Hey it’s my birthday. Unlike most, mine only come around every 4 years, but they do hold the Olympic Games to celebrate when they do.
It’s a lousy day, grey & blowing the oysters off the rocks, & the leaves off the trees, but still bone dry. It’s not fair I reckon. When you are allocated so few birthdays, you’d think they could be nice days.

Yep, I’ve only had 19 birthdays, & I missed 2 of those due to the bad weather. 76 I was battened down in the middle of the Solomon Sea, riding out a small cyclone in my yacht. Being single handed does make these things a bit harder, & you don’t even realise it’s your birthday, until it’s all over.

In 80 I was up a mangrove creek a few miles south of Shute Harbour in the Whitsundays hiding from another. I was not alone this time. I had 2 island ferries, 6 bare boat charter yachts, their mother ship & my yacht I was responsible for, & 5 crew members helping, plus 3 other charter or private boats, & their owners.

This was a big one, lasting 5 days. The damn thing went inland, then came back out & attacked us again. Still we were so sheltered from the wind for the first half in there, that the sand flies were the biggest problem. Again forgot about birthdays, until it was all over.

Still, I’ve had so much good luck in my life, a couple of missed birthdays doesn’t hurt too much.

What are your birthday stories? There must be a few.

On the up side, mate, you've packed a lot of living into life and only 19!!

..........Happy birthday Hasbeen.........unfortunately nothing dramatic has ever accompanied any of mine,,,,,,,,,cheers to you.

Dear Hassie,

Many Happy Returns to you.

I hope you had a Happy Birthday.

The last Birthday our family celebrated was
in September for my son's birthday - and that
was the day of my horrible accident in the
Yarra Valley when I had my fall and ended up
in hospital for over 13 weeks. I would have
settled for lousy weather instead if I could
have done.

Still I'm making progress and things are much
better now.

On the down side - I've haad to move my mum to the dementia
wing of a nursing-home. It will take her a while
to get used to that. It is a good one - and we do
visit her every day.

Once again - Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday ol' mate ! Gee it must have been pretty tough to have a birthday only every four years?

You're living a remarkable life aren't you, more so than many other men who've worked in an office from nine to five most of their working lives.

From a Naval Aviator; Sailor/Master of your own vessel; race car driver; and race car preparer/builder - you're living one hell of a life eh HASBEEN and to many, almost an impossible dream !

In hindsight, now you're in a position to sit back quietly and reflect upon your adventurous lifestyle, is their any one pursuit or discipline, you wished you could've further aspired to, where you had to abort or giveaway, because of family, a lack of funds, time, or continued good health?

Have a very happy birthday HASBEEN !

Gee Foxy, these birthdays aren't all that friendly are they? Glad you are on the mend now.

Hi o sung wu, no mate, I managed to do all the things I really wanted to do, & a few others. Financing them was always a problem. I had to learn all those skills, & a few others, like boat building/restoration, sailmaking & car restoration along the way. I could never have afforded paying others for the work.

One thing I have found is the most knowledgeable people love teaching those who want to learn. I've had some brilliant people teach me as much as I could handle of their speciality, often just when I needed it.

Not so successful with my latest hobby. My son started flying radio controlled planes, & I have joined him. I am slow learning it, & my real flying was not much help at all.

I have lost much of my depth perception, & have parked some planes high in trees, when I thought they were much closer to me than they were. Just as well I don't still drive at 160+ miles per hour down Conrod. This of course means learning yet a new skill. How to repair damaged model aircraft. Fortunately with my less than perfect flying, I'm becoming quite good at gluing them back together, & it is surprising how well a patched up wreck can fly again.

Sorry to hear that. My birthday is in May, so the weather is pretty good then.

Hi there HASBEEN...

You don't let any grass grow under your feet do you, that's why I admire you? I couldn't imagine a more fulfilling, exciting pastime than flying radio controlled aircraft. I sighted a 'control' panel in a hobby shop, for these radio controlled aircraft and power boats, and they look quite comprehensive with their various switches, lever, and buttons. You really do actually control the plane, in all it's various flight axis, rather than have a model a/c attached to two thin wires, as it flies in circles above you.

I believe they even have R/C Helicopters as well now, they'd be really tough to fly, if they're anything like a normal rotary wing, I flew in when I was in the military? I reckon such a pastime, would be completely beyond me; I'm (generally) all fingers and thumbs and would surely pitch the plane incontrovertibly, straight into the deck!

Since retiring, I've spent more time following my long term hobby, of numismatics. Though a somewhat solitary hobby, fellow numismatists often confer, and discuss their various coins, banknotes, tokens, or medals that interest them. In Australia there's an excellent glossy magazine published monthly,'The Australian Coin & Banknote Magazine'. It's as good as any I've seen anywhere else in the world, and a thoroughly good read.

I'm Sorry HASBEEN old mate, I've rudely intruded upon your Topic.

Hasbeen,

Birthdays are over-rated. It was always city types who kept the shops and the advertisers happy.

Swap that for living in the moment, mindfulness. You were able to do that and perhaps still do, albeit with the creaks and pains of age.

I still want to spend a few years sailing the Bahamas. OK, mostly riding on the hook. Then through the canal and carry on up to Alaska. Then..

The Bahamas sounds great OTB, but not the rest. I only like warm, tropical, blue & turquoise oceans. All too often you find the ocean way up in the air, falling down on top of you. Not much fun when it's cold.

Yes o sung wu, fully remote controlled, but it "aint what it used to be". There are a huge number of aids, to make the incompetent appear less so. Hell they even have electronics which will make a R/C Helicopter home on a wrist band you can wear. They will automatically follow you doing a triathlon, taking photos of you if you like.

We should give one of these to Turnbull. With his huge ego, he'd love something following him around taking photos. Then he could sit in a corner, drooling over photos of himself, & leave us alone.

All this stuff developed for military drones is migrating to R/C Helicopters, & now into fixed wing R/C aircraft. I have one I will use for my grandson to learn with, that has automatic take off, return to the controller if asked, if you loose orientation, & a form, of automatic landing.

Another will auto take off, & is bound by a virtual fence it will not cross. Without instructions, it will turn away from it's pre set limit, & return to orbit over it's take off point. It will land where it took off from, when instructed. That one has a panic button. If out of control, heading for a crash, hit the panic button, & it returns itself to straight & level flight. Great stuff, provided you're not heading for a tree.

Not my thing, I'd rather crash than have some Chinese computer programmer save me from my mistakes.

As I said, in these days when, "oils aint oils" according to that add, remote control is becoming self control. Just as well our machines have it, many kids no longer do. Hey we even have a robot, self controlled vacuum cleaner.

Oh & take the thread anywhere, I prefer those with a life of their own.

Hi HASBEEN...

Your suggestion that Malcolm TURNBULL can use a R/C drone to carry his ego around, is logistically flawed I'm afraid? He would need something as enormous as a B52 transport, to be remotely large enough to cart around his ego I reckon! Boy he's a piece of work eh ? I couldn't imagine voting for the treacherous bastard, but what do you do? Being a dyed in the wool conservatist, what other option does a man have?

Anyway, I hope you had a good birthday HASBEEN!