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 80th 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 35th 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
