I'm Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie. I've been on FlyerTalk forever although these days most of my travel is to play major poker tournaments, which I write up on my blog www.liontales.com. I live in Kirkland, Wash., a trendy suburb of Seattle and the home of Costco, with my wife Heather, also known as Shortstack and Hunnybear. If you search the archives you will find many trip reports through the years. I was a 1K on United for many years but mostly fly Alaska now since my most common run is Seattle-Las Vegas. I was a Harvard dropout and an early Microsoft employee. I wrote the first version of Microsoft Word, released in 1983, was Bill Gates's assistant for a year, and contributed to the first version of Microsoft Access. I've been retired since 1994 and have been pursuing hobbies since then. I have published two books, a self-help book Getting Past OK and the first book on the science of memetics, Virus of the Mind. More information is at www.memecentral.com.

The thing about these "who we all are" notes is that some of the posts seem so short. Many of us know Richard (QuietLion) has a much more accomplished resume that what he put down. But he is a classy guy.

I will never forget my one great colossal winning night in Las Vegas and it was all thanks to Richard. Also, my one tour of the Mansion (the finest hotel in the world at the time I think) was thanks to Richard. If anyone really wants to know about Las Vegas, this is the guy to talk to. Or as he says, read his website. ;)

I registered with FT a couple of years ago but have really only been paying attention since this summer. The trigger was the realization by my spouse and me that our days of daily work obligations might be numbered in the sub-thousand range, so given that travel is our passion it would be well to position ourselves among the knowledge elite in that world. And, when one thinks of elites, well....

Self - 50+ (that's plus), named John by my mother. Currently Seattle, previously Alaska, Scotland, Oregon, SF and LA. I work with a nonprofit as a developer of housing for homeless families with children, so a somewhat different workplace culture from many road warriors or other business flyers. My work currently entails roughly zilch in business-related travel, except the odd conference or such. Previous lives have included gigs as a local government manager in Washington State and the Alaska bush, partner in an architecture and planning firm, university lecturer and traveling consultant* in Scotland, US federal employee, student, child, infant....

*As in, "Give me your watch and I'll tell you what time it is."

Spouse, younger, asks to remain nameless so that if I'm captured she can disavow any knowledge... Self employed, highly regarded in her field, loves her work. Previous lives also include Alaska, Oregon, California; plus Israel and wherever the hell else she's been. She flies more than me, but not a huge amount.

We have a wonderful son, and soon a wonderful daughter-in-law.

I grew up in an aviation family. Mom and Pop met at Douglas Aircraft; he was in engineering throughout the war, moved to sales (military mainly, then rockets) after the war; she was the secretary to the test pilots at the dawn of the commercial jet era. I knew my Skyrockets (D558-II) from my X-3s before I could do long division; as a child met many of the pioneers in the right stuff biz. Through obvious strings I worked summers and off-times at the Douglas A, C and D plants, fetching secret stuff from files and eventually bucking rivets and building jigs for DC-8s and 9s.

Later, in Alaska I worked where I had to travel into the bush twice or three times a month; my "regular" route was to the Aleutian chain, where I eventually got to know the ops people at the regional airline so well that I got to ride jump seat pretty often in some very cool planes; also spent lots of hours - lots and lots, really - riding right seat in a variety of twins, Geese, and other small craft. I never tried for a license but probably could have managed things pretty well in a crisis. Brave talk. Had three negative plane/ground interfaces over a few years and felt like that was enough.

We are going to move into a new paradigm (don't you love that word? So...20th Century?) in the new year, marked by what we hope to be a series of RTWs and other elective travel adventures. To make it more effective, we both decided to suspend accruing dear old AS miles for AA, took the challenge, and will now put our butts in (comfortable, for the most part) AA and OW seats for the requisite miles to maintain the addiction. Turkey in January, onward through the year to Africa and beyond... What fun.

I am just knocked out by the people who post on this board. Funny, wise (well, some of you) - elites all.

I'm a 47 year old married woman living in St. Louis, MO. My husband and I travel for pleasure, mostly on AA because there aren't many other choices here if you want to travel internationally.

Hubby and I are the proud "parents" of two dogs and three cats, all rescued from shelters or the streets of St. Louis. I work in the legal profession and my better half is a contractor.

Our favorite destinations are the Caribbean, Paris, Bali and Sedona Arizona, but we're still looking for new favorite places. I grew up in Africa and travelled through Europe at the age of 7, so travel is in my blood. I'm lucky to have found the perfect travel companion.

I usually lurk on Flyertalk and have found the advice here to be invaluable. We've also been able to meet other FTers in Paris. I'll try to post more often and look forward to meeting other fellow travellers in the near future.

Who am I?
 

