Details, if you please? 
Over the years, I’ve seen many such things, usually some forgotten and esoteric bit of tech from an obsolete industry, lovingly and painstakingly restored. Even out of context, and with little knowledge of all that lies behind the item and its history… I am always in awe of anyone who can be that crazy-assed focused and knowledgeable about these
“lost bits.”
I drive by a switch signal that someone has as a driveway post, but it’s utterly unrestored - and sort of has its own glory in that state.
After being overweight since my preteens, I decided to change my lifestyle in my second year of university. I stopped eating between 8 pm and 6 am cold turkey (no exceptions), cut out deserts like ice cream and cake, started doing daily exercises (push ups, crunches- as many as I could, I didn’t really worry about the number) and I didn’t take the subway to and from the train station- about a mile each way, giving me about 2 miles of fast walking per day. I lost 50 lb in 8 months and built new muscle mass. I’m still pretty young (only 20) but it’s been a year now and I’ve been able to maintain my new lifestyle, although relaxed a bit on eating restrictions to maintain my current weight.
When I was in Grade 2 we had a 100 word spelling test. I wrote the test in pen (everyone else used pencil), also in cursive (everyone else printed), and I got 100%.
(Yes I’ve had way more interesting accomplishments in my life, I was just so proud of myself for that one.)
Fantastic! Thank you for the inspiration.
I was inducted as a Master Instructor in Taekwondo in 2013.
Some years back I was vacationing on The Outer Banks. I was playing in the ocean with my daughter and nephew who were about kindergarten age. Up the (private) beach from us a ways was a couple to whom I will refer as Fat Ass and Kite Boy. They had a little girl of their own who was about 3-ish. Fat Ass was absorbed in some trashy novel and ignoring their kid. Kite Boy was absorbed in flying a kite, with no great amount of success, and ignoring their kid. The little girl was playing right at the edge of the water with a boogie board that was bigger than she was.
I’m a teacher and I worked in residential treatment, so I tend to habitually count heads and try to have an idea where every kid in the area is and what s/he is doing. So, I was kind of unconsciously keeping track of the little girl.
Inevitably, she tried riding the boogie board. The surf pulled her out to where the water was well over her head and she and the board parted company. I saw this from the corner of my eye. She had just enough time to say “help!” in a tiny voice and vanished.
Now, I would really like to tell you that what ensued looked like a scene from Baywatch, with my lean, muscular tanned body knifing into the water and me swimming like goddamn Johnny Weismuller to her rescue. I would really like to tell you that.
What really happened, because the water was only about mid-thigh deep on me and the surf was fairly rough was that I ran to her rescue. Picture a bull stampeding through the surf with a lot of splashing and bellowing and heavy breathing and you’ll get the idea.
She had vanished, but I stampeded over to the last place I saw her and I did manage to locate her and pull her out of the water. She was coughing and puking and crying and shaking and clinging to me.
I murmured soothing phrases like “I have you…you’re okay…” and carried her out of the water and over to her parents.]
It was only at that moment that either Fat Ass or Kite Boy bothered to look up from what they were doing. Fat Ass demanded that I giver her her child and Kite Boy glared at me and puffed his chest out some. Fuck them.
Anyway, I like to think that as she grows up, that little girl will have an inexplicable soft spot for burly bald guys that even she doesn’t understand.
I hiked this route without dying. My (experienced mountaineer) girlfriend puked. I did not. (Of course, I was a quivering lump for most of the scary part, but that doesn’t make me seem as cool).
Most awesome? Graduated from Rutgers in '97 with a four point GPA intact. To be honest, I owe a lot to the military for teaching me discipline and how to study–had I gone to college at 18 I would have had a mediocre GPA.
Purely mine? I started running regularly in 2004 and haven’t stopped. I tell folks it’s the only good habit I have.
I’m certainly impressed, and interested. Any way you could show me a diagram?
Addicts are self destructive, obviously. They have low self-esteem, and I heard a lot of “just let them put me away” type of talk, which I ignored. He was upset because rehab clinics wouldn’t lock people in; I explained to him again and again that it was a matter of him locking himself in, because if he couldn’t commit to kicking the habit, nobody else could do it for him. Also, let me clarify that he wasn’t a kid at the time; he was a 35 year old man with a wife and children and a mortgage. Trying to get him to commit to sobriety while at the same time trying to save his marriage was one tense couple of weeks.
At age 50, I changed careers.
Because of injuries, I could no longer perform the physical duties of being a remodel contractor. I can’t climb a ladder and I can only kneel for short periods of time. I could not qualify for any disability programs, based on whatever criteria they actually use for that. Besides, disability would be nowhere near my previous income level.
So, I became an insurance agent (producer). I was contracting with several different Medicare supp and MAPD companies, but I also wanted Life and annuities. Passed the license exam with 96%!
My first MAPD AEP was a smashing success. Lots of new Life clients and ACA business, too
I also revamped my photography business which I had kept as a very part time job for over 20 yrs. Now, I am doing a whole lot of real estate and product photography, in addition to marketing my art pics.
So, I went from a very good and in demand blue collar tradesman, to a pretty darn good and called on insurance producer with a steady photography sideline. I count that as an accomplishment to be proud of.
(I end with prepositions all the time)
Since 2004? Golly, you should stop and rest! 
Earned a Ph.D. in mathematics.
There have been a number projects at work where I’ve been both the guy who came up with the brilliant idea that could make it work, and the guy who pushed the idea through to execution, on the same project. I feel kinda proud of those.
I’ve built a fair number of pieces of furniture around our house. The stereo cabinet in the living room, some bedside tables, a rolling cart for cookbooks in the kitchen, and lots of bookcases, because we’ve got a shitload of books.
My bookcases are things of beauty - bookcases for paperbacks that hug the wall between windows, and are shallow enough that they don’t stick any further out into the room than the curtains do. Bookcases with a couple of deeper shelves at the bottom for oversized books, and flat shelves for atlases. Bookcases where the shelves were set at just the right height for the books that would be in them, to absolutely maximize their book storage capacity. Bookcases that really work well in the space they’re in.
At age 45 I, with virtually no experience, became a machinist and expert model maker. I no longer do this, having stopped ten years ago, because the cycle of employed-until-the-contract-ends followed by unemployment was no fun.
“This is something up with which I will not put.” --Churchill
I went from being super overweight, in danger of death (as told by physicians), walking with a cane due to leg and back issues, to running races and completing my first 10k in the span of 8 months
New person trying to find the pipeline in the pictures, " I can’t find it on these pictures."
Old timer says, “Keep looking, it is right in the middle.”
New person, “How do you know that?”
Old timer, “Because Gus flew it”
I’m kinda proud of that reputation.
Had three major careers, two of which are quite specialized and a bit unusual. Each change was my own choice. I’m published in all three areas.
Funny you should say that. There is one project I can think of that had several refabricated parts because the original bits had experienced rapid deformation due to gravity.