User:Duff Manges

Call me Duff.

As a retired army officer and an aging senior citizen, a concern  for several years has been to begin "cramming for the finals" in  preparation for crossing the bar. Part of the effort is to provide a meaningful written legacy through the publication of personal memoirs and organization of a treasure trove of memorabilia. Life passions include cars, cameras, computers, cousins, cannons, cruisin', and classical music. Among my souvenirs are a collection of several cameras ranging from an ancient Argus C3 rangefinder film camera, bought used in 1955 for $20, to modern digital cameras of the Nikon and Sony persuasion. Ditto a collection of old 33, 45 and 78 rpm vinyl records and players, cassette players, tape recorders, and assorted computer appliances to digitize the musical media.

A closet full of the old cameras and their collected images includes more than eight thousand film pictures and 35mm slides, several hundred of which have been scanned as computer archives. Photographs taken over the past decade have mostly used digital cameras but with an occasional reprise of the old film cameras. Many of them are still serviceable. I am an inveterate "PhotoShopper" (CS5) who has turned a hobby of photography and restoration of old photographs and music albums into a small single owner business in 2011 to keep the passion alive. The business is named Digital General Media Services doing business as DGM Services. As to audio media, a music collection exists of more than 3300 songs rescued from old LP records and about 60 seven inch Ampex reel to reel tapes. The library contains classical and popular music from the 30's through 60's. It has been digitized as a labor of love using Roxio's "Toast" software. Additional music CD's from the modern era (1970's onward) have also been included in an iTunes library that has been ported to an ipod touch. It is amazing to plug the ipod into the auxiliary port of the car when headed out cruisin' and to marvel at the changes in hardware during my lifetime that all this "new-fangled" technology has wrought. It's been quite a journey!

The above reference to "cousins" is a genuflection to a keen interest in family genealogy. Following retirement from the working world in 1996, a quest was begun to provide proof of eligibility for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution. Knew I was eligible. Just couldn't prove it. This modest goal exploded into a large scale effort that culminated in a nearly 400 page book titled "A Long Line of Warriors". The voluminous opus traced the family tree back through ancient warrior kings of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England to the fall of the Roman Empire circa 4 A.D. The ancestors included, among others, Scottish king Malcolm Canmore who defeated Macbeth of Shakespeare fame, the Norman king William the Conqueror, and the English Saxon King, Alfred the Great. Through a British royal ancestor website at Hull University, England, it might even be possible to trace the family tree all the way back to Adam! By the way, the original goal was accomplished. I am currently a member of both the Sons of the Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution. Other societal memberships include several Masonic and other fraternal organizations.

An initial goal as a wikipedia client is to to share information about the "cannon" passion listed above. More to the point is a desire to publish and share some of my own memoirs concerning mathematical models for ballistic trajectories of direct fire weapons such as 120mm tank main gun projectiles and small arms pistol and rifle ammunition. I have drafted a 300 page book titled "The Incompleat Pathfinder", as yet unpublished, that essays to provide a simple yet elaborate and highly precise set of mathematical formulas to describe ballistic trajectories. A first effort here was the article about a Manges Model under the External Ballistics wiki topic.

At this time "coming up on the learning curve" to serve as a meaningful wiki participant is devoutly to be wished.