That’s an awesome memory Norm.
In 69 in my first summer job at a local electric utility company, I signed all my drawings and calcs “m2”, short for my initials MM. So msquared48 with the year I was born. In 2007, just after one of my first posts in the other site, Ron guessed the year of my birth from my logo. Just continuing what I started ages ago…
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Great Mike… I’m waiting for someone to post… It was this way… I was abducted by aliens who couldn’t pronounce my name… and so on.
Dik
Skog, what a great interesting story.
I don’t think so, but you have a point. Of course it works the other way, too. Engineering experiences that many consultant never have the opportunity to participate in were part of the every day job.
Guilty, about 25 years ago.
Server’s Question: “Would you like to have a soup or salad with the meal?”
Answer: “Yes.”
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Great reply, SRE… when I first started engineering sliderules were the standard… I picked up a little 6" one because it was faster…
Dik
I use the handle Berkshire , it was a company I worked for in new jersey who that at the time made an advanced composite sailplane. When I left high school in the UK I started working for my father who was an electrical engineer. I got a fairly good grounding in wiring and trouble shooting radios and TV’s, however like a lot of teenage sons my father and I did not get along. So I left the trade and took an apprenticeship in the manufacture and design of heating and ventilating systems.
This was at that time predominantly a sheet metal trade so I became a sheet metal mechanic and draughtsman. I worked the trade for several years in the UK , then got offered a job in the usa to which I moved. One of my hobbies was flying gliders ( Sailplanes) and one of the people at the glider club offered me a job building sailplanes, I jumped at the job , I was in hog heaven what more could you ask for flying them for a hobby and building them for a living. This lasted 4 years until the owner died of cancer. I then set out in business doing aircraft repairs and custom fiberglass molding. Since then I have worked as a designer,CNC machine programmer , Shop supervisor , or group leader until my retirement in 2009.
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Berkshire - It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone mention sailplanes. A friend of mine was an instructor and gave me exactly one day of sailplane pilot training. This was at Black Forest Glider Port in Colorado. I was not a very good student but still have my logbook with the only entries being on that one day. The training plane used was a Schweizer.
Sailplanes. I think they’ll be a feature of my retirement.
My handle isn’t too mysterious. I work on aircraft, so the reference to an aircraft part came easily. Then you’ve got the fact that I use this handle on the “web” and guess which aircraft part came to mind…?
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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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