August 9 Gathering Ground Report; RTX & DARPA; Jokes from Jerry

GATHERING GROUND REPORT - AUGUST 9, 2023

 

Norm was AWOL but since he didn't show we had just enough room with the larger than usual crowd of ex-MSDers, MIS, IT, etc.   Chet was first in the parking lot when Jerry arrived.  Bill, Dave Ewbank, Dave O'Leary, Bart and Jo-Ann came to the table for a lively discussion about many and varied topics.

Since we are now getting charged for two line items on our Electric bill (distribution and generation), the topic of who keeps track of how much we use and who provides the electrons coming into our house was not clear.  Jo-Ann doesn't care because she is sending more electrons out than in with her new Solar array freshly installed on her garage room.   She could only smile when asked about how the panels were doing in the generating cycle during the July summer days.  The app on her phone depicting the credit balance of the generation was very tall and very green!

Bill reported that all of the golf balls provided by Dave O last month are not lost and still flying down the fairway.   He did report that any Bridgestone will eventually lose its way in any 18 hole round.....for some reason.  Balls make a difference....

Dave E's knees are still not 100%, the people in charge of torturing him in the therapy sessions are still working to get him closer to better.

Jerry reported that he is presenting to the Granby Inland Wetland committee tonight a plan to construct a shed in the backyard of his property.   A single meeting is not forecast for this event, Jo-Ann piped in that it took a year of meetings to get approval for the garage location she and Jim proposed.

 

If you are taking B12 vitamin, most pills must be dissolved in the mouth to be fully effective.   The pill relies on normal saliva to begin the activation process of the B12 mix.

Why do we tend to order the same breakfast dish month after month? Looking around the table, everyone ordered the same as last time.   Bart ordered the same as last year as this was his first breakfast since last year.  Dave E did break the mold as he just had a glass of water prepping for a going out to lunch date with someone he did not name!!

Bart reported that his shoulder is healing but will never be back to normal.   Something about leaning over at the dining room table to pick up an item that fell to the floor and finding that the floor was farther away than thought.   Might have had something to do with the wine pairing earlier on at dinner.

Lot of discussion about the various kitchen appliances that we somehow think are going to make us super chefs.   Only to be used once or twice and then stored for years in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets or on a shelf in the basement in the dark.

Your Scribe

~ Jerry 

RTX & DARPA

RTX caught my eye when doing some reading and thought I'd share the article with you to see if you need some content for your next delivery.

Might have to warn people they may need to quickly obtain a fresh mind before reading this article.

https://www.darkreading.com/operations/darpa-taps-rtx-to-attune-ai-decisions-to-human-values

~ Jerry
  

JOKES FROM JERRY

(Thank you Jerry, but I question your sources)

AN OLD MAN thought his wife was going deaf, so he came up behind her and said, "Can you
hear me, sweetheart?" 

No reply.

He came closer and said it again. He put his mouth up to her ear and yelled, "Can you hear
me now, honey?"

"For the third time, yes!"

SOMETIMES age brings wisdom. Other times it comes alone.

 ***

A WOMAN was driving to work when she hit a pig. She was going to just drive away, but she
thought better of it and called the police.

"Thanks for calling us," the dispatcher said, "but don't go anywhere. It's illegal to hit livestock
in this state. That's a $300 fine."

The woman hung up, got in the car and drove away. But when she got to work, a police officer
was waiting with a $300 ticket.

"How did you find me?" she exclaimed. 

"The pig squealed."

 

July 12, 2023 Gathering Ground Report; Letters

 

 GATHERING GROUND REPORT - JULY 12, 2023

 

Good crowd showed up this warm and muggy day in Windsor Locks.   Chet and Jerry commandered the table with Norm arriving shortly after followed by Dave O, JoAnn and Bill. 

With the sun upon us, and with our early days of uncovered skin from our youth, Dermatologists were talked about and various methods of treating the telltale spots and moles on our bodies.   The Blu light treatment was mentioned but not fully explained except for the fact that after the treatment, the skin treated feels like a baby's skin.   Euthanasia in a light!!

