What's your profession?

[marti]

Just found this post--what a facinating group of individuals! 

 I am currently a Grad student at California State University Fullerton, getting my masters in Marriage and Family counseling.  Prior to having children (I have three sons 12, 15, 16). I was a paralegal for a small civil litigation firm.   I am also a high school hurdle coach/cross-country coach.  For the last three years, I have help coach a youth cross country/track team called the Equalizers.  I handle the beginning group of runners who range from ages 7 - 14.  Many of our runners are the top youth runners in the United States in both track and cross-country. 

I guess I represent the female pagoda owners.  As many of you know, I bought my 63' 230sl without knowing more about cars then how to put gas in them!  Today, I finally finished a month long project of fixing my passenger door window -- I now am the mom on the street with dirt and grease up to her elbows...but thanks to this forum...I DID IT!  I also replaced the entire weatherstripping around the door as well.  I can't wait to start on the drivers door!!!

thanks
Marti
63'230sl euro

[Benz Dr.]

I've been a farmer all my life but my second occupation has been auto restoration. I've been doing that for 32 years and counting.
I always wanted to further my education and was planning to do that but the death of my younger brother in 1975 meant that I had to stay home and help my father work the family farm. At the time we worked 800 acres and we also had 200 head of cattle. As a side business we ran a hay and straw operation selling small bales to livestock producers or people with horses. We were always working.....
During the mid '70's I worked for several local musicians writing songs and spent several months on the road with a band running equipment and lighting. This was fun work but farming paid better. In fact, at the time, it paid better than almost any job I could get so I stayed with that. The early '80's changed all of that with 22% interest.
In 1988 I started selling auto parts and still do that as part of my services. I also sell cars on a commission basis. I hope to get into consulting in the next few years and scale back on restorations.
In 1985 I became a director for a farm lobby organisation and spent over 10 years working there and eventually sat on a committee dealing with rural issues. At the time, this was the largest corporate body in North America with well over 100 directors. That training was invaluable and I later went on to be president of the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada at a local level. I was also a director at the 190SL Group for the Canada region as well as a director at large for this organisation until last spring. Well none of these things are things that are my living they are still part of what I did while making a living.

Today, I'm writing a book about local pioneer life in the early 19th and 20th century's. I expect it will take about a year or more to write and I have 3 other projects that I'd like to complete over the next 5 years. All of them are fictional history based upon real events and real characters.
My current project is called Thornyhurst which is the name of the small hamlet where I live. Anyone who remembers the old school house we own might be interested to know that it also shares this name.
The second book will be called The Last Ferryman. This story is about Ernest Smith, a 1st World War vetran who fought at Vimy Ridge, Pashsendale and Ypres. After the war he settled in my area and ran a hand puled ferry on the Sydenham river. When it was decomissioned in 1975 it was the very last one still operating in Ontario.
The last book is about Second World War vetran Sam Dunsheath. He flew 19 missions over France into Germany as a tail gunner on a Landcaster bomber. They were attacked by a night fighter and he had to jump out of the burning plane. The French underground hid him until he made it back to the allied lines because he was blinded by the fire in the plane. This will be more of a lfe story as Sam is still alive and I hope to get as much as I can from him while I can.

 

[France]

Hi Guys,

Life gets more interesting day by day.  I note that it was 4 years ago that I last answered this question...and now everything has changed.  I tossed the idea of retiring right after it occurred to me.  We are now stationed in the Middle East, building a large solar array.  We still run our intellectual property consultancy, and we also have a high-tech startup directed to anti-counterfeiting; that is, the authentication of everything from pharmaceuticals to packaging.  Next stop, carbon-credit trading.  

