggest fears. Within 10 months of joining I took, and passed, the state certification exams...the same ones the career firefighters take. Not easy when you are out there competing with a bunch of twenty-somethings. There have been quite a few "better-check-my-shorts-when-I-get-back-to-the-firehouse" moments, but it has been the most rewarding experience of my life. And many of my firehouse brothers have become the best friends I've ever had in my life...truly some of the most remarkable men to walk the face of this planet.

....oh, and there was that one night with Shania Twain...but I can't really get into details about that on this message board