Gratified for "grown-ups"

[zygoma]

Hope I've posted this in the right place.....
After perusing the forum for a few months now again (I joined in 2006 when I first got SH3, but never posted).....it's pleasing to see that this sim (dare I call it a game? I think not!) is populated with a fair mix of students and .... ummm.... more "seasoned" enthusiasts. I just last month turned the same age as the B-52 bomber, and yet I see there are at least a couple of Silent Hunters older than I am.
In a era where most simmers/gamers seem to be thinking of what they want to be when they grow up, or get out of high school/secondary school, I'm enthused to see that SH3 (and its descendents, I suppose) has attracted a great number of folks who are serious about the ga......err, simulation.
Perhaps I'm projecting a bit, but I think it's great that people with a lifetime of experience in related disciplines (either computers or genuine military service and/or combat) contribute to making this such a great community. All of this makes for a more immersive and accurate sim. I don't know if Ubisoft envisioned the kind of loyal following it fomented with the publication of this series, but I'm grateful for their existence.
It's even more gratifying for me to see this kind of age spread in SH3 because I've been involved in Eve Online for a few years now. Unlike a U-boat simulation, it's impossible to visit a Caldari "Raven" battleship in a museum and see the shield boosters and microwarp drives installed in its "mid slots" and the Siege Missile (torpedo) or Cruise Missile Launchers in its high slots, to see how well the game mimics "real life" spaceships.
I alreay know that, at 60 years old, I'm the oldest player by about 15 years in my player corporation (think of it as a "guild" for WoW folks).
I went to Reykjavik in March 2011 for the Eve Fanfest. Out of the few thousand attendees, I was pretty easily the oldest guy in the room during the large presentations and small workshops.
It was amusing to be the subject of so many fans' photos as I wandered around. I can imagine the people going home and saying, "...And there was this old dude there, he was in the Player-vs.-Player competition!" when they shared their pictures.
It's very nice to feel not so out-of-place here.
Are there ever any "real world" gatherings of Silent Hunter fans? I hope to get to see a diesel electric boat again one day. The last one was the USS Ling, now in New Jersey, but at the Brooklyn (New York) Navy Shipyard when I toured it with my Boy Scout troop around 1967 or so.
And I've seen the pictures that one of our Kaleuns posted about a U-boat in Finland. Any others still intact enough to be on display anywhere?
Thank you to all who help, interact, instruct, improve, mod, etc., this game and participate in the forums.
My two careers have been in commercial two-way communications maintenance, and public safety (firefighter-paramedic, then Alaska State Troopers). I may not be a better boat's captain now than I was when I got Motorboating merit badge, but I've learned a lot about things I have no experience with.
Thank you to all for making this better.
-- Zygoma -- (perpetual n00b)