[Ulf]

I'm a copywriter in advertising (a mix of being a writer, journalist, film director, strategist, inventor and a schizophrenic mix of lots of other real professions).
I started out my classic car adventure with a 1972 Citrôen Mehari - the jeep-like version of the 2CV, moved onto a 1967 Triumph Spitfire Mk III that was crushed in an accident, used the money from the insurance to buy a 1969 Triumph TR6 (that I still miss) and had a 1961 Willys Jeep M38A1 at the same time. Sold both to pay out the loan on my apartment and to buy a dull 1990 BMW 5 series when my wife got pregnant. I missed classics, so I got my hands on a 88" Land Rover from 75', sold it later to make room for a 58' MGA  but also bought another similar Land Rover with my father and brother, sold the MGA 2 years ago to buy a 1965 230 SL - and here we are...
Daily driver is now a 1996 BMW 5-series (one of the last e34-version) that seems to go on forever, so I'll probably keep that until it too becomes a classic....

Ulf

[menesesjesse]

I am a Navy Sailor of 19 years.  I graduated from a trade school to be a mechanic in CT but relized at 18 the work was tough on the hands and I wasnt interested in changing brakes all my life.  I instead joined the Navy and traveled the world as an electronics technician.  This trade gave me the ability to add to my knowledge base and  keep me close close to older cars.  i love the hunt for electrical problems and am rather good at fixing them.  I bought my 1st Mercedes at 28 (500SL) and then got my Pagoda from my dad who bought his from a person in western CT.  My car still had the Euro plates on it and I am the 1st to register it here in the states.  So far I cant be more pleased since it gives me such a challenge.  Unlike american muscle, these cars have a sophistication that overcomes everything it loses in power.  See you on the road.

[Flyair]

I am impressed while reading posts of such eminent sl113.org pagoda club. A truly great mix, showing that people can met and communicate around an otherwise irrelevant item in life such as a car. But.... in our case it is not a car...  MB 280 SL Pagoda is a way of life, as Garfield the cat would say, speaking of his lasagna  

In my case I worked nearly 20 years for major US banks and in 2003 founded my own investment advisory company. Today, I am mostly arranging transactions in building and operating wind farms.
As a side business (passion?), as a holder of a ATP pilot license, I am flying General Aviation aircraft, helping a friend to run his air taxi business.
 
Stan

[Dash808]

Congrats on the ever coveted ATP! 

The first wind farm here in Hawaii was built not long ago on Maui.  I hear two more locations are currently being evaluated.  Seems like a no brainer with the constant trade winds here.

[majothelo]

I´m a swedish police officer and leads a group of detectives with main task violence crime. Before that I was a narcotic detective on the international division. Some times I get tired of working with bad guys so if anyone have a proposal or can offer a side business would I be very grateful. Im 42 yo so hopefully I have a couple of years left.
Best regards Thomas

[Peter van Es]

Thomas,

You must be the first police officer who's 'come out' here. Most of us would probably romanticise your job, but I can imagine you get tired of crooks too. Have you seen that British TV show with a detective driving a Pagoda ? 55 Degrees North?

Maybe sometime I'll do a LeikeLB on the first episode and edit a Pagoda clip out of that for all of you to enjoy...

Peter

[Peter van Es]

Ok, I've done it... have a look at the last video on our video page:  http://www.sl113.org/Video.html

There's not much of a story line (as I've deleted most of the programme) but I'm sure you get the drift...

Let me know what you think of it.

Peter

[ejboyd5]

What an interesting group of people!  I'm a lawyer by training and profession; spent years as a federal prosecutor (with a speciality in aircraft hijacking cases); retired after 17 years as a criminal court judge; now engaged in private pracrtice of law.  As an avocation. I've spent 29 years in the fire and emergency medical services with over 8000 responses to date and still counting.  I've always been involved with cars (and boats), building on my skills and abilities as I went along.  For about 5 years in the early '90s, I was an owner of a machine shop that did a nice business in babbitt and in performance engine builds, but proved to me that the quickest way to spoil one's enjoyment of a hobby is to try and turn it into a business.  Much time is spent tinkering and keeping the fleet running the way it should while my interest pendulum swings back and forth between automobiles and boats on a most irregular schedule - right now I'm in a marine phase, but that might not survive the winter as I've got more cars than boats and each one requires maintenance. 

