Guten Tag. I'm Michael, aka Queltor, but I also have an alias. Whenever I go to a restaurant or coffee shop, I'm Tom. Feel free to ask why I don't give my real name, but I'm not sure I have a really good reason. I just don't. I turned 35 this year and I am a Grumpy Auld Bastard.

I live in San Diego County (city of Santee) with my wife of 9 years and have no children that I know of. FYI, as far as I know my wife doesn't have any children either. I spent 8.5 exciting years in the U.S. Army and 15 months in the employ of one of the largest defense contractors working on a certain Caribbean island. I quit. The job sucked, the company sucked, and I'm now back home with my wife. Yay! I'm not a California native, but I've lived here since I was 8-years old with the exception of 3 years in Germany and my time in the Caribbean.

For the past many months I've been finishing my Bachelor's Degree and waiting, patiently, for the Federal Government to call me and say they're ready to hire me. They offered me the job over a year ago but they've been finishing the background checks. Now I just have to wait for the 2008 Budget to start (October 2007) and hopefully they'll call me for training.

Being currently unemployed, I proudly wear the title of "Trophy Husband" whenever I appear at one of my wife's work events. In the meantime I spend a sickening amount of time surfing the web, reading random articles, and playing video games. Neverwinter Nights is my current addiction. If you play, drop me a line and we can meet on the same server. I play on Neversummer 4, but am open to going someplace else to play with someone I "know."

I enjoy... stuff. I don't want to bore you with all the things that I find interesting.

You have no children?

You want some that are half grown?

Welcome!

I'll call you Tom. We have too many Michaels here already and I'm easily confused.

Welcome Michael Tom!

What job will you be doing for the Feds?

Thanks for the offer, but we've been living Childfree thus far and aren't ready for that to change. But we've talked about it. For the first few years of marriage it was "I don't know if I want kids" and more recently it became "someday." We'll talk about it again, I'm sure, and we'll have to see how we feel about it then.

I'll be working for a three-letter organization.

You're very welcome Tom.

This is our wee corner of the internet to evolve the Grumpy Auld Bastard myth into a public reality........ and eventually, a legend!

Feel free to use your spare time starting threads and discussion here if you have the spare time.
I, like most of the GAB's, are presently snowed under with work and summer activities.
For the meantime, we're generally here on a flying visit.

Great intro and hopefully we'll get to know you much better over the coming months.

uhhh, they are ALL three letter organizations.

Good luck with it non-the-less.

Not true! Quite a few are four-letter organizations.

BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms)
USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team)
CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission)
DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency)
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)
USGS (U.S. Geological Survey)
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
NARA (National Archives and Records Administration)
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration)
USPS (U.S. Postal Service)

The only 3 letter organisations I can think of over there from all the way down here in Australia are FBI, CIA and the IRS.

Before all the 3-letter stuff started I already knew it was FBI. It's got to be one of the few organizations that takes a year to do a background check... What this also means is that we're all fucked and better be on our best behavior. Damn!

P.S. Welcome. I really am a upstanding tax-paying citizen Tom. OK, so I'm not a citizen, but all the rest is true. Please don't send me to Gitmo.

Ignore this.
It's me.
I'm just testing something.

Dammit, here I was hoping you'd finally gone senile and invited your woman to the internet.

Not a mission.


I'm trying to get login's, spider bots, the FP Portal, the Blog Portal, 'guests', RSS feeds and Pings sorted in order and talking to each other.
Nicely.
That's why nothing is showing on the front page at the moment

Bastards are ding my head in!
But I will win.

You'll never take us alive, copper!

Mwahahahahaha!

The Spider Bots will rule the Earth!! You puny humans stand no chance against our might!
You can't win!!!