Jo showed some pictures of her newly installed solar panels that are in place on her garage roof that are providing electricity on a daily basis.  With  new law, the solar rebates will continue with fresh funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.   Sitting at the table, her app showed that she was storing lots of amps at that time so that she could watch her fav TV Netflix series tonight and still be ahead of the game as our solar days are in summer mode and storing much more that we typically will use.

 Lots of discussion about Vermont flooding, seems like Ludlow and Montpelier were the hardest hit cities in the state with both having the entire city in several feet of water.   Federal Disaster again and looks worse than the Irene storm a decade ago.

TPC got a little bit of a black eye after McEnroe made the comment that the course has not kept up with the latest and needs some work.  Ouch!!

Bill reports that he spent some time with his family in Arkansas at a lake.   A lot of time was spent on the lake on water skis.  Not initially for Bill as he was not sure getting out of the water on skis would work for him.   He then had to say OK after his sister(older) took to the skis and made a couple of trips around the lake.   Bill found getting up much easier after being led by his big sister.

Jo was across the table talking about open heart surgery with pump or no pump advantages during surgery.   It was a health info overload and I stopped taking notes for a few minutes.   

 NuScale nuclear reactors are making the news and perhaps they are the next step before Nuc Fusion.   Seems like a small scale has lots of advantages and take many of the undesirable traits of the monster Nuc plants.  HERE is a linkto get a better understanding.

360FCU just went through a conversion and I personally had a couple of problems that I called in about.   They were somewhat minor but I wanted to get them into the help desk to have them addressed.   I wasn't insistent that they be addressed immediately as I understand priorities when IT conversion happens and certain problems outweigh the minor problems.   Charlie Straight " Systems crashing around us and your worried about double spacing" came to mind.

Your Scribe

~ Jerry

LETTERS

It's always good to hear from the group....here's a July 19th email from Hank McWay recalling the old days, and my reply:

"Hi Chris,

As a pensioner, with occasional time on my hands, but not often, I think of people that I have worked with and the process includes good old HSD. Two of the more colorful characters there were Dick Morgan and Charlie Strait (sp?) .  As I get into a line of thought I think of Dick’s daily telephone conversation with his wife, and her activities, but her name has slipped. Another memory of Charlie includes any aggravated calls of a personal basis, which would almost draw a crowd around his desk. He was a very good ballroom dancer, and I think he was still alive when I got here in Florida, but I only knew he was in state when someone forwarded his obit. He would say that he was actually a French teacher, but he was doing this work until an opportunity opened.

Back to Dick, ….. I don’t think he was totally convinced of the efficacy of computer systems, he had an expression that I heard from him more than once, “F*** ‘em, do it manually.”  I can also remember telephone calls between Dick and Leonard J. Patricelli, then head of Channel 3, regarding the possible showing of the Harvard v. Yale Regatta. They were each graduates of the  contesting schools, and Leonard J’s school was a decided underdog.

Too much spare time? Not really, gardening and cooking occupy lots of time. We are only two months away from a European cruise from the Rome port, 10 very busy days with only one sea day.  Just as an aside, we visited the Vatican a few years back on my 80^th birthday. Give John my regards."

     Hank McWay

 

"Hi, Hank –

I had the “dubious” pleasure of sitting next to Charlie Straight back in around 1975-76.   He was quite the character and at the time was a recovering smoker, carrying a briefcase full of smoke cessation pamphlets that he gave away to whoever would listen.  At one point, he shared a phone with George Whitty and would answer the phone with “Straight and Whitty Systems!”......We gave Charlie quite the party at the Steak Club for his 35^th HSD anniversary and again about a year later when he retired.   Funny to think he was only in his 50’s at the time because he seemed so old!  I recall that he was born in 1917 (the only reason I remember that is because he was the same age as my father).  We still quote some of the old Charlie Straight lines and jokes – “Let me help you out; which way did you come in?”, etc.

Dick Morgan was before my time, ….   During my time there in the mid to late 1970’s, however, there was a Jeff Morgan in our department.

I do remember Leonard J Patricelli and his channel 3 editorials!

Good to hear from you.  Take care,"

Chris