IFRs = Internal Floating Roofs. Been my vocation since 1977 when I matriculated from Lafayette College and got a job with one of the early adopters of the technology. I brought them programmable calculators to wean them off log tables, then the first Apple “computer” then the first IBM PC, etc… It’s been a good run, I’ve worked with a lot of good people and a few assholes. In all honesty, I am a recovering asshole but my kids and colleagues seem to have forgiven me (might be my imagination also, you never know). I have my own IFR company and a separate engineering LLC. Eng Tips has been good for me for a long time. It still is but I’m open to new things, like SimpliEngineering. So, here goes !!!
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VERY NEAT! We are mid-stream with an internal inspection and re-doing the seal in our small vinyl acetate IFR tank in Torrance, CA. We are using HMT.
Reading between the lines, are you contemplating retirement soon?
When you read between the lines, you need training wheels…
@crshears yep. I applied for my own coat of arms, so was able to have some input into the design. The crest is one such area. We have a LOT of great spotted woodpeckers where I live. I feed the birds and we always have them on the nut feeders. The shield for my arms is mainly red and black so the colours of the bird fitted in nicely.
And I believe its a male, it has the red patch on the back of the head.
I did a bunch of reading about 50 years back on Heraldry… it’s extremely interesting. You may want to do a little research on it.
Dik
Dik, It’s a hobby of mine, and had been a goal of mine to get my own Coat of Arms. Took a wee while but finally petitioned the Lord Lyon and he saw fit to grant me a Coat of Arms, a couple of years ago.
Great… our family has a coat of arms, but it has a chicken on it… goes back a long time… don’t know the reasoning for this… Sir Robin comes to mind…
Dik
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Would that be Brave Sir Robin from the Monty Python team?
In actual heraldic terms there is no such thing as a ‘family coat of arms’ . A coat of arms can only belong to one person, its purpose was a means to identify individuals so if everyone with the same surname used the same coat of arms it would become pointless. There is a trade in selling ‘family coats of arms’, predominately to tourists, but what they are actually selling is someone’s personal coat of arms.
In Scotland, it is actually an offense to use a coat of arms you are not entitled too and you can be prosecuted for it.
In reality I doubt they ever would. Donald Trump even appropriated someone else’s arms and just changed the motto to his last name.
Correct… I was thinking of the Chicken.
Correct again… they are individual and not family.
Didn’t know that… but, makes a lot of sense.
When it comes to Donald… I simply think of Kim’s description, “Dotard.” I’d only encountered the word about 40 years back and remembered it because it ‘sounded’ exactly what the meaning was… and shows the difference between the education of the dotard and a fine Swiss one that Kim has.
Dik
No creative username here…I’m an automotive mechanical design engineer with 20+ years of experience designing structural parts for a tier 1 automotive supplier. Most of my design work is related to crash mitigating products.
Jeff
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The name I normally use was taken, so I picked something that conveys a similar concept.
As a BSEE that has worked for OEM and end user companies, I have made a few minor sparks over the years.
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I just joined. I’ve been a long time ET member. As for my ID, it’s my name. While I post on some other forums anonymously, on ‘professional’ ones, I choose to do so in the open.
John
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Welcome John. Good to see you here, and look forward to your valued input!
I was always an employee, never self-employed. Many decades ago I decided I would try to make a bit of pocket money by developing and selling various bits & pieces of (mainly structural) engineering software, for which I wanted to set up a private family company. My wife had a similar urge (some pocket money through small private assignments), but worked in a totally different profession. So the name for the private company had to be profession-neutral. Her family name is Denham, mine is Niall. After a lot of headscratching we decided on fusing the two names: hence “DeNial” (complete with the camelcase to make it more obvious).
The further appeal of this name was its potential as a three-way pun. (1) The fusion of the family names. (2) The fact that in French “de Niall” translates as “from Niall”. (3) It hinted very indirectly that, while we might take all possible care in our work, if push came to shove we would “deny” responsibility.
The family company sank without trace at a very young age. When I joined Eng-Tips some time later I decided to resurrect the name.
An interesting topic and nice to know some of the stories behind the user names. The user names are so familiar that it rarely occurs to know the real one .
My name is my id and I belong to log tables era. I would know the log and anti log values of commonly used numbers ,without Referring to the log tables.Then I graduated to the slide rule. When the calculators arrived I was very nearly close to finishing my university education.
I am a foundry metallurgist by education and training. I have been working in the foundry industry for the past 37 years. Had a disastrous experience operating or managing my foundry business. Ended up in the severe red zone and had to sell the business for real estate value.
For the past 20 years I am in Lagos Nigeria making castings for a Greek family owned business.
Back in the days of CICS on the mainframe computer all personal files were mixed in with serious applications and it was really easy to create a train wreck on the computer. I was working computer security and we decided to put a “z” in front of a person’s 3 character initials (with lengthy rules for people with 2, 4, or more initials), and then two digits to differentiate. I was the fourth DAS on the list. It has been my userID, e-mail, handle, etc. for 40 years through two dozen different operating systems.
I’m a mechanical engineer in Oil & Gas. Retired from a Major in 2003 to start MuleShoe Engineering (named after an incredibly clever downhole accessory, not a town in Texas). My undergraduate degree was from the University of Arkansas (BS in Industrial Management) and my Masters in ME is from the University of Colorado.
GTAW - gas tungsten arc welding, not that I only do GTAW, but I already used GMAW for another forum I frequent.
Welding is my game. I started out by buying my first welding machine when I was 13 because you had to be a Senior in school before they would teach you to weld. I wouldn’t wait. As my dad said, “You’ve always been an independent little SOB and always interested in heavy metal.” He always thought I would become a scrap iron dealer so I could get my hands on old equipment.
I attended OSU’s welding engineering program until they closed the universities in Ohio after the Kent State shootings by the National Guard. I got a job erecting structural steel and completed an apprenticeship as a Union Ironworker and worked with the tools for the next twenty year. During that time I completed a degree in structural design, a BS in applied technology/welding, completed a MBA, and acquired Level III in five NDE methods through ASNT’s ACCP. I’ve been on my own since 1989 providing welding consulting and NDE services to clients around the USA. I’ve taught for the AWS as an adjunct instructor and currently I’m an adjunct instructor for ASME for something like the last 24-years. How time flies. Most people would have retired long ago, but I am having too much fun to hang up my spurs. With the Coron Virus rampaging the country, most the training I’ve been doing for the last several months is on-line. It’s not bad, I don’t have to leave the house and only have to dress up from the waist up!
Not the sort of thing I like to hear from a welder.
It does paint a picture doesn’t it.
Al