Most surprising finds when you google people from your past?

[watgate]

I've checked on former classmates and people I knew when I was younger or I befriended when I was younger. A few went on to become lawyers, one a prominent judge,  an executive in the radio business, a golf pro and a few have died way too young. When you read about someone you knew as a child and then he or she has died it is a sobering reminder of our eventual demise.  Life is definitely a trip and you realize the fragility of life and I try to be thankful of my time here and try to live each day to its fullest.

[OneMoreFarang]

11 hours ago, Pravda said:

This is something I did when internet was invented. These days I simply don't care.

When Internet was invented only a few people used the internet...

[faraday]

3 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

When Internet was invented only a few people used the internet...

I can well remember that when the Internet wasn't invented, nobody used it.

 

Shocking really.

[OneMoreFarang]

9 hours ago, Jingthing said:

12 hours ago, The Hammer2021 said:

Usually adults leave communism and socialism behind as they mature unless they're millionaires..Which makes them repellent for two issues. Hypocrites lacking in a moral compass

I guess the stereotype is usually true that people tend to get more conservative as they age. In the case of my surprise I assume his commitment to communism is sincere and intellectually based. 

I read somewhere that mostly people don't get more conservative. But todays conservative is far away conservative many years ago.

I think a perfect example are all those LGTB+/-: When I was young, not so long ago, most people agreed that those LGTB+/- are strange and it was normal to make bad jokes about them. Today even most "conservatives" are open minded about some people they despised when they were young. 

[bert bloggs]

W.h

WhEn i went back to my old birth town some years ago i found that compared to the fun filled life i have had,my old friends had just had ordinary lives.

I am sure they enjoyed them ,but god compared to them i have LIVED.

[Lacessit]

18 minutes ago, bert bloggs said:

W.h

WhEn i went back to my old birth town some years ago i found that compared to the fun filled life i have had,my old friends had just had ordinary lives.

I am sure they enjoyed them ,but god compared to them i have LIVED.

Know exactly what you mean. I once had a work colleague whose only ambitions were to marry his sweetheart, live in Essendon ( Australia ), and barrack for the football team. He ridiculed me for wanting to travel.

I never heard anything more about him after I left that job. I assume he got what he wanted, I know I did.

[jvs]

I used to train with one of these guys.Awhile ago.

 

[WhiteBuffaloATM]

interesting how extreme USA seems in terms of guns, politics, weather, earthquakes,floods, freakin tornados, minus 40 deg winters.... massive snow falls....but how conservative & unchanging the people are who live in those places which seem completely unsuitable for human habitation. Alaska <deleted> ?

 

I grew up in Wimbledon London England. Good state grammar ( high) school.

2 ins snowfall was extreme weather for us......the constant f***g rain we hardly noticed......

Had American kids from Diplomat / Business Parents. Most of my class have never moved away from a ten mile radius.....SW London / Surrey is very nice....maybe equal to upstate New York.

They are all I suppose accidental millionaires from sitting in their house for forty years....

unlike me giving the uk house to family 20 yearsvago and ending up semi-retired in phuket......

One class mate was bassist for Pretenders / Simple Minds.

One guy was the schoolrock band drummer who committed suicide over shame his son was on trialfor murder....just walked in front of the 6am train....

I became an Oil Gas Purchasing Manager, worked all over the world.

Mobilized to Iraq from Houston 2004. 75% Americans needed a passport having never left their county much less their state..... incredible. they caught two guys wanted for murder by the FBI...trying to sneak out the country to work in Iraq...... sorry,too long already.....

[thaibeachlovers]

17 hours ago, andy said:

Not so much surprise, but more like the opposite.  Like seeing how friends and acquaintances are stuck in the same dead end towns or doing the same dead end jobs 20 - 30 years later.

 

Not from googling, but about 7 years back I think I was visiting family in the US and ran into one of my friends from 8th grade.  He was working at OfficeMax.  He asked where I lived, and I explained I lived in a big US city for awhile, but I was living in Thailand recently, and was heading to another expat gig in another country soon.  My friend just had a blank look on his face, like something didn't register.  This guy had never been out of the tiny sh*thole no opportunity town that we grew up in...

My experience of living in Thailand is that friends and acquaintances have ZERO interest in my experience, despite some of them having actually been there. They were not even keen to tell me about their visit. Perhaps they think there is something a bit "naughty" about the place and don't want to be implicated.

 

I have had almost zero results from googling people I know, but most never went anywhere overseas and never did much with their lives. The only result I had was finding out a good friend died long ago.

 

I had more result from googling my username and finding out which websites my stalker had been posting BS on. He was very inventive, but there hasn't been anything for years so he might have died.

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, bert bloggs said:

W.h

WhEn i went back to my old birth town some years ago i found that compared to the fun filled life i have had,my old friends had just had ordinary lives.

I am sure they enjoyed them ,but god compared to them i have LIVED.

I don't think they enjoyed them particularly, but they just don't know anything different.

 

Agree with last sentence, but the problem with living an amazing life that most will never have is that when one is too old to carry on living an amazingly life, it becomes drab by comparison. 5 years ago I'd have been planning and saving for my next adventure, instead of wondering what the <deleted> happened to my life.

Looking for unseen movie DVDs in an op shop pales when compared to exploring the wide world.