Just rediscovered this thread after a lapse of 11 years. I'd forgotten before to mention my time as a fire chief as part of the career path.  My responses to fires and medical emergencies are now over 15,000. How many are enough?

[majothelo]

Peter,
Thank you. I never heard of this program and glad that you did a good job and edid it. I can tell you that I don´t have the same problems that the guy had with his colleagues and the rear light. Not yet anyway . But perhaps it may be because I do not have my Pagoda to work...
Btw...Peter, you and your friends do a really nice Pagoda-site. It maintains a nice level and it´s "a live".
/Thomas

[dorian]

I am a web applications developer, and I run a small consulting business serving clients in corporate IT and data center management.  If you're interested you can read more here: http://GoldCreekGroup.com

Dorian | 1969 280SL

[philmas]

I'm a radiologist ,working in a private hospital near Paris,France, as a bone and joints imaging specialist.
I deal most of the time with athletes, football teams, tennismen...and amateurs who, like myself, love hurting themselves at sports on week-ends.

[w113dude]

I'm a freelance industrial designer, with a down turn economy I find my self spending more and more time with my passion, tinkering with my MB's.

Shaun

[Jordan]

What an eclectic mix of professions.  Surely there must be some way we can pool these together in some easily accessed format so if anyone gets into a jam or needs something, whatever it may be, they have someone to call, or e-mail, or text in the group that could help out.  Sort of like a Pagoda mob.

I myself have been working as a consulting engineer, speciallizing in explosives in construction/mining for over 20 years.  My wife and I bought a vineyard 13 years ago which became my passion, spending weekends and lots of holidays working the farm.  This is not to be confused with a winery, which requires reams more money than I have available.  The vineyard still doesn't make enought money to jetison my engineering job but I am hopeful some day.  Now I have a second passion which will no doubt consume more money and keep me from retiring entirely.  Maybe someday I will have more Pagodas than John Deeres.  I guess we are doing our part to stimulate the economy.

[Flyair]

maybe we should all confess that we are primarily Pagoda drivers and addicts, while we do dome coincidental jobs such as doctors, lawyers, engineers etc in our (limited) spare time?

[twistedtree]

What a great group of people.

I started playing with cars as a kid, with my parents giving me a junker for my 10th birthday.  Through high school I worked on pretty much any car I could get my hands on and quickly came to appreciate the superior engineering and design of european cars.  Going in to college, I was unsure whether to become a mechanical or electrical engineer - I loved cars and wanted to design them, but had no interest in working for the big 3, so I settled on electrical engineering.  Besides, along the way I discovered computers, especially these new things called microcomputers, and thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread. But not wanting to get too far away from cars, I ran a small repair shop the whole time I was in college and it funded my tuition.  Computers stuck and I added a masters in computer science to my education, then went to work for Bell Labs.  Suddenly with money for the first time, I set out on a couple of resoration projects.  One was a BMW 2002, and the other an E-type.  I finished the 2002 and my wife drove that for several years, but the E-type i never quite finished.  It was darn close with just the interiar and chrome to re-install, but life and kids prevented me from finishing it.  I let big corporate work torture me for about 15 years, during which time I sold the E-type, and stopped looking at cars as anything other than practical transportation.  In '96 I ventured into the high tech start-up world, got a taste for it, learned I would never work for a big company again, and made a few bucks along the way, all of which went into kids' tuition.  Then in 2001 I started a venture backed company of my own, and over the next 8 years grew it to over 500 people and $125M/yr in revenue.  Late 2007 we filed to go public, and literally the day before our road show we closed a deal to sell the company to one of the big computer companies.  Having learned my lesson about big companies, I arranged to be "left behind" when the deal closed, and have never looked back.  Now, two years later (almost to the day), I'm recently turned 50 and have returned to my early passion of cars.  I always wanted a Pagoda but could never afford one, and for my 50'th my darling wife sent me on my way to get one.  So I might be the sortest time owning a Pagoda here with less than 1 month of ownership.

