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#52890 06/10/05 10:19 PM
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 69
N
nov Offline OP
Member
I was at one of my customers homes today to install a new t stat and we got talking. He just retired from the board that writes the NEC. He has an electrical engineering degree from Penn State and was full of info. He showed me his hard bound custom 2005 code book that they sent to him as a retirement gift. Anniversary edition with all gold leaf on the cover and his name as on of the writers on the cover. Just found it interesting.

#52891 06/11/05 12:17 AM
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 814
B
Member
That is interesting. Nothing like meeting interesting people to make your day. I have several interesting customers including a world renowned astronomer and several musicians. Another is an inventor. He has never worked for anyone a day in his life. He told me if I had an idea he would help me patent it.

#52892 06/12/05 05:20 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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Member
I ran into a chap in his 80s a while back who has lived in the local area all his life and worked for GPO Telephones.

He was a mine of informstion on what central office equipment used to be installed in the area and how the network developed in this part of the county.

It's great to run into somebody like this.

#52893 06/12/05 10:47 AM
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 55
A
Member
I have met and conversed with many prominent people over the years. The most impressive was a convicted robber and cop-killer at 20 who served 18 years (1933-1951) for murder. He knew more about people and life than anyone that I have ever met. No overblown ego, just someone who had seen and done just about everything. BTW, he was also the absolute best and most knowledgeable electrician that I have ever met. He supervised the rewiring of the prison while he was an inmate.
Sam

#52894 06/12/05 11:00 PM
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 615
J
Member
Two stick in my mind:

One guy was a maitntence worker at an apartment complex. He used to be a sniper in Vietnam. Boy did he have some fancinating but ugly stories. He also had some conspiracy stories about his brother who special ops. Stories about secretly assisting DEA down in central & south America were they would climb aboard drug trafficer's boats, kill everyone, take $650,000 of the $750,000 and report it as $100,000 seisure. Etc.. Don't know how much of what he had to say was true, but it made for good stories.

Then the other guy was a WWII vet. Landed on Normandy within the first few hours. Was wounded, nearly blown in half at the lower torso. Lifted his shirt to show me the scar. I have never seen a scar like his, and quite honestly don't know how he survived, especially back then. He was lonely and enjoyed having someone to talk to, but I left feeling a better man for having met him.

#52895 06/13/05 12:08 AM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 2,876
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e57 Offline
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I have several interesting customers:

Worked in some famous peoples houses, but never met them, didn't care to really.

Many of the older ones can be really interesting.

Many Vet's...

I occasionaly work for an older guy who claims to be the inventor of the helix style grip, as he worked for a company he got no rights to the patents. He had a whole scrap book of stuff he submitted for patents over a period of 50 years. He also owns several city blocks of San Francisco. He can tell you most of the history of the city. Once you got him going, he'd go on for hours, none of it boring either.

Many software and computer industry guru's but they are boring. (Act like I should know, or care who they are.)

Places interest me more. Jack Londons house before they moved it. Dolby Labs many years back. A russian ortodox church. Most of the finest resuraunts in SF, some night-clubs and bars. Many of the older buildings here, I find facinating too.


Mark Heller
"Well - I oughta....." -Jackie Gleason

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