"Well...I guess it's my turn" by TKO-100

[TKO]

Hello everyone, I'm TKO-100

I'm completely new to coin collecting. Although I have been "saving" coins ever since I was old enough to understand what saving coins actually was. My father, rest his soul, was a great fan of pennies with the wheat leaves on the back. I can still see the look on his face whenever he would find one in his change and how he truely seen a need to remove them from circulation. I ended up the same way. I guess the look on my face is about the same when I find one. I really like silver and of course gold is a no brainer. The silver can be in most any form or coin. It has a special feel that gives it character that no other metal has. Mercury dimes are in a class of their own in my book. I like saving dimes too. They hold the most value for taking up the least amount of space of any coin going, except for gold ones.

I live not far from Terry "Twoshadows" Adams in Indiana. We both worked together for a brief time. During this time he would sit and tell me of all the people he knew from all around the world and that their interest in COINS, of all things, was the vehicle that helped him discover them. He told me stories of buys, trades, and the most recent was the story was of the creation of a coin "the Medallion". If all of you could have seen this mans facial expressions and the body language that went into telling this quest for the medallion, you would all have a new found opinion of this guy. It was more than having someone create a die and stamp some metal, just to say it happened. It had to be perfect just like a new  BABY! And born it was just as he had imagined. I never, ever seen a coin junkie before until I met Terry. I kept telling myself, just what does this man see in all this? Then he began showing me coins and telling the "what and why stories behind them that made them special. It wasn't until then, did I understand what drove him to pocket change addiction.

This is the part I'm having difficulty understanding.... How coin collecting turned into website development?  I kind of goes like this - I went to Terry's house to visit one sunny Sunday afternoon to see how he was doing at his new job. The job conversation stopped after about 10 minutes and somehow turned into FORUMS? Yea... me too! How did this happen? Well one thing led to another and he had explained to me that he had gone online and signed up for a web hosting service and he needed someone to build him and some friends of his, a website to use. "It wasn't going to be too complicated" he said, "just the basics". After about an hour an a half listening to what his idea of basic was, and me standing there listening and looking like someone had fed me a frog, I seen he had bitten off WAY more than what he was able to chew. I told him that I could and would help him get it going. I said that i would set it up kind of like a "turn key operation". The proposition I made to him was that all I would require for payment was one of those gorgeous Copper Medallions. Of course he himself agreed to the deal but he also said that his collector friends that had invested in the idea would have to also sign off on the deal. Everyone did and Terry's fingers are all healed up now from all the keyboard banging he did getting the message out to everyone.

Now to make this long story short, we are at our fourth homepage scheme - our second forum software package (5 total installs on this one alone - 3 on the previous) - survived 3 server crashes and one program error - But now for the moment we are sitting healthy, growing in membership, having fun, making new friends, and all with a second fully functional site waiting in the background to activate if this one decides suddenly die on us again or at least until the primary one gets up again.

This program holds a lot of bells and whistles and many are yet to come. But, I think that good things come to those who are willing to wait.  Too much too fast makes for a tired, grumpy 49 year old man that holds a full time, 10 hour a day job, and then to takes care of his 4 and 5 year old daughters at the end of his work day, every day. Then with all the extra time I have, I baby sit a somewhat sickly server that's sitting in who knows where to boot. My wife said she doesn't know me anymore. I'll stop here after saying that. I don't want to take a chance of her getting to read this.

But you know what folks? I wouldn't have it any other way !@#!@%$@#&%* Excuse me, I seemed to have something caught in my throat!  JUST KIDDING!!

You all are a great bunch of people and I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to get to know all of you and share this space with you. Thank's Twoshadows! I don't care what everyone else thinks about you, your OK in my book and thanks for being a good friend!

That's my story, and I'm stick'n to it!

Terry Olds
TkO-100

[Triggersmob]

I think I speak for every one, when I say, we are very lucky to have you here.

Thank you for all your help with this forum.

Enjoy your coin collecting and if you need any help with coins from Aus you only have to ask.

[Humpybong]

I will second that, where would we be without you.

And now you are truly one of us!  Enjoy your coins.

[AdamL]

I'm glad TKO is here too!

[ElleKitty]

Be welcome in the Castle that you built, TKO.   You and Twoshadows have been the architects.

[Nevol]

I'm not sure where we'd be without TKO, so a huge "Welcome" to you, thanks for all the 'behind the scenes' work and if you ever need assistance to fill any Aussie gaps, just post what you need & step back to avoid the rush of people wanting to help you out.

[CoinCrusader42]

Thanks for all you have done.

It's great to have you as a member.