[regal55]

Well i work in a software firm as a software developer.I have been working for three years here now and love my job.

[Ron]

What a great diversity here.  As to my work, I just retired as a professor at the Physics Department at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA.  I started in aerospace in San Diego (laser weapons), then 9 years at Humboldt State in the redwoods, then 24 years in SLO.  I love this job and university, so will take an option where I can return for half time for 5 years, and still draw the retirement. The time off is needed because after putting the engine into my car (purchased with "rebuilt" engine out), and driving about 1K miles, I'm pulling it this fall to fix rear seal, find water into oil leak (head gasket?), and install the correct R11 IP.  My R11 is being cleaned and calibrated by one of the vendors from this site.  The car presently has pump for a 250SL on it.  Maybe by the time I start back at work in Jan., I'll have a correctly working 230SL.  Ron

[gatorjaws]

I am a blue collar "joe" who loves driving & working on his 230. I am a welder/ mechanic in an electric generating station. I have done this for 36 years with 1 to go(10  months actually but whos counting). RETIREMENT!!!! golf, sporting clays, bicycle, & cleaning the house for my lovely bride of 24 years( she has to work a few more years yet) I'm 56 she was born the same year my car was built, 1966. I bought the car from her father 10 years ago.

[DaveB]

I'm a 44 year old marine biologist/geologist and commercial diver, working for an environmental consultancy in Perth, Western Australia. We specialise in coral reef surveys and monitoring in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. As long as the weather's good, it's a hard job to beat! I've previously worked in farming and commercial fishing.
I admire design, engineering and architecture and that seems a common thread here. The first pagoda SL I saw made a big impression on me from that design point of view (I'm sure it couldn't have been the first I'd seen, but the first that registered as I began to appreciate stuff like that). I bought my car on ebay while I was living in LA. Drove to San Francisco and back in a long day to collect the car, then very nearly dropped it and the trailer off a cliff while parking it up. It survived that episode but, ten years later, it's still in the same 'rough diamond' shape as back then. Work and house renovations and young kids are a higher priority, but I still spend (way) too much time on ebay and this site, slowly building my knowledge and parts stock. After initially being fairly unconcerned about originality I'm now more or less obsessed with it. Genuine new, unused, no longer made parts have become a minor holy grail.
Thanks to Peter and all contributors to the forums and technical manual for the wealth of knowledge and goodwill. Until I can finally start on the car I will keep learning here and make do with the occasional visit to the shed to sit and savour the smell of the tex and the cycle of the clock.

[pj]

You all make a fascinating global community. I'm probably the most boring guy here. I have been teaching introductory physics, math and astronomy at a community college for 30+ years. I was born in Germany but didn't think about my heritage much while I was growing up in Canada. Astronomy is my prime hobby, but I think the Pagodas are exciting. I'm not shy in conversation, but I am timid about starting new projects, so this is a big step for me. Dan (Benz Dr.) found me a "reasonably priced" 1965 230SL last fall (i.e. 2010) and he is guiding me through the process of having it improved. I hope I get the opportunity to go places with it because I look forward to meeting you all at Pagoda events. I have a thousand questions.

Peter Jedicke, London, Canada

[JamesL]

Peter

There's been a couple of series the BBC has put together over the past year: Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe presented by a chap called (Prof) Brian Cox. I HIGHLY recommend them. For all the BBCs many and documented faults, it's top TV and fulfills the Ritihian mandate to the letter; Educational, accessible and entertaining. I know the former is on DVD so....

[pj]

Hello James,
if you let me hijack this thread into astronomy, the rest of the members will lynch us :-)
So I won't tell you what I think of the BBC series. But at least Brian Cox was on Top Gear once, wasn't he?
You flummoxxed me with the reference to "Ritihian mandate." What the heck is that?