Re: [trinity-users] Re: [BULK] Re: [trinity-users] Re: [BULK] Re: [trinity-users] TDE featured in german magazine

On Wednesday 20 November 2019 09:53:25 William Morder via trinity-users wrote: I think thats 2nd nature for me Bill. A short history lesson if you will. I am an only child,, but was an avid reader as soon as they found I was half blind and got me glasses, so I was reading high school physics books at the same time the schools were using McGuffy's readers. About the 7nth grade I made a 147 score on the IQ test Iowa was using then. Had some health problems that turned out to be a food allergy in the middle of 9th grade, quit school and went to work fixing tv's for a living. Around '52 I was beginning to need a woman but Korea stood in the way so I had my draft number moved up. Then scored a 98 on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Next best that day was 37, got me 4f'd. I guess they were wanting machine gun targets or something. Somebody who could think was the last thing they wanted. So I kept looking for a girl but found most were mental coyotes. By then I had my own service bench cubicle at Woodburn Sound Service in Iowa City, playing salesman when the folks looking for genuine hifi came in. 5 years later a new girl started at my fav greasy spoon, a divorcee named Annie Sweet who signed her tickets AS. I added another S. Next night she handed me a big well used wood screw and asked it thats what I was looking for. I grinned and made a date for Saturday nite. She turned out to be exactly what I was looking for so 2 weeks later we said I do. I had her for about 10 years, then she had a stroke and died. Left me raising three, 6, 8 & 9 yo, all have since passed. In the meantime I'd taken the 1st phone test when the fcc was in town, got that. Never cracked a book, hooked up with the glasshopper at a local bar, took her and our 6 back to Nebraska and a NETV transmitter, sat for the CET in '72 walking in cold. Raised a few eyebrows but got that at journeyman level. I'd learned enough about klystrons there that I was able to talk an fcc field engineer into tearing up a citation as I knew far more about it than he did. Next stop WTSF in Ashland KY where I taught the God Squad engineer about klystrons, then to WDTV-5 in Weston WV, where I decided to run my working time out, it was a nice place, retiring at 66.75 years old after 18 years in that ragged red chair. In the meantime the glasshopper didn't like WV, so she packed up the kids and went back to Nebraska. Left me a hundred dollar bill and a paid apt., till payday, and $27,000 in debt to the IRS. One of my employees introed me to an old maid school teacher and we made it official 30 years ago this next Dec 2nd. Now shes 80, dying of COPD and broken bones and I'm 85, diabetic and running out of heart. Some of that excess IQ left when I made the grim reaper blink the first time by haveing a pulmonary embolism when I was 79, (typical survival rates are about 2%), and now my hearts valves are not sealing all that well so that will get replaced in about 2 weeks with a new aortic valve. Had two sessions in the cath-lab so far, stents in my heart first to fix the heart attack that got my attention, and was the 2nd time the reaper blinked, then some bigger ones in the groin to make passage room for the new valve. My kids intro me as being the smartest man in any building I'm in, but I know some of it is gone forever. They aren't convinced yet though. ;-) Bored yet?, should be. Now, to keep me out of the bars, I've been converting 2 lathes and 2 milling machines to cnc controls, doing things they couldn't do before, several times faster than standing there turning cranks. Sometimes with the lights out and me gone to bed if its a long slow job. The machine, with one exception, doesn't have eyes so it doesn't need lights to make a tray full of swarf. But being ahead by doing it myself has led to some isolation because not everyone understands what I'm doing, that and not being able to leave very far since I am caring for my wife, has tended to isolate me here at home, effectively using these mailing lists as the "gossip fence" to the rest of the better endowed members of our human race. I know well that I probably have used up my reaper blinks, but generally, I've had fun doing it. Would I do it again?, yup.