I am a 41 year old IT director in the Washington DC area for a small division of a global publishing group. I am a native Washingtonian, yes I was born in the District proper. I have been working with Computers and Telecommunications systems for over 20 years.

I am married have two kids and a dog. l recently moved to Southern Maryland, which is a heck of a commute but we have a nice house and a large yard.

I tend to travel for business once or twice a month. This is much less than I have been accustomed. I still try to get out of town personally for at least a long weekend every other month.

I have made it to 48 of the 50 states and 5 continents.

I love Flyer Talk and although I have not posted much, I have been a "Lurker" for a couple of years and learned quite bit. I tend not to post unless I have sometihing dirct on point. I look forward to posting my experiences in the future.

Kind Regards,
Richard

I did not notice this thread until 4 am this morning (the day after Thanksgiving Day 2004). I guess I had a little too much to eat and drank a little too much of Italian wine at the Thanksgiving Dinner last night that I have been up since 2 am feeling dehydrated. After spending the last 2 hours surfing the web, I finally came to the most interesting thread I have ever read on FT.

Here is my brief Bio:

As you can all tell from my handle, I am a loyal UA flyer. I joined Mileage Plus in 1991 when Pan Am and UA had a joint triple mileage promotion that allowed you to earn triplr miles in either program for any Pan Am/UA flights. I flew Pan Am until it died (1992) and UA got my business by default. My association with UA has been wonderful over the years.

I have lived, schooled and worked in North America, Europe and Asia. I have two young kids (a boy and a girl). I met my wife while on an international assignment in Asia. We were both working for the same company (she was in the Asia division and I was in the US group) that needed a team to set up a practice in Shanghai, China. We had never been to China before we met, and we ended up staying there for 8 years – a lot of flying on UA between China and US.

I graduated from the University of Miami in Florida – a dedicated Miami Hurricane fan that took several classes with many current and former NFL players!! I lived in South Florida for about 12 years after spending 4 years in the UK as a young teenager. I enjoy working on international assignments, and love being an expatriate working in foreign countries. With two young kids, I am settled on a less traveled job at the moment. I still do some travels for work and make personal trips. Never had to do mileage runs to keep my status, although I did drop to 2P in one year. I should reach the 1 million flown miles on UA in 2005, and am looking forward not to need to re-qualify for elite status each year.

My favorite airports are SIN and HKG. I love flying into LHR, PVG/SHA and MIA for sentimental reasons.

My current most frequently flown routes are: IAD-FLL (Ted), IAD-LHR, IAD-LGA, DCA/IAD-ORD, flights to NRT/HKG from North America, and intra-Asia flights to SIN.

My most flown route ever: SHA-PEK-SHA (1 or 2 weekly round-trip for several years) on Air China, China Eastern or Shanghai Air….endured a lot of delays and the old Beijing Airport Terminal in the earlier days.

Mmmm, time for me to introduce myself since I've lurked here in the past and finally registered and posted some.

My name is Heather and I'm 26 years old. An interesting fact about me is that I'm deaf. I have profound sensorineural hearing loss in both of my hears. I lost my hearing when I was around 1 years old. I first got hooked in traveling when I went to England as a exchange student in 1995, although I've traveled before that but only within the US. Every time I boarded the airplane, I've always wondered what its like to sit up front instead of the cattle class but I had no idea about the frequent flyers program and such until my mom signed me up for USAirways Dividend Miles program in 1997.

I don't travel as much as I wish due to having 2 sweet sons at a bit young age. I'm still in progress to get my bachelors in IT field even tho I'm a computer nut and have pretty extensive knowledge about it. My husband also works in the IT field.

Since we've recently moved to Germany (my husband is from Germany), I think I will be able to travel a bit more, maybe once a year back to the USA to see my family relatives and good friends. We currently live about 20 km from Bielefeld. I'm orginially from Roanoke, Virginia.

I'm still learning a lot of pointers from you fellow seasoned travelers and hope to see some of you on whatever flight I take or pass in the airport. I certainly will look around for the yellow tags even tho I yet need to get one myself!!!

:D

Aloha from California

I've been too busy checking out great tips in the Miles & Points section that I didn't even notice this forum... until cawhite60156 pointed it out to me (wave!). Turns out I know her from another online community. Small world!

My name is Lani. I maintain a Web site called The Travelite FAQ (www.travelite.org) where I provide tips on how to travel with just your carry-on. Unfortunately, I don't get to keep it as up to date as I'd like, because my spare time is tied up primarily with producing content for MousePlanet.com, an unofficial Disney information/news site.

I was once a United Mileage Plus Premier when I lived in Hawaii. Since moving to California, most of my travel have been by car... but with a few business trips this year, I am back at 2P again. With the double-status-mile promo this fall, I should make 1P for next year.

