Post #259239 by khan_tiki_mon on Thu, Oct 5, 2006 4:25 PM

I would like to take a moment to introduce myself to the good souls that inhabit Tiki Central. My 'nom de plume' as they say is Khan_Tiki_Mon. I am from upstate New York, a land of sometime ice and snow. We dream of warmer climes. I am a married man. My wife is a couple of months younger than I am and she is quite fond of telling people that we are in our late 40s. Truth be told it doesn't get any later than 49. I find it hard to believe that in a matter of months I will be half a century old. I feel very much younger than that. I have been to every state in the US of A except for Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii. I have been to Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica. I like to think I have more travels and more adventures ahead. As a young boy I read voraciously. In the late 60s and early 70s I was reading anything with travel and adventure in it (a lot from the Golden Age of Science Fiction). I read Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and I was totally captivated. On special occasions my parents would take us to a Chinese restaurant in Syracuse NY called Soo Lins. When you ordered the pu-pu platter they brought a dish to the table and there was fire. With the blue flames flickering from the mini hibachi I would look and marvel at the menu. It was huge and there seemed to be more space devoted to the exotic cocktails than to the food. This was a world I wanted to explore when I came of age. Alas, by the time I was off to college the scourge we now know as disco had stained the landscape. I have been collecting Tiki for a couple of years now. At first it was just Tiki mugs but the mugs need (no they demand) a place to reside. And so my wife allows the 'Tiki room'. In my quest for Tiki I have learned from others and I hope to share my ideas and to learn more.