Neanderpundit

this night, from an old customer, someone I have worked with a while

I did a lot of work for them over the winter of 09/10, spending the better part of a month there. I spent enough time there that I took to leaving my kit there during the week.

This customer- the engineer on the job, who was just beginning to take over responsibility for the automation- sent me this note.

Dear ____:

One night when you left your tools here, I opened your toolbox and went through it. I saw what you do and woindered if you had some kind of magical toolbox that allowed you to do such wonderful things. So I looked at your tools and saw nothing unusual.

Still, you seemed to be able to do things that our millwrights with giant toolboxes couldn’t do.

So another night when you left I took inventory and bought every tool, trying to purchase even the same brand when it was available. And now, several years later, I find that there is almost nothing I cannot accomplish with the tools in that kit.

Thanks

I have chosen those tools pretty carefully over the years, and they work OK for me, but I gotta say, it was cool having someone else notice.

She anounced recently- to the point where she can’t perform anymore.

Well, hells bells, people. I thought Parkinsons was more genetic than anything else, and you either had it or you didn’t. Apparently, though, it’s something you can “Get” or ‘Develop”. Lovely.

Anyway, it’s no fun, and Linda was a big part of the industry in her day- you couldn’t listen to any music station and not hear one of her songs sooner or later- and usually sooner. Here’s hoping that she lives the rest of her life in some dignity andwithout discomfort.

When my dear old friend and confidant Mlle Jenny infomred me of this last night it minded me of something that happened to me when I was a teenager. I knew a certain person who was afflicted with Parkinsons, and he had it fairly severly. In conversation one day, he mentioned that his girlfriend liked the unpredictable nature of his motion during sex. I was a bit taken aback, she was sitting right there! She laughed- she was a spaniard he had met in his travels- she said “Eets like hriding an apalaptic bool!”.

I had a good deal of difficulty keeping myself from laughing out loud, and I think I peed myself a little but and maybe strained something in the process.

An asswipe gets all up in Mike Rowe’s face. Mike Rowe does the dirty job of cleaning his clock for him. Read the whole damned thing, you deserve the giggle.

Thanks, Firehand, for the heads-up.