I am a tech writer for a software company in the SF Bay Area. My most frequent drives are up and down I-5 to get to Anaheim (to Disneyland -- work-related for MousePlanet), and flying to Orlando (guess where).

I'd been familiar with Webflyer for eons and only haven't spent much time on FT until now because... well, because I hadn't been flying too much before this year.

Who We Are
 

I am based in BHM and fly DL mostly due to my location. I am in my 50's and am a director of accounting services for a newspaper company. Unfortunately, I am one of those that travels only 16 states in the US.
My job is great as is the company I work for. Most of my travel is to PA,KY,NY,TX,OK,IA,MN,IL,IN in the smaller communities.

My hobbies include travel to warm weather destinations, reading, swimming,and meeting new people.

I'm a Philadelphia native, and just returned to the East Coast after 8 years living in San Diego. Right now, I'm kicking myself for having taken an oath of poverty to return to graduate school to chase my MBA. I worked for a consulting firm in San Diego, and still work for them but in a different business practice. I'm also learning to like the cold. Okay, maybe not... I swear I heard my car sneeze this morning...

I used to surf on a semi-regular basis (any info on East Coast surfing is MUUUUUCH appreciated) before leaving my 9ft baby behind and coming out here. My hobbies are spending money at Home Depot, driling holes in my wall and then covering them up only to drill again, searching the internet for fares to take me someplace warmer, and doing outdoor stuff (sports, hiking, camping). The great thing about my particular location is that I'm close to Home Depot and close to REI. What a mean trick.

Domestically, whereas I used to do the AA SAN-DFW-DCA/IAD/BWI route a lot, the only places I seem to wind up with any regularity are SAN and LAS. I'm always ready to go to LAS, just say the word...

Happily single, no pets, but one very hardy pothos plant that seems to survive no matter how long I go away.

Go Iggles!

Just found this thread, thought I'd add my small bit.

My name is John. I went to Georgetown U for college (hoya) and was briefly a 4th grade teacher before returning to grad school to get my PhD in education policy (teach). I'm originally from Boston and shook with joy this past October when the Sox finally won it all! Woohoo!

I've been a traveller since I was an infant, going from BOS to NRT every couple of years to visit my mom's side of the family. My parents relocated to Tokyo in 1991 and I finished high school at an int'l high school there in 1994. Mom and Dad are still there and I visit when I can -- more often now that I've discovered FT. :) In fact, I used to pick the cheapest carrier even if the difference was just a few bucks. Since signing up for FT, I've returned my regular travel to NW and fly them when I can. I figure I'll be silver come the end of March for the first time since 1996. Thanks, guys. ^

My one big hobby is photography and I'd love to hear from any FT shutterbugs about good travel photography locations. I write a lot, too, but that's as much a function of being a grad student as it is something I enjoy. My dissertation is looking at the history of challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools in the United States. For fun, I've written and am now editing a novel manuscript based on my experiences teaching kids with behavior disorders.

I've ordered a FlyerTalk pin I plan to affix to my backpack when I travel so if any of you spot me, come on over and say hi. :)

I'll see you out there.

I'm not yet "retired" from DC. Don't get to travel very often, butI grab at the chance when I can. Graduated from PSU and only moved to this interesting area 3 years ago. Just wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate this forum and all the helpful tips you all have to offer. :)

Gday all,

Like most, I am predominantly a lurker but post every now and then. I have yet to meet anyone off this forum, but hope to do so soon. There's really not much to me, and can be somewhat of a bore. Getting on in years, turned 26 last August. Having said that, I am looking forward to the big 30 in four years time.

I hail from the land down under. Melbourne, Victoria to be more precise. I live with my partner and 58 other creepy crawlies, consisting of; parrots, fish, lizards, a duck and a dog. Needless to say, the homestead is never dull.

I recently established my own software development and consulting firm, predominantly catering to the private primary sector and SMEs. hmm, think that'll do as i'd hate to bore you all with my inherent "dullness" (vocalising my own internal dialogue but echoing all your sentiments).

My interest in commercial aviation stemmed from years of travelling between Australasia and Europe, primarily for business. It was a "join our circle or else" situation. During those years, i had the privilege of tasting a varied number of airlines. These days I consolidate my international (and local/regional) travel with One World (specifically QF). However, if the need arises for travel outside their bounds, I have no hesitation flying on MH, SQ or EK metal.

That about wraps it up for me. Please feel free to email or PM if you're interested in catching up. I commute quite regularly between MEL and KUL/SIN. However, I will be visiting various capital cities in North America and Europe later this year.

regards
Tim

All Who We All Are posts are updated in the 750K spreadsheet at:

Who We All Are

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