ELP

The curmudgeon just got quite the gift for the holidays from his sainted little sister - some evil mentality had melted an ELP album into a bowl.  Attractively done and all, as black vinyl bowls go, but the real tragedy is that the little hole in the middle makes the curmudgeon's favorite soup, Bean with Bacon, a tad messy.


Oh, evil to be sure.


The SPAM can clock gift held the soup quite well.

Penny races

The curmudgeon - long before he was one - was at Brown while his older brother was as well.  Joining a fraternity (never "frat") was a big part of the culture.


They each had a personality - the jock fraternity, the pipe-smoking-in-a-smoking jacket one, even the animal house, (which put the one in the movie to shame).


The pre-curmudgeon joined a genteel one, despite it's later reputation for the pool we built out front and jumped from a second story window into 3' of water.  We're talking 1967 - we were running on sex, drugs, and Rock&Roll.


The curmudgeon's big brother was in one that was a tad more adventurous.  The penny races were simple things - a high beer content competition where the contestants would race to move a penny across the rug with their noses.


I'm not making this up - the day-later bandaged noses (rug burns and such) were viewed as a badge of honor.


And this was one of the top colleges in America.

Code 5

The curmudgeon was recruited by Western Electric for his computer knowhow…pause…1971 computers

Don’t laugh.  OK  laugh a bit.

Real-time operating systems were pretty much unheard of, but the early computer-controlled telephone switching systems, as you might imagine, needed them.

And when they got sick, it was up to the curmudgeon to fix them.  Never mind that they seemed to get sick at 2 am, and the curmudgeon had to race down to repair central – Newark – at a time when even the cops were scared to be out and about.

After every attempt to diagnose the problem, if the computer refused to come back up, there was a final solution – code 5.

Actually, this was pushing a single button on the control panel.

The curmudgeon experienced his first Code 5 in some godforsaken neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Push the button, wait for the computer to zip through startup, and hope for the best.  Well, startup was a little more – the computer had to zip around the Central Office it was running to assure itself all else was OK. Fine and dandy.  The design of COs at the time were a blend of old and new technology – the computer being the new bit, but relay technology being a critical piece of the CO.

So when the computer finished deciding it was sane, it would turn to these relays to see if they were OK.  It turned out that that meant firing them all, not in a quiet 1-by-1 sort, but all 10,000 at once.  The floor literally shook – and we’re talking cement here.  The change in your pocket would rattle.

Life was never the same.

Koss headphones

Early on, the curmudgeon discovered the magic of headphones.  Jimi Hendrix, seemingly to actually penetrate the brain as his music zipped left to right THROUGH it.

And all this from 2” speakers.  The curmudgeon’s sainted Koss earphones never died – it was something to do with the wiring in the plug, that perchance may have been damaged in inexplicable ways at college.

So skullcandy it was for a replacement.  Great sonic performance, a really cool logo on them.

Then, along came Apple.  Their trademark white little guys that fit in the ear deliver the same sonic punch with speakers that FIT IN THE EAR.

Yikes.

Upside down dachshunds

One of my dogs, Cammie, was an enthusiastic sailboat crew member – hey, she once broke out of our summer cottage and swam out to join us just before we sailed off.  She also seemed to like seaweed, and once jumped in the water down at the shore to grab some, and refusing to let go, simply paddled nowhere, trying to get back to shore.  Another moment: coming about in pretty heavy wind, as we heeled over, into the drink she went.  Well, the rescue went into motion.  Only she was furiously swimming to the first land she saw.  As we bore down, the only option was the “grab and haul” move.  Lucky we were still young and dexterous.

But this is the upside down story.  We had just come in, hitting the mooring as only the old salt could, and were folding sails up and such.  Actually, that was the tough task.  Big brother would skip it by pulling in the dinghy.

This day, Cammie was skittering around the deck and unfortunately hit the wet patch that pulling in the dinghy always created.

Right over the side.  We paused in our duties to check things out, and there she was, upside down, about two feet under.

You can’t make this stuff up.