 

 

[Surelynot]

One is/was CEO of British Airways, another is/was CEO of Standard Life.....both as thick as mince at school.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Surelynot

[thaibeachlovers]

3 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

One is/was CEO of British Airways, another is/was CEO of Standard Life.....both as thick as mince at school.

I know a manager in a well known airline. I don't know if he was thick at school, but certainly was when I knew him.

[thaibeachlovers]

OK, so i just googled a high profile author and editor I used to know, just to see if the internet does come up with anything, and the result- zip of interest. A few sites saying the same thing about some books he wrote and nada else.

It's true, Google doesn't know everything.

[Lacessit]

54 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I know a manager in a well known airline. I don't know if he was thick at school, but certainly was when I knew him.

Thick people can get along quite well in organizations if they don't make waves, and agree with everybody. In certain functions, they don't even have to be competent.

By the time anyone realizes the Peter Principle is well and truly fulfilled, it's too late.

Large companies and bureaucracies are the usual havens for them. There's always room for incompetents.

 

[poskat]

last year I googled a very pretty girl I was friends with in high school.

 

When I first saw her company profile, I wondered "now why would she use a photo of her mom on this...."

then it hit me.....

[Damrongsak]

On 7/11/2021 at 4:18 PM, Lacessit said:

Many years ago, I went to a school reunion. I could recognize only one person.   ...

Years back at a high school reunion, I recognized many people.  Some were the same old jerks.  A couple were pretty cool - one was a doctor and another a dentist and they made sure to talk with every one of us.  

 

I sat at a table with some of the formerly "nerdy" guys.  One worked for the U.S. Secret Service, though as an accountant or something.  Another guy said he wished that he had hired a woman to attend and claim to be him.  That made the trip worthwhile.  555

 

My 50th reunion is coming up in October.  I doubt I'll attend. 

[simon43]

19 hours ago, jvs said:

I used to train with one of these guys.Awhile ago.

 

And who are they???

[Jingthing]

On 7/12/2021 at 8:29 AM, OneMoreFarang said:

When Internet was invented only a few people used the internet...

That might be a fun topic for us oldies.

The first time we experienced the internet.

I mean the world wide web.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, Jingthing said:

That might be a fun topic for us oldies.

The first time we experienced the internet.

I mean the world wide web.

I started with CompuServe in 1994. There was this button to the WWW. After some time I tested it but I had no idea how to find anything. I asked in the CompuServe forum how to find something on the WWW and people told me there is a search engine called WWWW - World Wide Web Worm. Exiting times. And I had already that super fast 14.4 Modem. ???? 

[Jingthing]

1 minute ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I started with CompuServe in 1994. There was this button to the WWW. After some time I tested it but I had no idea how to find anything. I asked in the CompuServe forum how to find something on the WWW and people told me there is a search engine called WWWW - World Wide Web Worm. Exiting times. And I had already that super fast 14.4 Modem. ???? 

I kind of meant a new SEPARATE topic, but, oh well ... 

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I started with CompuServe in 1994. There was this button to the WWW. After some time I tested it but I had no idea how to find anything. I asked in the CompuServe forum how to find something on the WWW and people told me there is a search engine called WWWW - World Wide Web Worm. Exiting times. And I had already that super fast 14.4 Modem. ???? 

LOL. I tried it once in the mid 90s but it was so slow I didn't bother again till 1998. A new internet cafe company near Trafalgar Square in London was offering free time after midnight till 6 am to get potential customers interested, so I'd hang out there on Saturday nights. Don't remember what I did on it, but it was exciting using the new technology and I was hooked.

[wwest5829]

On 7/11/2021 at 11:08 PM, Jingthing said:

I guess the stereotype is usually true that people tend to get more conservative as they age. In the case of my surprise I assume his commitment to communism is sincere and intellectually based. 

Yes, most seem to get more conservative with aging. Few of us unapologetic, Bob Dylan type rebels still hoping for progress toward the ideals.

[worgeordie]

Tried it for a few , nothing, all nobodies ,just like myself.

regards Worgeordie

[Surasak]

On 7/12/2021 at 6:28 AM, Excel said:

I find I find out the most about past acquaintences by searching the obituaries. Thats the problem with old age

That is the problem with old age, it never comes alone????

[Stupooey]

Trying to locate people for a proposed 50th reunion a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find that one of my old friends, with whom I had bought a student house (for £310!) back in 1971, had ended up as a Vice-President of Warner Brothers. He also managed to fly over from LA for the reunion.

[PFMills]

I googled myself      nothing 

[LawrenceN]

I went looking for a close friend from my teenage years. We were both Eagle Scouts, played a lot of baseball in summer, smoked our first joints together as we finished high school. We grew apart as he married young and most of our crowd went off to universities.

 

Fast forward 40 years. Google helped me find him in the arrest records of a certain county in southwest Missouri. Seems he was exposing himself while blocking the exit of a young lady in her car from the parking lot of a porno store. Those stores are common at rural interstate exits in Missouri. My friend's name, appropriately, is Jack. 

 

Needless to say, I cancelled my plan to reconnect and invite him to come visit me and the family in Chiang Mai. 

[DefaultName]

I found it disappointing how many of the good people are gone and how many of the a*******s are still kicking.

[Thingamabob]

No,  never, and they're mostly dead now anyway. I've always made a point of living in the present not the past.

[thaipara]

My first roommate at university has been on death row for several years awaiting execution. At the time he was convinced he would be a Broadway star.